An economy can " function " correctly only if the corresponding society and polity also " function " correctly. By disregarding sociological and political factors, conventional economics, practiced by " professional " economists, has become the art of helping a social minority get or stay rich, while at the same time maintaining the obliviousness and compliance of those on the outside looking in. In the West, conventional economics has not been able to candidly explicate the complex dynamics leading to the triumph of capitalism. Doing so would have implied revealing the privileged position of the "happy few" who own the economy and of the " professional " economists, to their mutual discredit. Argentina is a country that historically has preferred to happily live beyond its means within an artificial economic bubble full of overvalued pesos, functional for that purpose. Presently that bubble does no longer exist, because exceptional resources have been sold (privatized) and the global financial crisis has dried up the inflow of easy and cheap money. Argentines are no longer " rich ". Thus, Argentina is now in the verge of an inevitable monetary devaluation. Along with the rest of the world, Argentina needs interdisciplinary economists and other social scientists participating more actively in the elaboration of economic plans. Because economic plans that ignore the sociopolitical context simply do not work.
SocioEconomics - Conventional Economics - Professional Economists - Development - Economic policy - Ideology
Marcelo AFTALION is a former associate professor of Sociology at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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