My plan was to write a MMT primer in between the publication of Volume I and Volume II of my text on recessions. The manuscript for Recessions: Volume I is still being edited, and I hope to do its final formatting (which will take away from writing time). I am considering pivoting the MMT primer to be a discussion of how MMT fits in with the challenges of the post-pandemic world....To my way of thinking, the post-pandemic economy and its economics will be determined by the degree to which neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization survive. The good news is that the foundation is crumbling and there are alternatives on the table as options to select from.
The bad news is that neoliberalism is entrenched with TPTB, so it won't go quietly. All the pins are in place to further extend the police/surveillance state that came into being for white Americans with 9/ll, the war on terror and the suspension of civil liberties and constitutional rights. This was already in place for non-white Americans virtually from the founding of the republic.
I don't think that the economics can be considered separately from the sociology, political theory, law, etc,, basically the society and its culture and institutions, as well as the British/European/American (Western) liberal world order.
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
— Pagina:Gramsci - Quaderni del carcere, Einaudi, I.djvu/318 § (34). Passato e presente.Quaderni del carcere, « Ondata di materialismo» e « crisi di autorità », volume I, quaderno 3, p. 311, written circa 1930
—English translation Selections from the Prison Notebooks, “Wave of Materialism” and “Crisis of Authority” (NY: International Publishers), (1971), pp. 275-276.Prison Notebooks Volume II, Notebook 3, 1930, (2011 edition) SS-34, Past and Present 32-33, WikiquoteBond Economics
Economics After The Pandemic (Part I): Fighting The Last War
Brian Romanchuk
Tom, thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments on political economy. My split into Part I/Part II (not written yet) is roughly where I would divide technocratic versus political economy considerations. Part I discusses how you might want to make changes to narrowly deal with another pandemic. Any society can implement them. The next part will discuss rebuilding strategy, and that’s really a question about how to reorient the economy.