Prof. Mark Blyth: What is wrong with austerity?

Mark Blyth is a political economist whose research focuses on how uncertainty and randomness impact complex systems, particularly economic systems, and why people continue to believe stupid economic ideas despite buckets of evidence to the contrary. He is the author of several books, including Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Oxford University Press 2013, and The Future of the Euro (with Matthias Matthijs) (Oxford University Press 2015)
#austerity #politicaleconomy
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[@tenmanX]

31:07... the sheer brilliance of that explanation of austerity's sales pitch!

[@county8815]

Mark Blythe is excellent speaker and political economist. I thoroughly enjoyed his books and lectures.

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

Excellent interview. Brilliant questions.

[@jason8434]

Great interview, on both sides! You do an excellent job asking questions that demonstrate your grasp of the topic and draw out the guest as an interlocutor. I've been watching old lectures of Leo Panitch from the 2010s, including his analysis of the resurgence of the radical Left (Corbyn, Bernie, Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain). Panitch also revised Marx's obsolete theory of imperialism in the context of American Superpower after 1989. Unfortunately, Panitch died from Covid, but you might invite his comrade and co-author Sam Gindin on as a future guest, to discuss how their analysis has evolved or changed from the 2010s to the 2020s. Mark Blyth reminds me of Panitch in his grasp of the global mechanics of capitalism. Panitch was a Marxist but not in a dogmatic way, he knew that classes are not "made" once and for all but are constantly remaking themselves. That's what makes a class revolutionary, its ability to remake itself and to remake the world in its own image. That's what Marx himself respected about the bourgeoisie, its revolutionary dynamism. Panitch also said that the proletarianization of the Global South will necessitate a transfer of wealth and reduction of living standard for the Global North, so we must find a way to recast how we view the inevitable transfer of wealth from North to South. It seems to me that austerity is partly about making the lower classes bear the burden of this transfer so that the capitalist class doesn't have to suffer any loss or reduction. Anyway, I'm looking forward to your next interview!

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Interesting thoughts. Thanks for suggesting Gindin. We will definitely write to him. Of course we all miss Panitch, but nothing can be better than discussing his ideas.

[@cbrace]

sGreat comment! Socialism in the 21st C will not look like that envisaged in the 19th C, but seems some comrades haven't figured that out yet. Long live pragmatism, theory+praxis, etc!

[@dazpatreg]

This is a brilliant channel. Great interview

[@davidanderson9664]

Thank you - excellent. D.A., NYC

[@EvolutionWendy]

Great topic!!

[@davidchristofferstockman488]

Another great interview on this channel, keep it up!

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Much appreciated! Stay in touch David.

[@user-ty7bt4lx5d]

Good interview!

[@EvolutionWendy]

Thus guest, so impressive-You understand your privilege, and are OUTRAGED That future students are no longer able to get the education motivated people deserve.

[@julianshepherd2038]

You don't pay for university education in Scotland

[@julianshepherd2038]

England, its 9000 per year

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

Time stamps pls

[@justgivemethetruth]

Welfare state aside, right now we have to be talking about and concerned about the class genocide state.

[@sushipsychose]

Makes you think… Why would it be in the interest of the slave-owners to genocide their slaves, huh

[@justgivemethetruth]

@@sushipsychose What do you come up with?

[@dimitry123pavlov4]

great interview. political thought, economics and fun!

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Thanks

[@JS-ll5gk]

I thought I liked Mark before. Then I found out he’s a bass player ❤❤❤

[@jollyjack4271]

Professor, what do you think about resource based economy which was advocated by Jacques Fresco? Do you have an alternative to money based economy?

[@personzorz]

All economies are resource-based. It's a question of how to coordinate the use of the resources.

[@toseeornot2see]

Great channel.

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Thanks Samar. Happy to be in touch.

[@stephenwallace8782]

Aww, that's a nice opening there.

[@stephenwallace8782]

Amazing opening, with Piketty. And reference to Gramsci

[@johnnash1491]

Great interview. Leftists may not have to give up their radical theory, to engage with Keynesian economics. Blyth may overestimate the redistributive power of the free-market, but he is right on the point that the welfare state is important, as long as we are living under capitalism.

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Thanks John.

[@tomt55]

Great interview. I have never heard a question put to Professor Blythe as to what is the solution. Does he think a socialist solution would resolve these fundamental issues of income inequality and planetary degradation? Is Capitalism going to just continue to run over everything until a dystopia is inevitable?

[@IndiaGlobalLeft]

Thanks a lot. Stay in touch. When we have him again, (obviously not anytime soon), for a different work; we ll make sure to ask your question.

[@Gigika313]

👍🏼

[@kayedal-haddad9294]

Austerity is completely counter-productive by its own terms!

[@cougar1861]

Short answer to video's title question: Austerity is history's most effective (and "stealthily clean") weapon of mass destruction.

[@eottoe2001]

Girls, boys & others from the US and Canada, "liberalism" discussed here is "economic liberalism". 🙂

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[@joneshannover167]

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[@haleyconnor5365]

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[@haleyconnor5365]

Davi norman (don't space) ,

[@toseeornot2see]

Woaoooh! This is a great talk! I'd like to invite you to my youtube channel, Jyotishman! YOu are incredible. I remember reading Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom where he talks about usury and prodigals. I have a limited understanding, but Smith as a man, had he been alive, would be getting sick at how much his works have been distorted. In fact, when I was listening to Wealth of Nations, I was struck by how much it sounded like Management accounting.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

Working class background or not, Mark is speaking from the perspective of an investor who is worried that the value of UK assets he holds will decline because of left-wing economic policies, not a blue collar worker getting shafted by the boss, or someone struggling in poverty who would benefit from Corbyn's policies. He is basically pushing a very mildly progressive investor class perspective.

[@justgivemethetruth]

What makes you say that? But moreover, why shouldn't he be concerned for his own finances? This purity demand is something you can always trot out in a partisan way because no one can live up to it.

[@fun_ghoul]

@@justgivemethetruth Silence, liberal.

[@swpolitical]

@@justgivemethetruth we ain't no demanding/begging him to become a loon left. We are just showing him that the solution that he proposes isn't good enough. Regarding his finances, well his assets value is dependent who is going to go under more debt than him.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@justgivemethetruth It's rational for him to be concerned with his finances, but it's also rational for viewers to take his self-interest as an Ivy League professor in the top 5% or 1% of the income distribution into account when evaluating his hostility to Corbyn and all things "socialist" (and I recall he was similarly hostile to Sanders on the Mark and Carrie podcast).

[@dynamitecity9667]

Mark grew up in poor, working-class Dundee in Scotland, by living off his gran's state-funded pension. And even though he's not a blue-collared worker, he's certainly still recognises and speaks about his roots, he's all for paying that bit extra in tax as long as those like himself, coming from poor backgrounds benefit, and why shouldn't they? They're the future earners and tax payers after all.

[@fun_ghoul]

I'm obviously not pushing for austerity, but...that isn't why someone like Finkelstein can't get work as a professor, or why Grover Furr (

[@swpolitical]

Agreed, mark does throw hissy feet against the "left", which is quite weird if you ask me. Calling yourself "working class guy" and then trying to propound neolib. That being said, he brings in views from his Neoliberal world that is important. He did give a speech in diem25/Mera25 event. His podcast is quite good as well in tackling the myths in economics. I reckon he's in his "bargaining" phase with the neolibs.

[@fun_ghoul]

@@swpolitical "Working class guy" is the sweetener used to make the message more palatable to workers, like mixing arsenic with honey...

[@sushipsychose]

I guess I really don't understand how someone who's rather aggressively anti-austerity can be a neoliberal, as austerity is basically the gist of neoliberalism as I understand it apart from law & order policy

[@swpolitical]

@@sushipsychose His analytical side is anti-austerity, but the solution is very anti-left. For instance he tries to club right wing populist with left wing "populist".

[@sushipsychose]

@@swpolitical Ah, I think I get it. So this is what the bourgeoisie has come up with as a new "moderate" type to counter revolutionary thought? As in, "Yes, business caused all of our problems, but we desperately cannot get rid of them"?