Research Topics

An understanding of, and an intervention into, the present capitalist reality requires that we put together the insights of Karl Marx on labor, as well as those of Hyman Minsky on finance. The best way to do this is within a longer-term perspective, looking at the different stages through which capitalism evolves. In other words, what is needed is a Schumpeterian-like, nonmechanical view about long waves, where Minsky’s financial Keynesianism is integrated with Marx’s focus on capitalist relations of production. Both are essential elements in understanding neoliberalism’s ascent and collapse. Minsky provided crucial elements in understanding the capitalist “new economy.” This refers to his perceptive diagnosis of “money manager capitalism,” the new form of capitalism that came from the womb of the Keynesian era itself. It collapsed a first time with the dot-com crisis, and a second time, and more seriously, with the subprime crisis. The focus is on the long-term changes in capitalism, and especially on what L. Randall Wray appropriately calls Minsky’s “stages approach.” Our aim is to show that this theme has a deep connection with the topic of the socialization of investment, central in the conclusions of the latter’s 1975 book on Keynes.

The “happy talk” emanating from eurozone officials regarding the economic crises in the periphery deserves some vigorous pushback. Focusing on the four bailed-out countries of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, Research Associate and Policy Fellow C. J. Polychroniou argues in this policy brief that, contrary to the burgeoning optimism in official communications, these countries’ economies are still not on track for vigorous, sustainable recoveries in growth and employment—and that there is nothing surprising in this result. 

The International Bailouts of Greece

Research Associate and Policy Fellow C. J. Polychroniou argues that a political solution based on a new economic vision is needed to bring an end to the Greek crisis.  Polychroniou observes that what began as a financial crisis has been transformed into a full-fledged economic and social crisis by the neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund and the European Union (EU). Instead of growth, these policies have destroyed Greece’s economy, divided the eurozone states, and hobbled a fragile global recovery. The past six years have seen Greece’s descent into economic and social ruin. Exiting the current crisis, for Greece and countries throughout the eurozone, requires more than an end to austerity.  Broadly, EU institutions must be radically restructured around the principles of sustainable, equitable growth. Specifically, Greece needs a comprehensive development plan, with massive public spending and investment. 

The EU and the Pillage of the Indebted Countries

The European Union (EU) is a treaty-based organization that was set up after World War II as a means of putting an end to a favorite practice of the Europeans: sorting out their national differences by engaging in bloody warfare. The European experiment—the formation of a Common Market, which led eventually to economic and monetary union—has been linked to some remarkable outcomes: Europe has experienced its longest period of peace since the end of World War II, and war among European member-states now seems highly unlikely. Naturally, senior EU officials never miss an opportunity to remind the public of this achievement whenever the policies of the “new Rome” are questioned by a European citizenship fed up with authoritarian decision-making processes by the EU core, bank bailouts masquerading as national bailouts, austerity policies—and what amounts to the pillaging of the debtor countries by the center.

General Reflections and Considerations on an Era Ripe for Change

The global economy is in trouble. Indeed, the era of global neoliberalism, while still supreme, is fraught with serious problems and contradictions, as evidenced by both the recent global financial crisis and the inability of advanced economies to maintain steady growth and improve the condition of citizens. Global neoliberalism suppresses wages, increases inequality, and destroys the social fabric. It is a socioeconomic system in dire need of a replacement—and the responsibility falls clearly on progressive economics to chart a full-fledged alternative course.

A Case against Neoliberal Economics, the Domestic Political Elite, and the EU/IMF Duo

The crisis in Greece reflects the deep structural problems of the country’s economy, its bureaucratic inefficiency, and a pervasive culture of corruption. But it also reflects the deadly failure of the neoliberal project, which has become institutionalized throughout the European Union’s operational framework—with the International Monetary Fund the world’s single most powerful enforcer of market fundamentalism.

The Future of the Eurozone

With the crisis in the eurozone threatening the integrity of the European Union itself. German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues to brush aside calls to permit the European Central Bank to act as lender of last resort, and she remains steadfast against suggestions for the issuing of a eurobond. Yet Germany does have a plan for the eurozone, even if many prefer not to see it—a plan centered on Darwinian biopolitics and neoliberal economics.

Can the Blind Heal the Crippled?

Whoever said that economic science is free of ideological bias and political prejudice? Three hundred years of financial and economic crises have meant nothing to die-hard neoliberals, who believe in (among other things) self-regulating markets and trickle-down theory. With so many incorrect assumptions guiding market liberalism, it’s no wonder neoliberals have failed to draw the proper lessons from the Great Depression and turned a blind eye to the real causes of the global financial crisis of 2007–08 and the ensuing recession.

Greece’s Debt Crisis in Context

According to author and journalist C. J. Polychroniou, Greece was unfit to join the euro: its entry was orchestrated by fabricating the true state of the country’s fiscal condition, and its subsequent “growth performance” rested upon heavy state borrowing and European Union (EU) transfers. Moreover, the Greek economic crisis is also a political and moral crisis, as financial scandals and corruption have been major sources of wealth creation.

The EU and International Monetary Fund bailout plan (May 2010), which includes a structural adjustment program with harsh austerity measures, has been a social and economic catastrophe. Such policy ensures that Greece will default and be forced to exit the euro, says Polychroniou, but compelling Greek citizens to take charge of their own economic problems and national faults may be the best scenario. Extreme EU neoliberal policies also increase the risk of the eurozone’s dissolution.

The 2008 global financial crisis was the consequence of the process (1) of financialization, or the creation of massive fictitious financial wealth, that began in the 1980s,; and (2) the hegemony of a reactionary ideology—namely, neoliberalism—based on self-regulated and efficient markets. Although laissez-faire capitalism is intrinsically unstable, the lessons of  the 1929 stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s were transformed into theories and institutions or regulations that led to the “30 glorious years of capitalism” (1948–77) and that could have helped avoid a financial crisis as profound as the present one. But it did not, because a coalition of rentiers and “financists” achieved hegemony and, while deregulating the existing financial operations, refused to regulate the financial innovations that made these markets even  riskier. Neoclassical economics played the role of a meta-ideology as it legitimized, mathematically and “scientifically,” neoliberal ideology and deregulation. From this crisis a new democratic capitalist system will emerge, though its character is difficult to predict. It will not be financialized, but the glory years’ tendencies toward a global and knowledge-based capitalism in which professionals  have more say than rentier capitalists, as well as the tendency to improve democracy by making it more social and participative, will be resumed.