There’s no feeling quite like the stomach-clenching dread that hits when you hear a Nobel laureate in economics label the coronavirus recession as “a textbook example of showing that markets don’t work.”
The concept of markets — defined simply as the system that allows buyers and sellers to interact — is a cornerstone of mainstream American economic thought. Free markets are supposedly the most efficient way to determine everything from your salary to the cost of a loaf of bread to the most efficient way to deliver supplies in the midst of a pandemic. “Let the market decide” has become a rallying cry for Republicans and neoliberal Democrats as a refutation of government’s role in everything from healthcare to package delivery.
In the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics, Joseph Stiglitz — the aforementioned Nobel laureate who also serves as chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute — questions the role of markets in essential services like public health and recovery from a recession. He identifies our unshakable belief in markets as one of the biggest stumbling blocks in America’s lackluster response to coronavirus…
Paul Constant 