Thursday, January 28, 2021

Bill Mitchell — How come the principles supported austerity one day but fiscal dominance the next?

As part of the paradigmic turmoil that is confronting mainstream economists, we are witnessing some very interesting strategies. Imagine you establish a set of principles that are seemingly inviolable. They are the bedrock of the belief system, even though it is not called that. These principles then offer all sorts of predictions about, yes, the real world. They are without nuance. The predictions are so worrying, that politicians, whether they are knowing or not, proceed with caution in some cases, and, in other cases, openly damage the well-being of citizens because they have been told that shock therapy is better than a long drawn out demise into ‘le marasme’. The authority for all the carnage that follows (unemployment, poverty, pension cuts, degraded public infrastructure and services, etc) is these ‘inviolable principles’. Economists swan around the world preaching them and bullying students and others into accepting them as gospel. The policy advice is hard and fast. Governments must stay credible. Except one day they completely change tack and all the policy advice that established certain actions to be totally taboo become the norm. We observe things are better as a result. Does this mean those ‘inviolable principles’ were bunk all along? Not according to the mainstream economists who are trying to position themselves on the right side of history. Apparently, their optimising New Keynesian models can totally justify fiscal dominance and central bank funding fiscal deficits when yesterday such actions were taboo. Which leg are they trying to pull?...
Chameleon "science."

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
How come the principles supported austerity one day but fiscal dominance the next?
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

4 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Leopards can't change their spots, but chameleons...

Andrew Anderson said...

Except it can't be said that the MMT School favors fiscal dominance since they favor INCREASED* privileges for private depository institutions, aka "the banks."

* e.g. unlimited, unsecured loans from the Central Bank to private banks at ZERO percent interest!
* e.g. unlimited government-provided guarantees of private bank deposits FOR FREE!

Matt Franko said...

“ How come the principles supported austerity one day but fiscal dominance the next?”

COVID...

Peter Pan said...

COVID riot...