michael perelman wrote: > A core element of neoclassical economics was to emphasize transactions > rather than work, workers, or working conditions. The idea was that > the justification of the system was the utility enjoyed by consumers. > All considerations of work, workers or working conditions were to be > swept aside. Production is relevant only insofar as serves to satisfy > consumer needs. > > Macroeconomics was expected to depend upon this neoclassical micro > foundation. Nonetheless, macroeconomics centered on demand is > rejected by all good austerians. Instead, the current fad is to > emphasize supply-side economics. Trading the social safety net > encourages hard work. Tax cuts ensure more employment. > > Over and above the self-destructive consequences of austerity, the > recent wave of austerian nonsense has the unintended consequence of > contradicting the intellectual foundation of neoliberal economics.
the austerians [*] assume that labor and other factor markets will quickly move to full employment of all inputs, so that decreasing demand reduces both prices and nominal wages. If there are any problems with this process, it's because of government intervention in markets (or other non-market forces). So the austerians demand that all markets must be forced to imitate the imaginary perfect market. Flexibility! -- Jim Devine / "When truth is nothing but the truth, it's unnatural, it's an abstraction that resembles nothing in the real world. In nature there are always so many other irrelevant things mixed up with the essential truth." -- Aldous Huxley [*] wasn't there a 1960s rock group called "Question Mark and the Austerians?" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
