A revealing insight into Greece's minister of finance... Roberto Begin forwarded message: Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2015 18:31:55 +0100 (CET) From: Heterodox Economics Newsletter <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: [HEN-EUROPE] Heterodox Economics Newsletter 176 Heterodox Economics Newsletter Issue 176 February 16, 2015 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory It is interesting to note that in the course of the Eurozone-Crisis and the related debate on how to remedy Greece's plight, a heterodox economist has risen to great prominence within European media discourse. This development has been largely unnoticed by media commentators themselves, who are interested in Yanis Varoufakis primarily as Greece's newly appointed minister of finance and obviously have a hard time in adequately characterizing Varoufakis' economic and political approach. Especially in the German-speaking media he is rather crudely portrayed as some "good-looking Marxist" coming up with somehow dubious and unconventional political suggestions. While such superficiality is regrettable, the underlying question - what motivates somebody to first go into economics and then into politics - is surely legitimate. I am proud to state that I know Yanis Varoufakis' answers to these questions. This is not because I know Yanis, but rather because he stated his answers very clearly on his blog. Since I think his answers are very good ones, I wanted to share with you the one on going into economics: "My initial urge was to study physics but I soon came to the conclusion that the lingua franca of political discourse was economics. Thus, I enrolled at the University of Essex to study the dismal science. However, within weeks of lectures I was aghast at the content of my textbooks and the inane musings of my lecturers. Quite clearly economics was only interested in putting together simplistic mathematical models. Worse still, the mathematics utilised were third rate and, consequently, the economic thinking that emanated from it was atrocious. In short shrift I changed my enrolment from the economics to the mathematics school, thinking that if I am going to be reading mathematics I might as well read proper mathematics. After graduating from Essex, I moved to the University of Birmingham where I read toward an MSc in Mathematical Statistics. By that stage I was convinced that my escape from economics had been clean and irreversible. How deluded that conviction was! While looking for a thesis topic, I stumbled upon a piece of econometrics (a statistical test of some economic model of industrial disputes) that angered me so much with its methodological sloppiness (which was hidden behind a certain mathematical sophistication) that I set out to demolish it. That was the trap and I fell right into it! From that moment onwards, a series of anti-economic treatises followed, a Phd in… Economics and, naturally, a career in exclusively Economics Departments, in every one of which I enjoyed debunking that which my colleagues considered to be legitimate ‘science’. At the price, that is, of a life which can only be compared to that of an atheist theologian ensconced in a Middle Ages monastery." So far for his motivation to enter economics - his path to politics is slightly more dramatic and shortly described here. All the Best, Jakob © public domain Table of contents Call for Papers 12th International Conference on "Developments in Economic Theory and Policy" (Bilbao, 2015) 17th Annual Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics (Southampton, 2015) 6th Annual Conference in Political Economy: "Rethinking Economics: Pluralism, Interdisciplinarity and Activism" (Leeds, 2015) 8th International Marx & Engels Colloquium of the Marxist Studies Centre (Campinas, 2015) ECPR Panel on "Frankenstein or Machiavelli? The European Elite-Driven Forced March Towards Austerity" (Montréal, 2015) Journal of Heterodox Economics: Special Issue on "Sustainable development: an institutional and cultural integrative process. A heterodox perspective" Review of Keynesian Economics: Special Issue on "Innovations in Economic Education" The 2015 Institute on Culture and Society (ICS) Conference on "Marx’s Capital: The Basement Tapes" (Washington DC, 2015) The 63th Annual Conference of the Japan Society of Political Economy (Tokyo, 2015) Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) calls for Proposals for Individual Papers and Complete Sessions at the ASSA meetings (San Francisco, 2016) XVII World Economic History Congress on "Diversity in Development" (Kyoto, 2015) Call for Participants 5th FMM International Summer School on "Keynesian Macroeconomics and European Economic Policies" (Berlin, 2015) 5th Marie Jahoda Summer School of Sociology: "The Global Digital Workplace" (Vienna, 2015) Gramsci Graduate Workshop (Sydney, 2015) IMK-INET YSI Workshop (Berlin, 2015) International Conference on "Tax Justice to Promote Social Justice. Research on Taxes for Development" (Vienna, 2015) Specialist Workshop on "Developmental States beyond East Asia" (Newcastle, 2015) Summer School in Social Economics and World Congress of Social Economics (St. Catherines, 2015) The Montréal Summer School in the History of Science and Economics (Montréal, 2015) XII. Buchenbach-Workshop on Evolutionary Economics for PhD students and Post-Docs Job Postings Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Germany University of Redlands, US University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, US Awards Progressive Economics Forum 2015 Student Essay Competition Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize Journals Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 8 (1) Capital & Class, 39 (1) Journal of Institutional Economics, 11 (1) Rethinking Marxism, 27 (1) Socio-Economic Review, 13 (1) Books and Book Series The Looming Corporate Calamity: Restoring Corporate Legitimacy Capitalism v. 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