Minsky Revisited

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Nick Johnson at The Political Economy of Development offers an excellent synopsis of the work of Hyman Minsky (Why Minsky Matters ...), to which I have added the following comment: 

Thanks for this excellent synopsis. 

I find Thomas Palley’s discussion of Minsky well worth reading, being at the same time appreciative of Minsky and a worthwhile extension of the latter’s work:

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/04/01/the-limits-of-minskys-financial-instability-hypothesis-as-an-explanation-of-the-crisis/

Also, I’m grappling with my thesis according to which Minsky’s instability thesis may have an analogue in the political cosmos.

Predicated on my (debatable) observation that political engagement and with it the challenging of the political establishment by oppositional forces is at an all time low (perhaps a uniquely German experience), I am inclined to surmise that political stability (which we certainly had for a very long time in post-war Germany) has created such a confidence in political management that people (still largely doing well and happy not to have to sacrifice free time to politics) increasingly lose their appetite for political resistance, thus encouraging and tolerating ever greater freedoms for the political caste, which is likely to lead to political excesses and ultimately to political instability.

The lack of oppositional oversight in Germany is frightening, there is none inside the country, and many momentous political decisions are taken care of in the anonymous corridors of EU institutions, which provide a strong leverage to the advantage of capital (“concentrated benefits, dispersed costs”) over labour in contemporary politics.

In a German post, I offer this discussion of Minsky and mehr.