È um texto antigo - publicado em setembro de 2008 -, mas a sua leitura, hoje, é ainda mais relevante, já que não há mais dúvidas quanto ao retorno da intervenção estatal, direta, na economia.
The neo-classical revolution believed that markets were much more cyclically stable than Keynes believed, that the risks in all market transactions can be known in advance, and that prices will therefore always reflect objective probabilities.
Such market optimism led to de-regulation of financial markets in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and the subsequent explosion of financial innovation which made it “safe” to borrow larger and larger sums of money on the back of predictably rising assets. The just-collapsed credit bubble, fueled by so-called special investment vehicles, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, and phony triple-A ratings, was built on the illusions of mathematical modeling.
Liberal cycles, the historian Arthur Schlesinger thought, succumb to the corruption of power, conservative cycles to the corruption of money. Both have their characteristic benefits and costs.
But if we look at the historical record, the liberal regime of the 1950’s and 1960’s was more successful than the conservative regime that followed. Outside China and India, whose economic potential was unleashed by market economics, economic growth was faster and much more stable in the Keynesian golden age than in the age of Friedman; its fruits were more equitably distributed; social cohesion and moral habits better maintained. These are serious benefits to weigh against some business sluggishness.
History, of course, never repeats itself exactly. Circuit-breakers are in place nowadays to prevent a 1929-style slide into disaster. But when the financial system, left to its own devices, seizes up, as it now has, we are clearly in for a new round of regulation. Industry will be left free, but finance will be brought under control.
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