Symposium The Dismal (Delusional and Dangerous) “Science” of Economics and the “Capture” of Public Administration: Introduction—After the Neoliberal “Babble” and the “Silence”

The breathtaking extent of the systemic collapse of the financial and banking system (2007-2009) must be considered as an inevitable consequence of the deliberate destruction of government and regulatory oversight by the interlocked economic/ideological and political/propaganda components of neoliberalism. Whether public choice theory (PCT) ideological agendas -- the subjugation of analysis of governance to market linked fantasies -- are an extension of RAND's invention of rational choice theory, the "matrix Code of the West", the imperial extension of such agendas into other disciplinary discourses represented the clearest continuing danger to democratic public policy and praxis. In terms of fellow travelers, neoliberal economic babble based on PCT and its bastard child, new public management, might stand alongside with Marxist babble. Even if only a fraction of scholars and practitioners in the field do their work while thinking about ways to increase public awareness of alternative futures and the possibilities of constructive change, the future can be a better place.