Mark Blyth - “A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why”

Partly cross-posted from Naked Capitalism.

Mark Blyth, the Brown political scientist of “The Hamptons are not a defensible position” fame, has a must-watch video of a presentation, A Brief History of How We Got Here and Why, which we’ve embedded below. We’re featuring it despite the lack of a transcript. Even though Blyth presents a fair bit of detail that is familiar to readers, he manages the difficult task of synthesizing it in a way that generates novel observations. It doesn’t hurt that Blyth is also colorful and a high bit rate transmitter. This video is a fantastic way to get people you know who’ve started to develop doubts about orthodox stories about how the economy works to see thing in a different light.

At 17:50 he briefly touches inflation after WW I and that Germany's narrative is to "explain" the Weimar Inflation as the reason Hitler came to power which he debunks as nonsense, about 12 years off. Precisely.

27:40 Why angry politics are produced.

31:15 he addresses the effects of globalization.

41:00 Populism is a feature, not a bug. Left response blame capital/globalization. Right response blames immigrants and globalization. 

1:04:20 he addresses MMT in the context of Britain, China (yes, China) and the US.

1:22:30 He really lays into India. "They are doing bribery" with their plan to build 200 coal energy plants.

The question time is a little hard to follow as most like to hear themselves talk and , in addition, the sound is low.