Comments on: Developing a new economic ‘common sense’

By: The Bickerstaffe Record » Blog Archive » A question to Sam Tarry

The Bickerstaffe Record » Blog Archive » A question to Sam Tarry — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:25:40 +0000

[...] you, I do know quite a lot. The MEP who was speaking used the word ‘narrative’ a lot, like I do, but it didn’t really get us anywhere. A shame, because there’s much in the [...]

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:52:15 +0000

oo I should just like to point out, Paul, that I wasn’t accusing you of ever getting dragged towards the epistemological bollox, as you rightly call it, it was a generalisation. Julian Glover and Jackie Ashley have written some interesting pieces in today’s Guardian that bear some resemblance to the issues at hand here.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:26:24 +0000

Thanks Carl. Yes, I’ve a tendency to get dragged towards epistemological bollox, but as this was about creating a comprehensible narrative for government to adopt (some hope!, I thought I’d better resist.

By: carl

carl — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:06:58 +0000

Its good to see these matters on the neoliberal obfuscation of commonsense written without the (often) unnecessary wider conversation on postmodern multitude or epistemologies whatsoever, as exciting as these conversations can be. The problematic of the neoliberal economic needs to be thrown back into the socio-political domain.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:49:29 +0000

As a further thought, Chris, the ‘mixed blessing’ of consumption surely depends on what is being consumed, and that fits with Duncan’s supply side arguments (green industry etc. etc.). Will fit that within my next post.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:00:39 +0000

Chris

Thanks for that and for dropping in – paper and links look v interesting. Will read and digest. I’m having trouble with It at work (filter) linking to your site, but hoping to resolve it soon.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:58:44 +0000

Chris,

“If redistribution had no impact upon growth, would you really stop calling for it? I wouldn’t.”

Nor would I. But I think here we have a happy overlap.

By: chris

chris — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:56:23 +0000

If you want some empirical evidence on the link between equality and GDP growth, I gathered some here:
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2007/06/inequality-and-.html
I didn’t enough bother thinking about the equality-propensity to consume link, as I suspect this is a mixed blessing.
But surely, the case for redistribution of wealth and power exists outside of macroeconomics – not least in the fact that the rich and powerful’s claims to possess expertise, and especialy managerial expertise, is a pure fiction.
If redistribution had no impact upon growth, would you really stop calling for it? I wouldn’t.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:16:28 +0000

After a bit more thought:

http://duncanseconomicblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/a-new-political-economy/

By: Duncan

Duncan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:37:10 +0000

Excellent Post.

This is, in economic terms, the ‘demand side agenda’ we need to go along with the industrial policy ’supply side agenda’.