A recent interview with Craig Mokhiber, an American former Director of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, provides by far the most compelling explanation of the Jeffrey Epstein saga I have heard. According to the interview, Epstein was an Israeli asset who helped significantly twist regional Middle East relations and the …

The research note below is by my friend, Argentine economist Rubén Lo Vuolo. There are two features I especially value about it: (1) It shows it is a myth that the era of Neoliberalism is over and retreating. (2) Lo Vuolo’s “language” is analytically accurate and powerful, and it is strikingly different from that of …

Below is a link to an article by Argentine political economist Rubén Lo Vuolo on the environmental crisis in Argentina. He forcefully links the crisis with class interest. In my view, that is how it must be situated and analyzed, and that is the only way we will succeed in reining it in. Unfortunately, that …

Argentina is back in the news with renewed financial turmoil spurred by President Milei’s poor political standing. That poor standing is the product of anger with Argentina’s dire economic performance and massive corruption within Milei’s administration, and it augurs poorly for his party’s performance in the forthcoming October 2025 election. In response, the IMF and …

This summer I have been reading selections from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. The Gramscian construct of cultural hegemony is brilliantly insightful and something every political economist should be aware of. The notebook entries are also very akin to blogs in construction and length. Given my recent suspension by the Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) for …

This paper presents a theory and model of long-run cycles in income inequality. The model explains the historical pattern of income distribution identified by Kuznets (1955) and Piketty (2014). It breaks with conventional marginal product theory which claims functional income distribution is determined by the technological conditions of production. Instead, it emphasizes the role of …

This statement is submitted in connection with the Joint Committee’s deliberations on the European Union’s (EU) legislative proposals COM(2025)122 and COM(2025)123. Those two measures aim to increase EU member state military expenditures and weapons production. They raise multiple serious concerns regarding the merits thereof, including gravely exacerbating the existing Ukraine conflict and making a peace settlement …

(1) The Post-Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) committee has posted a second more detailed public statement seeking to justify my suspension. In my view, their new statement further obscures the issue and is even more misleading. The only thing that matters is did the article (“The Ukraine war and Europe’s deepening march of folly”) which triggered …

Last week I e-mailed a note titled “Goodbye pluralism: cancelled Post Keynesian style” which detailed my suspension by the Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES). That suspension unjustly sanctioned me for an earlier e-mail announcement of my article “The Ukraine war and Europe’s deepening march of folly”. The PKES has now responded, claiming I violated its …

In her book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, the historian Barbara Tuchman explores the perplexing question of why countries sometimes pursue policies that are fundamentally contrary to their own interests. That question has acquired renewed relevance as Europe has now enlisted in a deepening march of folly over Ukraine. Failure to reject …

I urge you to watch this YouTube mini documentary (30 minutes). If that is too long, watch just the segment from 10:30 -12:00 (1.30 minutes). Jeffrey D. Sachs – Understanding the Ukraine conflict – Brave New Europe Every German should watch this before voting in the February election (and every European should watch in advance …

This paper explores the deep causes of the Ukraine – Russia war. It argues that the war has both internal and external causes. The internal causes are rooted in the way the Soviet Union disintegrated. The external causes relate to how the US exploited the fractures in the post-Soviet order to advance its Neoconservative agenda …

Watch the interview here

Watch this and ask yourself if you know: “Gaza”: an Al Jazeera Investigative Unit documentary

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, …

Neoliberalism 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 …

In 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 …

Paul 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, …

This 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 …

Ilan 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 …

Abstract. 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 …

This 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 …

Europe’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 …

South 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 …

Below 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 …

This 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 …

September 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 …

This 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 …

The 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 …