This article explains a curious redirection of economic policies that uses the policy framework of Kalecki and Keynes only to undermine it. It does not negate their theory of demand management, but reformulates it to serve the powerful interests of finance in the era of financial globalisation. As a result, accountability to finance rather than to the citizens becomes more important for democratic governments, and credit rating dominates democratic performance.

This article analyses the 2008 economic crisis and its outcomes for the Baltic states. It then gives a genealogy of European economic policy responses to the crisis, tracing them from the emerging ‘freshwater’ school of economics (e.g. University of Chicago) that arose in opposition to Keynesian theory. The more immediate cause of the 2008 crisis, long in the making, was its reliance on private debt to sustain economic demand in light of profit-enhancing wage suppression. Following the 2008 financial shock, European Union policymakers crafted policy that placed the burden of adjustment on labour. A programme of austerity was chosen in much of the European Union, at odds with the post-war European ‘social model’. This represented a retreat from the notion of a European project that encouraged liberalisation of economic policy but at the same time could be harmonised with a social dimension to create a distinctive ‘Social Europe’. Nowhere was this austerity more vigorously applied than in the Baltic states. Its effects are examined here, along with lessons to be derived from that experience.

This article understands contemporary austerity through historical comparisons informed by Marxist insights into the nature of the state. It argues that austerity policies make sense from the perspective of capital–labour, inter-capitalist and international competition. Differences among states over time, in terms of their size and international situation and contested domestic relations, produce varied imperatives towards austerity and prospects of effective resistance.

Spearheaded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there has been a rethinking of macroeconomic policies, in particular with regard to targeting inflation at a very low level in the wake of 2008–2009 global economic crisis. We provide a content analysis of the IMF Staff Reports on Article IV consultation of 12 Asian developing countries during the period 2009–2010 in order to see whether that rethinking has been reflected in the IMF’s advice. The findings of this study reveal that the IMF continues with its prescription of achieving low inflationary environment irrespective of country-specific circumstances.

The article raises questions about how the economic crisis is being played out ‘in place’, taking an embodied, generational and gender perspective. ‘Place’ is used in a political context by examining how global realities are experienced in place, and the author argues the need to look at the everyday realities of the crisis from a gendered ontological perspective in order to counter grand narratives of gloom and doom where women (whether old, young, migrant, heterosexual or otherwise) are particular victims. By discussing local contexts of the gendered realities of the crisis in three southern Europe areas, the author shows the possibility of changing the crisis narrative from one of overwhelming paralysis to one of potential transformation. The focus is on the rise of resistance, solidarity economies and new types of communities in the search by women in southern Europe for alternatives to neoliberal capitalism.

Eurozone economies were the most adversely affected by the Global Financial Crisis, with forecast macroeconomic outcomes still highly uncertain. This article argues first that the Eurozone policy framework can be viewed as neo-liberalism overlaid with policy constraints associated with a mis-specified Optimum Currency Area. We are critical of this framework since it is incompatible with the policy sovereignty that is experienced, if not utilised, by sovereign economies such as the USA, UK and Australia. Second, recent and proposed policy reforms which generally lie within the constraints of the Eurozone framework are examined. We conclude that these policies are piecemeal and fail to restore policy sovereignty, which ultimately requires that member countries exit the Eurozone. Key issues associated with such an exit are briefly discussed.

To understand the structural dynamics of the current eurozone crisis, it is necessary to examine the longstanding internal contradictions that the system has inherited from its inception under the Maastricht Treaty and the neoliberal strategy which has governed its evolution from the first experiments in economic and monetary union in the 1970s. A brief narrative of the evolution of the European Monetary Union yields some insights into its peculiar institutional design. More specifically, the article examines the dangerously self-reinforcing logic between speculative bond markets and cascading, deflationary policies of austerity imposed on those countries encountering severe debt crises. This examination reveals the fragile foundations upon which the eurozone was constructed.

Recent research has identified a substantial increase in Indigenous mainstream employment since the mid-1990s, but there has been relatively little regional analysis of such employment. The aim of this article is to build on this previous research using the 2006 and 2011 censuses to provide a more disaggregated descriptive analysis of changes in the character of labour market outcomes for Indigenous Australians aged 15–64 years. One of the new findings in the article is that the employment of Indigenous youth (i.e. those aged 15–24 years) in remote areas is different from that of Indigenous youth in non-remote areas, but older Indigenous residents of such areas are not very different in employment terms. Policy-makers thus need to pay particular attention to Indigenous youth employment in remote areas because the failure to address these differentials may lead to a foreclosure of future labour market options. Policy also needs to facilitate Indigenous engagement in the mainstream economy by assisting Indigenous people to be work-ready, especially in ensuring that Indigenous skills are matched with employer demands, and expediting employment by informing businesses on how to provide an Indigenous-friendly workplace.

These books, different in style and content but united in purpose and major conclusions, analyse events from 2007 to 2010 to ascertain why the economic disaster happened and what must be done to put the United States economy (on which both books focus) on a more secure footing, and prevent any recurrence of the extended crisis of those years. Both target the increasing influence of market liberalism over the last 30 years, and the institutions of capitalist economies which they have encouraged. Taylor focuses more on the regulation of the international financial sector, and Palley on labour market policy. They agree that both need to be addressed if the United States economy is to be restored to health. Both argue that growing income inequality in the US must be reversed before the US economy can significantly improve. Finally, they stress the interrelationship between political ideology and economic explanation, and argue that value free positive economics is a myth.