Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Jack Goldstone on the Present Crisis in Political Economy

This post by Jack Goldstone strikes me as a very well-considered appraisal of our current political-economic situation. (I'm thinking more and more that one simply cannot discuss macroeconomics without including politics, thus taking us back to an appreciation of the older term "political economy".) As a regular reader of his blog, his insights seem pithy & well-taken. He understands that we have a struggle--dare one utter the term?--class struggle, over the direction of the economy. (N. B. I don't think the rather crude idea of class struggle that Marx & Engels suggested proves very helpful, but on the other hand, as my medieval history professor used to say, you do need to figure out "whose ox gets gored" in an political-economic situation.) Goldstone appreciates that we have both a "typical" recession and structural problems, thus, a double-whammy. Along with Krugman, I find Goldstone one of the most enlightening commentators on our current situation.