Dr John Barry - Neoliberalism, Capitalism, Power & Green Politics

On 21st November 2012, Dr John Barry gave a talk to the QUB PPE Society entitled, "Economics as Myth, Economics as Power: Why Modern Economics Has Failed and How to Fix It." To watch the Q&A which succeeded this talk click here: http://youtu.be/mzs9ypFaVlk Here is a description of the talk: '"Every society needs myths to live by. Ours is economic growth", Tim Jackson This presentation offers an analysis and a narrative of the emergence of one school of thinking about the economy (neo-classical economics and especially its neo-liberal incarnations in policy) and how it has 'crowded out' rival accounts of economics and become the hegemonic and authoritative 'regime of truth' about economics, what the economy is and how it should organised. The presentation will contextualise this critical analysis of modern economic thinking in terms of the successful, ideological and deliberately managed 'sleight of hand', which has seen a crisis of banking in the private sector become politically transformed into a crisis of public debt under the new 'regime of austerity' and welfare cuts. It begins from the child-like question: if we encourage and expect alternative discourses and perspectives on how to organize the polity, why then when it comes to the economy would be expect anything less? Taking up Foucault's insight that 'economic growth' is neo-liberalism's 'one true social policy' (Foucault, 2008: 144), the presentation will, from a green political economy perspective, argue that as well as having a whole range of regressive and profoundly negative social consequences (ranging from corrupting democratic politics and communication, undermining active citizenship and reconfiguring the state to align with 'market fundamentals'), this dominant form of economic thinking is also locking us into an unsustainable and indeed ecocidal forms of economic development. Revealing the ideological and mythic characteristics of modern economics, with detours outlining how university courses in economics have effectively become ideological indoctrination (in that neither the history of economics as a discipline nor the variety of theories of economics available), and the failure of this dominant economic account to rethink some of its basic premises on account of the current global economic recession (including its failure to predict it or build resilience into the economic system to cope with shocks for example), the presentation will suggest that it is only in seeing modern hegemonic economics (and all alternatives) as forms of political economy, can we begin to construct more progressive, ecologically sustainable and socially just accounts of how the economy should be defined, ordered and constructed. In conclusion the presentation will offer some ideas about alternative political economies and why we need new myths to live by. This presentation is based on my recent book, The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate Changed, Carbon Constrained World, (2012, Oxford University Press).' Further information about Dr Barry, and his research interests, can be found by clicking here: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofPoliticsInternationalStudiesandPhilosophy/Staff/Barry/