Introduction: Secular stagnation and the end of capitalism

Contemporary US economists who invoke the term secular stagnation refuse to look into the abyss to which Hansen pointed when he brought up the intractability of the problem – capitalism was no longer providing growth and the only solutions for returning productive dynamism to capitalist economies available would require ending capitalism and transforming it into something else. Instead, they seemed to invoke the ‘problem’ of secular stagnation to propose ‘solutions’ that involved keeping maintaining the capitalist organization of the economy in the sense of the primacy of the private prerogative in determining the pace and pattern of investment, growth and employment. In contrast, the articles in this special issue return to the more fundamental questions to which Hansen pointed to underline the relevance of the diagnosis today.