I’m excited to see new work in this vein, as I have long been a proponent of better research aggregation methods, however I must say I do not find the project’s superficial dismissal of neoliberalism a particularly good sign of the project’s epistemics: “Here are a few (possibly cherry-picked?) charts that show some change in trends around 1979, with no counterfactual comparison/analysis; neoliberalism must have been to blame! That’s why we need to be more rigorous and thoughtful moving forward as we analyze policy!”
Also excited about work like this, looks pretty neat! And I also find it an odd choice to make an economic analysis that’s at least somewhat controversial[1] so prominent on a website that’s about sharing research?
E.g. I found this recent article by Noah Smith relatively convincing that a “neoliberal turn” is probably not the most useful way to describe the recent economic history of the US.
It’s very hard to deny that U.S. economic policy changed substantially from the late 1970s through the 1990s. But when we look at the overall effect of these changes, it’s hard to characterize them as the kind of low-tax, deregulatory, welfare-cutting, free-trading, union-busting “neoliberal turn” that pundits and even many intellectuals typically assume. Inequality increased and unions declined, but much of this was the result of policy changes made decades earlier, during the postwar period we tend to think of as being our closest approximation of social democracy (while some additional fraction was due to external changes like globalization). Deregulation proceeded in some areas but other areas became more tightly regulated. Some kinds of welfare were cut, but others were added, and overall the system became more progressive. The government didn’t drown in a bathtub; it didn’t even shrink. It simply changed.
Hey Harrison, thanks for the feedback (I’m one of the cofounders). I completely agree that our launch newsletter was a thin rebuttal of neoliberalism. We felt there’s enough ink & pixels spilled on the subject; we’re much more interested in the conversation around raising the profile of alternative policy options than yet another substantive critique. We do point to three works in there that we find useful in mounting a stronger critique (1, 2, 3).
That all being said, one of our main focus areas moving forward is building an interface for user contribution, so no matter our own biases or epistemics, LEP can field and provide a wider scope of information.
I’m excited to see new work in this vein, as I have long been a proponent of better research aggregation methods, however I must say I do not find the project’s superficial dismissal of neoliberalism a particularly good sign of the project’s epistemics: “Here are a few (possibly cherry-picked?) charts that show some change in trends around 1979, with no counterfactual comparison/analysis; neoliberalism must have been to blame! That’s why we need to be more rigorous and thoughtful moving forward as we analyze policy!”
Also excited about work like this, looks pretty neat! And I also find it an odd choice to make an economic analysis that’s at least somewhat controversial[1] so prominent on a website that’s about sharing research?
E.g. I found this recent article by Noah Smith relatively convincing that a “neoliberal turn” is probably not the most useful way to describe the recent economic history of the US.
Hey Harrison, thanks for the feedback (I’m one of the cofounders). I completely agree that our launch newsletter was a thin rebuttal of neoliberalism. We felt there’s enough ink & pixels spilled on the subject; we’re much more interested in the conversation around raising the profile of alternative policy options than yet another substantive critique. We do point to three works in there that we find useful in mounting a stronger critique (1, 2, 3).
That all being said, one of our main focus areas moving forward is building an interface for user contribution, so no matter our own biases or epistemics, LEP can field and provide a wider scope of information.