Bernd Senf

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Bernd Willfried Senf (born February 25, 1944 in Bad Elster ) is a German professor emeritus for economics . From 1973 to 2009 he taught at the Berlin School of Economics and Law . He represents alternative theories to monetary theory and the renewal of elements of Wilhelm Reich's psychology .

Life

Bernd Senf grew up as the son of Dr. Willy Senf and his wife Feodora geb. Richter in Leipzig. The family moved from Leipzig to Bad Godesberg in 1950. 1951 - 1954 he attended the elementary school "Rheinallee" there, then until 1962 the grammar school.

He studied economics at the University of Bonn from 1963 to 1967 . From 1967 to 1972 he was a research assistant at the Faculty of Economics at the Institute for Public Finance at the Technical University of Berlin . In 1972 he received his doctorate at the Free University of Berlin with a dissertation on "Economic rationality, social irrationality: the 'displacement' of social aspects by the bourgeois economy".

In 1973 he became a lecturer and later professor at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (FHW), founded in 1971 , which was integrated into the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR) in 2009, the year Senf left the company .

Positions

Reform of the monetary system

Mustard criticizes the monetary system , especially the interest rate system , which he believes ensures exponential growth in the money supply . Nobody questions whether this is possible in the long run. The entirety of all companies would be under pressure to grow in order to service debt and debt-interest. As a consequence, this means that the indebtedness is also exponential, whereby the interest burden would increase, which would have to be "raised" by the national product , which would go well as long as the national product grows with the rate of the loan interest.

Furthermore, he considers free money creation to be problematic because of the money creation multiplier , since there are no deposits here . Monetary policy with money creation and money supply control belong in the democratically legitimized public sector , as Joseph Huber and James Robertson also represent. The central bank should be public, but relatively independent from the government. As a "monetary" branch, it must form the fourth pillar alongside the executive, legislative and judicial branches in terms of the separation of powers.

On the occasion of the financial crisis from 2007 , he believes that only symptoms are cured, which could lead to hyperinflation . He sees alternatives in Silvio Gesell's interest-critical concept of circulating money .

In his call for a " post-autistic" economy , he criticizes the fact that criticism of the financial and banking system is often taboo and that the arguments of the critics of the financial system are prematurely condemned. In his opinion, this creates reservations and prevents a public discussion of the financial system that is urgently needed in his view.

Mustard and Wilhelm Reich

Already the (sub) title of his dissertation in the expression repression indicates that Senf considered psychoanalysis to be an important addition to a comprehensive social theory - at that time largely adopted by Karl Marx . He mainly dealt with the teachings of Wilhelm Reich , who was considered the most important Freudo Marxist around 1930 and was rediscovered in "1968" . At the time, Senf was one of the few who took Wilhelm Reich's development into orgone research , which was far removed from the mainstream , seriously, after Reich was expelled from the KPD in 1933 and from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1934 . Senf published several articles on this in 1976 in the Wilhelm-Reich-Blätter published by Bernd A. Laska , the journal of an informal study group, but also defended the early Marxist Reich (or Marx himself as an economist) against Laska's proposal for Silvio Gesell's free economics to be considered for a Reichian economy. Senf demanded that the proposed project on a Reichian economy "in this metaphysical, non-materialistic conception must be deleted."

A good decade later, Senf began to study and appreciate Gesell's economic theory. - After the controversy with Laska, Senf founded a “Wilhelm Reich Initiative” in Berlin in 1979, as well as their magazine emotion, which appeared in yearbook form from 1980, and has held a series of lectures on the work every semester in the “University of Economics and Law” since then by Wilhelm Reich.

reception

Prof. Senf is considered to be an excellent didactician in communicating his economic concepts and criticism. After the banking crisis of 2008 , interest in his criticism of the financial system increased.

Fonts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Senf: Economic rationality-social irrationality: The "displacement" of social aspects by the bourgeois economy . sn, 1972 ( com.ph [accessed February 5, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b c If you drown, you need lifeboats , Tagesspiegel from February 10, 2009
  3. ↑ Stephan Kosch: The flow of money . In: the daily newspaper . ( taz.de [accessed on May 17, 2017]).
  4. ↑ Denouncing instead of arguing - The irrational defense against interest rate criticism (2008) (PDF; 129 kB)
  5. ↑ See for example his articles orgone energy - energetic basis of acupuncture as well as experiences with irradiation by the orgone accumulator .
  6. ↑ Response to the proposals for study projects
  7. ↑ See series of events with Bernd Senf (PDF; 78 kB)
  8. ↑ Stephan Kosch: The flow of money . In: the daily newspaper . ( taz.de [accessed on May 17, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Mustard, Bernd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Senf, Bernd Willfried (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German economist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Elster