Inequality and Stagnation by Policy Design: Mainstream Denialism and Its Dangerous Political Consequences

.

Chapter 20 in Neoliberalism and the Road to Inequality and Stagnation, 2021, pp 294-310 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter argues that the mainstream economics profession is threatened by theories of the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing stagnation which attribute those outcomes to the policies recommended and justified by the profession. Such theories are existentially threatening to the dominant point of view. Consequently, mainstream economists resist engaging them as doing so would legitimize those theories. That resistance has contributed to blocking the politics and policies needed to address stagnation, thereby contributing to a political vacuum which is being filled by odious forces. Those ugly political consequences are unintended, but they are still there. They show the dangerous consequences of the intellectual failure of economics. The critique of mainstream economists is not about "values" or lack of "change": it is about academic practice and lack of pluralism that suppresses ideas which are existentially threatening.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781802200072.00030.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:20890_20

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().