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The term financialization is a term that has become popular to describe developments within the global economy, and particularly within developed industrialized economies, over the past thirty years. The book is divided into four sections, which together give a comprehensive treatment of the economics and political economy of financialization.

El neoliberalismo es una filosofía económica política que parte de dos afirmaciones: una económica y otra política. La económica es que el libre mercado del laissez faire es la mejor manera de organizar la actividad económica, pues genera resultados eficientes que maximizan el bienestar. La política es que las disposiciones económicas de libre mercado promueven la libertad individual. Este artículo argumenta que ambas afirmaciones son problemáticas. La evidencia del experimento de 40 años que comenzó en 1980 muestra que el neoliberalismo ha socavado la prosperidad compartida y ha desatado fuerzas no liberales que amenazan la libertad. El artículo marca la diferencia entre el primer giro político, en el que se estableció la hegemonía política neoliberal, y el segundo, hacia el protofascismo que ahora experimentamos. Este último está siendo impulsado por una serie de factores que crean una demanda por dicho protofascismo y debilitan las defensas contra las ideas de ultraderecha. Esos factores incluyen el desarraigo socioeconómico, la destrucción institucional y el desarraigo político, el aumento de la desigualdad económica que inclina el poder político, el cambio de las actitudes hacia el gobierno y la gobernanza, la transformación de la identidad económica y la mutación cultural que celebra el egoísmo sociópata. La captura de la política de centro-izquierda por parte de la "Tercera Vía" significa que las élites liberales ocupan el lugar político que deberían tener los verdaderos opositores al neoliberalismo. Tales élites obstruyen la política necesaria para revertir las causas profundas de la desviación hacia el protofascismo. Irónicamente, eso las convierte en un verdadero peligro.

ABSTRACT This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers an alternative framing based on the construction of national policy space. The paper makes three main contributions. First, building on Stein (2016), it deconstructs the categories used by Rodrik (2011) and introduces distinctions between the "degree", "type", and "dimensions" of globalization; "effective" versus "formal" national sovereignty; "content" versus "process" of democracy; and "national" versus "global" democracy. The deconstruction shows countries face choices involving a series of margins, not a trilemma. Second, that suggests reframing the problematic in terms of national policy space, which is the "funnel" through which globalization impacts democracy and national sovereignty. Third, the paper shows a country can be impacted by globalization even if it does nothing because other countries' actions change its possibility set. The reframing shows globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.

This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers an alternative framing rooted in the construct of national policy space. Globalization causes changes in policy space which have drop-down implications for national sovereignty and democratic politics. Globalization involves choices regarding the "degree", "type", and "dimensions" of international economic integration. Contrary to the trilemma, the multi-faceted nature of the choices means there are no inevitable implications for sovereignty or democracy. Globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.

The essential claim of MMT is sovereign currency issuing governments, with flexible exchange rates and without foreign currency debt, are financially unconstrained. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic arguments behind that claim and shows they are suspect. MMT underestimates the economic costs and exaggerate the capabilities of deficit financed fiscal policy. Those analytic shortcomings render it poor economics. However, MMT's claim that sovereign governments are financially unconstrained is proving a popular political polemic. That is because current distressed economic conditions have generated political resistance to fiscal austerity, and MMT fits the moment by countering the neoliberal polemic that government lacks fiscal space because it is akin to a household.

This paper reconstructs the income - expenditure (IE) model to include a distinction between government purchases of output versus government production. The distinction has important consequences for output and employment multipliers. The paper also extends the IE model to incorporate a government job guarantee program (JGP), and the extended model illuminates the automatic stabilizer properties of a JGP. The model is then extended to include Kaleckian income distribution effects. That generates a novel Kaleckian balanced budget multiplier driven by changed composition of government spending. The paper concludes with some economic and political economy concerns about a JGP that are flagged by the model.

This paper uses hysteresis to develop the concept of policy lock-in and lock-out. Policy changes may near-irrevocably change the economy's structure, thereby changing the distribution of wealth, income and power. That may lock-in policy by changing the political equilibrium. Exit costs that block policy reversals also cause lock-in. Conventional thinking treats policy as a dial which is adjusted according to the economy's state. Policy lock-in questions the dial formulation and raises new issues for optimal policy design. It also offers insights into economic and political crisis theory. Policy lock-in is illustrated with examples that include tax policy, government spending, the euro, globalization, and the neoliberal policy experiment.

This paper explores the likely contours of Trump's international economic policy. A key element of Trump's political success has been his masquerade of being pro-worker, which includes being anti-globalization. However, his true economic interest is the exact opposite. That creates conflict between Trump's political and economic interests. Understanding the calculus of that conflict is critical for understanding Trump's international economic policy. Trump will strongly criticize globalization but the bark will be worse than the bite because globalization has increased corporate profits. Trump also expresses neocon unilateralist tendencies that are not a one-off temporary political aberration. Instead, they reflect intrinsic and enduring features of the current US polity. That has profound implications for the international relations order, and is something foreign governments may not yet have digested.

The euro zone (EZ) was created in January 1999. Its weak economic performance is significantly due to the euro's neoliberal monetary architecture and the design of monetary policy. Those features undermine national political sovereignty and consign the EZ to severe economic under-performance, which in turn fosters political demands for exit from the euro. Escaping this dynamic requires restoring fiscal space to EZ countries, and also changing the design of EZ monetary policy. The paper shows how this can be done. It decomposes the challenge of reform into generic problems related to the neoliberal construction of monetary policy, and specific problems concerning the euro as a currency union. The currency union problems are further decomposed into money – fiscal policy architecture problems and specific monetary policy conduct problems.