Money manager capitalism and the coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic shook the world economy and triggered one of the worst economic downturns in US history. This chapter demonstrates that the crisis also exposed fundamental shortcomings of the current economic era, a stage of history that Post-Keynesian Institutionalists call money manager capitalism (MMC). Focusing on the United States, the chapter identifies four dimensions of the coronavirus crisis and their relation to key aspects of MMC. Those dimensions are: inadequate industrial capacity, working families' financial distress, corporate vulnerability to sudden economic changes (owing to a culture of debt financing), and the public sector's responsiveness to financial and corporate interests rather than to the interests of ordinary Americans. The chapter closes not merely by identifying some important aspects of an agenda for public-policy reform, but also by addressing some challenges that must be confronted on the road from MMC to an age of broadly shared prosperity.