Corey Robin
FOR NON-ECONOMISTS on the left, “Economics After Neoliberalism” is a welcome arrival. Having long been scolded or silenced by neoliberals with a dismissive “You just don’t understand how markets work”, outsiders like me can only celebrate the assistance that Naidu, Rodrik, and Zucman provide—from deep within the inner sanctum no less. It almost feels like our Marshall McLuhan moment.
I wonder if Naidu, Rodrik, and Zucman are selling themselves short, however. To hear them tell it, what has made neoliberalism so attractive and commanding as a politics is the borrowed authority of economics. Neoliberals sold their policies as the simple implementation of economic knowledge, so much so that neoliberalism “now appears to be just another name for economics.” Given that conflation, Naidu, Rodrik, and Zucman see their task as, first, debunking the notion that neoliberalism rests on “sound economics”, and, second, offering progressive policy alternatives that incorporate values—such as “fairness”, “equality”, and “inclusive prosperity”—that neoliberalsand some economists consider external to the discipline. The point is to marshal the technical knowledge of the profession on behalf of new values, policies, and institutions.