Steve Keen’s book, The New Economics: A Manifesto (2021), offers a new path for economics, and for good reason. In his view, neoclassicism, the paradigm that rules modern-day economics, has become a serious menace: I regard Neoclassical economics as not …
,AbstractWe write this essay for both lay readers and scientists, though mainstream economists arewelcome to enjoy it too. Our subject is the basic toolbox of mainstream economics. The mostimportant tools in this box are demand, supply and equilibrium. All mainstream …
The 1-2-3 toolbox of mainstream economics:Promising everything, delivering nothing
mmortality This note offers some speculative ideas worth considering. One of the key features of all hierarchical civilizations is their rulers’ fear of death. This fear was famously narrated in the ancient myth of Gilgamesh – the Sumerian king who …
Inflation is the average rate of change of individual money prices. In this narrow sense, Milton Friedman’s claim that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon is correct. But underlying the average rate of inflation, individual prices change at different rates. And in …
Inflation is always and everywhere a redistributional phenomenon
1. Introduction In 2012, we published a paper in the Journal of Critical Globalization Studies titled ‘Imperialism and Financialism: The Story of a Nexus’. Our topic was the chameleon-like Marxist notion of imperialism and how its different theories related to finance. Here is the article’s …
Over the past century, the nexus of imperialism and financialism has become a major axis of Marxist theory and praxis. Many Marxists consider this nexus to be a prime cause of our worldly ills, but the historical role they ascribe …
This note contextualizes the ongoing U.S. policy shift toward greater ‘regulation’ of large corporations. Cory Doctorow (2021) and Blair Fix (2021) are optimistic about this shift. We doubt it. 1. The Limits of Power Large U.S.-based corporations are extremely powerful, but the growth of their …
An Invited-then-Rejected Interview with Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan The CasP approach is radically different from conventional political economy. In the conventional view, mainstream as well as heterodox, capital is seen a ‘real’ economic entity engaged in the production of …
Colin Harrison writes about power in present-day capitalism. His thrillers intersect and fuse finance, crime and ruthless violence. They are technically precise, written with panache and make you eager to turn the page. Of course, Harrison is hardly the first …
We have just updated the charts in our 2014 RWER paper ‘Still About Oil?’, and the picture they portray reads like a capitalist call for arms. Beginning in the late 1980s, we suggested that, since the late 1960s, the Middle East was greatly influenced …
Judging by the yardsticks that matterthe most, though–namely,the companies’relative profi tand relative capitalization–pharmaceuticals are doing just fine. In fact, based on these yardsticks, they remain the most powerful corporate sector of all. read here
We write this essay for both lay readers and scientists, though mainstream economists are welcome to enjoy it too. Our subject is the basic toolbox of mainstream economics. The most important tools in this box are demand, supply and equilibrium. …
The 1-2-3 Toolbox of Mainstream Economics Promising Everything, Delivering Nothing