Dean Baker, Michael Hudson, Rob Urie, Richard Wolff, Mark Blyth, globalization, austerity, capitalism, mixed economies, GND Green New Deal, monetary policy, US United States, EPA Environmental Protection Agency, Kennedy
Dean Baker offers in this column a critique of the Green New Deal (GND), a set of legislative proposals put forward by progressive (left-wing) members of the Democratic Party in the United States. The GND is an ambitious set of policies designed to revamp the entire American by making it less oil-dependent in order to cut Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, as well as engage in large-scale redistribution towards middle- and lower-middle classes, through better-paying jobs, affordable education and healthcare.
Michael Hudson offers a historical perspective on what he calls mixed economies: a market economy with some degree of public intervention. His definition runs the gamut of public regulation: he refers for instance to the Progressive era of the early 20th century, when mixed economy referred to natural monopolies as public ones - for instance, transportation, education, healthcare and so on.
[...] In short, if a government can print its own currency, then its spending plans are not bound by amounts of tax revenues they can collect, since they can borrow as much as they would want to fund expenditure instead. In MMT's terms therefore, it makes sense to fund GND policy proposals purely through debt. Baker argues that such an argument ignores the side effects of excessive monetary growth, namely inflation. He suggests that stimulus proposals such as the GND are bound to take the U.S. [...]
[...] “Henry George and the Progressive Movement.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol no pp. 259–269. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3484179. The Green New Deal, Capitalism and the State. Counterpunch - Tells the facts, Names the Names. February 2019. Weblink accessed April 2019. The Life & Legacy of Rachel Carson – Website, accessed April 2019. [...]
[...] In the United States, after the Obama administration passed a 700 Billion Dollars stimulus package, the expansionary fiscal policy was quickly replaced with austerity measures as early as 2010. Meanwhile, spending cuts affect disproportionally the most vulnerable individuals and communities in those economies affected by austerity measures – a stark illustration of the maxim that the post-industrial capitalist system has privatized financial gains, and socialized risks. Yet even as Wolff's analysis appears well documented and straightforward, it implicitly assumes that there a conscious strategy designed to hurt as many individuals as possible, even if reality is more complex than Wolff makes out. [...]
[...] Originally published in The Hankyoreh, March Weblink, accessed April 2019. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Could Cost $93 Trillion, Group Says. Bloomberg, February 2019. Weblink accessed April 2019. Mixed economies and monopoly - The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: Mixed Economies Today, Compared To Those Of Antiquity (Part 2). Michael HudsonOn finance, real estate and the powers of neoliberalism. April 3rd Weblink accessed April 2019. Noble, Ransom E. [...]
[...] The great austerity shell game – The Guardian, November 2013. Weblink accessed April 2019. L'Etat français va injecter 10,5 milliards d'euros dans six grandes banques – Le Monde, October 2008. Weblink accessed April 2019. Les banques françaises s'acquittent de leur dette envers l'État – La Tribune, February 2011. Weblink accessed April 2019. The crisis of globalisation: interview with Mark Blyth – Social Europe, January 2019. Weblink accessed April 2019. [...]
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