Treating economic shocks as blameworthy endogenous outcomes justifies removing policy tools from elected officials

Evidence

No one knows the future, but we do know that it will have some shocks in store for us. We can imagine those shocks to be exogenous, and design mechanisms to compensate for them, such as well-conceived welfare states. Or, we can view them as endogenous, always and everywhere the result of our own bad policy choices. If we take the latter view, and we do not know what the future may have in store, as well as take policy tools away from democratically elected politicians, we may want to try to make the future conform to our preferences. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 253

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core epistemic-hubris critique linking austerity to technocratic rule, directly continuous with the US case chapter and with the broader neoliberal anti-democratic governance literature. — connects to: Moral framing of recessions as punishment blocks public acceptance of stimulus — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 562; Economists’ ineffectual model disputes distract the public from threatening crisis explanations — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 840; German anti-stimulus stance stems from a belief that government policy failures cause crises — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 166

Broader Connections

• Economists’ ineffectual model disputes distract the public from threatening crisis explanations #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 840
• Moral framing of recessions as punishment blocks public acceptance of stimulus #exemplifies (0.72) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 562