Commenting Yet Again on Martin Wolf: Why he is convincing me that, contrary to what I have thought since 2007, the Age of the Neoliberal Order is not over; call it the post-Antonine Dynasty Severan...
If I can go horseshoe a moment... I think the rise of fascism on the right is by far the stronger and more dangerous reaction to Neo-liberalism driven upward wealth distribution and other neoliberal failures. But it isn’t the only reaction. There has been a leftest version, espousing a degrowth, defund the police, tankie, self-loathing that I would argue was spawned by the same Neo-liberal failures that gave us Trump and Brexit.
I'm an old guy. I saw the leftist version in the late 1960's and early 1970's, before right-neoliberalism became ascendant. It was just as you described today's version, perhaps with a bit less solicitude for the Soviet Union. Noam Chomsky, remember? He's still around. Vietnam remains a huge scar in the American psyche, quite independently of economic traumas.
I have trouble understanding the UK's macro #'s. Their real GDP doesn't look that bad, for Europe. But their business investment is bad and their retail sales are awful.
Only the brave will show what they've done to their wrists after reading this. I see everything you've said, but by God I'm still not gonna give up -- neither should anyone else! -- without a fight. There is always a better way. Martin, Brad... you've gotta soldier on.
There is a way forward, just junk mechanical neoliberalism’s new Keynesian DSGE economics of Paul Samuelson, and his nephew, Larry Summers. MMT points to a way forward but the representative agents of DSGE cling to power. But Keynes in the preface of to his General Theory knew that...”The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones …..”.
NEOclassical, NEOKeynesian, NEOliberal, NEOconservative, NEOfascist. The names themselves suggest a lack of new ideas. Perhaps the consensus is pragmatic pluralism, in order to avoid appeals to the ideological purity which create policies which lack all balance, usually twisted to benefit a few. Unfortunately, it is easier to rally around ideologies than pragmatism, plus ideologies usually come with convenient scapegoats. If we need a scapegoat, may I suggest demagogues.
If I can go horseshoe a moment... I think the rise of fascism on the right is by far the stronger and more dangerous reaction to Neo-liberalism driven upward wealth distribution and other neoliberal failures. But it isn’t the only reaction. There has been a leftest version, espousing a degrowth, defund the police, tankie, self-loathing that I would argue was spawned by the same Neo-liberal failures that gave us Trump and Brexit.
I'm an old guy. I saw the leftist version in the late 1960's and early 1970's, before right-neoliberalism became ascendant. It was just as you described today's version, perhaps with a bit less solicitude for the Soviet Union. Noam Chomsky, remember? He's still around. Vietnam remains a huge scar in the American psyche, quite independently of economic traumas.
So if you equate MMT as the ‘other’, then what is your ‘other proposal’, more of the same?
Oh and MMT probably fits into my “other” reaction thesis too.
I have trouble understanding the UK's macro #'s. Their real GDP doesn't look that bad, for Europe. But their business investment is bad and their retail sales are awful.
Only the brave will show what they've done to their wrists after reading this. I see everything you've said, but by God I'm still not gonna give up -- neither should anyone else! -- without a fight. There is always a better way. Martin, Brad... you've gotta soldier on.
There is a way forward, just junk mechanical neoliberalism’s new Keynesian DSGE economics of Paul Samuelson, and his nephew, Larry Summers. MMT points to a way forward but the representative agents of DSGE cling to power. But Keynes in the preface of to his General Theory knew that...”The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones …..”.
Old Neoliberals' positions never die, they just reupholster their dogma.
NEOclassical, NEOKeynesian, NEOliberal, NEOconservative, NEOfascist. The names themselves suggest a lack of new ideas. Perhaps the consensus is pragmatic pluralism, in order to avoid appeals to the ideological purity which create policies which lack all balance, usually twisted to benefit a few. Unfortunately, it is easier to rally around ideologies than pragmatism, plus ideologies usually come with convenient scapegoats. If we need a scapegoat, may I suggest demagogues.
If we take neoliberalism as tax cuts and deficits we’ve been in it since Reagan with a brief respite with Clinton