Wolfgang Streeck's conception of the crisis-phase of democratic politics: a post-Keynesian critique

Depictions of the politics of crisis in advanced societies (what crisis is and what can be done) continue to pit different strands of political science and heterodox political economy against each other. Economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck's contributions to these controversies have emphasised ‘embeddedness’, or the need for economies to incorporate non-functional or deliberated elements which allow functional and market-focused processes to play themselves out. Streeck's recent writings on debt-induced crisis nonetheless accept too much orthodox liberal disquiet: most fatefully, a contempt for politics based on what seems to be an untenable assertion – that rich societies have hit the limits of their capacity to increase taxation. Capitalism has entered an ‘end point’, he claims. This article presents, again, contrary evidence and offers suggestions for a revised heterodox understanding of capitalism's current malaise.     

THE TREATMENT OF MONEY IN REGIONAL ECONOMICS

ABSTRACT. A survey of regional monetary theory suggests a regional segmentation of financial markets on the basis of differences in portfolio preference, or market imperfections. These possibilities are explored here using post-Keynesian monetary theory. It is concluded that the availability of credit to a region depends more on the (potentially volatile) degree of confidence in the regional economy. The amount of liquidity thus generated depends on the propensity for capital flight due to liquidity preference. The resulting tendency for regions attracting low degrees of confidence to experience liquidity shortage will be greater the more integrated the national banking system.     

The economic consequences of economists

During 1991, disquiet with the policy recommendations and ultimate economic effects of economists began to feature in debates over economic policy in Australia. One example was the emergence of a conservative critique of economic liberalism; another was the publication of Michael Pusey's research showing that ‘econocrats’, notably those in the federal bureaucracy, have distinctive, politically significant attitudes to the role of government. This paper considers the influence of economic orthodoxy as part of a broader phenomenon—the peculiarity and underdevelopment of our public institutional framework. In Australia, forms of intervention required for full employment simply do not exist. This partially explains both our comparatively poor macroeconomic performance since the 1970s and the propensity of government to embrace policies that abrogate social democratic commitments while economic conditions worsen.     

Digital containment and its discontents

This essay explores a set of existential risks that accompany digital storage capacities, devices, and promises: the anxious exhaustion of digital housekeeping; the disorientation of self-archiving; and the annihilating sense of loss that strikes when digital containment fails.