Martin Wolf summarises his feelings about the election campaign rather well this morning in the FT:
The time has surely come to shift the focus from the obsession with fiscal deficits and debt. These were neither the cause of the crisis nor the solution. Whatever one thinks of the fiscal policies of the coalition, a weak and unbalanced recovery from a huge recession is not a vindication. The UK faces really big economic challenges. It confronts equally huge questions about its place in the world and in Europe, as well as its own constitutional future. Neither main party offers convincing responses to these challenges. Have no illusion: real competence is not on offer, either in economics or, in truth, much else.
On the issue of economics he is right.
What he does not say that this is the result of the shared neoliberal obsession of the UK's two main parties (and LibDems, plus UKIP).
But he is also right that the election has missed so many big issues whilst tackling this non-issue. Why a non-issue? Because as he notes:
[T]he view that the UK's crisis was essentially due to Labour profligacy is false. This mistaken belief allows people to ignore the weaknesses of the private economy, which was more fragile than thought in those pre-crisis years.
And, as for the 'recovery':
Yet the more fundamental point is that this has been a disturbingly weak and unbalanced recovery, not a strong, healthy one.
So we move on to the post election period knowing that the wrong questions will remain at the top of the agenda with a deep sigh of 'if only' and the knowledge that campaigning for real reform remains an imperative.
That's the only way we will get a sound economy that addresses the real issues of sustainable growth and a fair distribution of reward. And the only way that the big issue of what country we are will be answered. And the only way that how we decide on that issue will be addressed.
And maybe, just maybe, we might also address how the economics of the society we are heading for, whatever politics argues about, might be properly addressed because right now I think no one is addressing how the semi-federal, coalition ruled, country we might become, that may well embrace a currency union with an independent Scotland, is going to settle the massive issues of monetary, fiscal and taxation policy that remain at the heart of politics and yet about which it seems almost no politician wants to ask or answer appropriate questions.
I may be in business for a bit longer, in other words.
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You are absolutely right to point out the misinformation that has been peddled by right-wing politicians.
But we also need to consider the divide and rule tactics that have been used by the Right over the last 5 years as well – pitting ordinary people against each other in order to throw them off the scent of where the real problems lie – as Wolf says – in the private economy.
Figures during the 1984 miners’ strike were that 7 percent of the UK population owned 84 percent of the nation’s capital wealth assets. This wealth gap has been widening and is now wider than in Victorian times and is estimted to be 6/85 or even 5/90. So can somebody tell me why I should pop 80 yds down the road and vote? What can I vote for that is any use to me?
Aneurin Bevan once said that real power in this country does not rest in Parliament; that’s just for public consumption. Real power is two miles to the east of Parliament – in the financial and commercial City of London, which lobbies Parliament for what it wants; typically donating tro both main parties so that it can influence any majority.
Voting is no more than choosing the Rockefellers or the Bilderbergs to run the country.
We don’t want crumbs from the righ man’s table. We want to own the bakery, the flour, the grain, the firlds and the land.
You know it makes sense.
Apologies for the typos! BM.
Wolf is right, and your additional comments absolutely on the nail. But as Polly Toynbee noted in her recent piece about attending a function in the City and the views and opinions she experienced, never in a million years are those who bankroll and ultimately control the Tory party ever going to accept that economically and socially the UK needs to admit its failing are legion and change.
Indeed, quite the reverse. The policies of the past five years, which effectively supercharged the neoliberal project that has been pursued to a greater or lesser extent by all governments since Thatcher, have taken us back to the brink of a 21st century variant of the 19th century class divides, and the economic and social conditions that prevailed at that time. And as you and others have noted on your blog on numerous occasions over the past five years, that’s clearly still not enough for many a neoliberal: The goal is quite clearly neofeudalism – the road to serfdom for the many while the few take up their “rightful” places, as they see it, as the Lords and Ladies of the kingdom (as it will shortly become).
Unless and until there is a rebalancing of the power relations in this country (not just a UK problem, of course) nothing much will change. Electoral reform would be one mechanism to start that process. And this election more than any other has shown that media ownership has to be tackled (see today’s reports on the extent of Tory bias in the press and the appalling state and scale of the reporting of anything Miliband/Labour related). But speaking about my own area of interest, so too must the policy making processes and mechanisms of government. This is a subject that goes largely unexplored outside of academia, but is central to an effectively functioning, pluralist, representative, democracy. The last five years has seen many of these mechanisms and processes captured (in actual fact in many cases, voluntarily handed to representatives of big business and the 1%. In short, agents who represent the interests of a minority, and who duly influence, shape and oversee policy that always and everywhere favour and/or advance their interests (whatever the PR guff may otherwise claim).
As I’ve commented before on this blog, should we have a Labour led government in the next few weeks I’ll confidently predict that any policy they attempt to formulate and adopt that is not (or cannot be twisted to) serve the interests of the Tory “elite” will be interfered with and obstructed at every stage. That applies across the board, as there’s not one department or agency of government that isn’t now largely controlled by groups who have entirely bought into this system. Should we have another Tory led government then our decent into neofeudalism will continue apace, and the exercise of corporate power will become absolute.
So the neo-feudal corporate state is on its way come-what-may?
I might need to go and have a coffee to deal with that
Reading your blogs over the years, and respecting your endless striving to expose and combat neoliberalism, Richard, I want my answer to that question to be “no”. And indeed given that human agency can deliver most things, and consequently no outcome is inevitable, then that’s another reason to say “no”. But speaking as a realist, based on what I see and study, the answer would have to be “yes” – in the medium term at the very least.
That doesn’t discount the value of what you and others do to counter this race to the bottom – without voices of resistance such as yours imagine where the likes of Cameron, Johnson, Gove, Shapps and the many servants of corporate and elite power and interests would have us now. But at what point in that descent, and when, a sufficient number of the citizens of this country wake up to what’s truly going on and start to act to change things (assuming they are able) I honestly don’t know. Then again, perhaps the outcome of this election, and the break of of the Union that looks likely to follow, might create the necessary catalyst. I sincerely hope so.
The tipping point is a simplistic idea
But they happen
I think we may be heading for one
@Ivan. It is also my view we are heading to a neo-feudal corporate global order. Who are the enablers? In my life I have witnessed the emergence of a new ‘buffer’ class, actors for the wealthy and super-wealthy – the “Super-managerial class” serving Neoliberalism. It has armies of highly rewarded enablers — lawyers, media, lobbyists, finance, mathematicians, security forces, policy and research institutes, captured educators and state institutions. The fight is perhaps beyond the reach of majoritarian democracy — “transferring wealth” [benign euphemism is now ‘profit’] dominates the lexicon rather than creating “social wealth” with a “sustainable economy” for all, impacting the planet less.
RM, sorry a dystopian view from us when you cleave away the neon gloss of neoliberalism. Many will be persuaded “there is no alternative”, “continue with the plan” from Super-salesmen (Camerons) – to buy into, or by stealth, or else! Or face chaos and fear, glued with the logic “its only fair”. Countering this dialogue is what we do, I live in hope we discover Ivan’s “catalyst”.
So do I
I think you’ve called it Ivan to be honest.
It’s not a nice prospect, but I think it’s close to the truth.
Piketty’s analysis supports Ivan Horrocks’ opinion. It is becoming clearer, however, that Picketty’s proposed remedies will not work. The super rich show no signs of reducing their wealth gathering, in fact it has increased since the last financial crisis they caused and any attempt to reign them in either locally or internationally seems to have little chance of success. They are bolstered by the managerial class below them who are desperate to climb the ladder into the plutocracy. This is achieved at the expense of the living standards and working conditions of the majority of employees. In a local FE college the top ten managers received salaries amounting to £1 million pounds last year; the lecturers were forced into new contracts that slashed their salaries by up to £13,000 pa. It is happening in almost every organisation, public or private. As an economic historian, it suggests to me that Karl Marx was wrong. Provided the owners of capital can keep control of the media, even the social media, emasculate collective opposition such as trade unions and maintain order, probably through privatised policing and military in the future, they will be able to sustain their domination. I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like were heading for a SciFi-style dystopia.
The fact is that the few don’t really think they need the rest any more
That is the basis of the problem we face
And they think they can ring fence themselves to enforce that view
I caught a bit of yesterday’s Keiser Report where the guest speaker, Satyajit Das, mentioned the term ‘bolt hole’. The super rich are looking for somewhere to bolt to when the going (for them) starts to get tough. I think he said they were buying up plots now in NZ(?) and planning how they will ‘manage’ the substantial workforce they will need to take care of them. Chilling – as if I’m not already mightily chilled by the thoughts of what tomorrow might bring:o(
Yanis Varoufakis basically said the same thing in his excellent long read in the Guardian – that we cannot just hope that things get so bad that change will come automatically.
Things ‘getting worse’ can actually enable both or all sides of an argument to gain a foothold – look our Osbourne convinced us that we were Greece MKII.
Yanis bascially says that the left should now be portraying itself as racing to save capitalism – not to replace it and all parties who have this objective at their core should work together despite their differences (so really, the Greens and SNP should be making overtures to Labour in my view and they should not be being rebuffed). But also pressure groups dealing with tax, welfare, disability rights etc., should also be making political friends.
Ed M might have been a bit rash on that one with the SNP.
I also go back to an observation by Gillian Tett in the documentary ‘The Four Horseman’ about who dominates the ‘cognitive map’ and put quite simply the Tories and neo-libs do very well at this because they are always throwing stuff out there peddling their bullshit.
Labour’s failure to counteract the lie that they bankrupted the country is evidence of their failure to treat the ‘cognitive map’ on the 2008 crash seriously.
If the Tories get in again, then those of us who oppose their policies need to come more closely together. That is the only way forward.
But if Labour get in – we STILL need to pull together more closely and put them under pressure in order to ensure that they get rid of their blue propensities.
Labour needs some bloody good bloggers
Day in day out
what we have had throughout the election campaign is a media who have frustratingly asked the same benign questions over and over again. It’s like their puppets, and this absurd economic narrative that pervades the ether is the puppet master. Then we have the electorate who have the legitimate right to interrogate their political representatives, but it’s the same narrative.
What we needed was individuals like yourself as well as those that have a different political agenda given much more media exposure. We may well have then had a dynamic campaign that could have rewritten the political narrative.
We are being asked to make a judgement when the majority of us do not understand the arguments and have been starved of the facts
But to be fair, most don’t want to hear alternative voices like mine
I have to live with that
Although there have been 639,000 reads on this blog this year, so far
I think the key to that James is the getting rid of the FPTP system which could elevate other political voices that then have to be captured by the media because they are seen as just as legitimate as the main 3 parties.
We may not like some of what we see but policy formation becomes more reflective of public choices rather than the choices of the (rich) few.
It could work – but the ingenuity of the neo-libs to turn anything their way must never be underestimated.
I disagree, And those figures prove that.I stumbled upon your blog at a time when I was becoming increasingly frustrated at sports stars and the like who avoid paying tax. I know for a fact they would not be who they have become if it wasn’t for the nuture they had received through taxation.
it’s like most of us live our lives in the dark, unaware of the mechanism that create the society around us. I have since reading your blog pass that knowledge on, and hopeful many of your readers do
I know I try to – that’s for sure – but people have got so used to being told that we are bankrupt etc., that it’s an uphill climb.
Also, I’m beginning to understand how people see the world in their own terms – they mostly relate to it through their OWN lives. This is why selling them the idea that government finance is akin to domestic finance takes hold is so easy to do because they can relate to that more than the facts surrounding macro economics.
I don’t know whether to pity them or condemn for their ignorance – but ultimately they will pay for this and drag the more questioning folk like me/us down with them. It’s not social security or pensions that will take people on the road to serfdom – it will be neo-liberal economics.
I’ve just finished watching Channel 4 news and guess who they had talking neo-lib rubbish?
Niall Ferguson – locking horns with Zoe Williams.
He spoke glowingly about the coalition – how they have created 2 million jobs, how wages are rising 8% above inflation and how poor David and Nick inherited ‘a mess’ from the Labour government before them. He said all of this with a straight face. Zoe put him right, and Mr Snow held him in check.
I thought that he was a historian and not an economist. Actually, hearing him talk crap like that he is actually a ‘hysterian’.
As long as the Right can find rent-a-gobs like him, people will go on believing this neo-lib narrative.
Tonight, I’m going dig out my Ferguson books and put them in the bin. Arrogant fool that he is.
He is dire
Mark, a few years ago after I’d watched one of the first series on history Ferguson had on TV I mentioned him to a historian (academic) friend. He directed me to a number of journal articles Ferguson had written and from scanning through them it didn’t take me long to discover he’s an apologist/promoter of elites and all that they do, whether that be those of past centuries or – as you’ve now experienced – in the present.
Thank you Ivan – you’ve made my disdain for the man more rational.
We need:
Green QE
A Land Value Tax
A Tobin Tax
Higher taxation of the rich
A renegotiation, or a paying down, of PFI debt of £60 billion in the NHS
Massive spending on infrastructure
Massive building of social housing
Proper restraint of the financial sector
A £10 an hour minimum wage
All private companies forced out of the NHS
Nationalisation of the railways, the utilities and buses.
The repeal of anti-union legislation
The complete roll back of austerity
And a social dividend.
Is that enough to be going on with? 🙂
@Steveo Cons will preface *NOT* to each of these.
That’s why we need a government prepared to put social responsibility and the needs of ordinary people ahead of neoliberalism.
Remember those?