Bichler & Nitzan, ‘Book Review: Steve Keen (2021) The New Economics: A Manifesto’

Abstract Steve Keen’s book, The New Economics: A Manifesto (2021), offers a new path for economics, and for good reason. In his view, neoclassicism, the paradigm that rules modern-day economics, has become a serious menace: “I regard Neoclassical economics as not merely a bad methodology for economic analysis, but as an existential threat to the […]

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Do we believe that the average Chinese adult is “wealthier” than the average European?

Originally published at Fresh Economic Thinking Cameron Murray Do you believe this headline? I don’t. The many problems with measuring a country’s wealth are on full display in this Credit Suisse report. But let’s start a little closer to home. When I married my wife I promised to look after her financial and material needs. […]

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No Shortage of Profit: Semiconductor firms and the differential effects of chip shortages

Chris Mouré Note: this is the manuscript version of an article now featured in The Mint Magazine. Few will argue with the claim that shortages are socially harmful. Shortages, by definition, imply a lack of something – not enough stuff to go around. A shortage of food implies hunger; a shortage of electricity implies darkness. […]

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The antitrust case against Prime

Originally published at pluralistic.net Cory Doctorow The starting gun on Big Tech trustbusting was fired in 2017, when Lina Khan, then a law student (now an FTC trustbuster!) published “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” a law-review article showing how Amazon formed a monopoly without legal trouble. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox The key was a Reagan-era shift in antitrust policy, based […]

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The Half Life of a Spotify Hit

Originally published at Economics from the Top Down Blair Fix The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. — Hunter S. Thompson meme1 Browse the internet long enough and you’ll eventually run across Hunter S. Thompson’s meme […]

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The habits of Netflix’s users

Originally published at notes on cinema James McMahon Like other streaming services, Netflix does not make its user data public. To date, there are two exceptions to this privacy. Netflix released a large dataset of anonymized user activity when it offered a one million dollar prize for the best AI model that could predict user […]

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Di Muzio & Dow, ‘Covid-19 and the Global Political Economy. Crises in the 21st Century’

Abstract Covid-19 and the Global Political Economy investigates and explores how far and in what ways the Covid-19 pandemic is challenging, restructuring, and perhaps remaking aspects of the global political economy. Since the 1970s, neoliberal capitalism has been the guiding principle of global development: fiscal discipline, privatisations, deregulation, the liberalisation of trade and investment regimes, […]

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Mouré, ‘No Shortage of Profit: Technological Change, Chip ‘Shortages’, and Capital Accumulation in the Semiconductor Business’

Abstract Rapid technological change is often touted as a fundamental reality of capitalist societies. It is also often presented as concrete evidence for the supposed progressive improvement of material well-being that characterises the capitalist system of social order. Since its emergence in the mid-20th century, semiconductor technology in many ways exemplifies this reality. Yet the […]

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How the Sacklers rigged the game

Originally published at pluralistic.net Cory Doctorow Two quotes to ponder as you read “Purdue’s Poison Pill,” Adam Levitin’s forthcoming Texas Law Review paper: “Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.” (W. Guthrie) “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.” (H. Balzac) (paraphrase) Some background. Purdue was/is the […]

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Kolasi, ‘Pensions and Power: The Political and Market Dynamics of Public Pension Plans’

Pensions and Power The Political and Market Dynamics of Public Pension Plans ERALD KOLASI June 2022 Abstract This paper uses the theory of ‘capital as power’ to analyze the struggle over public pensions in the United States. While mainstream commentators claim that public pensions must be ‘reformed’ because they are ‘under funded’, I argue that […]

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