The IMF, Georgieva and Keynes – Michael Roberts
“She said the major economies are experiencing slowing and low real GDP growth and, according to her, the reason for this is soaring inequality of wealth and income. ‘We have an obligation to correct what has been most seriously wrong over the last 100 years – the persistence of high economic inequality. IMF research shows that lower income inequality can be associated with higher and more durable growth,‘ she said.
“It’s a new argument. Until recently, the IMF reckoned faster growth depended on higher productivity, free flows of capital, globalization of international trade and ‘liberalisation’ of markets, including labour markets (meaning weakening labour rights and unions). Inequality did not come into it. This was the neo-liberal formula for economic growth. But the experience of the Great Recession on 2008-9 and pandemic slump of 2020 seems to have delivered a sobering lesson to the IMF’s economic hierarchy. Now the world economy is suffering from ‘anemic growth’.“
