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September 27, 2021

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Blissex

«One word is notably absent in Sir Keir Starmer’s recent essay – capitalism. [...] “entering the 2020s, Britain faced stagnant wages, vast inequality and the slowest growth in living standards since the second world war.” But he attributes this solely to “Tory failure”.»

Peter Mandelson wrote 20 years that “in the urgent need to remove rigidities and incorporate flexibility in capital, product and labour markets, we are all Thatcherites now”, therefore New Labour and Starmer know well that "There Is No Alternative".

Therefore thatcherism cannot fail, it can only be failed, and if thatcherism did not deliver success that can only be because the Conservatives are incompetent thatcherites, and New Labour and Starmer promise that they will be competent thatcherites.

Blissex

«In the 90s and early 00s the Tories’ obsession with Europe led them into electoral oblivion.»

That is the standard claim by right-wing neoliberals that identity rather than class interests drives politics. But it is happens that the major problem in the 1990s was a house price crash, and that in the past 40 years there have been a change in government only after a house price crash...

«The cure for populism is economic growth»

That embodies another two claims by right-wing neoliberals:

* That "populism" is a bad thing to be avoided.

* That "growth" automatically is fair across the classes, because "the markets" deliver it to the most deserving.

Phil

"What you've got to remember about these people is, they're not very bright." - Robin Ramsay, circa 1999. Which was unfair to at least some of the New Labour crowd he was referring to, but seems to fit the new generation rather well.

rsm

What happened to the Easterlin paradox?

Why does economic growth cause rising suicide rates?

Why does Ben Friedman ignore the 1930s, when low growth led to the production of swing music in the US?

Why ignore 2020 when supposed hysterisis nevertheless resulted in Biden's election?

Is Ben Friedman cherry-picking his data?

Nanikore

Interesting essay, thanks. One disappointment though is you quote Summers. Summers was one of the so-called "masters of the universe" and so featured on the front of Time magazine during the heyday of Neo-Liberalism. He has done a lot to marginalise pre-2008 sceptics of uber-globalisation and critics of the economics profession.

If we are going to have genuinely new ideas we need to start tackling this hegemony of thought. These people need to be made accountable.

Nanikore

I don't think Starmer has a chance until there is real reform in the economics profession. Until that happens the left will be in an ideas and policy vacuum.

You need people historically highly literate. You need people that understand what economics as a subject really is and how it distorts our understanding of society and capitalism. You need people that can ask questions like why economics looks at the world as a problem of aggregation of individualistic constrained optimisation and how did that come about.

Think of the Theory of Consumer Behaviour. Would that stand up in front of a philosopher or psychologist?

You are probably going to have a truly destructive event before we get any real change. Truly destructive. WWII changed things for a little while, but it did not last long.

Nanikore

@Blissex "Therefore thatcherism cannot fail, it can only be failed, and if thatcherism did not deliver success that can only be because the Conservatives are incompetent thatcherites, and New Labour and Starmer promise that they will be competent thatcherites."

Absolutely. The best the neo-classical economics profession can offer is that under a zero-lower bound interest rate you can increase government expenditure.

They can't see that this is not an answer to the fundamental problems in capitalism and just repeats the cycles of things.

ltr

I don't think Starmer has a chance until there is real reform in the economics profession....

[ What nonsense. The economics profession is just fine, and as always provides a range of ideas that can be adopted by policy makers including ideas that have been adopted in different setting and shown highly effective.

Keir Starmer is a Tory and supports Tory policy. Starmer has done all that is possible to ruin traditional Labour representatives and has used the most despicable tactics in so doing.

I at least will always oppose the ruinous Labour of Starmer and the like leadership.

GREGORY BOTT

Illiberal nationalism will fail as well. In the end its all tied to debt expansion turned into growth. Oh, what a little lie the industrial revolution was. The fact bourgeois states are Bernie Lomaxing capitalism since 2008 explicitly(and frankly since 1932 unexplicity) shows the weakness. The next stage is the bourgeois state dissolving as the depression lingers into famine and death. The market correcting by killing white children and reducing global population down to size. What rises must fall.

ltr

You need people historically highly literate. You need people that understand what economics as a subject really is and how it distorts our understanding of society and capitalism. You need people that can ask questions like why economics looks at the world as a problem of aggregation of individualistic constrained optimisation and how did that come about....

[ I have no idea what this actually means. Try reading Thomas Piketty or Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman and on and on... ]

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