Milton Friedman spent his career arguing that if only the world’s central banks had stabilized the growth of the money supply, the Great Depression would not have been
a thing. In what ways do we, today, think he was right? And in what ways do we think he was wrong?
In the 1930s, why did so many find the alternative proposals for societal organization preferable to a return to the pre-WWI classical semi-liberal order?
As of 1939, how likely was it that the Axis powers would win rather than lose World War II? As of 1948, how likely was it that the Soviet Union would win rather than lose the Cold War?
Why wasn’t western Europe’s political-economic trajectory in the post-WWII generation as troubled as in the generation after WWI?
What difference did the rapid withdrawal of European empires from the global south make for their economic development in the post-WWII period?
Does it make more sense in thinking about the world since 1980 to distinguish sharply between what DeLong calls the three varieties—hard, soft, and outside—of
neoliberalism, or does it make more sense to lump them together?
Why has neoliberalism been so strong and persistent since 1980 in spite of its failure to return economic growth rates to their “30 Glorious Years” pace? Why hasn’t it
been replaced by something else?
Why are the civilization-scale threats that humanity faced as of 1870 no longer of great concern to us?
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