What might an economics for social justice look like? It would certainly be very different from mainstream economics, which in spite of its successes has too often been an apologetics for a status quo that fails to be socially just. With the financialization of capital and growth of monopoly power, most working people have felt stagnation in their incomes and growing insecurity. Surely we can do better than that. Economist Bill Tabb will explore what a feasible socially just economy might be.
To bring on board a broad audience to join the movement for transformative change Leftists need to be more forthright in explaining why it is that conventional economics amounts to an ideological project for the status quo, and why a social economics speaks to their interests. We need to not simply speak of the inadequacies of mainstream economics, but its counter-productive and harmful effects in deciding how to deal with the economic system crises and the climate emergency that we face. The center cannot hold under present conditions and that is an important part of our task to demonstrate. Centrists have been discredited to a remarkable extend. The political contest will increasingly be between the left and the extreme right for control of the discourse. We need to be building the future rather than building back, which is not possible.
Bill Tabb is a Marxist economist who has authored such books as The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Times and Economic Governance in the Age of Globalization. He frequently publishes in the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review.