As I knew I would do, as soon as I came across Mark Blyth’s Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea that I would buy it. Not all the way through it yet, but to help you understand just how useful it is, let me note first that on the back cover the very first of the people quoted to expain why someone ought to buy the book is written by John Quiggin. “An essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the current depression”. How austerity can be used to explain anything over the past five years up until the end of last year I will try to work out in making sense of the book.

As to its contents, this is the only reference to Say’s Law, found on page 137:

The policy objective of these institutions was therefore the encouragement of ‘achievement competition’ rather than ‘impediment competition,’ whereby the quality of products manufactured would create the demand for them, in a modern supply-side restatement of Say’s Law.

Is life really long enough for me to read the rest?

From Catallaxy on 3 July 2013.