Economic Geography

Confronting economics and economists
To understand how activism and public engagement came to be a more or less
normal part of my cohort’s experience, it is essential to understand the peculiar
moment of the 1980s and the position of the field of economics in public policy
in the United States (as distinct from the United Kingdom). Today when I go to
policy meetings it is exceedingly rare to find a political scientist, or sociologist or
planner, and it is even rarer to find a geographer.
Today, in the United States, neoclassically trained economists have a lock 
on policy discourse. This was not always the case. In the 1980s, neoclassical
economics was not monolithic. In some circles that world-view was being called
into question. In the 1980s, an era of unprecedented industrial restructuring,
‘legitimate’ critics from the left, center and right challenged status quo explana-
tions for the nation’s economic woes. In fact, it was an incredible moment when
the likes of Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, and less controversial figures
such as Lester Thurow (Thurow 1981, 1984, 1985a, 1985b, 1993; Thurow 
and Tyson 1987), Robert Reich and Ira Magaziner, Wall Street investment
banker Felix Rohaytn and political scientist Chalmers Johnson of University
College Berkeley, coalesced around a set of arguments that raised the spectre of
failure in the United States model of market capitalism (Johnson 1982, 1984,
1987; Johnson et al. 1989; Magaziner and Reich 1983). The Japanese and the
emergent Asian Tigers were encroaching upon United States industries such as
autos, computers, and clothing, and thumping national firms. Other models of capi-
talist development were not just curiosities, but instead were discussed as compet-
ing alternatives to the United States system of market capitalism. The failure of
the United States system was increasingly being laid at the feet of United States
corporatism.
A whole new debate unfolded about whether America should pursue industrial
strategies to maintain its competitiveness. Berkeley professors and the Berkeley
Roundtable on the International Economy, an influential university-based think
tank, were important influences on and somewhat ‘neoliberal’ voices in the late
1980s. While more concerned about the social consequences of change, many
students were funded through the Berkeley Round Table on the International
Economy (BRIE) and represented in effect an institutionalization of what look-
ing back must be now considered a pretty radical conversation (see, e.g. Johnson
1982, 1984, 1987; Johnson et al. 1989; Tyson 1992; Zysman and Tyson 1983).
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Amy K. Glasmeier

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With a Democratically-controlled Congress and a Federal agency apparatus
populated by liberal social scientists, a moment of self-doubt and indecision
descended upon the economic policy establishment. Questions were being raised
about whether there was a better way to organize the economy and society. In
this conceptualism there was a positive and active role for the state combined
with the greater involvement of citizens and local organizations. Admittedly, the
one weakness of the time was the failure to articulate a comprehensive and action-
able alternative to 1950s Keynesianism. The diagnosis of the problem was only one
of the steps required to mend the national economic condition.
This unique moment allowed a range of voices to be heard, among them
geographers, planners and more institutionally minded economists. Becoming an
academic during this time was easily coupled with a belief that a person could
make a difference and could profitably contribute to policy discussions.