James K. Galbraith — Capitalism’s Great Reckoning

As the maladies of modern capitalism have multiplied, fundamental questions about the future of the world’s dominant economic model have become impossible to ignore. But in the absence of viable alternatives, the question is how to reform a system that is increasingly at odds with democracy.

James K. Galbraith looks at three recent books on the crisis in capitalism:

• Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent, W.W. Norton, New York; Allen Lane, London, 2019.
• Paul Collier, The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties, Harper, New York; Allen Lane, London, 2018.
• Branko Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World, Belknap Press, Cambridge, 2019 (forthcoming).

Project Syndicate
Capitalism’s Great Reckoning

James K. Galbraith | Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

Lars P. Syll — Rational expectations — the triumph of ideology over science

Includes Stiglitz quote, "there is no invisible hand."

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Rational expectations — the triumph of ideology over science
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Paola Subacchi — Free Trade in Chains

This is significant. The research director of Chatham House is agreeing with Joseph Stiglitz, Stephen Roach, and Dani Rodrik that political liberalism supersedes economic liberalism. This is a several of neoliberal doctrine.

Britain's Chatham House is one of the premier Western policy think tanks, comparable to Brookings Institution in the US, for example. As such it is the center for generation of Western policy formulation and the propaganda to promote it.

Project Syndicate is a major organ through which Western propaganda is disseminated publicly to forge group think.

This may sound like conspiracy theory. Elites will forcefully deny that this is either the intention or even happening. I agree that for most part it is not intentional, although there is some of that, too. (You know who your are.).

Michael Polanyi, Karl's equally brilliant brother, pointed out the role of tacit knowledge as a shaper of thought. Tacit knowledge is not random thoughts stored in the memory bank, but rather it is highly structured and manifests as world views and ideologies. The Western elite are trapped in liberalism as both a world view and a ruling ideology, although they may disagree about some of the details. They are, however, not very cognizant of the paradoxes of liberalism that arise within it.

Economic liberalism — "free markets, free trade, and free capital flows" — creates issues not only economically but also politically and socially. When group think draws on tacit knowledge and applies ideology reflexively, then the paradoxes of liberalism that emerge in societies generate dysfunction and created "surprise."

Addressing increasing dysfunction rising as "populism" as a reaction to liberal establishment group think is what this article is about. But the elite has not figured out the dynamics of the process just described and are trapped in a quagmire of their own creation because they cannot see the forest for the trees.

So I am happy to see Chatham House waking up somewhat, but the world would be better off they just disband.

Project Syndicate
Free Trade in Chains

Paola Subacchi | Research Director of International Economics at Chatham House and Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna

Christopher Colford — Toward a more durable form of globalization, beyond 'neoliberal' negligence

The World Bank approvingly notices "disruptive theory" in macroeconomics.

The World Bank
Toward a more durable form of globalization, beyond 'neoliberal' negligence

Christopher Colford | Communications Officer at The World Bank, in its Financial and Private Sector Development Network

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Hamid Rashid — What’s Holding Back the World Economy?

Out of paradigm.

Project Syndicate
What’s Holding Back the World Economy?

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Hamid Rashid