Mark Blyth for Age of Economics - Full interview
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- Опубліковано 17 тра 2024
- Age of Economics: in the first part of this project a diverse group of global thinkers answers 8 fundamental questions about economics and capitalist civilization. (Interview number 18)
0:00 - Prologue
01:31 - Intro
01:50 - 1. Why does economics matter?
04:55 - 2. What are the differences between economic science and economic engineering?
08:09 - 3. What role does economics play in society? Does it serve the common good?
16:25 - 4. Economics provides answers to problems related to markets, efficiency, profits, consumption and economic growth. Does economics do a good job in addressing the other issues people care about: climate change and the wider environment, the role of technology in society, issues of race and class, pandemics, etc.?
19:23 - 5. As we live in an age of economics and economists - in which economic developments feature prominently in our lives and economists have major influence over a wide range of policy and people - should economists be held accountable for their advice?
21:29 - 6. Does economics explain Capitalism? How would you define Capitalism?
25:55 - 7. No human system to date has so far been able to endure indefinitely - not ancient Egypt or Rome, not Feudal China or Europe, not the USSR. What about global Capitalism: can it survive in its current form?
28:00 - 8. Is Capitalism, or whatever we should call the current system, the best one to serve the needs of humanity, or can we imagine another one?
About Mark Blyth
Scottish. Economist, author, William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics at Brown University
Blyth grew up in Dundee, Scotland. In 1991, Blyth received a Walker Bequest award from the University of Strathclyde and a Scottish International Educational Trust Award for Study in the United States. He eventually became a US citizen. Blyth received a BA in political science from the University of Strathclyde in 1990. He went on to receive a MA in political science in 1993, an MPhil of political science in 1995, and a PhD in political science in 1999 from Columbia University. In 1997, Blyth joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as an assistant professor of political science. From 2005 to 2009, he was an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins. In 2009, Blyth became a professor of international political economy at Brown University’s Department of Political Science. Since 2014, he has been the Eastman Professor of Political Economy as part of a joint appointment at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies and the Department of Political Science. As of 2020, Blyth is the William R. Rhodes ‘57 Professor of International Economics and Director of the Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at Brown University.
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Interview by William Hynes
Music: J.S. Bach, from The Well-Tempered Clavier. Kimiko Ishizaka, piano. Video by Fabio Dondero
Have enjoyed reading about and watching Dr. Blyth’s process of wrestling with the utility of Economics since reading his ‘Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea’ of 2013. Dr. Blyth is obviously addressing Economics as both a set of analytic tools used to understand humanity’s place in the world, and as the process which will underlay the perfection of theories upon which the redesign of humanity ought to be based.
I'll be buying the book when it drips, can I pre-order yet? Seriously though, i hear a vision I have been anticipating being born, the anti-despair one. No pressure, but we need to get this ball rolling pretty quickly. Which is to say you're not pissing in the wind. What we have has made no sense since the 1970's, for too many parts of the world, it never made sense. Humans are not on the Earth, we are of the Earth. A copper mine in Alaska that kills the last, best salmon run in the world, the inhuman extraction of cobalt, and thousands of atrocities pursued by vulture capitalists are killing life, unsustainable. Sustainable alternatives are available. It's time.
Well said.
Unfortunately the political objective of sustainable society is diametrically opposed to those things you mention. Sustainably mined kobolt will never reach those that are enslaved in those mines today. This green transition will only serve the rich that want broadly attainable green tech at the expense of the poor humans giving their life so that educated westerners like ourselves can alleviate our consciousness.
With 8 individuals owning 50 % of the world's wealth, I think its more than clear that the current system is failing and failing in a spectacular fashion. Increasing, people in the West are being priced out of the very basics of life such as food and shelter (a humble home). And the military industry complex is on a killing spree yet again. Economists, please get your poo together and get us a better system. My grandparents had healthy food and a humble hovel. We are going backwards despite technological progress and deaths of despair are Increasing.
Economic Calculation in a Natural Law / RBE, Peter Joseph, The Zeitgeist Movement, Berlin
ua-cam.com/video/K9FDIne7M9o/v-deo.html
YAWN.....!
when you get rule by the top 10% the reaction will be populism .. 'elite segregation' perpetuates a system that is out of whack for the majority ...
If you're one of those 8,its working great.
Humanity before nationalism, we are sitting in the same boat when it comes to Global Warming Emergency. A policy of only enriching t. very rich does not work any longer, the lower middle and the working class h. been exploited by a reckless system of capitalism that is to investigated carefully.❤
As I listen to the esteemed economist, I don't hear him say the word corporatocracy. Inverted fascism as Chris Hedges describes it, whereby the corporate state, assumes absolute power and renders the government completely survile to its needs and demands. We all know about the revolving door where public and private sector operatives switch places and use their insider understanding of one realm to manipulate the other. Describing the monetary landscape without the inclusion of such kleptocratic proclivities is insufficient to the task.
I suggest you read Angrynomics by Eric Lonergan and Mark Blyth. There needs to be a rebalancing between corporations and the State, but if people don't get behind pushing that, it's not going to happen. It's becoming obvious that Neoliberalism has failed, but what came before also failed. All the anti-State rhetoric coming out of the US, is myopic, because the State is a tool, and can be used for good or ill, because of the resources it commands. And people have to demand change. Moreover, the previous arrangement was built on sand too. Economic colonialism doesn't work either in the long run, as there is only one planet we have, so our capitalism has to adapt to taking care of it.
there's already a term for that. it's called neoliberal capitalism. Chris hedges likes to make up redundant terms.
@@djangofett4879 corpotocrasy isn't reconised by my predilection txt
Fascism is a totalitarian nationalistic ethnostate which has nothing to do with neoliberalist corporatism. Both are shit but also unrelated.
He's a rich white Liberal.
The system works for him.
What we're you expecting?
I mean, who am I to argue with the first ever person that made sense of the 2007-8 financial crisis for me. But I just feel like if your definition of capitalism includes the Roman Empire, then you're not using the right definition. If markets were the defining feature of capitalism, wouldn't it be more properly called marketism? Wouldn't it make more sense to say it's called capitalism because society is organized around the ownership of capital? The people who own the capital have all the power, it seems. Even if your country is defined as a "democracy", studies found that the more wealth you own, the more your opinions influence public policy. That's why we're not moving on climate change at the speed that would be warranted, because the people who make all the decisions will be fine no matter what. Richistan won't be flooded.
Markets are efficient, capitalism ain't. We've had electric trains for over a hundred years, and communist China is building them at a mind-boggling rate, yet in the West we have people treating it evident that decarbonizing transport will require churning out and selling a billion cars with a half-ton battery each every 10 years. That's capitalist "efficiency" for ya.
Mediaeval markets were centred around capital ownership, it is just that most capital was either inherited or taken by violence. There is no functional difference between marketism is a subset of capitalism.
Also economic systems are not systems of governance, they only describe how resources are distributed.
Economic efficiency is a measure of the waste or loss of resources through the systems of distribution either at the per node level or systemically from point of origin to end use.
It is important to not confuse a broad term like capitalism with the loonies who ascribe some sort of moral agency to it like it is a god.
Every system has its flaws and there is no magical unified economic system that fixes everything wrong with the world. I wish social sciences would stop trying to make their personal field the one true field like a cult.
Eg Communism doesn't scale effectively and capitalism requires scale and regulation to stop it collapsing into market feudalism.
The way I think about capitalism, whether that's strictly speaking the right word to use or not, is that it's arbitrage of scarcity. Without scarcity, the market mechanism drives price down to production cost, making it impossible to make any profit and may make it difficult to invest. In that case, the capitalist response is to re-introduce scarcity in order to make profit. So, IMO cases of abundance should not be subjected to markets but handled differently.
As for efficiency of markets, I think people should be very careful about that statement. It tends to become an article of faith. Market efficiency exists through partial optimizations, not full optimization, and is thus prone to creating non-optimal outcomes.
Another thing to ask is efficient in what. Efficiency is often only relevant in terms of profit (though subject to differing opinions on what strategy creates most profit) and other considerations are subservient to it. Often those other considerations are the main point of the operation and are difficult to convert to profit motive by regulatory means. So, introducing markets may e.g. introduce gaps in service where none existed before, in the broadest meaning of the word "service". It may just be a way of outsourcing responsibility for cuts or reforms or even a pointlessly roundabout and inefficient way to increase service funding.
Markets are anything but efficient. Market capitalism has indeed seen the growth of income inequality, stagnant wages, the concentration of assets in the hands of less and less people, a decline in the welfare of those outside the lofty heights of the hallowed few, and an increase in monopoly power amongst consumer markets. Why? Those who espouse neoliberalism love markets because they have the market power to manipulate them.
Sums it up.
@@blechtic "arbitrage of scarcity" -price discovery/supply side. The problem with this is that we have market manilpulation. Take the labour market --big business demand the free movement of labour..to drive down wages..politicians (who are funded by big business) oblige..
Economics literally makes life appear simple.
This is not a force for good.
Applying mathematics to wrong assumptions is extremely dangerous, as we see all around us.
Economics does no such thing, it in fact does not say anything about life at all.
Applying math to wrong assumptions makes those assumptions testable so that is a good thing to do. The most dangerous bad ideas are those that claim to be free of empiricism.
@@SurmaSampo A false assumption should *not* be tested. If it's obviously false it and everything proven with it needs to be ignored. So, people are naximilly greedy is false. Banks lend their depositors' money is false. The Gov. is like a houshold is false. The US national debt will be paid down by $3T (let alone paid off) someday is false.
What is your view on Gary Stevenson - Gary's economics
He seems sensible to me and at least he understands many of the issues facing ordinary people. He hasn't entirely forgotten his working class roots.
He's great, very pragmatic
I'm not an economist, but can someone explain why it seems that a market based economy always ends in monopolies (winner takes all). To my mind, this is counter to the idea that market based competition drives efficiency and innovation. I understand why this might come about through risk -banks will lend more to bigger more established firms -thus allowing them to buy up the competition or out spend the competition etc etc..Unfortunately this also gives those monopolistic firms the resources and opportunties to influence and corrupt the regulators/government and also become "to big to fail". So the market is quickly distorted and theories have gone out the window! My point is I don't think liberalised free market capitalism can self regulate -it's not closed loop -there are people involved. I think we are at a fork in the road. We can go back to a more feudal/rentier system or encourage a more dynamic system where governments are there to build the foundations for enterprise and investment not just protect the assets of the already wealthy.
how about "capitalism is a mode of dominating the world system via the monetary control over the markets" ? J.S.Bach is eternal )
He doesn't address cooperativism. I want him on Economic Update with Prof. Wolff!
A lot of what Mark says is spot on. It's a shame he doesn't ever seen to want to make that final step.
I really love how he describes the failures of the current system. The "neoliberal conservative" exhibits system that we've had for about 50 years now. Milton Friedman and all that, ya know. It seems though, that economists in general always want to fix the system, using the current system. No-it's the system that's wrong (which Mark admits), so why would anyone try and fix what went wrong by doing more of what made it wrong? Even Mark gets caught up in this total idiotic fallacy. ( even though he seems to see it and gets half way there)
@yumpladukfoo ignore Wolff.
The answer is revolution, and he won't touch it.
Do you want cancelling? Me or him either.
I think you have to consider what changing the system means. Changing the system isn’t a matter of voting in a few different politicians that support workers owning the means of production. Changing the system means revolutionary violence, which means many dead people. This is actually where people get mistakenly put off by Marx’s writings. Marx was saying that they should implement communism AFTER the violent revolution, but people often misconstrue that (intentionally and unintentionally) to mean he was calling for that violent revolution. No, he felt that the capitalist system would lead to violent revolution on its own, he wasn’t calling for it.
I think Mark and other economists like Stephen Keen and Anwar Shaikh are well aware of the flaws in the capitalist system, but their goal is to try to mitigate those flaws before it leads to violence. I do agree that it’s probably not a realistic possibility. There are so many contradictions that it may be impossible to address them all… but when the alternative is revolution, it’s probably worth a try to make the current system work better than it currently is.
@@TheCommonS3Nse The current capitalist rent-seeking thieves need to learn what those large slicey-things were for.
Russia has just put a stop to the West stealing the wealth of Africa, and gave France a bloody nose. Economists always leave out that theft force and corruption aided Capitalist markets, and that is over. Western Neo liberal idealogs have run out of Countries to pillage and bomb..
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Davi norman (don't space)
Economics shows us what could be possible if we lived in a rational world with rational actors. The problem is we do not live in such a world. Policy makers are forced to act in the best interest of the top 1%, and they use psychological warfare to manipulate much of the 99% into believing their best course of action aligns with the policies of t he 1%. The best any economist can hope to achieve is to make the irrational system a tiny bit more rational -- a lot like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
If we lived in a rational world the top 5% would enslave everyone else and commit genocide on all the weak. Empathy is irrational even if it is logical for humans to have and express it.
@AppleScab (Venturia inaequalis
) I agree that it is certainly better to give than to receive. Since you are the younger that will be our position.
Deluded drivel !
Ugh I hate how the questions aren't said outloud. Otherwise I would be able to listen to this at work with the video off. Love Mark Blythe though.
So, the shorter version is Capitalism is just a tool that any system can use. Your hoping that we can change this dud system into a more sustainable system by using the same Tool and expecting something different. I think I've heard that before.
Heh. "Magic-money-land".
There is a ring of truth to that.
I would like to see someone approach the topic of capitalism from a historical perspective. When did it emerge...500 years ago? What did it look like 400, 300, 200...100 years ago? We know what it looks like now...descent into oligarchy. How did we get here?
there's heaps on this but genuinely Marx and Engles write some of the best. "History of the state, private property and the family" is pretty good
If you're looking for genuinely interesting book on this, read "debt. The last 5000 years"
Money is made by credit at this point and i couldn't care less.
Green transition is not economically viable , unless we invest in Nuclear energy to provide high skilled long term jobs.
"Voluntary interaction through a price mechanism in order to exchange goods and services" isn't what serious thinkers (and certainly not what Marx or Marxists) have understood by capitalism. "Simple commodity production", to use the jargon, wasn't capitalism and, from 500 BC to the 18th century, was usually part of a very different economic system indeed. Anyone who has understood Polanyi must surely see the difference. Markets existed long before capitalism and play only a small part in any serious definition of it.
Well, Marx was wrong as he was a product of his time and lacked the access to information we have now. He conflated the self proclaimed capitalist of his time and place with the simple principles of capitalism.
The powers that be don't care what you call their economic system.
"Eh'll heh a peh an' an ingan an an a'"
Why would slavery be incompatible with capitalism? Surely capitalism found it's purest expression in 18th and 19th chattel slavery and the EIC running India for profit. Both of which we stopped because they gave terrible results.
Ye cannae defy the Laws o ' Physics Captain. ! The epitome
of the Pub bore - banging on the same old drivel every time
we see him !
How long have you(economists/bean counters) been getting it wrong(and can the cost to us be calculated)....make something real & try to sell it.
Start more efficient recycling instead of fighting for a redistribution of wealth?? My respect for Blyth just went down. Blyth says the latter 'will never happen'. It HAS to happen. As in, it is both inevitable and must also be fought for. Do you really think the exponential flow of wealth into fewer and fewer hands - as per the necessary logic of capitalism - is sustainable? Whether it results in fascism and/or war or whether there is some kind of black swan event that saves the working class remains to be seen.
Economics is the study of Capitalism.
Without Capital the Wealthy would have no leverage
to maintain their comfy lifestyle.
The reason why the carbon tax thing hasn't gone forward is that everyone be it consciously or subconsciously knows that the intended point of a carbon tax regime is to make certain industries go extinct. The reason why this makes everyone jam on the brakes and not go through with it is because the alternative to those industries is EXCLUSIVELY returning to a more technologically primitive society where people have to walk everywhere, only enjoy local food that is in season, die of heat exhaustion in the summer, die of cold in the winter, die of stroke due to all the salt in the food and so on. Essentially live like the Amish. Something that climate activists (and Mark Blythe it seems as well) just cannot accept is that the technological alternatives do not actually exist. We are not in the position we are in environmentally because of sin, that is a lie. Civilization is not a sin to have.
There is not enough lithium on the planet for personal transport to be converted to that battery technology. There isn't even enough for a 100% green energy grid, as the energy grid would have to store excess power for MONTHS. When Germany needs the most energy it's in the winter at night, precisely when the sun isn't shining and the sun doesn't shine very much in Germany to begin with. The end result is that the solar panel network that they built that should provide 120% of their electrical energy needs provides less than 10%. It is not feasible. As a result they rely on coal power as a backup so even when the sun is shining they got these coal fires burning because the power plant cannot be allowed to cool down, it takes too long to warm up. Denmark lies saying "we got 100% of this town's energy from wind!" expertly sidestepping the fact that there is a coal fire burning 24/7 in the background for when there is a demand spike and the wind slows down. The technology simply does not exist, so driving the energy industries to extinction just means that you believe that we should all live like the Amish.
We need a UBI in the whole world and stopping the global north looting Africa.
Thats the worst thing to happen to the south
Given the need for a great transition?
Blyth isn't one of those, is he?
Those = WEF style "The Great Reset" supporters.
I have always found him very clear (expect when he uses the deeper jargon), but, as with for example Niall Ferguson, I am never quite sure what kind of world he is working towards.
In most of his conversations/presentations he seems to me to a man of the people, as it were.
He's anything but that. The reset has already occurred, when China became influential enough to impact the global monetary system.
American corporations rushed to globalise because thinking that China would do capitalism like the Americans do it. That was a fundamental error. That has meant that the US has a huge trade deficit with China, which China has no intention of reducing. They do not trust their own people enough to risk importing more foreign goods than are strictly required. So, there aren't enough goods being purchased from America. So, that trade deficit is what has changed things. China is now big enough to suggest that their currency, the Yuan can be an alternative reserve currency, and are courting the oil producers and Asia to do so. Why? The amount of USD globally is limited by US government policy, and even the offshore International Monetary System can't produce enough USD. And China want the benefits associated with being a reserve currency. So, the World has already changed, nevermind the other things that have changed like Climate Change. So, the reset has already been done. It is now the time where the dust settles economically.
What can we learn from this?
1. Capitalism is a choice, and how to do it is a choice that reflects the predominant priorities in any society, and no priorities come without problems. So, any society that isn't happy to tackle the problems that come with their priorities, need to take a hard, long look at their priorities.
2. Ideology often can disguise stupidity, and we should be sceptical of it, and be flexible in our thinking.
3. No-one, even the wealthy, is immune from stupidity, given the right circumstances.
4. Doing the right thing is always cheaper in the long run.
@@BigHenFor Thanks for replying.
I wonder... When you say "He's anything but that.", do you mean anything but a WEF supporter or anything but a man of the people?
@@staninjapan07 Take a look at one of his older speeches. He is in it and outside of it.
@@redcoltken In what? Do you speak in riddles for fun?
Blyth is for the common people. Ferguson is an elitist who’s starting a conservative University of Austin in Texas with capitalist money as Stanford Hoover is no longer safe enough with the Free Palestine versus Zionist apartheid genocide conflict.
Asking the questions in writing is not helpful unless you want us to stare at the Prof.
If I want to see an aging scotsman I will look I the mirror.
The guy is smart but sometimes ling interviews that tell nothing!
Economics is not at all science but utterly human-related.
Not really. You see the conservation and efficient utilisation of resources in most communal animals and to some extent physics. Humans are only really trying to understand network efficiencies of resource distribution and use under the term economics.
''climate crisis''.. hilarious.
I'm pretty sure it's real. 😢