Finally, economic theories are also partial and rival insofar as different economic ideas contain within them justifications for different distributions of resources. For example, as we shall see in chapter 4, both contemporary neoliberal and classical liberal economic theory focus on the microlevel supply-side of the economy; that is, on how saving leads to investment, which leads in turn to employment and to the wages that buy the products made by the workers themselves, which leads in turn to profits reinvested in the firm. No supply of investment, no demand and no consumption. Keynesian economics, in contrast, argues that consumption drives investment, not saving. For Keynesians it is the macro world of aggregates (income, consumption) and the demand-side of spending that matters. In a Keynesian world, consumers, not investors, are the heroes because consumers’ demands determine what investors supply. No demand, no supply of investment. Given these “rival views of market society,” as the economist Albert Hirschman once put it, who should get, for example, a tax cut? The Keynesian wants to give it to the poor so they will consume now to boost demand and consumption. Meanwhile, the neoliberal wants to give it to the rich to invest wisely. Different economic theories therefore empower, and disempower, different political and economic constituencies.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 121