Economic misconceptions
This evening I am going to see a lecture by Frank Furedi, "The Political Significance of the Economic Crisis". It's at the LSE but despite that, there doesn't seem to be a lot of economics in it. Here is Prof. Furedi's article in Spiked in which he outlines the argument that I imagine he'll discuss tonight. A couple of sentences really put me on edge: Without the securitisation and financialisation of the economy, the accumulation of capital and a sense of prosperity could not have been maintained in Britain and the US. Outwardly it appeared that economies such as Britain’s and America’s were doing well during the past decade. By the time of the credit crunch, the financial sector accounted for around 30 per cent of the British economy. On both sides of the Atlantic, industry continued to decline. This is another variant of the myth that our economy is based on some kind of pyramid scheme where everyone thinks they are making something but actually nobody is....