Mark Blyth - A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a great primer on how neoliberalism developed and why the postwar order broke down.
What it is
Political economist Mark Blyth gives a lecture tracing two versions of capitalist 'software': the postwar Great Compression era and the neoliberal era from 1980 to 2008. He explains the bug that crashed the first and the design of the second.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2019 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec ep103 · 2019-12 · on “Paul Volcker has died”
"Other People's Blood". “...to establish its credibility, the Federal Reserve had to demonstrate its willingness to spill blood, lots of blood, other people’s blood.” - Reagan’s economic adviser Michael Mussa on Volker [LINK] I've been desperate to learn more about this since watching Mark Blyth's talk "A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why" ( [this video] ) And while Blyth takes the opinion that Volker and Friedman were just the next steps in the evolution of capitalism, and I am still desperately lacking knowledge about this context, I can't help but have a feeling that if the future is continues with worsening inequality and political instability in a neoliberal context, we'll look back a
Recommends 0xfaded · 2021-02 · on “Block The New York Times”
neoliberalism has a fairly specific meaning in academic contexts. There absolutely was a "culture war", or war of ideas, that was waged to sell deregulation and privatization to the masses. Ironically, these included some fairly generous handouts, e.g. earned income credits or the welfare programs in the UK funded by the oil windfall. Ultimately, we wouldn't have ended up were we are today without a continuous campaign selling neoliberalism. It's how the Democrats became the party of wall street, and new labour in the UK is more conservative than the tories 50 years ago. Mark Blyth gives a great primer called "A brief history of how we got here and why": [this video]
Cites ayngg · 2022-03 · on “A Look at the Slow, Silent Death of America’s Middle Class”
A lot of it is politicians chasing a golden age where everything lined up for American prosperity which we can't really return to. The postwar period had so many things going for America, everyone else was rebuilding or bankrupt, immigration was very low, the majority of global capital was USD, strong capital controls meant domestic investment which hindered outsourcing and de-industrialization and the monetary policy of the time was reacting to prewar era of massive unemployment that led to political instability in the world, so they focused heavily on full employment to maintain stability. Focusing on full employment meant wage growth was persistent since it was always in high demand, whic