Capitalist "Science": Self-Indoctrinating Field of Study

[cyu]

Reminds me of the "science" pushed by the fossil fuel and tobacco industries. What can you really expect out of a system where those in charge are by definition exploiters of the general population?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/economists-what-or-who-are-they-good

"Economists today primarily serve the needs of powerful interests at the expense of society in general" is how Robert Johnson describes the self-indoctrinating field of study that remains in such seemingly high regard in the nation.

"when the people become anxious they want the expert to tell them what's going to happen. And they feel good when their anxiety is relieved because they think they understand the future. But if the expert is selling snake oil when that is unmasked the expert becomes the scapegoat."

'economists' did a great disservice to mankind. "At the core, economics is about politics and about power, and the question for the economists is whose power are you going to serve as an expert."

[Jimmie Higgins]

"Economists today primarily serve the needs of powerful interests at the expense of society in general" is how Robert Johnson describes the self-indoctrinating field of study that remains in such seemingly high regard in the nation.Another way to put it is that the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class.

The contradiction of all modern science is the tension between it's desire for (or at least pretense of, in the case of bourgeois "economic" science) universalism while also being a product of and dependent on capitalism.

Capitalism needs productive technology and it needs a level of pure scientific discovery, but at the same time, this can be a threat. So on the one hand science is aimed in dirrections that obviously benefit the profit system - i.e. more money to research profitable drugs for depression when there are already options, instead of trying to figure out how to get more people existing drugs that they need, or producing cheaper versions or whatnot.

In other ways the sciences are shaped by the system because of ideological assumptions, or sometimes consciously redirected because of radical implications. So, for example, modern environmental science goes through tons of evidence for doom and gloom and all the ways our society is impacting the environment and yet they can't seem to come up with conclusions. Most don't even suggest that production methods should change - sometimes they offer small reforms, but nothing that will actually slow the huge environmental impact. Doom and gloom and the scientists offer suggestions for solar panels on people's homes and energy-saving light-bulbs. In other words, buy smarter, rather than change the way production is done. Either these scientists never even question the role of capitalism, or they think that even modest reforms are too out of the question and unrealistic politically.

Economics is more ideologically entangled than most other science for obvious reasons. On the whole the thing about capitalist economics is that it's not geared to understanding the nature of the system or how it works as much as trying to figure out how to navigate the system. Sailors never question the nature of the tides or the role and development of the ocean on earth as long as they can count on them to behave in a certain way.

And because capitalists justify modern capitalism as being the best of all possible worlds, then there is ideological pressure for economic science to reflect this and gloss over inherent problems. Economists become like tribal priests guaranteeing good crops under the current tribal king and so boom-times become evidence of the infallibility of the current order, and then in busts, there are scapegoats to sacrifice. So in booms economists are there to explain how capitalism always expands and problems are a thing of the past. When the bust comes, economists then try and explain "what went wrong" as if it wasn't inherent in the system.

[cyu]

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/01/how-to-teach-economics-after-the-financial-crisis/throw-out-the-old-economic-models

anyone who takes the current economics establishment seriously needs to spend time in a sanatorium.

If you are a passenger on a plane and the pilot tells you he has a faulty map, you get off the plane; you don’t stay and say “well, there is nothing better.” But in economics, particularly finance, they keep teaching these models on grounds that “there is nothing better”. Why? Because the professors don’t bear the harm of the models.

we would have great jumps in knowledge if we avoided teaching these models, and replaced them with anything, even gardening classes.

[cyu]

Can't say I agree with everything here, but picking out the good bits... =]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/paul-krugman-asks-a-question-on-the-austrian-hatred-of-fractional-reserve-banking-paper-money-etc-weblogging.html

Improved gold mining technology ought, for von Mises, to be as bad a thing as running a printing press.

But it very clearly isn't. I have found nothing anywhere in the Austrian corpus about the baneful effects of improvements in gold mining technology, and how they invariably lead to an Austrian boom-bust cycle--how a gold discovery distorts market signals and creates the illusion of artificial wealth just as any other monetary expansion does.

Value is stuff that keeps you fed, warm, dry, and entertained. You can't eat gold. It doesn't keep you warm. (You could hammer it into a tent, I suppose--and it does serve as a source of amusement.)

[cyu]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-economics?paging=off

“The Economics Prize has nestled itself in and is awarded as if it were a Nobel Prize. But it’s a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation,” Nobel’s great great nephew Peter Nobel told AFP in 2005, adding that “It’s most often awarded to stock market speculators.”

Scientists never had much respect for the economic Nobel prize. a scientist who headed Nixon’s Science Advisory Committee in 1969, was shocked to learn that economists were even allowed on stage to accept their award with the real Nobel laureates. He was incredulous: “You mean they sat on the platform with you?”

in 2004, three prominent Swedish scientists and members of the Nobel committee published an open letter arguing that achievements of most of the economists who win the prize are so abstract and disconnected from the real world as to be utterly meaningless.

in the 1960s, Sweden’s banking and business interests were busy trying to loosen political oversight and control over the country’s central bank. the “Bank of Sweden was trying to become more independent of democratic accountability. In order to support that position, the bank needed to claim that it had a kind of scientific credibility that was not grounded in political support.”

The problem was that few people in Sweden took their neoclassical babble very seriously, and saw their plan for what it was: an attempt to transfer control over economic matters from democratically elected government and place into the hands of big business interests, giving them a free hand in running Sweden’s economy without interference from labor unions, voters and elected officials.

in 1969 Sweden’s central bank used the pretense of its 300th anniversary to push through an independent prize in “economic science” in memory of Alfred Nobel. To ensure the prize would be awarded to the right economists, the bank managed to install a rightwing Swedish economist named Assar Lindbeck, who had ties to University of Chicago, to oversee the awards committee and keep him there for more than three decades.

For the first few years, the Prize in Economics went to fairly mainstream and even semi-respectable economists. But after establishing the award as credible and serious, the prizes took a hard turn to the right.

five years after the prize was first created, it was awarded to Friedrich Hayek, one of the leading enrich the rich economists of the 20th century. Milton Friedman, who was at the University of Chicago with Hayek, won the prize just two years later.

Friedman had a scientific formula worked out, specifying exactly how to keep unemployment high enough to keep big business happy.

No democratic control over banking policies needed. The Swedish central bankers couldn’t get better spokesmen for their cause. At the time of the prizes, neoclassical economics were not fully accepted by the media and political establishment. But the Nobel Prize changed all that. What started as a project to help the Bank of Sweden ended up boosting the credibility of the most regressive strains of economics, and paving the way for widespread acceptance of libertarian ideology.

Before he won the award, it looked like Hayek was washed up. He was considered a quack and fraud by contemporary economists, he had spent the 50s and 60s in academic obscurity, preaching the gospel of economic darwinism while on the payroll of ultra-rightwing American billionaires. Hayek had powerful backers, but was out on the fringes of academic credibility.

that all changed as soon as he won the prize in 1974. All of a sudden his ideas were being talked about. Hayek was a celebrity. newspapers treated his mumblings about the need to have high unemployment as if they were divine revelations. Margret Thatcher was waving around his books in public, saying “this is what we believe.”

Billionaire Charles Koch brought Hayek out for an extended victory tour of the United States, tapping Hayek’s mainstream cred to set up and underwrite Cato Institute in 1974 (it was called the Charles Koch Foundation until 1977).

After getting the prize in 1976, Friedman got his own 10-part PBS series and became President Ronald Reagan’s economic advisor, where he had a chance to put the society-crushing policies he developed in Chile under Pinochet. Chilean economist Orlando Letelier published an article outing Friedman as the “intellectual architect and unofficial adviser for the team of economists now running the Chilean economy” on behalf of foreign corporations. A month later Letelier was assassinated in D.C. by Chilean secret police using a car bomb.

[Let's Get Free]

Mainstream accounts of the capitalist crisis are wrong. They always spin happily-ever-after stories about what needs to be done to overcome the problems that lead to the crisis. They operate in the interests of the capitalist class, by justifying practical steps to retain rates of profit. Or, on the other hand, they may urge governments to cut the deficit by cutting back on public spending and forcing draconian austerity measures onto the public. The superficial explanations of the crisis conceal the fact that capitalist exploitation necessarily leads to breakdowns like 2007-present.

[cyu]

they may urge governments to cut the deficit by cutting back on public spending and forcing draconian austerity measures onto the public.
Yes - see also http://www.revleft.com/vb/austerity-make-unemployed-t171173/index.html

This is the key thing to do when you control the government: borrow as much as you can from the bankers, doesn't really matter what the terms are, as long as it's not so outrageous that your countrymen kick you out.

Then spend that money in whatever way you want, preferably in ways that favor the rich, such as union busting, undermining labor movements around the world, making the world safe for "pro-business" (ie. pro-exploitation) governments, bailing out institutions of the rich.

Finally, now that all the money is spent, get the poor in your country to pay back the money, with a hefty interest, to the rich who control the banks. And if they can't pay? Well, slash all social programs. Say austerity measures are all we can do at this point. Make the unemployed beg to be exploited.

[cyu]

When it's about time to admit he's not wearing any clothes...

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/10/whats-the-use-of-economics.html

the economics profession is unlikely to change. Why would economists be willing to give up much of their human capital, painstakingly nurtured for over two centuries? the reaction has been to suggest that modifications of existing models to take account of ‘frictions’ or ‘imperfections’ will be enough to account for the current evolution of the world economy.

economists have been locked into a narrow vision of the economy. We constantly make more and more sophisticated models within that vision until, as Bob Solow put it, “the uninitiated peasant is left wondering what planet he or she is on”

The euro is like a bumblebee. This is a mystery of nature because it shouldn’t fly but instead it does. Entomologists of old with more simple models came to the conclusion that bumble bees should not be able to fly. Their reaction was to later rethink their models in light of irrefutable evidence. Yet, the economist’s instinct is to attempt to modify reality in order to fit a model that has been built on longstanding theory. Unfortunately, that very theory is itself based on shaky foundations.

in the longer run the paradigm will inevitably change. We would all do well to remember that current economic thought will one day be taught as history.

[Bakunin Knight]

It must be realised that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (as well as a large amount of university economic departments) is funded by the world's central banks out of money they have essentially created out of thin air. It exists solely for purposes of propaganda.

[ckaihatsu]

It must be realised that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (as well as a large amount of university economic departments) is funded by the world's central banks out of money they have essentially created out of thin air. It exists solely for purposes of propaganda.


It's been several minutes now and I'm *still* trying to wrap my head around this notion....

So the ruling class formed their own banks which then issued fictitious capital which is used as an award for those who thought up the idea of issuing the fictitious capital -- ?

If the *effects* weren't so real-world this would be the equivalent of play-time for your imagination...(!)

[Bakunin Knight]

Well the award is used to continue the propaganda which keeps the elite in their positions by giving their propagandists credibility and out-competing opposing theories through greater resources (monetary incentives and crowding out).

[Jimmie Higgins]

It must be realised that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (as well as a large amount of university economic departments) is funded by the world's central banks out of money they have essentially created out of thin air. It exists solely for purposes of propaganda.I think it's probably more likely that everyone involved at most levels of the process rather unquestioningly accepts and probably directly benifit from bourgoise logic.

If a brillient marxist economist somehow difinitivly proved how a collectivly run economy based on use-value is infinitly more stable and productive and benificial than the current system, because such a thing would require radically altering society, it would probably be considered "outside of academic economics" before it ever made it Journals or insitutions and then international academic awards.

A Marxist might be able to publish critiques of the current policies and analysis of why certain crises do or don't happen, then it would be "within the field" probably - but seen as a particular critique not some guide to action.

Of course any istitution of this kind develops it's own sort of beurocratic logic (tied to the larger system and bourgoise assumptions) and so depending on the people in charge of making these decisions, there probably is a fair amount of consious ideological bias and pressures on awarding people who benifit the system in some way.

Science is judged in the logic of capitalism based on it's immediate (but not necissarily direct) usefulness to the system. It has to be something that the system can adapt to it's own purposes either ideologically or materially to be considerd relevant. Economics is obviously tied to both: ideas about the economy that justify the system ideologically and as far as any real understanding, it goes only so far as it can help capitalists invest and produce more effectivly. So rather than devlve into the subterrainian material use-value "dante's inferno" that Marx describes in Capital, bourgoise economics only looks at the "surface world" of "free" exchange.

[cyu]

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/01/14/bang-goes-the-theory/

The rise in the fortunes of the super-rich is the direct result of policies. Here are a few: the privatisation of public assets and the creation of a toll-booth economy; the destruction of collective bargaining.

Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their disciples – in a thousand business schools, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and just about every modern government – have argued that the less governments tax the rich, defend workers and redistribute wealth, the more prosperous everyone will be. The apostles have conducted a 30-year global experiment and the results are now in. Total failure.

you couldn’t make a bigger mess of it than by releasing the super-rich from the constraints of democracy.

Last year’s annual report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development shows unequivocally that their policies have created the opposite outcomes to those they predicted. As neoliberal policies began to bite from the 1980s onwards, growth rates started to fall and unemployment to rise.

The remarkable growth in the rich nations during the 1950s, 60s and 70s was made possible by the destruction of the wealth and power of the elite.

Neoliberalism was an attempt to turn back these reforms. Lavishly funded by millionaires, its advocates were amazingly successful: politically. Economically they flopped.

The neoliberals also insisted that unrestrained inequality would reduce unemployment. But throughout the rich world both inequality and unemployment have soared. The recent jump in unemployment in most developed countries – worse than in any previous recession of the past three decades – was preceded by the lowest level of wages as a share of GDP since the second world war. Bang goes the theory.

The greater inequality becomes, the report finds, the less stable the economy

The impending reduction of the UK’s top rate of income tax (from 50% to 45%) will not boost government revenue or private enterprise, but it will enrich the speculators who tanked the economy: Goldman Sachs and other banks are now thinking of delaying their bonus payments to take advantage of it

staring dumbfounded at the lessons unlearned in Britain, Europe and the United States, it strikes me that the entire structure of neoliberal thought is a fraud. The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome. The complete failure of this world-scale experiment is no impediment to its repetition. This has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with power.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The post-war consensus was not a destruction of the wealthy elite, but a concession to the working class. It was so, in order to maintain capital's power, not a genuine threat to it. If it were a genuine threat, it would never have happened.

But yeah, neo-liberalism is a total failure as we have seen, for the working class and the wider economy. The wealthy keep raking it in, though.

[cyu]

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-edsall-on-richard-burkhauser-and-inequality

the whole Burkhauser project of trying to find a perverse methodology that will make rising inequality go away, is more than a bit annoying. This would be like an astronomer looking for quirks in planetary motion and using this as a basis for arguing that the sun actually revolves around the earth.

There undoubtedly are quirks in the motions of the planets, however no reputable astronomer will use them as a basis for disputing that the earth orbits the sun. Unfortunately economics does not have the same standards. Economists who want to argue the equivalent of the sun orbiting the earth will find substantial funding and an audience for their work.

[Synthesis-]

I'm noticing more bourgeouis economists critiquing their and others assumptions about capitalist production and how its not working etc. But what I would really like to see is some of them become radical but then they would be actively working against their own interests.

Economics just justify's the current order of things with so many assumptions its hard to even call it a "soft" science. If i was an economists I would actually sit back and look at things on an macro systemic basis and in doing so you can see contradictions and assumptions that cant stand on its own, and i think through this critique one is deemed radical because you are looking at social-relations between humans not some abstact way that economics teaches you as a relation between "things..

[cyu]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics

a growing band of university students are plotting a quiet revolution against orthodox free-market teaching, arguing that alternative ways of thinking have been pushed to the margins.

students across Britain were being taught neoclassical economics as if it was the only theory. many students aren't even aware that there are other distinct theories out there that question the assumptions, methodologies and conclusions of the economics we are taught.

most students stayed away from modules that required reading and essay-writing, such as history of economic thought. They think they just don't have the skills required for those sorts of modules. As a consequence, economics students never develop the faculties necessary to critically question, evaluate and compare economic theories, and enter the working world with a false belief about what economics is and a knowledge base limited to neoclassical theory.

economists mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.

[Marxaveli]

Neo-classical economics is as pseudoscientific as Creationism, except in an economic context instead of a social or biological one.

[cyu]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/maybe-economics-is-a-science-but-many-economists-are-not-scientists

Whole subfields of economics have spent decades chasing their own tails because too many economists refuse to accept empirical evidence that rejects their approach.

while economics can be and sometimes is a scientific field in the sense that theories are testable and there are researchers doing the testing, all too many economists treat their field as a form of theology instead.

[Skyhilist]

There's no such thing as capitalist science.

Science is based on facts and constantly revises itself based on what is best and most logical or most needed. Capitalism is based on greed and irrational grow-or-die economics. The two are incompatible.

Science would not have a capitalist bias because it is on the side of facts, which lies opposite to the side of blind greed and destruction (capitalism).

[cyu]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/28/1783741/florida-gulf-coast-koch-brothers/

At Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, every student who majors in economics and finance gets a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged…FGCU now has a core group of a half dozen economists whose research supports the ideas of free-market capitalism, still an unpopular subject in most faculty lounges.

an internal report included metrics on the program’s operations such as “Atlas Shrugged Distribution — Number of students reached: approximately 120.”

A massive Koch donation to Florida State University’s economics program generated significant controversy in 2011 when it came to light that the donation was accompanied by de facto Koch control over some hiring decisions and the ability to review the scholarship generated.

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

This is exactly what's wrong with an economics major and in fact any economics course. You aren't taught 'economics', as all the classes are basically just 'Markets 101'. You never study how a planned economy works, oh no, 'cause that would be irrelevant.

If you could major in say, Marxist Studies like they had at most universities in "communist" countries, no potential employer would even take that seriously. Socialism has continually been painted as an ideology for idiots. Just look at the shortsighted 'journalists' at Forbes. When they found out Kshama Sawant, a socialist (Of the SA and CWI) was in the running for a seat on the Seattle city council they were positively shocked to find out that she taught economics. And how did they respond to this? By saying a socialist could never teach economics. See how condescending they are to socialists? They go as far as to imply that a socialist couldn't possibly understand the market economy (even though one of the best analyses of this phenomenon was written by one).

Apparently these people simply don't believe in allowing differing opinions. In their minds, they're the only ones who could possibly be right (and maybe Rand and Friedman too just so they have some nonsensical ideological basis for their beliefs) and anyone deviating from their opinions is obviously intellectually inferior.

I assume it's not so much about this as it is about their fear of people actually thinking about the negative aspects of a capitalist economy and coming to the conclusion that they'd like an alternative. They're afraid that a socialist economics teacher may plant this seed of mistrust of the market economy in their students' minds. But at least this teacher would still allow you your own opinions and not condemn you for them. Giving copies of Atlas shrugged to graduates however is a far more aggressive ideological statement. This kind of stuff is absolutely appalling and I'm inclined to say universities shouldn't allow this.

[cyu]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/billionaires-role-in-hiring-decisions-at-florida-state-university-raises/1168680

A foundation bankrolled by Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."

an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.

During the first round of hiring in 2009, Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty's suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates.

Yale University once returned $20 million when the donor demanded veto power over appointments, saying such control was "unheard of."

"This is an egregious example of a public university being willing to sell itself for next to nothing."

rather than taking over entire academic departments, Koch is funding faculty who promote his agenda at universities where there are a variety of economic views. In addition to FSU, Koch has made similar arrangements at two other state schools, Clemson University in South Carolina and West Virginia University.

Bruce Benson, chairman of FSU's economics department, would fall into Koch's free-market camp.

A separate grant from BB&T funds a course on ethics and economics in which Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is required reading. The novel was recently made into a movie marketed to tea party members.

[Marshal of the People]

The title reminded me of the Landover Baptist Creation Science Department.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

There's no such thing as capitalist science.

Science is based on facts and constantly revises itself based on what is best and most logical or most needed. Capitalism is based on greed and irrational grow-or-die economics. The two are incompatible.

Science would not have a capitalist bias because it is on the side of facts, which lies opposite to the side of blind greed and destruction (capitalism).
I think by "capitalist science" other posters are referring to capitalist organisations quite literally buying "science" to justify whatever profit-making scheme they've hatched at the time. Scientists (and I know quite a few) have bills to pay just like the rest of it and unfortunately it's often the case that one has to choose between personal and scientific integrity or getting your funding cut.

Although I suppose that actually proves your point - there's no such thing as "capitalist science" - that is unless it can really turn a profit without fudging the numbers.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-26/fabrice-fabulous-fab-tourre-teach-economics-class-university-chicago

in case you thought for a second that the discipline we call economics couldn’t stoop any further into the gutter of academic irrelevance, think again. ex-Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre (recently convicted on six counts of securities fraud) will be teaching an honors economics class at the “prestigious” University of Chicago.

Stealing, cheating and corruption are the values most exalted in today’s world. It doesn’t matter how you achieve your wealth, as long as you attain it. it’s not as if you’ll ever get in trouble as long as you work for a “Too Big to Jail” bank.

At the time, Tourre was the “only Wall Street banker to be found guilty of any charges having to do with the financial crisis” of 2008.

Don’t worry Fab, modern economics essentially bases its principles on your behavior. A match made in heaven.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-04/fabulous-fab-fired-financial-faculty

Just six days after we discussed the somewhat stunning fact that Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre was set to each an economics course at the University of Chicago, it appears the prestigious school has had second thoughts. Mr. Tourre, the former Goldman Sachs trader found liable for defrauding investors, will no longer teach an honors economics course to undergraduate students at the University of Chicago.

Jeremy Manier, a university spokesman, declined to comment on the sudden change.

Shame really... Still, who needs an economics class anyway?

[cyu]

Where goes Japan, so goes the West.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-03/japan-admits-fabricating-2014-wage-growth-data

Japan already had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan) - and now it's coming to the West. Japan already pushed interest rates towards 0, and now it's coming to the West. I guess this is next http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men

[cyu]

Geocentric Model: Capitalism is right

Retrograde Motion: Capitalism can be made perfect with various kinds of fiddling, like suppressing unions, and giving the rich a free hand.

How many Galileos have been silenced, and how many Galileos will be silenced in the future, before the geocentric model is relegated to the dustbin of history? What material conditions had to exist before Galileo's ideas could be accepted?

[cyu]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/fundamental-principles-measuring-t126820/index.html is closed, so I'll just add this here...

If the difference between work and play is that one is stuff we won't do unless we are paid, and the other is stuff we would gladly do for free, then what does GDP measure?

If GDP measures work, then is it, in fact, just another way of measuring the amount of misery in a society?

[DOOM]

There's no such thing as capitalist science.

Science is based on facts and constantly revises itself based on what is best and most logical or most needed. Capitalism is based on greed and irrational grow-or-die economics. The two are incompatible.

Science would not have a capitalist bias because it is on the side of facts, which lies opposite to the side of blind greed and destruction (capitalism).

This obviously isn't the case. I would actually say that today there's no science outside of the social totality (which is capitalism). Science today is per se "capitalist" science, whatever this means. This doesn't mean that science is shit, obviously.