South Africa

Economics: selling the truth, or telling the truth?

The fundamental market theory of equilibrium, in economics, can be compared to notions of justice conceived in other disciplines, such as electoral ... democracy and politics. After centuries of trading trials and wars, we were told by leading governments (who may be called 'geographies of power') that the magic bullet for the greater common good could now be achieved. But whilst the Market is equated with self-evident truth, its routine consequences are characterised by inequality. The question then is whether these routines are naturalised through the system, or naturally occurring? Put simply, is the world's large and increasingly impoverished population poor and dispossessed in spite of the market's current architecture, or because of it?