I wrote about Compass' Plan B yesterday and will be at a seminar on the subject all this morning. I'm proud to have contributed some of its key ideas, on tax and some other issues and to see The Green New Deal at the core of it.
Others d not share that view. The criticism that has arisen is that of the 100 who signed the letter to the Observer not all were 'economists'. Some were social scientists, others accountants or in business schools and others, like me have professional and not academic post graduate qualifications.
Those who make such comment utterly miss the point. For a profession that supposedly promotes competition as the cure to all problems economics has been curiously ruthless in eliminating it. It is now almost possible to study anything but mainstream neoliberal economics. It is this economics that has failed us, but if you do not subscribe to it then it is very hard to now get a PhD in economics, let alone a job as an economist at a university. neoliberalism ha squeezed all alternative economic thought out of economics, which is all the poorer for it.
But that, of course is why alternative thinking has had to come from elsewhere.
And that is also why those making this criticism are either disingenuous or unaware of why their criticism actually highlights the problem we are addressing.
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I came across an interesting piece by Hayek’s friend, the philosopher Karl Popper, in an address Popper gave in Seville only 21 days before Hayek’s death in March 1992 (p155 in ‘All Life is Problem Solving’). Popper wonders why it is that economists from about 1965 gave up on solving the problem of unemployment and suggests that some sort of ‘counter-cyclical’ policy should have further investigation. I hear many neoliberals use the name of Popper as a sort of philosophical justification for their policies, but reading this piece should make any neoliberal think again, especially since 2006-8. I wonder how many know of its existence? And on the point of new investigations into unemployment, there is a wonderful paper by Laurence Ball ‘HYSTERESIS IN UNEMPLOYMENT: OLD AND NEW EVIDENCE’ from 2009 that argues that the natural rate is determined by aggregate demand not supply-side factors, and the paper looks at (and turns on its head) the Thatcher years in particular. I picked the paper up through Krugman’s blog but the link is now broken there, but Krugman’s blog comments are worth reading, and the paper can be reached through Prof. Ball’s own pages at John Hopkin’s.
That Krugman posting on Laurence Ball is: July 26, 2010 ‘Permanently High Unemployment’. I say this as Krugman uses ‘Larry Ball’ not Laurence Ball as his name, so searching for it could have been a problem.
If we utterly mis the point, as you put it, it is because there was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by stating that the letter to the Observer had been signed by 100 economists. You yourself decried the lack of BBC coverage by referring to 100 economists, mainly professors.
If this was an alternative approach, the authors of the letter should have said so. A good idea spoilt really. Hoist by your own petard.
Oh please do not talk such utter rubbish
All you are seeking to do is frame the debate on your own failed terms
You will fail and a new economics will sweep you aside
Not yet
But it will,soon
Hugh
I think that you are clutching at straws with your criticism – there is no deliberate attempt to mislead the public and if that is all you can say then you must have lost the argument. One of the leading signatories is Ha- Joon Chang a leading academic from Cambridge University. He came from South Korea and I would guess that he knows more about economic development and which policies work than George Osborne who quite frankly has not got a clue. Interestingly Ha -Joon has been interviewed on Sky News in the Adam Boulton programme and for me what this shows is that the BBC is so mainstream that it refuses to discuss anything other than the orthodox view whereas Sky is prepared to offer other viewpoints.
Thank goodness some people are thinking outside the blackbox of neoliberalism. Such debates etc have to be conducted through all channels of the media and this process will take time. I remeber how monetarism was promoted back in the 1970s and then of course became mainstream under Reagan and Thatcher. Keep up the good work as some of us are very keen to listen.
So was the “We economists” bit the creation of a sub-editor, or your own work? Misleading in either case, deliberately so in the latter
It was factually accurate
I agree that all the contributers have valid points to make to the debate – but why state that it was signed by 100 economists when it clearly wasnt. Personally I dont think it makes any difference whether they are economists or not – but someone clearly thought it did as otherwise they wouldnt have said so.
All this does is give opponents of the paper something easy to attack – “well if they cant even be straight about who wrote/supports the paper then why should we believe anything written in it”.
I can never understand why these silly own goals are scored sometimes.
There was no own goal
You simply mistake economics for neoliberalism
And that’s a big error on your part
Steve Keen says as much in his the new edition of his book Debunking Economics. There is a smaller and smaller space for alternative thinking. Perhaps those who do have differing ideas should pursue them through PhD study in economic history because that is the major area that would 1) destroy neo-liberal thinking by showing how it does not work in practice and 2) it would lead to a development of alternative theories/models that have some basis in real life.
Example: the Physiocrats believed a free market in grain would lead to greater industry in agriculture and would feed more at home and allow a surplus to be exported which all told would benefit the patrie. This was the theory. However, the customs of the country demanded a fair price for grain and a at least a bare subsistence for all. So the theory led to the free market which within a year created an artificial scarcity, then riots, and then the intervention of the govt. to ensure the bare subsistence again.
Fast forward to today, govt. has reductive theory based on a discarded idea of Ricardo, govt. demands austerity, frightens the life out of people, demonises the poor in a fascist-lite way and then hammers them to the applause of the unthinking middle-class (you’re next…), govt. wonders why the economy isn’t working and inches towards a Plan B at snail’s rate despite year-old warning about austerity policies from ex-minister Ed Balls (who they have also demonised and so can’t actually follow his sensible ideas): result, artificial scarcity leading to riots and eventually leading to, I predict, govt. intervention.
So young men and women who think differently, invade the economic history departments!
As many people in academia will tell you, Richard, the job title you have is often so broadly framed that it says little about the type of teaching and research a person actually does, or indeed what their academic background (qualifications, etc) might be.
Furthermore – and for reasons you largely set out here – many academics who have expertise in economics but who don’t wish to be associated with today’s mainstream version of the discipline continue to teach and research economics or political economy in other disciplines, witness a colleague of mine who is a Reader in Social Enterprise but regularly contributes to economic debate and discourse (e.g. http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/lesbudd/)
Iif we have so many economists, and they are so good, why are so deep in the brown stuff ?
i suppose its a bit like claiming to be a tax expert without any specific tax qualifications…..
If that’s aimed at me – since when was FCA not a tax qualification?
And you may have noted how many tax qualifications HMRC have, come to that
Seeing as you asked, an FCA is not regarded as a tax qualification at all, it is an accounting qualification of which basic UK tax accounting forms a small but distinct part.
Does the fact that I did forensic medicine at at law school qualify me to perform autopsies?
In the UK the Chartered Institute of Taxation is regarded as the primary professional body for people dispensing tax advice and usually people with an ACA or FCA would seek to complete further examinations to obtain a CTA if they intend to specialize in taxation.
Frankly, the UK and many other countries have far to many people who have a basic proficiency in either tax accounting or revenue law holding themselves out to be tax specialists when they lack the knowledge and ability to properly advise their clients.
And very respectfully, that’s tosh!
Having taught a lot of tax in my time, and having begun the CTA exams in the 1980s I realised that it added nothing of value at all to my knowledge or understanding
So I did not bother with it, and a partner who did always wondered why she wasted her time
You’re just playing elitism for the sake of your own vanity
To which I would add – if so good, why were HMRC excluded from it for so long?
I suggest you tell the ICAEW tax faculty that
But my criticism was the blindness to the employment issue, as in labour liberalisation, and how that undermines anything that is recommended, and the lack of reference to the overriding trade agenda, whereby the neoliberal path is tied into international law.
And I can assure you my close colleague Colin Hines has raised all those issues
I know Colin Hines’ focus and it’s not on the ball on these issues.