I Remember When Mankiw was still a Neo-Keynesian

Cassander, writing at Steve Keen’s Debtwatch,* puts the hammer to those arguing that the death of the patient had nothing to do with the doctor:

What a load of bollocks.

The “principles of economics” that [N. Gregory] Mankiw champions, and the “More economic research (and teaching)” that [Doug] McTaggart et al are calling for, are the major reason why economists in general were oblivious to this crisis until well after it had broken out.

If they meant “Principles of Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis”, or “More Post Keynesian and Evolutionary economic research”, there might be some validity to their claims. But what they really mean is “principles of neoclassical economics” and “More neoclassical economic research (and teaching)”—precisely the stuff that led to this crisis in the first place. [emphases in original]

Go Read the Whole Thing: a worthy spew of bile from one of the blogs that I’ve been reading a lot recently, in part so I don’t feel guilty not having written the same thing.

*Cassander is, I believe, Keen’s nom-de-blog for non-personal posts. But I could be wrong.