Who needs a new economic paradigm?
What’s behind the ambition, on both the left and right, to promote a transformative vision of the field?
[LONDON] Demand for new economic paradigms is fast outrunning supply. On the left, the Institute for New Economic Thinking claims that “mainstream economics has demonstrated blind spots that have impaired its effectiveness and credibility – and failed society at large … We need a new vision of the economy that aims to serve society”.
The more than 500 economists who signed the Berlin Declaration, including such luminaries as Dani Rodrik, Laura Tyson, Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato, and Angus Deaton, told the world that “we are living through a critical period. Markets on their own will neither stop climate change nor lead to a less unequal distribution of wealth. Trickle-down has failed … What is needed is a new political consensus addressing the deep drivers of people’s distrust”.
Not to be outdone, the right also calls for a new agenda that the president of the Heritage Foundation says should be “based on the principles of limited government, economic freedom, a robust civil society, and a strong national defence”. The new agenda’s goal? To counter “woke totalitarianism’s escalating culture war”.
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