In this post, I continue the draft of sections of my forthcoming book, “Marxian Economics: An Introduction.” This, like the previous two posts, is for chapter 1, Marxian Economics Today. Beyond the Mainstream This is certainly not the first time people have looked beyond mainstream economics. There is a long history of criticisms of both mainstream […]
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Crisis and recovery—pandemic edition
Posted: 22 April 2020 in UncategorizedTags: capitalism, chart, crisis, economy, election, forecasting, Great Depression, inequality, NBER, recession, recovery, Second Great Depression, Trump, United States
In retrospect, I can now recognize that we were both right and wrong, as is always the case when one tries to look into the future. — Henning Mankell Regular readers of this blog know two things about me: I don’t make predictions. And I use these posts not to pronounce firm conclusions or solutions, […]
Utopia and markets
Posted: 16 May 2018 in UncategorizedTags: critique, economics, equilibrium, gift, goods, mainstream, market system, markets, planning, plunder, uncertainty, utopia
We hear it all the time. On a regular basis. Having to do with pretty much everything. Why is the price of gasoline so high? Mainstream economists respond, “it’s the market.” Or if you think you deserve a pay raise, the answer again is, “go get another offer and we’ll see if you’re worth it […]
Utopia and macroeconomics
Posted: 25 April 2018 in UncategorizedTags: critique, economics, failure, Great Depression, Keynes, macroeconomics, mainstream, neoclassical, success, utopia, workers, working-class
From the beginning, mainstream macroeconomics has been a battleground between the visible and the invisible hand. Keynesian macroeconomics, represented on the left-hand side of the chart above, has an aggregate supply curve with a long horizontal section at levels of output (Y or real GDP) below full employment (Yfe). What this means is that the […]
Utopia and healthcare—2
Posted: 14 March 2018 in UncategorizedTags: economics, efficiency, Greg Mankiw, healthcare, Kenneth Arrow, mainstream, markets, neoclassical, Nobel Prize, private property, United States, utopia
The dystopia of the American healthcare system certainly invites a utopian response—a ruthless criticism as well as a vision of an alternative. As I showed last week, the left-wing response involves a critique of the conditions and consequences of the capitalist organization of U.S. healthcare and the fashioning of a radical alternative. Single-payer, which uses tax […]
The gilded age: a tale of today*
Posted: 30 October 2017 in UncategorizedTags: Asia, billionaires, China, Europe, Gilded Age, India, inequality, Second Gilded Age, sports, Thorstein Veblen, United States, wealth
The timing could not have been better, at least for me. It just so happens I’m teaching Thorsten Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class this week. It should become quickly obvious to students that, as I have argued before on this blog, we’re now in the midst of a Second Gilded Age. This is confirmed […]
I’m pleased to announce the Democratic Left Scotland has just published Stephen Whitefield’s interview with me. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the rethinking of Marxism in the United States and its political implications, the difference between political and economic populism, the significance of the Bernie Sanders campaign and how the U.S. left […]
Bottom line
Posted: 31 May 2017 in UncategorizedTags: chart, corporations, profits, stock market, Trump, uncertainty, volatility, Wall Street
The business press is having a hard time figuring out this one: the combination of unrelenting drama in and around Donald Trump’s White House and the stability (signaled by the very low volatility) on Wall Street. As CNN-Money notes, One of the oldest sayings on Wall Street is that investors hate uncertainty. But that adage, much like other conventional wisdom, […]
Essays in persuasion
Posted: 4 April 2017 in UncategorizedTags: economics, Keynes, mainstream, neoclassical
I’m often asked—by students and readers of this blog—why I include Keynesian economics, alongside neoclassical economics, within mainstream economic theory. The major reason I do so is because the mainstream debate within the discipline of economics is mostly confined within limits defined by neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics—between (as I explained last year), the conservative invisible […]