Newspeak and Economic Theory: How We Are Being Talked To
Résumé
This article seeks to show how the impoverishment of language has changed the course of economic theory, much as Newspeak changed the order of things and the political regime in George Orwell’s 1984. At the origin of such an evolution was a stratagem: to act as if neoclassical theory was subsequent to Keynesian theory. The inversion of time’s arrow had far-reaching consequences for the development of economics. In great part, the development of a science depends on the scholars who practice it and on its teaching to the new researchers who will develop it further. Both depend on the history of language. The consequences for economic policies have been major, especially in Europe. With the cancelation of most Keynesian concepts from the Newspeak dictionary, the relative weights of market and state were changed, which could only lead to a preference for liberal market-oriented policies.
