Roberto Unger & Vulgar Keynesianism
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2013
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roberto Unger is an American-based thinker who is highly critical of the current ideas from left-of-centre politicians and thinkers about how to restore advanced economies to healthy growth. His devastating attack last summer on what he saw as the shortcomings of President Obama's plans for a second term made him an overnight internet sensation.
For Unger, what he and others call "vulgar Keynesianism" - the idea that governments should spend more money to stimulate growth and create jobs - has little left to offer. It is unlikely to have a big enough impact and will disappoint both politicians and voters.
Instead, he argues, those who think of themselves as progressive need to think much more boldly and creatively. And this applies not just to ideas about the economy but also to politics and democratic institutions. What he sees as a drab, predictable - and failed - approach needs a complete overhaul.
In this edition of "Analysis", Tim Finch talks to Roberto Unger about his critique of left-of-centre thinking. He asks him to justify his criticisms of current ideas and to set out his alternative vision. Tim then discovers from figures on the left here in Britain how they react to Unger's approach and how likely it is that "vulgar Keynesianism" will give way to something new.
Among those taking part: Jon Cruddas, MP; Sonia Sodha; Tamara Lothian; Stuart White and David Hall-Matthews.
Producer Simon Coates.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:36.0 | Thank you for downloading this edition of Analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | I'm Tim Finch and in this programme I consider how Britain's Labour Party is becoming more radical. |
| 0:47.0 | Five years after the crash and no sign of a sustained recovery. |
| 0:51.0 | The left has lost what little faith it had in our |
| 0:54.1 | economic model, so why hasn't it completely kicked it away? We are in the grip of |
| 1:00.0 | the last major episode of Institutional and ideological |
| 1:05.8 | refoundation in the history of the advanced |
| 1:08.8 | North Atlantic societies. |
| 1:10.3 | And that was the Social Democratic Compromise defined. and that compromise is not good enough to deal with the |
| 1:14.2 | defined in the middle of the 20th century. |
| 1:17.6 | That compromise is not good enough to deal with the problems |
| 1:21.7 | of the contemporary societies. |
| 1:23.6 | This voice of singular style and self-confidence belongs to Roberto Unger, |
| 1:28.6 | a professor at the Harvard Law School in the United States for more than 30 years, he's also been a |
| 1:33.9 | minister and high-level advisor to governments in his native Brazil. His thinking |
| 1:39.2 | roams across economics, political philosophy and social theory. His main argument is that humanity |
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