Productivity in late capitalism

In the debate about how to increase productivity, everybody seems to be making an assumption that I find questionable - that feasible policy changes can make a significant difference.

We need some historical context here. My chart shows that big, sustained productivity growth is in fact very rare; growth of over 2.5 per cent a year was only seen over lengthy periods between 1945 and 1990. Our idea that rapid growth is normal and stagnation not  might owe more to the influence of our formative years than it does to the wider historical evidence.

To see why strong growth should be so unusual, imagine an industry could treble its productivity over ten years. If it accounted for two per cent of the economy, it would add less than 0.3 percentage points to total annual productivity growth. This tells us that a few dynamic sectors are not enough to achieve good aggregate growth. Productivity growth was minuscule in the early decades of the industrial revolution because fast-growing sectors were only a small part of the economy.

Which is the problem we face now, in modified form. The economy is dominated by services, in many of which efficiency gains are terribly difficult to achieve: teachers, waiters, care workers and hairdressers have few ways of significantly improving productivity: this is Baumol’s cost disease. As Dietrich Vollrath writes:

Most service industries have relatively low productivity growth, and most goods-producing industries have relatively high productivity growth. As we shifted our spending from goods to services then, this pulled down overall productivity growth. (Fully Grown, p5)

Perhaps, then, strong productivity growth was the aberration and stagnation is the norm. Certainly, this is what classical economists thought. All of them foresaw a “stationary state” in which growth ceased because the forces of diminishing returns outweighed technical progress. As John Stuart Mill wrote:

It must always have been seen, more or less distinctly, by political economists, that the increase of wealth is not boundless: that at the end of what they term the progressive state lies the stationary state, that all progress in wealth is but a postponement of this, and that each step in advance is an approach to it. 

Marx’s view that a falling rate of profit would ultimately lead to capitalist stagnation was essentially an elaboration of his predecessors’ thinking: Marx’s admirers and detractors both under-appreciate the kernel of truth in Paul Samuelson’s gibe that he was a “minor post-Ricardian.”

It’s not just Baumol’s disease and diminishing returns that limit productivity improvements, however. There’s also a collective action problem. Companies will only invest to raise profits if they believe (rationally or not) that there’s a profit for themselves in it. This obviously limits investments that have spillovers: as William Nordhaus showed, firms capture only a “miniscule fraction” of the total returns to innovation. It can also curb investment if firms fear that future change will render today’s technologies obsolete: why spend £1m on a robot today if it will be competing against a £500,000 one in a few years’ time? And then there’s the likelihood that a series of crises – the tech crash, financial crisis and pandemic – have depressed animal spirits.

All this means that even if productivity-enhancing technologies are available, companies have good reason not to use them.

There’s another obstacle to productivity growth. As thinkers such as Mancur Olson and Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, economic growth produces powerful groups with vested interests in blocking further progress. Joel Mokyr calls this Cardwell’s law:

Technological progress encounters resistance from various groups that believe they stand to lose from innovation. These pressure groups will try to manipulate the political system to suppress successful innovation….Under fairly general conditions, it can be shown that the single economy will move inexorably to an absorbing barrier of technological stagnation.

So, for example, big companies push for harsh intellectual property laws to preserve their monopoly profits, at the expense of expanding knowledge: there’s a reason why that link to Mokyr’s paper takes you to Scihub. Bosses prefer to use new technologies for surveillance and guard labour (pdf) rather than for expansionary or liberationary purposes. And bankers want high-powered incentives that boost their incomes even if these come at the risk of financial crises that contribute to years of stagnation.

Such conservatism is especially restrictive in our rentier-dominated economy. Rentiers oppose some changes that might raise productivity, such as shifting taxes from incomes to land. They also want low interest rates rather than the high aggregate demand that might drive productivity gains. In the post-war years General Motors needed a large well-paid working class; the latter-day Goldman Sachs does not. All of which blocks productivity improvements because it is this minority of people who have disproportionate political power.

There’s a reason why Johnson’s attempt to raise productivity by restricting immigration is so daft: more intelligent ways of doing so are countermanded by our political system.

All of which suggests that Marx might have been right:

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

Capitalism was once a progressive force, but – especially perhaps in the UK – it no longer is. And this is due not to external shocks but to endogenous developments.

The point of this is of course not to say that if we had a revolution we could all live happily ever after. It is instead to pose a challenge to anybody discussing the UK’s productivity problem. It’s not sufficient to ask what measures might raise productivity: there are countless good candidates. We must also ask: are those policies possible within the constraints of the UK’s political system? Technocrats must take class politics more seriously.

Comments

[rsm]

Is productivity just income/hours? Thus Goldman Sachs is way more productive than Ford ever was? If we all become traders in a Fed-insured market, won't productivity skyrocket?

[georgesdelatour]

Apparently the phrase “late capitalism” was first used back in 1902 by Werner Sombart. It seems this series finale episode of “Capitalism” has been going on a very long time.

[aragon]

Feasible Policy Changes.
Nothing like accepting defeat. Lets start weith George Bernard Shaw. Yes I am unreaswonable as I don't accept the boundaries you accept. The Overton Window can be moved.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/536961-the-reasonable-man-adapts-himself-to-the-world-the-unreasonable

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

"Baumol and Bowen pointed out that the same number of musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today as was needed in the 19th century; the productivity of classical music performance has not increased."

But what about Radio/TV/Internet.
The number who are needed to create the music may be the same, but it can be recorded and distributed at near zero cost and computers are copying machines and the internet an efficient distribution system. Fewer string quartets are needed and they do not need to repeat performances.

Of course rent seeking raises it's ugly head. Interllectual Property.

https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/squid-game-900-million-value-netflix-leaked-data-1235091156/

"Netflix paid $21.4 million for the nine-episode series

[...]

The company estimates “Squid Game” will deliver more than 40 times that — an estimated $891 million — in what it calls "impact value,""

The return on Investment of forty times - read it and weep.

No wonder so much hot money is going into TV and Film.

Services are people doing things for people, these are more difficult to automate. Perhaps we should do more for ourselves? Cooking at home does not need waiters, teachers can use video lectures and perhaps online chat. This is a subject of speculation at University sector. e.g Khan Academy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy

Or study a MIT course?

https://openlearning.mit.edu/

The solution to the collective action problem is competition and actually having to produce something that satisfies a consumer. i.e. Reject Interllectuall property and Financial schemes.

IT is one of the most competitive areas and one of the most innovative. Just look at Moores law. Reduce the alternatives like Property speculation, and a Land Value Tax is credible, capturing the value of land and public investment in infrastructure.

Monitoring at work is about partial automation. Complete the automation at you will not need to observe employees doing non-routine tasks. Outsourcing may have a short-term benefit but reduces the prosperity of society as a whole.

Goldman Sachs has been called a Vampire Squid by Matt Tabbi

https://www.theguardian.com/business/andrew-clark-on-america/2009/jul/14/goldmansachs-banks

"Goldman's traders were known in the Big Apple as the Bandits of Broad Street and quoted an unnamed executive at a rival bank who compared Goldman staff to bellicose "orcs" in the Lord of the Rings."

[...]

"Gazillions of dollars in profits don't look good when employment is evaporating from the US economy at a rate of more than 400,000 jobs a month. But in the eyes of many critics, the most objectionable aspect of Goldman's success is that the bank's earnings are shared by such a small number of already ultra-wealthy people. Goldman distributes 49% of its revenue to employees who may get an average pay packet of as much as $900,000 this year."

"While you may be loathe to listen to lessons in propriety from a man with as colourful a recent past as Spitzer, he has a point. Goldman's earnings are a warning flare. After the cataclysmic events of the past 18 months, are we simply going to allow bankers to go back to enriching themselves through an elaborate, opaque form of casino trading which is semi-detached from the rest of society?"

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-195229/

"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates."

[...]

"The bank’s unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you’re losing, it’s going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it’s going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals."

That would be the estimated one-quadrillion in derivatives

Like Fashion, Finance follows the money!

So how long before they depart the UK's desiccated corpse?

The Three Virtues of a Programmer (Not what you might expect)
http://threevirtues.com/

[aragon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak

Rishi Sunak

"After graduating, he worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a Partner at the hedge fund firms The Children's Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners."

Goldman Sachs, Hedge Funds an intresting backround for someone who wants to balance the UK's books.

[aragon]

For RSM Matt Tabbis conclusion

"But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It’s a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can’t be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can’t stop it, but we should at least know where it’s all going.

This article originally appeared in the July 9-23, 2009 of Rolling Stone."

You might also enjoy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron%3A_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room_(book)

"a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history."

I'm having fun today.

[Blissex]

«Is productivity just income/hours? Thus Goldman Sachs is way more productive than Ford ever was?»

A non-useless comment/question! Wonders never cease.

Indeed reporting income/hour (or even output/wage) as "productivity" is a standard technique of "sell-side" Economists, at least since J.B. Clark "proved" that income is directly proportional to production.

The general astute idea of using income/hour for "productivity" however in more recent decades is derived from the other common and very convenient clever technique of using GDI as if it were GDP (which is a vector of physical quantities, not an amount of money).

«If we all become traders in a Fed-insured market, won't productivity skyrocket?»

Or even better, the "Daily Mail" dream future: everybody in England become buy-to-let landlords living off the rents of their properties, and nobody has to work. :-)

[Blissex]

«The return on Investment of forty times - read it and weep»

That seems to me a silly point because it is not *risk adjusted* returns.

The general point is that there are several worthwhile productive activities that are like drilling for oil, where the rule of thumb was that 1 in 13 wells drilled would produce oil, the other 12 run dry. The not-risk-adjusted return on investment of that 1 in 13 is of course phenomenal.

«Reject Interllectuall property and Financial schemes.»

Some IP protection and some financial schemes are useful, the question is the degree.

«there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay»

There is also the private, but government sponsored and enforced, tax that is housing cost inflation.

[Blissex]

«In the post-war years General Motors needed a large well-paid working class; the latter-day Goldman Sachs does not.»

And that is a very big difference between productive capitalists (even if exploitative in the marxian sense) and rent extractors:

* Most productive capitalists have as customers the employees of all capitalists, therefore each capitalist would like to pay less their own employees but also (less intensely) wishes that the pay of the employees of every other capitalist would increase, as they are customers. This is what makes social-democracy possible, and I think that the bearded guy himself did not consider that.

* Conversely for most rentiers workers are just "exploiters" as they part of the cost of living for rentiers, and "prey" as the target of their extraction, and they have very little incentive to regard a high level of wages as benefiting them in the same ways that productive capitalists do.

As to the letter however there is an exception that I think is part of the reason why Johnson is talking the talk of a "high wage" economy:

* The limit to rent extraction from workers is their wages, and many workers in southern England are already paying 50-70% of their wages in rent (one has to include commercial rents for shops etc.), and packing them tighter has limits, as many low income workers already do "hot bunking", that is dosshouse beds have two renters, one daytime (for customers who work night shifts), one nightime.

* Higher wages for workers given that housing is both necessary and insufficient translate into higher economic rents for property owners, that is in effect redistribute from the profits of productive capitalist to rentier incomes by way of the wages and rents of their employees, the "Corn Laws" did in the 19th century by way of higher food prices. When Johnson said "Fuck business" I suspect that was his implied thinking.

[Blissex]

«the question is the degree»

As an aside, that is something that I have noticed as cultural difference between "barbarian" northern european countries and more "civilized" (or perhaps just decadent...) mediterranean ones: many people in "barbarian" countries assume that issues are black/white, either wholly "true" or "wholly" false, while in more "civilized" countries it is more generally assumed that issues are matters of degree and probability.

My usual example is the issue of worker exploitation in the sense of Karl Marx: many "leftoids" obsess about it, disregarding rentier extraction (which was Karl Marx however regarded as important).

What if worker exploitation were or could be reduced to a small percent? Would it matter that much? As an issue of principle perhaps, but practically, and especially compared to other issues?

Note: in many "barbarian" cultures there is a conflict between the true/false absolutism of some aspects of the culture and the yearning for practicality of other aspects of the culture though. See northern England of some scandinavian countries, that I think tend more to practicality.

For example the case for economic equality does not depend on exploitation: even if great wealth were entirely indeed derived from one's one productivity and thus "fully earned", since great wealth also can buy great power, not just a life of luxury, it would still be in most people's interests to limit it, however "unfair" this would be, to limit the power that those people of ("fully earned") great wealth could exercise over public affairs.

[ltr]

All of which suggests that Marx might have been right:

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

Capitalism was once a progressive force, but – especially perhaps in the UK – it no longer is. And this is due not to external shocks but to endogenous developments.

[ Excellent argument. ]

[aragon]

Given that the average Stock Market return is 10% (p.a.) a return of 400% is the sort of thing not seen outside of finance.

Risk, that monosodium glutimate of finance making rent seeking palitable.

Hollywood has it's own accounting system, where films make a loss after huge sales.

Black Widow:

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/08/22/marvel-studios-black-widow-rakes-in-125-million-at/

"To date, the film has grossed $169.7 million at the domestic box office, and $367.8 million at the global box office; add in digital sales and Black Widow has generated roughly $500 million."

Not too shabby.
Scarlet Johansson was paid $20 Million but is demanding $50 Million more ($70 Million) in a lawsuit.

"Every one of the Avengers has earned betwen $ 125 - $ 470 Million from the Franchise and even supporting actors like Clark Gregg made $ 25.4 Million purely from Residual Checks"

We don't normally see these sort of figures outside Finance!

Clearly piracy is bringing the industry to it's knees!

Of course Intellectual Property is backed by International Copyright, a state monopoly on distribution and copying.

The title is "Intellectual Property"
and given low to zero copying and distribution costs marketing becomes the main factor. Like land, rent seeking "Intellectual Property" diverts resources from more productive activities and raises the costs and returns on entertainment.

And now we have a new property for the rich to exploit cryptocurrencies.

[Blissex]

Some arguments (like many by M Hyde on "The Guardian") seem to me sometimes so "awkward" as to achieve the opposite of their ostensible effect, and end up in ridiculing some "left" points of view, for example:

«Scarlet Johansson was paid $20 Million but is demanding $50 Million more ($70 Million) in a lawsuit.»

So ms. Johansson is a proletarian who with the sweat of her brow earns a wage of $20m for a project, how is that exploitative? Is it just envy for the rich, as the tories and whigs keep saying?

It seems to me rather counterproductive to use entertainment as the example for how bad intellectual property is: most people would realize that nobody is needs to pay to watch ms. Johansson earn her proletarian income with the sweat of her brow. The case against that has little to do with intellectual property, except for the general principle that in case of doubt government enforced monopolies should be short in duration and soft in strength, unless there is compelling evidence otherwise.

The better examples against long and hard intellectual property on things that are needs like medicines or are of wide public usefulness like technology improvements or technical books etc.

«Like land, rent seeking "Intellectual Property" diverts resources from more productive activities»

That seems to me a very improper analogy: land that gives access to jobs (or natural resources) and thus generates rent extracted from wages (or from fertility) is a need. "Patrick Carter" recently mentioned "location" as an asset class, that is quite different from entertainment.

«a new property for the rich to exploit cryptocurrencies»

There is no I.P. in cryptocurrencies: each "coin" is a *number* (for example each BitCoin is a solution of a diofantine equation) and those cannot be copyrighted or patented (yet). A somewhat reasonable analogy is that each "coin" is like a page number (the number of the page, not its content) in a copy of a book, where traders agree that only one person at a time can "own" a given page number.

Indeed the main reason why the original "BitCoin" was created was to have a unit of accounting that was independent of any government legislation, including I.P., and its software was released without copyright restrictions.

And anyhow nobody is forced to trade in "coins", just as nobody has to watch ms. Johansson earn her wage, and few people end up spending 40-70% of their after-tax wage on entertainment, so it does not seem to me a burning issue for the "left". While a lot proletarian. Housing is quite different.

[aragon]

That should be 4000% not 400% or the 10% (p.a.) from the stock market.

The vast sum ms. Johansson is paid is a reflection of the vast sums generated in the Entertainment Industry.

Contrast it with Universal Credit or the minimum wage. Been the leading actor in a MCU movie seems to be the positional justification for such a salary.

"Art for Arts sake money for God's sake" 10cc.

I don't know where but entertainment should make it onto the hierarchy of needs. Not as high as housing but then, that is not in dispute, nor is the rent extraction associated with housing. Extraordinary returns from Finance and Intellectual Property help inflate House Prices.

The returns from intellectual property and marketing (Government diktat) divert resources from more socially useful activities.
e.g. See Big Pharma.

No Crypto currencies are not state mandated (yet) but we have ETF fund in New York and according to the Telegraph they have cracked 'SW1' with Philip Hammond investing.

Like derivitives money will be created to fund Crypto transactions. Even though the transactions are a wash, commission (new money) will be taken and make it into physical assets like Property. And the exchanges and ETF will be like banks too big to fail (they will be owned by the same powerful intrests).

Not to mention the useless energy consumption doing pointless calculations (proof of stake - whales are now miners - but need less electricity), but with notional speculative returns greater than normal electricity consumption.

Finance/Intellectual Property/Crypto
which justify money creation and fantastical returns, and divert real resources.

And the world we live in with Universal credit or real wages (in the same currency).

No crypto will not replace 'state' money but will take it's place along side derivatives as paper to be traded and fees to be charged.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/bitcoin-who-owns-it-who-mines-it-whos-breaking-law

"2. Bitcoin ownership is concentrated among the rich."

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/why-the-big-short-guys-think-bitcoin-is-a-bubble.html

"Bitcoin, its critics like to say, is nothing but electricity. “To tell me that something that’s constructed as a computer program, where you engage in some process of sitting there in front of your computer and, after a period of time and the expenditure of a bunch of electricity, a message appears on your screen that you have created something, that’s ridiculous,” Singer said on an investment podcast earlier this year. "It’s nothing.""

The purpose of the calculations in Bitcoin is to limit the number of miners (maintaining the blockchain), a purely internal function.

Fantasy Finance dominates the real world and Housing is just one expression.

[Blissex]

«Apparently the phrase “late capitalism” was first used back in 1902 by Werner Sombart. It seems this series finale episode of “Capitalism” has been going on a very long time.»

The issue here is that the term "capitalism" is overloaded with many meanings, and at the core it just means "production by means of employees without capital and capital without labour". So for example "socialism" is short for "social capitalism" and "communism" is short for "communal capitalism".

But it is also overloaded historically: there have been different types of capitalism over time. The privately owned capitalism of the 19th century, with capitalist businesses owned by individuals, had already waned by 1902 in favour of stockmarket capialism, which then gave way to management/"organization man" capitalism, and then to financialized capitalism, and then to rentierist capitalism.

So for every phase the "late capitalism" would have been appropriate.

[ltr]

Productivity in late capitalism

[ The question presented is whether productivity is slowing in late capitalism. British evidence suggests the answer is "yes." France and Germany also suggest this answer. Again, the same for Japan and the US. ]

[ltr]

An astonishing and distressing British public health and technology failure:

October 20, 2021

Coronavirus

United Kingdom

Cases ( 8,589,737)
Deaths ( 139,031)

Deaths per million ( 2,034)

China

Cases ( 96,601)
Deaths ( 4,636)

Deaths per million ( 3)

[ltr]

An astonishing and distressing failing for British public health and technology:

October 20, 2021

Coronavirus

United Kingdom

Cases ( 8,589,737)
Deaths ( 139,031)

Deaths per million ( 2,034)

China

Cases ( 96,601)
Deaths ( 4,636)

Deaths per million ( 3)

[Blissex]

«whether productivity is slowing in late capitalism. British evidence suggests the answer is "yes." France and Germany also suggest this answer. Again, the same for Japan and the US»

We have been here before several times... Macro productivity is mostly (I guess around 90%) derived from the "consumer surplus" of coal first and oil second, through both wider adoption and increasing efficiency. Oil fueled machinery is currently pretty much everywhere and most low hanging efficiency improvements have been done.

For the UK an example is the impact on productivity of scottish oil extraction, in a study written by Philip Wales of the ONS (and noticed by Frances Coppola):

https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/dataukprodbysector1970to2013.png
https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/dataukoilextrconsexpmazama1965to2015.png
(http://www.coppolacomment.com/2016/07/the-untold-story-of-uks-productivity.html

Note that is productivity in money terms, not in efficiency.

Then there is an article and a book by an eminent Cambridge historian (Tony Wrigley) about the overwhelming importance for the first industrial revolution of the switch from vegetables to coal:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2011.056
https://voxeu.org/article/industrial-revolution-energy-revolution
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/energy-and-the-english-industrial-revolution/A18E48989B4A915D0E77A29D57D85763

Another two interesting references:

https://flora.insead.edu/fichiersti_wp/inseadwp2002/2002-52.pdf
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jevons-the-coal-question

[ltr]

Macro productivity is mostly (I guess around 90%) derived from the "consumer surplus" of coal first and oil second, through both wider adoption and increasing efficiency. Oil fueled machinery is currently pretty much everywhere and most low hanging efficiency improvements have been done.

[ A very important comment that I would argue will be found incomplete or incorrect, since a transition is occurring to renewable energy and comprehensive digital connection. ]

[rsm]

Why is rentierism necessarily bad? Does the argument: "finance is bad, because rentiers" assume a zero-sum theory of money?

Don't finance firms collect far more rent from fictitious financial goods than from the real economy? Isn't repo just rent on govies, assessed by financial firms on other financial firms, and paid for with money created in the financial system?

And doesn't repo dwarf real transactions by a factor of ten or more?

Can rentierism be a harmless activity sustained entirely without needing any "ground rent" from the real economy?

If we abandon the quaint old notion that money is zero-sum, can't we leave rentiers alone while providing us each with enough money and commons that we can live our lives never having to interact with rentiers, unless we choose?

[Blissex]

«If we abandon the quaint old notion that money is zero-sum, can't we leave rentiers alone while providing us each with enough money and commons»

Ah well, yet another incredibly useless comment, based on the fabulous notion that consumption of goods and services (produced by workers) by rentiers does not impact anybody else,

«live our lives never having to interact with rentiers»

I am sure that the rentiers would love for workers to just send the goods and services they produce to their beautiful mansions without ever inflicting on them the sorry spectacle of their vulgar mugs. That's how it worked for most of history. :-)

[Blissex]

«a transition is occurring to renewable energy and comprehensive digital connection.»

That transition will also be one to much lower living standards (the "revolution of reduced expectations") for the populace, to reduce their "carbon footprint" (and I suspect that is the real goal of the "climate change" stpry, consider the huge campaign to persuade the populace to eat fake [soylent] meat and leave real meat to be consumed by their betters).

As one sci-fi novel had it, the goal may be the "polished turd on a wire" economy, where the populace will "enjoy" digital versions of the pleasures that the "deserving few" with much wealth in finance and property will enjoy in reality.

https://dilbert.com/strip/2003-10-22

Also:

https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-04-01
https://dilbert.com/strip/2014-12-26
https://dilbert.com/strip/2014-12-27
https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-14

[ltr]

«a transition is occurring to renewable energy and comprehensive digital connection.»

That transition will also be one to much lower living standards (the "revolution of reduced expectations") for the populace, to reduce their "carbon footprint"...

[ This is becoming and will be precisely the reverse for China. The energy revolution and comprehensive digital connection with continued general infrastructure development is dramatically increasing well-being through China. ]

[ltr]

Jeremy Corbyn wanted to dramatically strengthen the British public health system. The current Conservative and Labour leadership are evidently unconcerned:

October 21, 2021

Coronavirus

United Kingdom

Cases ( 8,641,221)
Deaths ( 139,146)

Deaths per million ( 2,036)

China

Cases ( 96,622)
Deaths ( 4,636)

Deaths per million ( 3)

[aragon]

This kinda explains it:

https://mazya.org/xkcd-finance-a-good-day/

or the original https://xkcd.com/2101/
Hover for alt-text.

And then theres the Money poster - click for zoom-able version.

https://xkcd.com/980/

Queue cryptocurrencies

https://xkcd.com/512/

And the Fed

https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/09/23/federal-reserve-skateboard-a-short-story/

[aragon]

And then their is this pressing issue male for economists...

https://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/

[aragon]

Here you go...

https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/01/AtF3g2rjodg2ivUwM3oQMVunkcEA9RahsdTE5pkRPqs.png

[aragon]

And of course 10cc

https://genius.com/10cc-the-wall-street-shuffle-lyrics

[Chorus 2]
To do the Wall Street Shuffle
Let your money hustle
Bet you'd sell your mother
You can buy another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foT1ITubs1A

[ltr]

Aragon, this is posting selfish creepy rubbish. Enough.

[rsm]

《the fabulous notion that consumption of goods and services (produced by workers) by rentiers does not impact anybody else,》

If I have a basic income and can live off the commons, why should I work for a rentier, unless I choose to?

[rsm]

《persuade the populace to eat fake [soylent] meat and leave real meat to be consumed by their betters).》

Why is real meat better, when all I taste is the suffering of innocent, murdered animals?

What if I use finance to corner pork belly futures, and raise the price of meat to $infinity?

[aragon]

The use of Art to make a political point is subversive. But then the CCP should know this.

Light reading for Rushi and ltr and others who miss the point.

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-politics-treasury-central-bank-loans-monetary-policy

The ideal of “apolitical” money advocated by crypto fanatics is a fantasy: how much, where, and at whose discretion money is created is inherently a political decision. What is needed is a mechanism to extend monetary agency to ordinary people so they can utilize credit creation to the benefit of their communities and society as a whole.

Bloody Socialists!

[ltr]

Aragon:

"What is needed is a mechanism to extend monetary agency to ordinary people so they can utilize credit creation to the benefit of their communities and society as a whole."

This is a very interesting passage, that I appreciate having read. The Chinese anti-poverty program was effective in extending digital banking or banking in a smart phone through the poorest of communities, along with other infrastructure development that allowed for small business development.

I appreciate this explanation.

[ltr]

Look to the polls on Keir Starmer and understand what a disaster this leader of Labour has been, but the point was always to ruin Jeremy Corbyn who is thoroughly Labour and always will be. Starmer was meant to ruin Corbyn and traditional Labour and in doing so there has been a tragic result for Britain.

[ltr]

Such a tragedy would not have been possible with a Labour-Corbyn government:

October 22, 2021

Coronavirus

United Kingdom

Cases ( 8,689,949)
Deaths ( 139,326)

Deaths per million ( 2,038)

China

Cases ( 96,665)
Deaths ( 4,636)

Deaths per million ( 3)

[Blissex]

«the polls on Keir Starmer and understand what a disaster this leader of Labour has been»

Starmer has been a disaster for Labour because he is the leader of a party, New Labour, that considers itself an electoral and political rival to Labour, but that is not related to the polls for two main reasons:

* Several papers show that leaders and the press have little influence in elections, with some exceptions (Blair substantially cut New Labour votes, Corbyn somewhat increases them). In particular in the UK under FPTP the *distribution* of votes among the parties is far more important. Many if not most voters don't even know who the leaders are.

* Polls reflect voter "abstract" liking of leaders or parties, but they vote on their interests (mostly real, some imagined). For example many Conservative voters may think of Boris as a slimy guy and dislike him (many *like* him), but they still vote Conservative because it is in their interest, and even some New Labour voters may have liked Corbyn, but they voted for the Conservatives at general election time or against Corbyn at leadership election time, because they thought that Corbyn's policies were against their interests.

Detestable but lucid USA Republican political expert Grover Norquist gave a very good example:

http://www.prospect.org/article/world-according-grover
«Pat Buchanan came into this coalition and said, “You know what? I have polled everybody in the room and 70 percent think there are too many immigrants; 70 percent are skeptics on free trade with China. I will run for President as a Republican; I will get 70 percent of the vote.”
He didn't ask the second question … do you vote on that subject?»

Note that things can change; as to this particular example however by 2016 “that subject” had become important enough to the interests of enough american in swing states that they did “vote on that subject” and elected Donald Trump.

[Patrick Carter]

I have not looked behind all your links Chris; you may have seen these already and they do not speak to your main point about political economy ... but this is an interesting one on low interest rates and productivity:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w25505
and, although in context of developing countries, this has some interesting data on service sector productivity and discussion of where productivity growth could come from in a services economy
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35599

[ltr]

Patrick Carter: Really excellent paper. China has been sharply applying anti-trust policy in digital information-technology sectors. The point is to significantly increase competition and productivity.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w25505

August, 2020

Low Interest Rates, Market Power, and Productivity Growth
By Ernest Liu, Atif Mian & Amir Sufi

[ltr]

Patrick Carter:

...where productivity growth could come from in a services economy.

[ A very important question right now. Where does productivity growth come from in say financial services or healthcare? British fundamental research in drug development is surely an important productivity source, but I want to know more about the healthcare field and productivity. Does this related to the tragedy of the British and American approaches to the coronavirus?

I will read the World Bank paper carefully. ]

[ltr]

Blissex,

The explanation was valuable, however as Chris Dillow and Simon Wren-Lewis have discussed we need to take the media very seriously. British media is remarkably C(c)onservative. Tony Blair played up to Rupert Murdoch for support and turned the BBC conservative to insure support before the Iraq War.

[ Also, Evergrande looks to be a typical real-estate workout from here.

China will be applying a property tax in a few cities.

The point for China is to insure homes are for living not speculating on. How this all works out in policy application is very important. ]