It’s a wrap – the tumultous year of 2021 is almost behind us. As usual, it was a year full of critical anlyses on the blog that can help us make sense of the multiple crises unfolding before our eyes. This year, the most read posts were to a large extent those that explicitly challenge orthodox thinking about economics and development and provide alternative ways of framing the complex problems we face as a society. This may well reflect some important churning that is currently taking place in development economics. The top posts expose the limits to mainstream economics and global development discourses, debunk dominant views of the Washington Consensus and Chile as a ‘Free Market Mirace’, and excavate helpful insights from Marx, Sam Moyo, and scholars of imperialism. They also provide concrete ways of understanding contemporary issues such as intellectual monopoly capitalism and the gig economy.

Here are the top 10 most read posts of 2021:

1. We Need to Talk about Economics (by Paulo L. dos Santos and Noé Wiener)
2. Rethinking the Social Sciences with Sam Moyo (by Praveen Jha, Paris Yeros and Walter Chambati)
3. The Washington Counterfactual: don’t believe the Washington Consensus resurrection (by Carolina Alves, Daniela Gabor and Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven).
4. Debunking the ‘Free Market Miracle’: How industrial policy enabled Chile’s export diversification (by Amir Lebdioui)
5. The Changing Face of Imperialism: Colonialism to Contemporary Capitalism (by Sunanda Sen and Maria Cristina Marcuzzo)
6. Monetary policy is ultimately based on a theory of money: A Marxist critique of MMT (by Costas Lapavitsas and Nicolás Aguila)
7. Intellectual monopoly capitalism and its effects on development (by Cecilia Rikap)
8. The Uncomfortable Opportunism of Global Development Discourses (by Pritish Behuria)
9. The partnership trap in the Indonesian gig economy (by Arif Novianto)
10. From Post-Marxism back to Marxism? (by Lucia Pradella)

This is just a tiny, tiny sample of the over eighty posts on the blog this year. You can also follow our active blog series on State Capitalism(s) and Pressure in the City, and delve into all COVID-19 related analysis here, and book reviews here (see also our book symposum on Max Ajl’s new book A People’s Green New Deal here).

In 2022, Developing Economics will continue to provide much-needed critical perspectives on development and economics. Want to join the conversation?: Become a contributor.