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Tom Palley has made a significant contribution to understanding the meaning and significance of neoliberalism. This chronicle collects some of his best work to explain how global adoption of neoliberal policies over the past thirty years has increased income inequality and created tendencies to stagnation.

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.

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.

Goodbye financial crash, hello stagnation -- The tragedy of bad ideas -- Overview: three perspectives on the crisis -- America's exhausted paradigm: macroeconomic causes of the crisis -- The role of finance -- Myths and fallacies about the crisis: stories about the domestic economy -- Myths and fallacies about the crisis: stories about the international economy -- The coming great stagnation -- Avoiding the great stagnation: rethinking the paradigm -- The challenge of corporate globalization -- Economists and the crisis: the tragedy of bad ideas revisited -- Markets and the common good: time for a great rebalancing

El presente artículo sostiene que la corriente predominante en la economía está amenazada por las teorías que atribuyen la crisis financiera y el estancamiento subsecuente a las políticas que la profesión ha justificado y recomendado. Estas teorías amagan la existencia de la perspectiva dominante y, a causa de ello, los economistas del mainstream se resisten férreamente a abrir un diálogo con quienes las formulan, ya que ello implicaría legitimarlas. Esa renuencia ha contribuido a bloquear las políticas requeridas para hacer frente al estancamiento, generando así un vacío político que se ha intentado llenar al activar fuerzas realmente ominosas. Esas dañinas reacciones políticas no obedecen a una intención deliberada; no obstante, se han diseminado y conllevan un peligro de alto calibre: la muerte del pluralismo en economía. La crítica que se hace de los economistas de la corriente predominante no versa sobre los "valores" en los que se sustentan o sobre su falta de voluntad de "cambio": busca poner en relieve que su práctica académica consiste en suprimir ideas que, desde su punto de vista se ciernen en forma intimidante sobre su existencia.

The case for central bank independence is built on an intellectual two-step. Step one argues there is a problem of inflation prone government. Step two argues independence is the solution to that problem. This paper challenges that case and shows it is based on false politics and economics. The paper argues central bank independence is a product of neoliberal economics and aims to institutionalize neoliberal interests. As regards economics, independence rests on a controversial construction of macroeconomics and also fails according to its own microeconomic logic. That failure applies to both goal independence and operational independence. It is a myth to think a government can set goals for the central bank and then leave it to the bank to impartially and neutrally operationalize those goals. Democratic countries may still decide to implement central bank independence, but that decision is a political one with non-neutral economic and political consequences. It is a grave misrepresentation to claim independence solves a fundamental public interest economic problem, and economists make themselves accomplices by claiming it does.

This paper argues the mainstream economics profession is threatened by theories of the financial crisis and ensuing stagnation that attribute those events to the policies recommended and justified by the profession. Such theories are existentially threatening to the dominant point of view. Consequently, mainstream economists resist engaging them as doing so would legitimize those theories. That resistance has contributed to blocking the politics and policies needed to address stagnation, thereby contributing to a political vacuum which is being filled by odious forces. Those ugly political consequences are unintended, but they are still there and show the dangerous consequences of the death of pluralism in economics. The critique of mainstream economists is not about "values" or lack of "change": it is about academic practice that suppresses ideas which are existentially threatening.

Recently, there has been a burst of interest in modern money theory (MMT). The essential claim of MMT is sovereign currency issuing governments do not need taxes or bonds to finance government spending and are financially unconstrained. MMT rests on a triad of arguments concerning: (i) the macroeconomics of money financed budget deficits, (ii) the employer of last resort or job guarantee program, and (iii) the history of money. This primer analyzes that triad and shows each element involves suspect economic arguments. That leads MMT to underestimate the economic costs and exaggerate the capabilities of money financed fiscal policy. MMT's analytic shortcomings render it poor economics. However, its simplistic printing press economics is proving a popular political polemic, countering the equally simplistic and wrong-headed household economics of neoliberal austerity polemic.

This paper argues neoliberalism is engaged in a war against the welfare state. At issue are competing views regarding the size of the welfare state and how it should be organized. In waging this war, neoliberalism seeks to politically discredit the traditional welfare state and change the economic structure so that the latter becomes unviable. The paper presents a new theoretical framework that distinguishes between modes of production and financing of the welfare estate. Neoliberalism's war rests on ideologically grounded criticisms drawn from mainstream economics; implementation of policies that undermine social solidarity toward the welfare state; exploiting pressures fostered by neoliberal globalization; and misrepresentations about affordability. The welfare state was critical in saving capitalism from itself after World War II. It is a way of embedding the market system so as to produce socially acceptable outcomes that are politically stable. Neoliberalism's war promises a body blow against shared prosperity. More ominously, it may so dis-embed the market system as to recreate conditions Polyani (1944) blamed for the rise of fascism in the 1930s.

The deepening of economic globalization appears to have ground to a halt and the process may even unravel a little. The sudden stop has surprised economists, whose belief in globalization has strong parallels with Fukuyama's (1989) flawed end of history hypothesis. The paper presents a simple analytic model that shows how economic globalization has triggered political and geopolitical contradictions. For the system to work, politics within countries and geopolitics across blocs must be supportive of the system. That is missing. The model is applied to a global economic core consisting of the US, China, and the European Union. It is revealing of multiple tensions, fracture lines, and contradictions. Within the US, globalization has delivered economic outcomes that have estranged the electoral bases of both major political parties. It has also delivered outcomes that are inconsistent with the US neocon geopolitical inclination. President Trump is a product of those forces, and he will likely prove to be a historically significant figure. That is because he has surfaced geopolitical contradictions that cannot be swept back under the rug. Ironically, his biggest impact may be on the European Union, particularly Germany, which is being compelled to recognize the neocon nature of the US and the vulnerabilities of dependence on US exports and technology. China was already aware of its vulnerabilities in those regards.