New IMF Paper Challenges Neoliberal Orthodoxy [View all]

[GRhodes]

Good paper, worth reading. However, I doubt it will make a difference as far as what the IMF actually does. They did a staff report on the failure of austerity a few years ago and did exactly what that paper critiqued thereafter. Good reading anyway.

Here's a summary from Nakedcapitalism, with the link to the paper. How many "moderate" and right wing Democrats (in power and on this site) will ignore this? Many, as it challenges the some of the essential elements of the very economic model the Clintons and president Obama support.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/new-imf-paper-challenges-neoliberal-orthodoxy.html

While the IMF’s research team has for many years chipped away at mainstream economic thinking, a short, accessible paper makes an even more frontal challenge. It’s caused such a stir that the Financial Times featured it on its front page. We’ve embedded it at the end of this post and encourage you to read it and circulate it.

The article cheekily flags the infamous case of the Chicago Boys, Milton Friedman’s followers in Pinochet’s Chile, as having been falsely touted as a success. If anything, the authors are too polite in describing what a train wreck resulted. A plutocratic land grab and speculation-fueled bubble led quickly to a depression, forcing Pinochet to implement Keynesian policies, as well as rolling back labor “reforms,” to get the economy back on its feet.

The papers describes three ways in which neoliberal reforms do more harm than good.

...Overly mobile capital...Austerity...Increasing inequality.