And, you know, this comes back to the thing I know has been said on the show a bunch, right?

You know, those who say they are not ideological are actually the most ideological, right?

Because we never get back to questioning, you know, what is this definition of efficiency?

You know, if you start to ask those questions, then you're just, you know, forcing me to accept your value judgments, and you're an evil collectivist, you don't need to say.

Yeah, absolutely. So, so I just want to have two quick points. I say, one, this is why you need philosophy.

I think it, you know, not, not that philosophers are widely respected with an academia, but philosophy does keep other fields sort of in check.

I know, like, Neil deGrasse Tyson will often say, like, he comes out of, entirely out of STEM, like, oh, we don't need philosophy anymore.

We have science, and then he'll go on to say some insane fucking presumptive thing that a 101 philosophy class would have

corrected in him, and it just kind of proves the point that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

But I think that's also obviously true in an economics because, you know, just this conversation already, I'm by no means a philosopher, but I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

I kind of have that orientation in my mind. And the first thing I do is start going to bedrock assumptions and fundamental premises.

And that is a very inconvenient for the neoclassical economist. So that's why we need philosophy folks.

But the second thing I wanted to say is that whenever I hear an economist say the words value neutral, I reach for my gun.

There is nothing neutral about neoclassical or capitalist economics whatsoever. And they have very value laden outcomes, right?

Very moral outcomes, immoral outcomes. And so I think like to try to try to set aside any sort of value orientation or any sort of bedrock moral value system is very convenient for a system that is a moral at best and often immoral impractive.

Hello everybody and welcome back to RevLeft Radio. On today's episode we have a really important episode, I think, one focusing on economics and importantly on neoclassical economics, the sort of raining, economic orthodoxy of our time, you know, the predominant economic theory and, you know, especially Ivy League schools around the country.

I see it as the sort of economic ideological corollary of neoliberalism and libertarianism writ large.

And so today I have one my friend, Will Cheney, who was actually on a year or so ago to talk about a Louis Althouzerre. I'll link that show in the show notes for those interested in that episode.

But he's back at this time to discuss the Center for Popular Economics, working in tandem with the Center for Economic Democracy.

And in this conversation we discuss neoclassical economics, what it is, what are some of its assumptions, what are the debates within it, what are heterodox economic schools of thought, from Keynesianism to feminism, to ecological economics, to decolonial economics, and of course, Marxian economics, and we just kind of cover the whole gamut.

So we really give people an introduction to some basic economic ideas for those that most of you have not necessarily studied economics or taken college level courses of economics.

But if you're listening to a show like this, you're an intellectual and you want to learn. So we're going to provide that today, kind of an econ 101, as well as a, of course, skeptical Marxist criticism of neoclassical economics.

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