Sun 2010-05-16 15:59 EDT
billy blog >> Blog Archive >> Doublethink
Yesterday I read an article by Noam Chomsky -- Rustbelt rage -- which documents the decline of the American dream and extends the malaise to Chinese workers. The hypothesis is that the workers in each country signed up for what they thought was a social contract where if they worked hard they would enjoy secure retirements. Then the meltdown undermines their jobs and they are forced to live on pitiful pensions. And while they watch the top-end-of-town enjoying the benefits of billions of bailout money from government the beneficiaries of these bailouts are leading the charge to take the pensions of the workers and turn them into ``financial products'' (privatised social security). This raises the concept of doublethink (a term coined by George Orwell) -- which ``means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them''...I see a lot of that in the mainstream economics debate...whatever suits their political agenda on any particular day. There is no consistency in their attacks -- they shift and slither and creep as facts get in the way.