Ending Poverty: Jobs, Not Welfare Paperback – March 27, 2013

Following the financial collapse of 2007-8 Minsky came (back) into economic fashion. The "Minsky moment" and financial instability hypothesis became more or less mainstream. Minsky's work on the financial industry and instability is absolutely essential reading.Minsky develops his theories of financial instability from a particular interpretation of John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory  The General Theory Of Employment, Interest, And Money  and then Minsky elaborations. Readers of Minsky's "John Maynard Keynes" John Maynard Keynes  know that Minsky also developed particular policy (e.g. employer of the last resort) and theories of how to better institute greater financial and economic stability. Indeed Minsky wrote about these issues throughout his entire economic career.This new book is a collection of excellent examples of these efforts, what could be dubbed `Minsky's theoretical policy.' There are seven articles some of which have been published before, dating from 1965 and 1994.The financial collapse gave to Minsky's work on financial instability a renewed relevance and urgency. Likewise this current "Endless Crisis," (see  The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China ) failed "stimulus" and lack of financial regulation, while in the meantime too-big-fail financial institutions are getting bigger and stronger, are making Minsky's work on `theoretical policy' relevant and urgent. These essays are very insightful for their historical context and read remarkably contemporary given the current historical context of failed fiscal policy and political stalemate.The working poor, unemployed, and underemployed have been left to fend for themselves. This was Minsky's complaint in the 1970s. Minsky was also radically critical of the "war on poverty" in the midst of Natural Rate of Unemployment target (roughly 8 percent when he was critiquing it as a target).The reader of these essays will note that there has been no renewed urgency in poverty since Minsky critiqued the poverty program for lacking seriousness nearly 50 years ago. Moreover, inequality has exploded causes structural instability (see chapter 6 of this book for an outline of Minsky's ideas concerning employment, welfare, and stability, (also see  Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis ).What screams out of these essays is that free-market capitalism cannot solve poverty, unemployment, and what today we call underemployment on its own. We need public employment policy and real anti-poverty legislation. This is the aspect that makes these essays the most relevant, persuasive, and urgent.Randall Wray provides an excellent historical context and introduction to Minksy's `theoretical policy' ideas. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou offers a nice summary of each chapter in the Preface.

Minsky provides a detailed series of essays on the link between poverty and joblessness, the value of full employment policies and the potential difficulties that might arise. Rather than welfare programs which inherently assume poor people are the problem, governments should create tight full employment to empower workers and generate rising standards of living for all citizens.This work is indispensable for anyone wishing to expand their understanding of macroeconomics.

This is a collection of Minsky's papers on job creation and welfare. The neat thing is that the papers are presented in chronological order so that you can observe how his philosophy evolved.The bad thing is that Minsky's thinking on these issues were quite muddled.Minksy constantly criticizes Keynesian stimulus policies, yet the fact is that the New Deal / Great Society era that he refers to had an economy that seems pretty good by modern standards.Minsky claims the War on Poverty failed, yet by the end of LBJ's term unemployment was 3.5% and the Gini coefficient reached its all time low.Minsky claims that construction workers were to blame for inequality, never mind the 1%.Minsky advocates repealing child labor laws and forcing children to work. He advocates getting rid of Social Security and forcing old people to work until the drop.Minsky advocates taking unemployed people as they are and creating jobs that fit their skills, but he never satisfactorily explains how he would create skilled jobs out of thin air.One is left with the impression that Minsky was motivated by a puritan work ethic and perhaps by some racism. There is very little sound economic reason behind his policy proposals.

This book offers a different side of Hyman Minsky's work - his analysis of the job market. Most discussions of Minsky focus on his financial instability hypothesis. Although his analysis of employment is less distinctive than his other work, it is extremely solid. It also raises questions about some of the standard policies aimed at job creation.

Hyman Minsky provides here a great account on how and why free-market laissez-faire is simply too abstract to solve once and for all the problem of unemployment.Also a great insight on Keynes subtleness compared to many "keynesian" caricatures.

Maneira interessante de pensar o fim da pobreza. Mesmo não sendo suficiente para resolver os problemas de uma economia empresarial, a ideia serve como um grande estabilizador automático.

Interesting and informative.