This paper investigates the impact of different varieties of capitalism (VoC) on societal happiness. It begins with a critique of Neoclassical welfare economics which emphasizes Pareto optimality, and it argues for focusing on reported societal happiness. The paper identifies five VoC. Using a sample of twenty-six high-income countries drawn from the 2020 World Happiness Report, …
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Neoliberalism and the Drift to Proto-Fascism: Political and Economic Causes of the Crisis of Liberal Democracy
September 7, 2024Neoliberalism is a political economic philosophy consisting of two claims, one economic and the other political. The economic claim is laissez-faire is the best way to organize economic activity as it generates efficient outcomes that maximize well-being. The political claim is free markets promote individual liberty. This article argues both claims are problematic. The evidence …
Read More »Ukraine’s Hiroshima moment is drawing closer (the consequences of Neocon madness)
August 21, 2024In August 1945, the US atom bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, nuclear weapons have never been used in conflict. That may soon change as Ukraine faces the increasing likelihood of a Hiroshima moment. Conditions in Ukraine increasingly give Russia military and geopolitical cause to use tactical nuclear weapons. Though Russia …
Read More »Paul Davidson (1930-2024) and the founding of Post Keynesian economics
August 5, 2024Paul Davidson was a critical figure in the preservation of John Maynard Keynes’s ideas, sticking with them when they were out of fashion. He was also key to the survival of the Post Keynesian school. Davidson endorsed Keynes’s liquidity preference theory of interest, and he emphasized fundamental uncertainty as a central feature of economic reality, …
Read More »The military-industrial complex as a variety of capitalism and threat to democracy: rethinking the political economy of guns versus butter
June 12, 2024This paper examines the military-industrial complex (MIC), which is a prototype widely imitated by other business sectors. Collectively, they constitute a variety of capitalism which can be termed the poly-industrial complex (PIC). Understanding the MIC is critical to understanding contemporary US capitalism, US international policy, and the drift toward Cold War II. The MIC exerts …
Read More »Gaza in context: past, present, & future
May 18, 2024Ilan Pappé is a brilliant Israeli historian & his scholarship exemplifies the meaning and importance of intellectual integrity. Below is a link to his talk titled “Gaza in context: past, present, & future”. I urge you to watch it & share it (the talk runs from minute 28 to minute 76). We all abhor Holocaust …
Read More »Keynes’ denial of conflict: a reply to Professor Heise’s critique
April 13, 2024Abstract. This note responds to Arne Heise’s critque of my article on Keynes’s denial of conflict in The General Theory. Heise’s response fails to show Keynes addressed conflict and makes several meritless criticisms regarding my treatment of Keynes and Keynesianism. It also fails to recognize the purpose of my article which was to show conflict …
Read More »Rethinking conflict inflation: the hybrid Keynesian – NAIRU character of the conflict Phillips curve
April 11, 2024This paper presents a new formulation of conflict inflation labeled the “pass-through” approach, which contrasts with the existing “pressure balance” approach. The model generates Phillips styled inflation – unemployment dynamics that are a hybrid of Keynesian and NAIRU dynamics. Conflict inflation arises when economic activity rises above the consistent claims activity level, and it is …
Read More »Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and the consequences are dire
February 13, 2024Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and captured by US Neocon interests. That capture poses a dire threat to both European democracy and global security. The threat to global security is because Europe is now captive in the US Neocon war on China and Russia. The threat to democracy comes from European voters gradually intuiting …
Read More »Israel’s genocide, US assistance, and consequences thereof
January 15, 2024South Africa has now presented its charge of Israeli genocide in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Israel has presented its rebuttal. Regardless of the ultimate judgment, a page has been turned. Israel’s actions in Gaza, assisted by the US, have changed the geopolitical landscape. The consequences stand to be dire and lasting. The …
Read More »The corruption of US foreign policy & weaponization of antisemitism
January 2, 2024Below are three brilliant articles and one interview that help understand geopolitics at the beginning of 2024. In my view, they should be read by anyone interested in the geopolitical situation & should be required reading for students of international relations and international political economy: US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption, Jeffrey …
Read More »The theory of monetary disorder: debt finance, existing assets, and the consequences of prolonged monetized budget deficits and ultra-easy monetary policy
November 1, 2023This paper introduces the notion of monetary disorder. The underlying theory rests on a twin circuits view of the macro economy. The idea of monetary disorder has relevance for understanding the experience and consequences of the recent decade-long period of monetized large budget deficits and ultra-easy monetary policy. Current policy rests on Keynesian logic whereby …
Read More »The menace of the myth of General Pinochet’s Chilean economic miracle
September 9, 2023September 11, 2023, marks the fiftieth anniversary of General Pinochet’s military coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende. While it is now widely recognized that Pinochet authorized large-scale human rights abuses, there is an accompanying narrative that he also unleashed an economic miracle via embrace of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” vision of a market economy. The …
Read More »Broadening the application of hysteresis in economics: institutions, policy lock-in, psychology, identity, and ideas
August 9, 2023This paper argues for broadening the application of hysteresis to institutions, policy lock-in, psychology, identity, and economic ideas. Hysteresis is an element of historical processes, and the real world is historical. That explains why hysteresis is pervasive and important. Hysteresis should be a fundamental building block of political economy. Expanding its application in economics is …
Read More »Ukraine destroyed the Kakhovka dam: a forensic assessment
July 4, 2023The Kakhovka dam was a massive two-mile-long structure that dammed the Dnieper River which bisects Ukraine. It was built by the Soviet Union in 1956 and raised the Dnieper by 16 meters (52 feet), creating the Kakhovka Reservoir. The dam was destroyed on 6 June 2023, resulting in massive flooding downstream on both sides of …
Read More »The forgotten case against Milton Friedman: an interview about inflation and the Phillips curve
May 13, 2023Milton Friedman revolutionized macroeconomics with his 1967 presidential speech to the American Economics Association (AEA), which presented a theory of the so-called natural rate of unemployment for the first time. That speech, which played a major role in discrediting the brand of Keynesianism that prevailed in postwar liberal economic policy thinking, remains one of the …
Read More »Causes and consequences of the Ukraine conflict: an eight-point primer
March 19, 2023(1) The origins of the Ukraine conflict lie in the ambitions of US Neocons. Those ambitions threatened Russian national security by fuelling eastward expansion of NATO and anti-Russian regime change in the Republics of the former Soviet Union. (2) The Ukraine conflict is now a proxy war. The US is using Ukraine to attack and …
Read More »Keynes’ denial of conflict: why The General Theory is a misleading guide to capitalism and stagnation
February 21, 2023Keynes’ General Theory was a massive step forward relative to classical economics, but it was also a step backward in its denial of the conflictual nature of capitalism. There is need to understand Keynes’ technical contributions regarding the workings of monetary economies, but also need to understand the flaws within his thinking and the consequences …
Read More »World Cup, RT CrossTalk, and US domestic censorship
December 17, 2022Most of the time I write dense blogs & research papers. I sent the e-mail below to someone close to me. Afterward, I realized it tacitly says a lot about the state of our society (liberals included). Sometimes, mixing things and writing about them in a different way can be revealing. Sent: Saturday, December 17, …
Read More »Deglobalization, conflict, & the self-inflicted threat to democracy: consequences of US imperial over-reach
December 14, 2022Because of the seriousness of the world situation, I have decided to get back in the business of doing interviews (which I do not enjoy doing). Here is a link to my interview (13/12/2022) on RT CrossTalk discussing “New Globalization?” In that connection, here is a link to a paper (written in 2018) titled “The …
Read More »Comments on the history of the Review of Keynesian Economics on its tenth anniversary
November 12, 2022This Fall (October/November 2022) marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Review of Keynesian Economics (ROKE). The founding co-editors were Louis-Philippe Rochon, Matias Vernengo, and I. At the beginning of 2018 Louis-Philippe Rochon stepped down to become sole editor of the Review of Political Economy and he was replaced by Esteban Pérez Caldentey. …
Read More »The false promise and bitter fruit of Neoliberalism: political economic disembedding, cultural transformation, and the rise of proto-fascist politics
October 11, 2022Neoliberalism is a political economic philosophy that consists of two claims, one economic and the other political. The economic claim is free market laissez-faire economies are the best way to organize economic activity as they generate efficient outcomes that maximize well-being. The political claim is free market economic arrangements promote individual liberty. This paper argues …
Read More »Sabotaging Germany, blaming Russia: another view of the Nord Stream pipeline attack
October 1, 2022Imagine Moscow was nuked yesterday, and this morning The New York Times ran a frontpage headline “Moscow nuked: Russia proves its hostility to Europe again”. Sounds pretty crazy? Yet, in a manner of speaking, that is what happened last week. On Tuesday September 27th three major leaks caused by undersea explosions were discovered in the …
Read More »How the West betrayed Mikhail Gorbachev and seeded the Ukraine conflict
September 1, 2022Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022. Since then, praises have flowed from Western leaders. Those praises obscure how the West betrayed Gorbachev after he fell from power, and how that betrayal seeded the Ukraine conflict. The story is complicated because Gorbachev’s fall was triggered by Communist Party hardliners, so the troubles which befell Russia …
Read More »Theorizing dollar hegemony, Part 1: the political economic foundations of exorbitant privilege
August 23, 2022This paper explores dollar hegemony, emphasizing it is a fundamentally political economic phenomenon. Dollar hegemony rests on the economic, military, and international political power of the US and is manifested through market forces. The paper argues there have been two eras of dollar hegemony which were marked by different models. Dollar hegemony 1.0 corresponded to …
Read More »Flirting with Armageddon: the US and Ukraine
August 13, 2022It is now almost six months since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and with each passing month the Biden administration has ratcheted up US participation in the conflict. That ratchet process has the US flirting ever closer with nuclear Armageddon, a momentous development that has gone almost uncommented and uncontested. It is as …
Read More »The truth will out: the US, Russia, and Ukraine
May 18, 2022Watch this (30 seconds long): The truth will out: George Bush speaking about Russia and Ukraine The truth is out about Iraq, and it will eventually out about Ukraine. The worst thing about this video is the fawning complicit response of the audience which speaks volumes about elite US society. Please share. P.S. Another 30 …
Read More »Neoliberalism and the Road to Inequality and Stagnation: A Chronicle Foretold
April 29, 2022My latest book has recently been published by Edward Elgar. The book explores the impact of neoliberal policies on the US, Europe, and the global economy. It shows how the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession were predictable outcomes of the neoliberal policy experiment, as is the emergence of global “race to the bottom” competition. …
Read More »More on the critique of New Developmentalism
April 11, 2022Oreiro and de Paula’s (2022) reply to my article (Palley, 2021) further convinces me that New Developmentalism (ND) substantially misconstrues the development challenge and ND’s policy recommendations lean in a Neoliberal direction. The critique of ND is not its emphasis of the importance of manufacturing. It is the regressive inclination, the narrowness of policy recommendations, …
Read More »The Bucha atrocities and the tilted character of reporting on Ukraine
April 7, 2022Below is an on-line comment I submitted re The New York Times’ op-ed (Aril 7, 2022) on the Bucha atrocities. The comment speaks to the tilted character of reporting on the Ukraine war. That tilt should be of concern to all who care about freedom, democracy, and open society. “Who committed the Bucha atrocities …
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