The Arc of Economic History

Weekend Reading: Benito Mussolini (1932): What Is Fascism?

Benito Mussolini: What Is Fascism?:

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the…

Understanding Karl Marx

A Lecture Given at Stanford University in 2009

tl;dr: Marx started out as a German philosopher; became a French-style political activist, and ended up trying to become a British- style economist. Unfortunately he failed at the last…

The Honest Broker: Chile and “Neoliberalism”

Chilean Politics, “Neoliberalismo”, Once-And-Future President Michelle Bachelet, “Seeing Like a State”, the Really-Existing Socialist and Neoliberal Projects…

Today’s Economic History: John Maynard Keynes on the Necessity of a Generous Peace After World War I

Note to self:

Perhaps I imposed too much of my own preconceptions on Skidelsky. But I had always seen Skidelsky as arguing that…

April Fools’ Festival Final Day: A Change of Pace

Let me get more serious, and answer a question from Noah Smith about what David Graeber means with his book Debt:

The rational kernel inside the bullshit goes roughly like this:

Montagu Norman and the Bulwarks of Civilization: Today’s Economic History

Morgan partner Russell C. Leffingwell (1934): “Monty [Norman] says that Hitler and Schacht are the bulwarks of civilization in Germany and the only friends we have. They are fighting the war of our…

Today’s Economic History: American Slavery Ideology One Generation After the Cotton Gin

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates: John C. Calhoun: Slavery a Positive Good: “I do not belong… to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession…

Refereeing Mantoux-Keynes

Note to Self: Rereading Etienne Mantoux: La Paix Calomniée, ou les Conséquences Économiques de M. Keynes. “The Calumniated Peace” of Versailles. OK. So why is the title of the English translation The Carthaginian Peace? Who decided to replace “Caluminiated” with “Carthaginian”, and…

Hoisted from the Archives: The Uses of the University

Alma Mater Blogging: Greg Mankiw’s desire to move Harvard to someplace better adapted to human life than Massachusetts was triggered by:

Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Time for Harvard to Move?: The Wall Street Journal…