'Why Haven’t We Drawn the Obvious and Transparent Lessons from the Past Seven Years?'

Mark Thoma excerpts from 'Why Haven’t We Drawn the Obvious and Transparent Lessons from the Past Seven Years?' by Brad DeLong.

Since every nominal asset comes with a nominal liability, arithmetic tells us that, as far as economic material interest is concerned, the soft money-caucus has as much at stake at the margin as does the hard-money caucus. But back before World War I a great deal of the soft-money caucus did not have the vote. Combine the restriction of the formal franchise with wealth’s dominance of the informal franchise and it is not surprising that—except in times of total war or revolution—hard money ruled in the North Atlantic core of the global economy from the days of Sir Isaac Newton to World War I. In between World Wars I and II ,as the material power of the hard money caucus ebbed, it made sense that its ideological power would wane only with a lag.

Emphasis Mine

This is a very Marxist view of the world. Power determines ideology and ideological change lags the change in power.

And the obvious lesson is that politics and economics are very much intertwined. Ideology influences politics; politics defends the economic interests of the powerful; the powerful promote an ideology that serves their interests.