What's your explanation for the much-observed fact that most of the productivity gains of the last thirty years haven't trickled down to most of the workforce?
Monetary policy is one of the main reasons. Instead of letting a secular deflation emerge with growths in total factor productivity, central banks still do price level stabilization instead. The monetary disequilibrium economists have written much on this. George Selgin has a great and relatively accessible essay called Less Than Zero that discusses this.
No one in modern economic theory belieces the Marshallian tradition is identical to modern neoclassicism - never mind neoliberalism.
But there is no single "modern neoclassicism," that's the point. Yet to somehow deny that Marshall was a neoclassical is to make the term meaningless. The approaches of Marshall, Menger, Walras and others all had important differences despite being ultimately lumped as "neoclassical".
Neoliberalism isn't even an economic idea. It's a political term used by people opposed to it to describe what they perceive as a shift into corporate rule since the 1970s. Yet this narrative is full of holes, not least of which is the history of mercantilism, imperialism and later corporation-state cooperation. I'll be writing a book on this subject at some point.
>Monetary policy is one of the main reasons. Instead of letting a secular deflation emerge
Yeah, that's what happened in the 19th century. It didn't help improve poverty at all - exactly the opposite, in fact. The series of financial crises and subsequent misery is partly what led to the creation of the federal reserve.
>Neoliberalism isn't even an economic idea.
It's strongly linked to neoclassicism. Plenty of neoliberal dogma has its underpinnings in neoclassical ideas (e.g. theory of the firm).
Deflation is not an issue if accompanied by growth in TFP. It's acknowledged that the period from 1874-1896 was one such event. As for banking panics, they were always particularly bad in the United States because of geographic limitations, specific bondholding requirements and other restrictions.
Theory of the firm has many variants. Coasian, Alchian, evolutionary, etc. Again, what type of neoclassicism? What is neoliberalism, anyway? [1] It's used as a snarl term rather than a particular set of ideological convictions. I've seen it used to describe various forms of economic liberalism, but also more esoteric Foucaltian analyses.
The Golden Age of Capitalism was still a time of imperialism (Truman Doctrine in effect), one of seven times less regulation than today (as measured by size of the Federal Register) and all sorts of other statuses that are nowadays attributed as being unique to neoliberalism. There was no sudden "jump" in the 1970s, it's been an ongoing process since mercantilism.
>Deflation is not an issue if accompanied by growth
Which it isn't, because it acts as a choke on spending.
>It's acknowledged that the period from 1874-1896 was one such event.
Acknowledged by historical revisionists.
>As for banking panics, they were always particularly bad in the United States because of geographic limitations, specific bondholding requirements and other restrictions.
Or rather, lack of counter-cyclical spending.
>Theory of the firm has many variants. Coasian, Alchian, evolutionary, etc. Again, what type of neoclassicism? What is neoliberalism, anyway?
A political ideology that champions unconstrained markets, privatization, fiscal austerity and zero constraints on the movement of goods and capital. This isn't a controversial definition even if people do use it with a snarly tone of voice.
>There was no sudden "jump" in the 1970s,
If you take a look at the share of labor's income as a % of GDP there absolutely was. The trigger point was likely Reagan firing the air traffic controllers (that marked government support for open season on all unions).
Monetary policy is one of the main reasons. Instead of letting a secular deflation emerge with growths in total factor productivity, central banks still do price level stabilization instead. The monetary disequilibrium economists have written much on this. George Selgin has a great and relatively accessible essay called Less Than Zero that discusses this.
No one in modern economic theory belieces the Marshallian tradition is identical to modern neoclassicism - never mind neoliberalism.
But there is no single "modern neoclassicism," that's the point. Yet to somehow deny that Marshall was a neoclassical is to make the term meaningless. The approaches of Marshall, Menger, Walras and others all had important differences despite being ultimately lumped as "neoclassical".
Neoliberalism isn't even an economic idea. It's a political term used by people opposed to it to describe what they perceive as a shift into corporate rule since the 1970s. Yet this narrative is full of holes, not least of which is the history of mercantilism, imperialism and later corporation-state cooperation. I'll be writing a book on this subject at some point.