I agree, corruption in Italy and elsewhere is a matter to worry about. It is, though, a matter sociology, political science, the police, and the voters have to deal with. The subject matter of economics is how the monetary economy works.
To put this in perspective: physicists do not try to figure out why and how Nero burnt down Rome but they try to figure out the laws of thermodynamics, which hold for all places and all times. Nonscientists are defined by the Fallacy of Insufficient Abstraction, which is the mirror image of Whitehead’s Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.
From this follows that the economist as a scientist is NOT interested in why “the FT has joined so many other newspapers in just going down the toilet of bad reporting” but is indeed very much interested in why economics has gone down the toilet of bad science.
To come back from the sad state of Italy to the sad state of economics: the four main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
Related 'Poland: "What Are These People Complaining About?"' and 'Turkey And The Trend To Authoritarianism'
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Most people are not aware that there are TWO economixes and that this has been the cause of endless confusion. Actually, it is quite simple: there is political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.
The state of economics is this: theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. As a result of the utter scientific incompetence of political economists,#1 economics is a failed science.
In methodological terms, economics is axiomatically false, that is, it is beyond repair. Accordingly, there is no progress at all in economics since 150+ years only the senseless multiplication of silly models which are based on the maximization-and-equilibrium axiom set.#2
As a consequence, what is needed is the Ultimate Separation. These are the options:
― Economics is thrown out of science.
― Political economists (= fake scientists) are thrown out of economics (= science).
As a corollary:
― EconoSpeak changes its name to PoliticoBlather or
― Soapbox economists like Barkley Rosser and Sandwichman are told to no longer abuse economics as a pretext for spreading their political opinion.#3
The nullification of political economics requires also the nullification of all scientific credentials (Master, Ph.D., Peer Reviewer, Journal Editor, Professor, Nobel Laureate) economists ever received since Walras/Jevons/Menger. Political economics is NOT science.
#1 The profit theory is false since Adam Smith, see Palgrave Dictionary online, Desai (2008)
#2 About 90 percent of the content of peer-reviewed quality journals consists of models that are axiomatically false.
#3 See the recent posts about Trump, Turkey, Poland, Italy and my standard comment: Whatever this is, it is NOT economics.
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COMMENT on Anonymous, Barkley Rosser on Apr 29May I draw your attention to the fact that Marx’s characteristic of the ‘peasantry as a sack of potatoes’ is something like folk sociology but certainly not economics. Marx’s economics, on the other hand, was even more self-disqualifying than his sociology.
Fact is that Marx never figured out what profit is.#1 This is the worst thing that can happen to an economist. Clearly, when the core concept of economics is false then the whole analytical superstructure is false and the sociological implications have no sound theoretical foundations. From the correct profit theory follows the concept of cross-exploitation and this, in turn, explodes the concept of class.
It is a bit curious that After-Marxians have not detected and rectified Marx’s lethal error to this day.
#1 See ‘Profit for Marxists’
Immediately following 'Economics ― a doctor worse than the disease'