Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics

A critical examination of economics' past and future, and how it needs to change, by one of the most eminent political economists of our time

The dominant view in economics is that money and government should play only minor roles in economic life. Economic outcomes, it is claimed, are best left to the "invisible hand" of the market. Yet these claims remain staunchly unsettled. The view taken in this important new book is that the omnipresence of uncertainty makes money and government essential features of any market economy.

Since Adam Smith, classical economics has espoused non-intervention in markets. The Great Depression brought Keynesian economics to the fore; but stagflation in the 1970s brought a return to small-state orthodoxy. The 2008 global financial crash should have brought a reevaluation of that stance; instead the response has been punishing austerity and anemic recovery. This book aims to reintroduce Keynes’s central insights to a new generation of economists, and embolden them to return money and government to the starring roles in the economic drama that they deserve.

• The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
• Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government
• Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
• Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy
• The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties
• Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment
• Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities
• The Fed and Lehman Brothers: Setting the Record Straight on a Financial Disaster (Studies in Macroeconomic History)
• A Crisis of Beliefs: Investor Psychology and Financial Fragility
• The AI Advantage: How to Put the Artificial Intelligence Revolution to Work (Management on the Cutting Edge)