economic history

• 
• SOURCE: Democracy
  9/15/2022
  

  Economics is Power, not Math: Why the Dems Should Attack Monopoly

  by Barry C. Lynn

  Until the Reagan Revolution, American politics reflected the understanding that concentrated economic power was corrosive to democracy. Today, the Democrats need to revive that story as a political argument. 

• 
• 9/11/2022
  

  Inflation Opened the Door to American Neoliberalism

  by Thom Hartmann

  An inflationary crisis proved to be the justification for reworking the American political economy in the direction of the vast inequality we observe today. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/3/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  8/27/2022
  

  Is Jerome Powell Following History to Fight Inflation?

  by Adam Tooze

  Jerome Powell has drawn history into his public rationale for raising interest rates, arguing that his Fed won't repeat the problems of inaction of the 1970s. Is he risking a recession by ignoring the different causes of inflation today? 

• 
• 8/26/2022
  

  Historians Respond to Biden's Student Debt Relief Order

  How are historians responding to the Biden administration's order to forgive $10,000 of student debt for borrowers with incomes under $125,000?

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/14/2022
  

  Marc Gallicchio on Truman and the Transition to a Peacetime Economy

  As victory over Germany approached, Truman's economic and military advisors debated whether to begin to divert resources back into civilian production to ease what promised to be a difficult economic reconversion. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  7/5/2022
  

  The Crisis Historian Has Bad News About the Crisis

  "Wherever our current catastrophe is headed, it has been good to Adam Tooze, he tells me with some bewilderment."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  3/28/2022
  

  How Economic Historian Adam Tooze Pushed the "Dirtbag Left" Off the Podcasting Throne

  For a certain left-leaning online audience, Tooze's rigorous approach is beating out ironic smartassery and the shallower efforts of some self-styled "explainers" to build a potent public intellectual brand. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  3/9/2022
  

  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. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/7/2022
  

  The Economy is Good, Actually

  by Zachary D. Carter

  An economic historian says that the recovery from the pandemic is historically good in terms of the share of gains going to low-income workers, but the politics are not working in the Democrats' favor. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/2/2021
  

  After 20 Years, Enron Still Haunts Us

  by Gavin Benke

  Despite Enron's bankruptcy and the resulting economic fallout, American business media is still dangerously credulous toward promises of "innovation" and "disruption" without asking whether the latest hot entrepreneur is using smoke and mirrors. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  11/29/2021
  

  Lizabeth Cohen: Why Americans Buy So Much Stuff

  As holiday shopping overlaps with historic supply chain disruptions, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Lizabeth Cohen on the economy's reliance on spending and the culture of consumerism in the U.S.

• 
• SOURCE: Dissent
  11/10/2021
  

  "The Ivory Tower is Dead": An Interview with Davarian Baldwin

  Davarian L. Baldwin's work interrogates how universities in postindustrial cities exemplify new models of economic development and are implicated in the problems of labor exploitation, gentrification and inequality. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/1/2021
  

  Land of Capital: Jonathan Levy's "Ages of American Capital" Reviewed

  by Steven Hahn

  "Ages of Capitalism" is one of the first synthetic accounts of the relationship of capitalism and American politics and society, and provides an important vocabulary for a developing field of inquiry. It also, oddly, resonates with the older consensus history that assumed capitalism as a core part of American life.

• 
• SOURCE: Woodrow Wilson Center and National History Center
  9/17/2021
  

  Indentured Students: Elizabeth Tandy Shermer on Student Debt (Monday, October 4)

  Elizabeth Tandy Shermer shows that Democrats and Republicans intentionally wanted to create a student loan industry instead of generously funding colleges and universities, which eventually left millions of Americans drowning in student debt. Zoom, Monday, Oct. 4, 4:00 PM EDT.

• 
• 9/19/2021
  

  Inequality Tends to Reach Political Tipping Points – Is That Happening Today?

  by Richard Vague

  "Proposals for a $15 minimum wage, more support for childcare and education, and even an alternative minimum income did not emerge out of nowhere as radical notions imported from Western Europe."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/13/2021
  

  The History of the Debt Ceiling: How a Routine Procedure Became Routine Political Brinksmanship

  It's clear that the originators of legislation establishing a debt limit for the United States did not intend for the measure to be a land mine threatening to derail the government's operations on a recurring basis. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/1/2021
  

  What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?

  by Adam Tooze

  The disjointed and haphazard global response to the COVID pandemic bodes poorly for the world's capacity for coordinated action to face inevitable crisies in the near future. The problem isn't a lack of means but a lack of commitment to collective action.

• 
• SOURCE: Democracy
  8/31/2021
  

  Wartime Wisdom to Combat Inflation

  by David Stein

  Today, monetary policy controlled by the Federal Reserve is the only tool commonly used to control inflation, pitting controlling prices against full employment and wage growth. The history of the World War II Office of Price Administration reveals other possibilities. 

• 
• SOURCE: Project Syndicate
  8/31/2021
  

  Back to the Seventies?

  by Kenneth Rogoff

  Problems of political economy complicate the job central bankers face in setting interest rates. From international relations to domestic politics to an aging population, an economist considers the similarities and differences between now and the 1970s.