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Abstract

The US economist Dean Baker, along with his colleagues at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has for the last decade been waging a Gramscian 'war of position' against neoliberal orthodoxy in the US. With the collapse of the housing market bubble (which Baker predicted) and the ensuing global economic crisis, his analysis has had more of a hearing in the mainstream. According to Baker, the internationalisation and deregulation of financial markets has been a mechanism for redistributing upwards the benefits of labour productivity growth and led to a hugely overblown financial sector prone to self-deception, criminality and highly speculative short-term profiteering. An alternative can be found, argues Baker, in Latin America's rejection of neoliberalism.

Keywords

Center for Economic and Policy Research Daniel Fusfeld housing market neoliberalism Wall Street

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References

Dean Baker , Plunder and Blunder: the rise and fall of the bubble economy ( Sausalito, CA, PoliPoint Press, 2009).

Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval , The Venezuelan Economy in the Chavéz Years (Center for Economic and Policy Research, July 2007).

`In praise of … the Center for Economic and Policy Research' , Guardian (14 November 2008).

Daniel R. Fusfeld, The Basic Economics of the Urban Racial Crisis ( New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pp. 1-3.

See Nahid Aslanbeigui and Young Back Choi , eds, Borderlands of Economics: essays in honor of Daniel Fusfeld (London and New York, Routledge, 1997). Fusfeld's introduction to the volume, `An intellectual journey', pp. 2-22, provides a thorough account of his intellectual formation.

Quoted in Noam Chomsky , `Elections 2008 and Obama's "vision"' , Z Magazine (February 2009).

See Ha-Joon Chang , Bad Samaritans: the myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism (New York, Bloomsbury, 2007).

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair , `Why McCain lost', CounterPunch (5 November 2008).

Paul Krugman , `The destructive center', New York Times (8 February 2009).

10.

Mark Weisbrot , `Latin America's long economic failure sparks desire for change' (Center for Economic and Policy Research , 7 October 2005).

11.

Dean Baker , `New thinking on the economy', Truthout (9 February 2009).

12.

Dean Baker , `A stock transfer tax: the right medicine for Wall Street', TPMCafé (18 March 2008).

13.

Dean Baker , `Stopping foreclosures with the right to rent: one more time', Truthout (17 November 2008 ).

Dean Baker's war of position

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