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Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us (2010)

by John Quiggin(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0691145822 (ISBN13: 9780691145822)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Princeton University Press

review 1: This book slays the assertions of free market liberalism, sometimes known in Australia as "economic rationalism".. Written by an Australian academic economist, it thoroughly dissects the claims of free market economics for trickle down benefits, financial deregulation, privatisation, productivity improvements and supposed moderating effects on the economy. The GFC has blown many of these claims out of the water, but more than that, Quiggin painstakingly analyses the evidence from a historical and global perspective to explain exactly why and where they have failed to deliver. As for the riposte that is often given regarding the failure of Keynesianism during the 70s stagflation era, he addresses that issue also. That problematic era highlighted the need to address inflatio... moren via macroeconomic policies, and he praises the Hawke government for its usage of the Accord in moderating wages as part of its policies to manage inflation. He argues that Keynesianism policies can be adjusted in light of the learnings from that time, and that the free market policies adopted actually made the recovery a lot slower than it might otherwise have been.He advocates a new economics that is less ideological and obsessed with unrealistic microeconomic fantasy worlds, instead being more focused on macroeconomic realities, and managing risk throughout the economy on a social basis by means of government policy interventions. But he comes out very strongly in favour of a mixed economy which balances public and private sector involvement in various sectors as appropriate for the conditions of the times.I found the book somewhat lacking in a political context and the realities of class power. For that reason, and the fact that the book was somewhat academic and less accessible to the (educated) layman, I'm only giving it three stars. It's a useful source of economic analysis and information, though.
review 2: John Quiggin's Zombie Economics makes a very creditable critique of the key economic ideas that supposedly drove the neo-liberal boom from the 1980's through to 2008 (the Great Moderation) and then all came spectacularly unstuck in the GFC. That the crises was not in any way obvious to the world of economics academia and they're media spokespeople just goes to show how out-of-touch the profession has become.My one quibble with Professor Quiggin is that after some very astute and well documented criticism his conclusions tend to be relatively weak. This is particularly so when one is familiar with the work of more heterodox economists such as Ha-Joon Chang and Michael Hudson, and just goes to show how steeped in economic academia the good professor is. less

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