Starry Aspirant

Institutionalism as an approach to economic analysis has made a rather vigorous comeback in recent decades. Originally associated with the economic sociology of Thorstein Veblen, whose work focuses on the consumption patterns of the US nouveaux riche and the distortion by the profit motive of the potential of industrial society, a strong institutionalist tradition developed in North America in the early decades of the twentieth century (Stilwell, 2013, pp xxx). With the mathematisation of the subject after the second world war, however, driven by the practical emphasis of Keynesianism on the development of national income accounting for practical policy purposes on the macroeconomic side and by the emphasis on marginalist techniques of neo-classical microeconomics (Blackmore, History of Economic Thought), this institutional economic tradition of institutionalism lost ground. For the earlier version of institutionalism, we may take as representative Walton Hamilton’s definition of insti...

Remarkable features of Belarus revolt incl: i) decentralisation in Minsk & country; ii) immediate resort of the authorities to extreme, large-scale violence, unprecedented even for Belarus; spontaneous self-organisation & unity of disparate social groups. 2/14 Most striking is concertinaed sequence of “post-ignition” events: from rigged result to the onset of regime defections (mostly low level so far) in less than a week. Last Saturday, the regime appeared impregnable; today, it looks dazed & shaken. To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht badly, from memory: & after 12 years, the 1,000-year regime was swept away. Could still go pear-shaped: Luka regime could lash out again, or play some trick to divide opposition & deal with them one by one. “Dialogue” could give regime time to regroup & rethink strategy. But so far it most looks like a "democratising" revolution rather than Colour or Maidan—perhaps most similar to Solidarity in Poland or Czech Velvet? Belarus’...