comments on RWER issue no 78

  1. March 23, 2017 at 11:59 am

    Anne Mayhew observes that ‘seeing humans as members of communities whose place in a larger world has been fundamentally altered by globalization and the internet, makes [economic] measures insufficient’. I find this recognition of place and community to be helpful in three senses. First, ‘place’, in the social sense of community, puts flesh on the bones of what otherwise would be a rather too-dry account of social reproduction as a purely economic process – by adding to this a sensitivity to locality, social linkage and even (maybe crucially) compassion. Second, framing issues in such a manner gets us away from the condescending and downright wrong description of voters in terms of being ‘left behind’ – as if they would rather like to join the cosmopolitan world and, with some effort, could be helped to. On the contrary, they reject what some scornfully have described as ‘anywhere’ mentalities and lifestyles. Third, ‘place’ as a pivot for thinking usefully challenges those of us who, whilst we are appalled by Trump, Brexit and similar phenomena, nevertheless have our own critiques over globalism/neoliberalism. How to reconnect?

  2. March 30, 2017 at 4:51 am

    Marshall Auerback introduces a thought experiment of a one-man economy. He claims that this single producer/consumer would never trade because, in doing so, he will never consume. But the argument is fallacious. Dr. Auerback does not describe trade; he describes throwing money into the trash can. In principle, whoever this producer would trade with may also be willing to purchase the single-man’s goods and thus both are made better off. In fact, if this thought experiment were true, no one anywhere ever would trade with anyone else; we’d all be subsistence farmers and the economy grinds to a halt.

  3. July 28, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    This comment is about Dr. Stephanie Kelton’s article re Trumponomics. I have read (in Michael Hudson’s work, I believe) that the US government includes rentier income in the definition of GDP. Do your graphs follow that definition?

  1. No trackbacks yet.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.