Reviving Growth Keynesianism

For this episode we talk to Herman Mark Schwartz on a wide range of issues - from biopolitics, industrial policy, and the New Cold War political economy to why "financialization" is a limited analytical frame for recent history. Mark argues that conflict between firms over profits is just as important - if not moreso - than conflict between capital and labor over the consumption share. The shift from midcentury "Fordism" to today's three-tiered economic structure happened as the result of a "Kalecki moment" in the late-1960s and early-1970s: workers, women, and the third world wanted more, and corporate strategy transformed to meet, and rebuff, their challenges.


*** LINKS ***

You can find his faculty profile here: https://politics.virginia.edu/people/profile/schwartz

And the articles we discussed today here: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/author/herman-mark-schwartz/

and here: https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/manufacturing-stagnation/

Jamie Martin joins us to discuss his new book *The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance.* After the first World War, the tools  that European empires had used to govern their colonies' economies were applied to Europe itself. To stabilize that respatialization politically, the victorious powers had to invent new institutions - what Martin calls "legitimation machines" - to justify treating European countries like colonies. The new institutions were supposed to legitimize global economic governance, but were castigated as "meddlers" as often as not. We ask him what we would have to do to escape the imperial roots of today's institutions.


*** LINKS ***

Follow Jamie Martin on twitter @jamiemartin2

Faculty page: https://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/jamie-martin

Book page: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976542

Interview mentioned:
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/the-rotten-roots-of-global-economic-governance/

Wanting more? Check out other interviews Martin has done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoOE3Qg_zN4&ab_channel=TheMajorityReportw%2FSamSeder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RBIpteLAbk&ab_channel=HarvardBookStore

Eric Monnet joins us to discuss his book *Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948-1973.* Prior to the neoliberalizations of the late 20th century, most central banks in Europe worked very differently than they do today. Interest rates played less of a role than credit controls in a more concentrated, segmented, and statist banking system. Representatives from all across the economy  - farmers, workers, industrialists - sat on important decision making boards that oversaw credit policy "in the general interest." A vision for "nationalizing" credit brought together right-wing Bonapartists, Gaulists, and neo-Simonian planners focused on efficiency with left-wing forces of the popular front focused more on social justice. But starting in the late 1960s, technocratic pressure to liberalize financial markets from economists and the bureaucracy overwhelmed the merely "particular" social interests which were embedded and represented in the French credit system.

Andrew Elrod from seven episodes back also joins the team!

For this episode, we talk with Nina Eichacker, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Rhode Island. We discuss her wide ranging work on green industrial policy, the politics of Eurozone monetary policy, and two pre-pandemic books about American socialism.

*** LINKS ***

Read more of Nina Eichacker's work on her web page: https://ninaephd.org/

Follow her on twitter: @nina_econ

"The Case for More Solyndras" https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/19/1012302/solyndra-climate-change-industrial-policy-opinion/

"Institutions, Liquidity Preference, and Reserve Asset Holding in the Eurozone Core and Periphery Before and After Crises: Some Stylized Facts" https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qprm3/

"A Political Economy of Fiscal Space: Political Structures, Bond Markets, and Monetary Accommodation of Government Spending Potential at Municipal, National, and International Levels" https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/yxjh5/

"Can America Truly Turn Socialist?" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1694274

Although we did not discuss it, also be sure to check out her NOEMA article with Jason Oakes: "Fight Inflation with Surplus, not Scarcity" https://www.noemamag.com/fight-inflation-with-surplus-not-scarcity/

For this episode, Christy Thornton joins us to talk about her book *Revolution in Development.* It tells the story of the revolutionary Mexican state's exclusion from the international financial system in the early 20th century, its new conception of credit and push for multilateral development lending in the interwar period, and its ultimately tragic defense of the Bretton Wood institutions in the postwar period. Along the way she asks us to think about hegemony in the world-system, agency in the global south prior to the much-hyped moment in the 1970s, and Mexico's revolution in development as a cautionary tale about compromise with dominant institutions.

Thank you to our intern, Keegan Hill, for helping to edit this episode.

*** LINKS ***

Christy Thornton's faculty page: https://soc.jhu.edu/directory/christy-thornton/

Buy *Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy* here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520297166/revolution-in-development

For this episode, we talk with Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America. We discuss some of the myths about inflation in the 1970s, the forgotten inflation of early 1950s, how monetary policy really works, and Paul Volcker's stolen valor.

Follow Skanda on twitter @IrvingSwisher and Employ America @employamerica

Read more about Skanda and EA's work here: https://www.employamerica.org/

For more on what we talk about in the show specifically, see:

https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/how-the-fed-affects-inflation/

https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/expecting-inflation-the-case-of-the-1950s/

https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/beyond-the-phillips-curve-a-dynamic-approach-to-communicating-assessments-of-maximum-employment/


*** OTHER LINKS ***

Jeremy Rudd (2021) - "Why Do We Think That Inflation Expectations Matter for Inflation? (And Should We?)," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-062. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021062pap.pdf

Cambridge Capital Controvercy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_capital_controversy

Jay Powell - "Monetary Policy in a Changing Economy" - https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20180824a.htm

Isabella Weber - "Could strategic price controls help fight inflation?" - https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/dec/29/inflation-price-controls-time-we-use-it

Great Grain Robbery - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_United_States%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_wheat_deal

Medicare and inflation:

Employ America - https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/inflation-and-healthcare/

San Francisco Fed - https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2016/may/medicare-payment-cuts-affect-core-inflation/

Chicago Fed - https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2018/407

Eric Helleiner joins us to discuss his fascinating new global history of neo-mercantilist ideas. In addition to the well-known "Listian Intellectual World" there is a whole universe of thinkers who were not derivative of List but did dream of industrialization by way of a protectionist and interventionist state. American Henry Carey, for example, was distinct on a number of dimensions - and more influential around the world. But there were also traditions endogenous to East Asia, which developed and expanded on earlier mercantilist discourses that can be traced back to China's Warring States period or Japan's feudal era. Rather than diffusing through the translation and circulation of a single text - as in the case of Smith or Marx - neo-mercantilist ideas seemed to spontaneously appear anytime the conditions were ripe for it. State forms other than the nation - from diaspora to empire to international institutions to a cosmopolitan world state - were dreamt of in the period before 1939 as possible vehicles for neo-mercantilist policy. Versions left, right, and center show how politically underdetermined it was as a discourse.

Note: this episode was recorded prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

*** LINKS ***

Eric Helleiner's faculty page: https://uwaterloo.ca/political-science/people-profiles/eric-helleiner

*The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History* https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501760129/the-neomercantilists

*Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order* https://www.google.com/books/edition/Forgotten_Foundations_of_Bretton_Woods/VTMPjwEACAAJ

A refresher on the original mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

Steve Pincus, Forum: Rethinking Mercantilism https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.1.0003

Fredric List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_List

Henry Carey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Charles_Carey

Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" excerpts https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s31.html

Commodore Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_C._Perry

Sun Yat-sen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen

EF Schumacher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher

Gustav von Schmoller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_von_Schmoller

Mihail Manoilescu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihail_Manoilescu

Marcus Garvey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey

Raul Prebisch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Prebisch

For this episode, we spoke with Charles Postel about his recent book *Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896.* After the Civil War, many social movements in favor of "equality" flourished in the U.S. -- champions of racial, sexual, regional, and economic equality pressed their case like never before. Organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Knights of Labor mobilized women and workers on a massive scale, while the Grange - a project initiated by federal bureaucrats from D.C. - assembled farmers into the largest and most coherent organ for class-interest in the country. Each had to face up to the practical dilemmas of pursuing national political power in an uneven and divided country.




****** LINKS ******

*The Populist Vision* - https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-populist-vision-9780195176506

*Equality: An American Dilemma* - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809079636/equality

"If They Repeal the Progressive Era, Should We Care?" - https://www.jstor.org/stable/43903026


*** REFRESHERS ***

The Grange - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grange_of_the_Order_of_Patrons_of_Husbandry

Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union

Frances Willard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard

Knights of Labor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Labor

Terence Powderly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_V._Powderly

Chinese Exclusion Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

Homestead Acts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Harper

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton

Henry George - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

Thomas Piketty - Capital in the Twenty-First Century - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century

T. Thomas Fortune - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Thomas_Fortune

Ignatius Donnelly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_L._Donnelly

The Omaha Platform - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Platform


*** HISTORIOGRAPHY MENTIONED ***

David Montgomery - Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 - https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p008696

Walter Johnson - The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States - https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/walter-johnson/the-broken-heart-of-america/9780465064267/

Gregg Cantrell - The People’s Revolt - Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300100976/peoples-revolt

Amy Offner joins us to discuss the contradictions of New Deal liberalism, Colombian developmental statism, and the transnational flow of ideas. There are more continuities between the midcentury moment and today than many realize, suggesting that perhaps the worst aspects of today's neoliberalism are in fact more enduring features of capitalism.

*** LINKS ***

Professor Offner's faculty page: https://live-sas-www-history.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu/people/faculty/amy-c-offner

Amy C. Offner - Sorting out the Mixed Economy https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190938/sorting-out-the-mixed-economy

Juan Gabriel Valdes - Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School of Economics in Chile https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/economic-history/pinochets-economists-chicago-school-economics-chile

Sarah Babb - Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691117935/managing-mexico

Heidi Tinsman - Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States https://www.dukeupress.edu/buying-into-the-regime

What's the responsible thing to do if inflation starts to rise? This week we talk with Andrew Elrod, who recently completed a dissertation on the history of wage and price controls in America between 1940 and 1980 at UC Santa Barbara. It turns out that mainstream American history offers a number of options for dealing with accelerating prices; monetary policy doesn't have to be the only game in town.

"When my new theory has been duly assimilated and mixed with the politics and feelings and passions, I can't predict what the final upshot will be in its effect on action and affairs. The task of keeping efficiency wages reasonably stable... is a political rather than economic problem. I do not doubt that a serious problem will arise as to how wages are to be restrained when we have a combination of collective bargaining and full employment. But I am not sure how much light the analytical method can throw on this essentially political problem." - JMK


****** LINKS ******

Follow Andrew on twitter: @andrewelrod

Check out more of his writing here: https://andrewelrod.net/

And the articles we discussed today here:

https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-politics/andrew-elrod-specter-inflation

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/many-inflations

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/construction-labor-shortage


*** MENTIONED ***

Mark Erlich - https://lwp.law.harvard.edu/people/mark-erlich

David Weil - Fissured Workplace - https://www.fissuredworkplace.net/

Allen J. Matusow - The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s - https://ugapress.org/book/9780820334059/the-unraveling-of-america/