Abstract: Economists in the 1940s and 1950s faced a unique historical challenge: doing their part to ensure the victory of major war efforts all around the world. Tasked with guiding policy towards a successful full-scale mobilization of resources, these thinkers engaged in debate and theorizing around a ‘mobilization economics.’ However, this body of work fell out of academic consciousness as hot war gave way to cold. With the sudden urgency of the Coronavirus crisis, as well as calls for major mobilization returning to the political debate about climate change, this paper calls for the return of mobilization theory. It summarizes some contributions of the original mobilization economics, provides suggestions to update the core principles to fit contemporary circumstances, and suggests how they might be applied to both the pandemic response and a Green New Deal.
Keywords: Mobilization, War, Green New Deal, Coronavirus, Inflation, Public finance
JEL codes: B2, H1, E6, P41
