In the pidgin-version of Kuhn I tote around in my head, a "revolution" in a field occurs when the language of the old version of things is no longer adequate. After the financial crisis, there was great optimism that Econ (among other areas) would undergo a fundamental rethink, and then quite a bit of disappointment afterwards when policymakers not only continually failed to properly apply what little knowledge we did have, but also, the same tropes and arguments were pretty much left intact. But the sort of change I wanted to see probably doesn't happen overnight.
But what I'm really interested in are not, to borrow the jargon of the economists, the changes along the intensive margin, but the extensive one. The rise of discussion around Scott Sumner's crusade for NGDP-targeting, and the battle over Krugman's several dissections of what had gone wrong in the profession, maybe these were good first steps. The extensive margin means asking ridiculous questions, which began a bit with the dialogue around Tyler Cowen's Great Stagnation, Peter Frase's consideration of the replicator, and other brilliant pieces that have not just radically rethought the structure of macroeconomics or political economy, but done so in a frame that is trying to remember why the hell we care in the first place. (See: nearly everything written on Interfluidity, and Will Wilkinson's stuff at The Big Think).
Rhetoric is a big part of this process, even if the fundamental shift in language isn't what's happening just yet. This recent tweet along the lines of "I don't like the way that 'rational' is always attached to 'self-interest'" shows that the line is a pretty hazy one. Parts of the neoliberal or technocratic narrative, and it's accompanying rhetoric, that never quite made sense had become glossed over in the rear-view as I tried to become more proficient in the standard way of discussing things (being serious, credible, and probably completing losing track of why I cared in the process) -- these issues are all now bubbling back up, but at a time where I'm maybe a little better equipped to think them through, and my external environment (somewhere between the law school and Zuccotti) is more receptive. Maybe labor-saving technology doesn't always lead to new and better uses of that labor. Maybe work doesn't have much dignity to it, but then again, unemployment seems deeply devastating to people. Personifying the market is actively nonsensical and counterproductive to understanding how things actually work. To talk about policy on the margins of costs and benefits obscures the important politics underlying them [link, forthcoming, End of Semester]. To be obsessed with the margins constantly is ridiculous. It's the death of hope! Or something. (But maybe hope is terrible for us).
A lot of established narratives, some of which had become embedded as truths, are being uncovered for what they are these days. Both on the far left and among technocratic progressives. It's a good time to figure out what the in-between could and should be.
