Can lonely monetary technocrats contribute to the common good?

Vadym Syrota

Chapter 2 in Central Banking, Monetary Policy and the Common Good, 2026, pp 10-26 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Some time ago, monetary authorities across the globe were credited with contributing to the common good on a macroeconomic level by providing a stable and predictable inflation environment. Nevertheless, recent discussions of inflation in the context of the cost-of-living crisis raise questions about the adequacy of the dominant monetary toolkit to address this economic disaster. Against such a background, this chapter examines the nexus between the political loneliness of monetary technocrats, the interests of the main political actors, their supporters, and the social conflict underlying the current inflation catastrophe. Top monetary decision-makers have constructed economic ‘common sense’ and built an epistemic community by using the facilities of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which serves as an intellectual hub for central bankers. In this way, unelected technocrats strengthen their positions amid the failures of monetary austerity policy that hurt the well-being of both left- and right-wing voters. It is argued that to succeed in curbing inflation, we need to find a trade-off between labour and capital aimed at the safeguarding of both their incomes. The new productivism paradigm that comes with the proposed ‘public-friendly central banking’ concept is ideally suited to providing a practical toolkit to successfully address the existing productivity and monetary policy challenges.

Keywords: Bank for International Settlements; Conflict theory of inflation; Epistemic community; Meaningful accountability; Monetary austerity; New productivism paradigm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035348299
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