Part 3 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 10 “The Rise and Fall and Rise of John Maynard Keynes” Just as the bad economy of the 1970s precipitated the end of Keynesianism and the rise of neoclassical economics, the 2008 financial crisis, the…
Tag: Experts
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Keynesianism: Why We Think We Can Spend Our Way Out of a Recession
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 10 “The Rise and Fall and Rise of John Maynard Keynes” Continuing on from the previous blog, we will look deeper into Keynesianism in the 20th century and what led to its fall and the…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Keynesianism: The Appeal of a Theory that Empowers Experts
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 10 “The Rise and Fall and Rise of John Maynard Keynes” Foster next turns his attention to John Maynard Keynes, a highly influential economist of the 20th century, because he sees the Keynesian theories that took hold as…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Penning Hypocrisy: Writers Making Money Criticizing Capitalism
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 6 “Tuesdays with Mandeville” Foster is tracing anti-capitalist thought across many writers of the West, and in this chapter he hits one I had not heard of: Bernard Mandeville who was born in 1670 in…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
The Authoritarianism Inherent to Owen’s Utopia
Part 1 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 4 “Dark Satanic Minds” Soon after capitalism was born a couple of hundred years ago, the anti-capitalist movement begins. Specifically, Foster discusses in this chapter Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ call for communism and lesser-known Robert Owen’s call for a…
Why We Bite the Invisible Hand
Capitalism Needs a PR Team
Part 2 of a Discussion of Peter Foster’s Why We Bite the Invisible Hand Chapter 1 “Cardboard Cut-out Capitalism” Peter Foster notes in his book that capitalism is a word everyone uses, often with negative connotations, but seldom define. (p. 24) Defining capitalism is one of the key sticking points for authors…
Bourgeois Equality
The Elite Replaced the Bourgeois Deal with Ones that Put Them in Charge
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 63 “The Clerisy Betrayed the Bourgeois Deal, and Approved the Bolshevik and Bismarckian Deals” Finally, we reach the chapter that explains what Dr. McCloskey has been alluding to throughout the book about the clerisy’s change in rhetoric against the Bourgeois Deal. What she calls the clerisy…
Bourgeois Equality
But It Was a Shallow Change
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 53 “It Was Not a Deep Cultural Change” Dr. McCloskey continues to examine the power of rhetoric, what we may now call the narrative, on society and the economy. Why did the Great Enrichment take root around 1700 in England? Capitalism and the Hockey Stick…
Bourgeois Equality
It Was a Rapid Revision of Rhetoric
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 52 “And Its Rhetoric Can Change Quickly” As Dr. McCloskey continues on in Part VIII with the argument that the belief in certain ideas created the modern world of wealth, she is now focusing on how quickly ideas can change. Why did the Great…
Bourgeois Equality
Our Language Shows Historic, and Current, Disdain for the Bourgeois
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 46 “The Hostility was Ancient” Dr. McCloskey continues her exploration of the negative attitude that has existed over time towards trading and profits started last chapter. Trading and profit making and entrepreneurship and betterment have been more or less despised by the aristocracy in pastoral…