Bits and Pieces: Touching Wood.

Dedicated to tovarisch Bradislav Josipovich Delongiev, Head Political Commissar NKVD/Amerika

Maria Farrell (Irish writer and consultant on Internet policy) took off her British Army helmet and wrote "Post-Democracy" (May 20) for Crooked Timber.

Farrell has been re-reading "Colin Crouch's Post-Democracy on and off for about eighteen months" and agrees with his analysis: liberal democracy has managed to keep the trappings of democracy (elections, "free" press, "free" speech), while abandoning the substance of it.

David Ruccio: Unilateral Pluralism in Economics.

David Ruccio (Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame and a well-known Marxist) denounces that Alberto Paloni, senior lecturer of macroeconomics at the University of Glasgow and "expert in post-Keynesian theory, has been stopped from teaching a core degree module on macroeconomics".

"Capitalism is the Legitimate Racket of the Ruling Class".

"Scarface" Al Capone [A]

Somehow I missed an equally titled post at David Ruccio's "Occasional Links & Commentary".

Prof. Ruccio makes a good case linking the increase in inequality with capitalism.

But what really impressed me is the origin of that line in the title.

It was uttered by Al Capone.

Coyle on Distribution.

Diane Coyle reviews Adam Ozanne's book "Power and Neoclassical Economics".

Coyle is very positive about the book, whose thesis -- it seems to me -- is "surely one of the longer-term outcomes of the crisis will be -- must be -- to turn economics back to political economy" (emphasises mine). They believe power relations should be reintroduced into economic theorising.

Fair enough.