Matt Bruenig — Institutions Matter Except When They Are Socialist

Robert Solow once remarked:

Every discussion among economists of the relatively slow growth of the British economy compared with the Continental economies ends up in a blaze of amateur sociology.

This is the final move of right-wing economists whenever the assumptions of their ideologically-infused policy prescriptions end up contradicted by observed reality. After a few forays into some exotic economic indicators, they eventually propose strange half-assed sociological theories that, quite remarkably, end up concluding that laissez-faire capitalism is still definitely the way to go....

My only argument with Bruenig is that in conventional economics, institutions don't matter, only individuals do, that is, the representative individual. Institutions are socialist.

Oh, and Piketty's work shoes that inequality in core European nations would be worse than the US if it were not for social democracy. This is what the neoliberal eurocrats are trying to "fix."

Matt Bruenig
Institutions Matter Except When They Are Socialist