Economese — or the Misplaced Nominative

Economese — or the Misplaced Nominative

Mainstream capitalist economics has become,
among other things, a language. I do not mean
simply that economists employ a professional jar-
gon. How could they not? Between Economese and
ordinary English there are more than differences of
vocabulary; there are different relations between
subject, verb, and object … and so on. New York-
ers and Carolinians, say, speak two dialects of the
same language. A New Yorker says, “Give me a