Ha-Joon Chang has a great article in the Guardian this morning. In it he points out that South Korea - his country - is the model of what capitalism should deliver. There's been massive growth and, as he notes:
The country is, per capita, the third most innovative in the world, after Japan and Taiwan, when measured by the number of patents granted by the US patent office. It has one of the world's highest university enrolment ratios, and schoolchildren who rank in the top five in virtually all standardised international tests.
It's also after Hungary the second most unhappy place in the OECD. Why: There's little welfare. There is massive job insecurity. Financial deregulation means investment is falling an debt is rising. The pressure ion children to perform with no promise of work to follow is ruining childhoods. A weak medical system means ill health can destroy families.
As he concludes:
The sad tale of my country should serve as a salutary warning to Britain and other European countries that are embarking on major cuts to welfare. They believe that such cuts will reduce budget deficits and make their economies more productive by making people compete more vigorously. However, the Korean story shows that insecurity actually makes people less, not more, productive, and also desperately unhappy. Surely, that is not what they want.
Well, actually, you'd think that's exactly what our politicians want right now. If you listened to my local MP, far-right Tory Liz Truss, you'd think if only we could sack anyone at will all the world's problems would be solved, but that's about a step removed from economic insanity and is certainly closely linked to callousness.
Of course, what we really need is a Courageous State. That would deliver exactly what the people of Korea have not got. And what the people of Bradford West have not got either.
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This is indeed a great article by Ha-Joon. I fail to understand why the Labour Party does not ask him to help construct a new economic narrative (perhaps it has and we do not know). This man is an expert in development economics and knows what he is talking about, unlike Osborne who frankly does not have a clue about economics and for that matter political stategy.
On another note, Richard, you have my deepest sympathy – it must be awful to have Liz Truss as your MP. I know that you are very fond of Norfolk and Hunstanton in particular (yesterday’s tweet) so please try not to dwell on the fact that she is your MP.
You think Liz Truss is bad; my MP is Chris “Chopper” Chope, who not only called for the minimum wage to be abolished in 2009 but in 2010 was responsible for the blocking of a bill to protect the world’s poorest countries from debt sharks use of “vulture funds”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-blocks-bill-targeting-vulture-funds-1920708.html
The article by Ha-Joon is indeed insightful and this is the sort of message that contemporary social democracy has to be based upon to mitigate the pejorative “tax and spend” retort that Tories constantly churn out. The profits of any UK business are founded upon the success of our society – education, infrastructure and healthcare. Without people to work for them and people to buy the products no business would exist to make profit.
Fellow commiserations, Robin. I actually to have to encounter Chope’s smug face at the election counts. Someone once remarked that the name sounds like a disease…
I wonder where Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the other Asian economies fall in this happiness index? I’ve read that there are high rates of suicide in Japan and China (PRC) where students fail to ‘make the grade’. And then you have the whole cultural notion of family honour and dishonour.
The neo-liberals and libertarians love to crow about the successes of capitalism in Asia and how we ‘Westerners are too soft and lazy’, but the economic success masks the social failure.
Perhaps the elite really want this for us – have the masses run around like ‘chooks with their heads cut off’, while they ‘bask in the sunshine’. After all it’s been shown that when people are struggling for survival, they have less time to worry about what goes on in the political sphere. Revolutions never come in nations where the bulk of the population is so impoverished they can’t see beyond getting a day’s meal.
[…] And what will be the consequence? Three things. First there will be a loss of educational choice: cash value will determine what is taught. Second, there will be increasing division in society as access is determined by ability to pay. Third, there will be a loss in well-being, as explained by Ha-Joon Chang yesterday. […]
This is a perversely enjoyable thread… “you think your MP’s bad, just look at mine” etc. My MP, Priti Patel, must be one of the most right-wing people ever to enter the House of Commons. As far as I know, she thinks the trade unions should be outlawed.
Would be great to get Ha-Joon Chang involved in Labour party policymaking, I agree.
Would be great to have you in it too Howard