Twenty-four economists discuss how they promote egalitarianism, democracy and ecological sanity through research, activism, and policy engagement Economics and the Left presents interviews with twenty-four leading progressive economists. All of these practitioners of the “dismal science” are dedicated to both interpreting the world and changing it for the better. The result is a combustible brew of ideas and reflections on major historical events, including the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy. Interviewed are: Michael Ash, Nelson Henrique Barbosa Filho, James K. Boyce, Ha-Joon Chang, Jane D’Arista, Diane Elson, Gerald Epstein, Nancy Folbre, James K. Galbraith, Teresa Ghilarducci, Jayati Ghosh, Ilene Grabel, Costas Lapavitsas, Zhongjin Li, William Milberg, Léonce Ndikumana, Ozlem Onaran, Robert Pollin, Malcolm Sawyer, Juliet Schor, Anwar Shaikh, William Spriggs, Fiona Tregenna and Thomas Weisskopf.
"This is a proposal for a short book (of around 50,000 words) that speaks directly to the state we are in. The populist insurgency on both sides of the Atlantic and in Europe has deep roots in decades of mismanagement of economic and cultural change and as a result there are large groups of people who feel they no longer belong to the societies they live in, the disinfranchised, the left behind. The appeal of the anti-liberal populists who have emerged is that they convince those who feel left behind that national leaders are no longer working in their interests hence the rhetoric of 'putting America first' and 'making America great again' or the Brexiteers claining that they are 'taking back control.' In undemocractic regimes elsewhere populists play on people's feelings of insecurity in an unpredictable and fast changing world, promising security and order in exchange for democratic freedom. Liberal openness has been put on the defensive so it is up to us, electorates, politicians and policy makers, to show how an open and liberal economic system can once again belong to everyone. In the second part of the book Martin Sandbu outlines four key areas of economic policy that he believes will address not just the symptoms but the underlying causes of the current inequality which has led to so many people, especially the young and the most vulnerable being left behind. These include productivity, regional development, improved access to business finance for SMEs, and increaed representation for workers. He makes a number of other recommendaitons regarding housing, education for all, universal basic income and taxation. He concludes by saying that while these proposals add up to a radical package in total they are necessary reforms to ensure a sense of belonging and without them we could be opening the door to a radicalism which is both illiberal and undemocratic"--
The path-breaking history of modern liberalism told through the pages of one of its most zealous supporters In this landmark book, Alexander Zevin looks at the development of modern liberalism by examining the long history of the Economist newspaper, which, since 1843, has been the most tireless—and internationally influential—champion of the liberal cause anywhere in the world. But what exactly is liberalism, and how has its message evolved? Liberalism at Large examines a political ideology on the move as it confronts the challenges that classical doctrine left unresolved: the rise of democracy, the expansion of empire, the ascendancy of high finance. Contact with such momentous forces was never going to leave the proponents of liberal values unchanged. Zevin holds a mirror to the politics—and personalities—of Economist editors past and present, from Victorian banker-essayists James Wilson and Walter Bagehot to latter-day eminences Bill Emmott and Zanny Minton Beddoes. Today, neither economic crisis at home nor permanent warfare abroad has dimmed the Economist’s belief in unfettered markets, limited government, and a free hand for the West. Confidante to the powerful, emissary for the financial sector, portal onto international affairs, the bestselling newsweekly shapes the world its readers—as well as everyone else—inhabit. This is the first critical biography of one of the architects of a liberal world order now under increasing strain.
How modern economics abandoned classical liberalism and lost its way Milton Friedman once predicted that advances in scientific economics would resolve debates about whether raising the minimum wage is good policy. Decades later, Friedman’s prediction has not come true. In Where Economics Went Wrong, David Colander and Craig Freedman argue that it never will. Why? Because economic policy, when done correctly, is an art and a craft. It is not, and cannot be, a science. The authors explain why classical liberal economists understood this essential difference, why modern economists abandoned it, and why now is the time for the profession to return to its classical liberal roots. Carefully distinguishing policy from science and theory, classical liberal economists emphasized values and context, treating economic policy analysis as a moral science where a dialogue of sensibilities and judgments allowed for the same scientific basis to arrive at a variety of policy recommendations. Using the University of Chicago—one of the last bastions of classical liberal economics—as a case study, Colander and Freedman examine how both the MIT and Chicago variants of modern economics eschewed classical liberalism in their attempt to make economic policy analysis a science. By examining the way in which the discipline managed to lose its bearings, the authors delve into such issues as the development of welfare economics in relation to economic science, alternative voices within the Chicago School, and exactly how Friedman got it wrong. Contending that the division between science and prescription needs to be restored, Where Economics Went Wrong makes the case for a more nuanced and self-aware policy analysis by economists.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS The nature of the problem: • Geographical inequalities in the UK are a longstanding and persistent problem rooted in deepseated and cumulative processes of local and regional divergence with antecedents in the inter-war years and accelerating since the early 1980s. • This spatial divergence has been generated by the inability of some places to adapt to the emergence of the post-industrial service and knowledge-based economy whose geographies are very different from those of past heavy industries. As a consequence, the "left behind" problem has become spatially and systemically entrenched. • Challenging ideas of market-led adjustment, there is little evidence that real cost advantages in Northern areas are correcting and offsetting the geographically differentiated development of skilled labour and human capital and the quality of residential and business environments. • A variety of different types of "left behind place" exist at different scales, and these types combine common problems with distinctive economic trajectories and varied causes. These different types will need policies that are sensitive and adaptive to their specific problems and potentialities. • Contemporary economic development is marked by agglomeration in high-skilled and knowledge-intensive activities. Research-based concentrations of high-skilled activity in the UK have been limited and concentrated heavily in parts of London and cities in the Golden Triangle, especially Oxford and Cambridge. Even in London, the benefits have been unevenly spread between boroughs. • Existing analyses of the predicaments of left behind places present a stark division between rapid growth in "winning" high-skilled cities and relative decline in "losing" areas. This view is problematic because it oversimplifies the experience in the UK and other countries. A false binary distinction is presented to policymakers which offers only the possibility of growth in larger cities and derived spillovers and other compensations elsewhere. • Yet, the post-industrial economy involves strong dispersal of activity and growth to smaller cities, towns and rural areas. However, this process has been highly selective between local areas and needs to be better understood. The institutional and policy response: • Past policies in the UK have lacked recognition of the scale and importance of the left behind problem and committed insufficient resources to its resolution. The objective of achieving a less geographically unequal economy has not been incorporated into mainstream policymaking. When compared with other countries, the UK has taken an overcentralized, "top-down" approach to policy formulation and implementation, often applying "one size fits all" policy measures to different geographical situations. • Political cycles have underpinned a disruptive churn of institutions and policies. In contrast with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, particularly in Europe, there has been limited long-term strategy and continuity, and inadequate development of local policymaking capacity and capabilities, especially for research, analysis, monitoring and evaluation. • Past policies have been underfunded, inconsistent, and inadequately tailored and adapted to the needs of different local economies. We estimate that, on average over the period 1961–2020, the UK government invested on average £2.9 billion per annum in direct spatial policy (2020 prices), equivalent to around 0.15% of gross national income (GNI) per annum over the period. European Union Structural and Cohesion Policy support has added around 0.12% GNI (2020 prices) per annum to this over the period from the late 1970s. • These broad estimates suggest that discretionary expenditure in the UK on urban and regional policy when both domestic and European Union spatial policy was in operation was equivalent to 0.27% per annum of UK GNI (2020 prices). This is dwarfed by mainstream spending programmes (by comparison, the UK committed £14.5 billion (0.7% of GNI) to international aid in 2019). The level of resources devoted to spatial policy has been modest given the entrenched and cumulative nature of the problem. • Policies for "levelling up" need clearly to distinguish different types of left behind places and devise a set of place-sensitive and targeted policies for these types of "clubs" of left behind areas. This shift will need a radical expansion of "place-based" policymaking in the UK which allows national and local actors to collaborate on the design of appropriate targeted programmes. • A key priority for "levelling up" is revitalizing Northern cities and boosting their contribution to the national economy. Underperformance in these urban centres has been a major contributor to persistent geographical inequality in the UK. • Addressing the UK’s geographical economic inequalities and the plight of left behind places requires substantially more decentralization of power and resources to place-based agencies. This would enable the current UK government’s "levelling up" agenda to capitalize on the many advantages of more "place-based" policymaking to diagnose problems, build on local capabilities, strengthen resilience and adapt to local changes in circumstances. • Crucially, place-based efforts need to be coordinated and aligned with place-sensitive national policies. The key challenge of a levelling up mission is to integrate "place-based" policies with greater place sensitivity in national policies and in regulation and mainstream economic spending. • It is important to develop policies that spread the benefits from agglomeration and ensure that the income effects and innovations produced by high-skill concentrations diffuse to the wider cityregional economies and their firms (especially small and medium-sized enterprises) and workers. There is a clear need for more policy thinking on how this can be achieved. • Policy for levelling-up needs to align and coordinate with the other national missions for net zero carbon and post-pandemic recovery. This suggests that a strong "place-making" agenda focused on quality of life, infrastructure and housing in many left behind places is important for post-industrial and service growth. • Genuine place-making is a long-term process involving public, private and civic participation which allows local responses to those economic, environmental, and social constraints and problems that most strongly reduce the quality of life in local areas. A truly "total place" approach is required. The quality of infrastructure, housing stock and public services is crucial for the quality of place as well as the ability to secure and attract more dispersed forms of growth. There is little hope of delivering "place-making" if public sector austerity is once again allowed to cut back public services more severely in poorer and more deprived areas. The way forward: • The scale and nature of the UK’s contemporary "left behind places" problem are such that only a transformative shift in policy model and a resource commitment of historic proportions are likely to achieve the "levelling up" ambition that is central to the current government’s political ambitions. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS In summary, our recommendations are that the UK government should: • Grasp the transformative moment for local, regional and urban development policy as the UK adjusts to a post-Covid-19 world and seeks a net zero carbon future. • Establish a clear and binding national mission for "levelling up". • Realize the potential of place in policymaking. • Decentralize and devolve towards a multilevel federal polity. • Strengthen subnational funding and financing and adopt new financing models involving the public, private sector and civic sectors to generate the resources required. • Embed geography in the national state and in national policy machinery. • Improve subnational strategic research, intelligence, monitoring and evaluation capacity. A failure to learn from the lessons of the last 70 years of spatial policy risks the UK becoming an ever more divided nation, with all the associated economic, social and political costs, risks and challenges that this presents.
"The most consistent and courageous—and unapologetic—liberal partisan in American journalism." —Michael Tomasky, New York Review of Books In this "clear, provocative" (Boston Globe) New York Times bestseller, Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, examines the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age and the 1920s to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a "stimulating manifesto" offering "a compelling historical defense of liberalism and a clarion call for Americans to retake control of their economic destiny" (Publishers Weekly). "As Democrats seek a rationale not merely for returning to power, but for fundamentally changing—or changing back—the relationship between America's government and its citizens, Mr. Krugman's arguments will prove vital in the months and years ahead." —Peter Beinart, New York Times
Keynes is one of the most important and influential economists who ever lived. It is almost universally believed that Keynes wrote his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, to save capitalism from the socialist, communist, and fascist forces that were rising up during the Great Depression era. This book argues that this was not the case with respect to socialism. Tracing the evolution of Keynes’s views on policy from WWI until his death in 1946, Crotty argues that virtually all post-WWII "Keynesian" economists misinterpreted crucial parts of Keynes’s economic theory, misunderstood many of his policy views, and failed to realize that his overarching political objective was not to save British capitalism, but rather to replace it with Liberal Socialism. This book shows how Keynes’s Liberal Socialism began to take shape in his mind in the mid-1920s, evolved into a more concrete institutional form over the next decade or so, and was laid out in detail in his work on postwar economic planning at Britain’s Treasury during WWII. Finally, it explains how The General Theory provided the rigorous economic theoretical foundation needed to support his case against capitalism in support of Liberal Socialism. Offering an original and highly informative exposition of Keynes’s work, this book should be of great interest to teachers and students of economics. It should also appeal to a general audience interested in the role the most important economist of the 20th century played in developing the case against capitalism and in support of Liberal Socialism. Keynes Against Capitalism is especially relevant in the context of today’s global economic and political crises.
The worldwide spread of neoliberalism has transformed economies, polities, and societies everywhere. In conventional accounts, American and Western European economists, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, sold neoliberalism by popularizing their free-market ideas and radical criticisms of the state. Rather than focusing on the agency of a few prominent, conservative economists, Markets in the Name of Socialism reveals a dialogue among many economists on both sides of the Iron Curtain about democracy, socialism, and markets. These discussions led to the transformations of 1989 and, unintentionally, the rise of neoliberalism. This book takes a truly transnational look at economists' professional outlook over 100 years across the capitalist West and the socialist East. Clearly translating complicated economic ideas and neoliberal theories, it presents a significant reinterpretation of Cold War history, the fall of communism, and the rise of today's dominant economic ideology.
Many on the Left see the European Union as a fundamentally benign project with the potential to underpin ever greater cooperation and progress. If it has drifted rightward, the answer is to fight for reform from within. In this iconoclastic polemic, economist Costas Lapavitsas demolishes this view. He contends that the EU’s response to the Eurozone crisis represents the ultimate transformation of the union into a neoliberal citadel that institutionally embeds austerity, privatization, and wage cuts. Concurrently, the rise of German hegemony has divided the EU into an unstable core and dependent peripheries. These related developments make the EU impervious to meaningful reform. The solution is therefore a direct challenge to the EU project that stresses popular and national sovereignty as preconditions for true internationalist socialism. Lapavitsas’s powerful manifesto for a left opposition to the EU upends the wishful thinking that often characterizes the debate and will be a challenging read for all on the Left interested in the future of Europe.
