Milton Friedman once noted that ´when [a] crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around´. Indeed, it was many of his own ideas that became bedrocks of neoliberalism and using monetary policy to manage the business cycle following the stagflation of the 1970s.
As the initial shock and awe of Covid-19 ebbs to reveal economic wreckage that could ultimately dwarf that of the global financial crisis of a decade ago, Finance Ministers and fiscal pundits are flagging a future retreat to the orthodoxy of fiscal hawkishness. Austerity by any other name would smell so foul.
But, what if one idea lying around was that the budget deficit didn´t matter – that fixation on debt sustainability was unhelpful myth-making? What if you could pay for the Covid-19 crisis, permanently improve the health system and end the housing crisis just by printing money?
*** A version of this book review was first published in The Irish Times on 18 June 2020 ***
vicduggan 