Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Heterodox Employment Policies

Abstract

As regards no matter how much we stay within the area of economic policy, that is, no matter how much we keep within the queen of the social sciences, it seems impossible to avoid straying onto ideological or normative terrain. On the other hand, as for theory, many believe it is possible to remain within the domain of the purely positive, remote from any contamination with value judgments and enveloped in a shroud of absolute asepsis. That explains why media discussions of policy are more frequent on the terrain of policies inasmuch as they articulate the debate in terms of a comparison or contrast, say, between liberal or neoliberal policies, which are identified as conservative,* and social democratic policies, considered generally as being of the left or progressive, a terminology which is not usual in the polemics of the specialized economic literature. This article, while not avoiding these skirmishes on the battlefield of political ideology, addresses the different basic positions that square off on the terrain of economic theory specifically in the analysis of the phenomenon of unemployment. I distinguish within each of these positions, first, their respective scientific diagnoses of the problem, followed by the solution the set of recipes that each position offers as the best way to reduce the scope, or the dimensions, of unemployment.