economics

Isabella Weber and the Historical Case for Price Controls

by Zachary Carter

Her calls for exploring the efficacy of targeted caps on prices was widely mocked in 2021. A year and a half later, are caps precipitated by the war in Ukraine proving her point? 

Can Capitalism Exist Without Excess?

by Trevor Jackson

The pandemic supply chain disruptions have focused attention on shortages, but the problem of gluts—of food being destroyed when it can't be profitably sold–reflects a deeper problem with global capitalism. 

Review: The Right-Wing Abuse of Adam Smith

by Kim Phillips-Fein

Glory M. Liu's account of Adam Smith's reception in America explains how American politicians read selectively in Smith's capacious writings on political economy and public morality to construct a self-interested view of the market as a natural phenomenon, writes historian Kim Phillips-Fein. 

The History of Consumption Taxes Shows GOP Won't Eliminate IRS

Consumption taxes are successful when they target luxury purchases and the rich. A broad-based consumption tax like the one proposed by House Republicans to replace the income tax would be suicidal to even bring to a vote. 

Libertarianism's Philosophers Come Out Worse For Wear

by Rebecca Brenner Graham

A fellowship at a leading libertarian institute convinced the author that the movement sees its luminaries as icons, not as historical figures. 

Adam Smith Resolved the Identity-Distribution Debate—Why Is it Forgotten?

by Corey Robin

The political scientist Corey Robin considers a new book on Adam Smith's thought, and the role it played in posing questions about the purpose of the economy, and its relationship to individuals a selves embedded in society. 

Work More, Consume Less: The Coercive Nature of Austerity Politics

by Clara E. Mattei

Austerity politics isn't simply about balancing government's books; it is a political means of declaring the primacy of capital. 

Why Didn't Joe Biden Go to War with Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve?

The policies the Federal Reserve has pursued in response to inflation threaten to treat the problem with a recession that will harm working families and potentially doom the Biden administration. Why hasn't the President pushed back against the bankers? 

God Save Us From the Economists

by Timothy Noah

Actress Jayne Mansfield was killed in a 1967 traffic accident; a truck trailer safety regulation review prompted in part by her highly public demise was finally implemented in 1996, after nearly 9,000 people were killed in similar crashes. Why? Blame a bipartisan faith in economists as policymakers. 

Urban Unrest, Stagflation, and Labor Strife: Why is 1970s Economic Policy Coming Back, Too?

Is panicky use of weak historical analogies driving economic policy back to the 1970s when the country is still suffering from the fallout of the first round of austerity politics? 

Economism as a Red Scare Legacy

by Landon Storrs

An economic historian traces the rise of neoliberal political economy to the post-WWII Red Scare, when Keynesians were driven out of government service under suspicion of disloyalty. 

Bosses Know Why Workers are "Quiet Quitting"

Workers are doing more for less, and have been for decades. Industry knows this; they're worried that workers are beginning to understand it, too. 

Virtue and Vice: Looking for the Real Adam Smith

by Glory Liu

Smith's work on political economy has long been seen in tension with his investigation of empathy and other moral sentiments. Paul Sagar's new book argues that scholars have mistaken Smith's intentions in order to falsely reconcile the market and morality. 

Brad DeLong's "Slouching Toward Utopia" Calls a Close to the Prosperity of the Long 20th Century

Particularly for Americans, the period between 1870 and 2010 was a miracle of sustained and growing prosperity. But Brad DeLong also says that it's over. 

What Happens When People Who Don't Know Historical Methods Spout Off About Historical Methods

by Bret Devereaux

"It is going to end up being rather involved because to explain why a shallow critique of a discipline’s methods is shallow, you have to explain how that discipline functions and why it does so."

The Lost Opportunity to Set Post-Soviet Russia on a Stable Course

by Robert Brent Toplin

The transition from communism was always going to be difficult for Russia and other post-Soviet states. But American politicians and advisors must share blame for the rise of oligarchy and Putinism as responses to economic instability.

We're Talking about Climate Change with Outdated Colonial Language

by Priya Satia

The dominant climate activist theme of sacrificing in the present to protect the future is rooted in the intellectual history of economics which has driven the profligate consumption and gross inequality that threatens the planet. 

Bad Economics

by Simon Torracinta

A historian of science reviews three books on the history of economic thought, which support the conclusion that the ideas animating the mainstream of the discipline and enabling it to dominate discussions of policy are badly in need of reexamination. 

How Academia Laid the Groundwork for Redlining

by Todd Michney and LaDale Winling

Richard T. Ely and his student Ernest McKinley Fisher pushed the National Association of Real Estate Boards to adopt "the unsupported hypothesis that Black people's very presence inexorably lowered property values," tying the private real estate industry to racial segregation. 

Why Are Moderate Dems Trying to Blow Up Biden's Economic Plan?

by Zachary D. Carter

Centrists' efforts to chisel away at the Build Back Better bill threaten its passage, its effectiveness, and the prospects of Democrats to hold power in the future. A biographer of John Maynard Keynes wonders why they're doing it.