Last week the FT published an op-ed by a person called Michael Power. His core argument, to which I referred here, was that capitalism could no longer afford he redistribution of wealth that democracy demands and as a result democracy must be dispensed with.
I was not alone in finding the argument repugnant and Prof Charles Adams of Durham University and the Progressive Pulse blog and I wrote a joint letter to the FT as a consequence. It was published on Monday, but neither of us noticed at the time. This is what it said:
Sir, We were shocked and appalled by Michael Power's article “Has Western-style democracy become too expensive for capitalism?” (beyondbrics, FT.com, June 14), 2017. Aside from the reiteration of Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart's flawed analysis of public debt, and the suggestion that an “energised under-25s vote” may “threaten the very fabric of democracy”, the most disturbing flaw is the suggestion that it is possible for democracy to become too expensive.
Political choice is not a question of what we can afford, it is only a question of what kind of society we desire. After all, as a matter of fact we know that money is not scarce: quantitative easing proved that forever. In that case Mr Power can only be arguing for a society where capital is more important than democratic freedom.
We would argue that we should never forget that in the historical struggle to save democracy, while capital was irrelevant, millions of lives were lost so that we can now enjoy the luxury of freedom. Mr Power is on the wrong side of that history. We suggest that the one belief no one can afford is in the supremacy of capital over freedom.
Charles Adams
Professor of Physics,
Durham University, UK
Richard Murphy
Professor of International Political Economy,
City, University of London, UK
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Well done Richard – a solid and succinct rebuttal.
Any chance the FT would take a piece by yourself on the democratic desirability, likely economic and ecological impacts and “affordability” of a Green New Deal?
We will be trying
There was a Green New Deal group meeting last night
Hi Richard, I have looked at the Green New Deal site – is there any chance of widening participation in it or inviting supporters to get involved? Also, I bought Clive Hamilton’s prescient book “Growth fetish” in 2004 – have you looked at some of his writings on the issue of using up the Earth in unsustainable economic model? Keep up the good work!
The site needs updating!
It is on my list to do
Being run very part time the GND has always revolved around a small hub of people
What would you like to assist with?
Richard
Perhaps an article entitled “Can democracy afford the capitalism offered by asset managers”!
Charles and Richard thanks both. I’m sure many (including myself) would have been happy to add their names if asked. The current neoliberal system is not fit for purpose. I particularly like the line: “We suggest that the one belief no one can afford is in the supremacy of capital over freedom”.
Can I also note an excerpt from Charles’s unpublished book (“Peoplons, Charmons and the Strange One: the uncertain science of economics”) on “A Brief History of Money” has a been published on the Progressive Pulse site today http://www.progressivepulse.org/
Also today some insight into the DUP: http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/likely-dup-demands-in-supporting-the-may-government/
Sean
Many thanks
And there is a good point here: letters can be, if used selectively a powerful weapon
We need to use them, and have them co-signed, more often
This one was Charles’ idea – or he suggested it and I challenged him to do it more often
We should repeat it
Richard
Well done.
And thanks for sharing with us.
What is the optimal redistribution?
I assume nobody is asking for a society where we all have exactly equal distribution. Therefore, it suggests some level of inequality is tolerable.
Who decides what level of inequality is tolerable? If the answer is ‘society’, how do we test what ‘society desires’?
You and Prof Adams have your views but they are just 2 opinions out of 60m opinions.
Have you heard of the ballot box?
Didn’t you note that it was democracy that we were defending?
Yes, I have heard of the ballot box.
But if you use the ballot box as your source of legitimacy, since 1979, (Tories + Blair) you’d get the feeling the population as a whole was reasonably satisfied with levels of inequality. Some might want a bit more or less, but we are not too far off the agreed level (as per the ballot box).
The issue made a bit of a resurgence with Corbyn, but against a weak PM running a poor campaign in the backdrop of Brexit (and he still lost).
Which is why we need a better democracy I.e. Electoral reform
Inequality was relatively low in ’79 and has been rising since.
One can argue the optimal distribution is one that is stable politically and economically. Democracy is the mechanism* by which we get the chance to changes the rules and return to stability. Current political instability suggests we may have reached a turning point. Let’s see what happens next.
* As we argued, democracy is the priority but democracy does not always work perfectly. We would like everyone’s votes to count equally which requires proportional representation and proportional funding of political parties, but then that is just an opinion!
As well as electoral reform we need a better informed electorate. Both the school system and the media fail to give people a fair and balanced understanding of politics and economics. Therefore what we think about inequality, the effects it has, what can be done about it and how much we want to do something are based on a inaccurate perceptions.
http://www.lindau-nobel.org/cross-country-differences-in-perceptions-of-inequality/
As we have seen with Brexit asking a question at the ballot box when the electorate don’t understand the subject matter gets you an unhelpful answer.
Unfortunately some people like the electorate to be ignorant and actively try to keep them that way. The same people also like to ask the electorate silly questions because they know they’ll get meaningless answers onto which they can impose whatever meaning they want.
So really your letter is about electoral reform.
You assume reform would somehow significantly change (or reflect differently) what the population thinks about inequality. Would it? Based on what?
No, it is about preserving democracy
That is what it says
That is what it is about
That and preserving redistribution if you wish
Angela –
Seems clear to be the letter was defending democracy.
Democracy, done well, allows us to guage the desires of the whole population and devise policies that keep everyone happy. Happy people contribute to a stable and productive system which keeps people happy and so on.
Any step away from functioning democracy carries a significant risk of alienating and pissing off a lot of people. Unhappy people lead to unproductive and unstable systems. No-one wants that. Even the power hungry Mr Power only wants it in the short term. In the medium term he’d realise his antidemocratic reforms hurt even himself.
Arguably we’ve seen our already imperfect democracy eroded further over the last 40 years with the rise of neoliberalism. In effect Mr Power is looking at some of the negative effects of weakening our democracy and mistakenly prescribing even less democracy as the cure.
Kind of funny given that’s the same class of mistake the austerity believing free market fundamentalists make when they recommend reducing government debt during a recession.
What is the difference between ‘electoral reform’ and ‘preserving democracy’? In an earlier comment above you said they were the same. And how do you ‘reform’ and ‘preserve’ at the same time?
This isn’t pedantry – I feel the whole exercise is a word game of imprecise, woolly use language worthy of Lewis Carroll.
Preserving democracy is about retaining a universal mandate that elects a government in ways prescribed by law
Electoral reform is about improving the method by which candidates are selected
Angela, I hope you’ll forgive my being pernickety, but in my opinion, Lewis Carroll is almost the last person in the world I would consider guilty of deploying woolliness of language.
His nonsense, and the language he uses to express it, are razor sharp, as one would expect from a man who was not only a literary genius, but also a genius mathematician and logician. Besides, fantasy only works when it is internally rigorously logical within the terms of its own reality – as in the 364 Unbirthdays at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
Now if you want woolly language, I think just about anything that falls from Mrs Mayhem’s lips can be said to fall into that category. What, for example, does “BREXIT means BREXIT” itself mean?
I forgot the absolutely classic encounter with Humpty Dumpty in “Alice Through the Looking-glass”, with Alice and Humpty’s erudite discussion of meaning.
Oh yes….
“Preserving democracy is about retaining a universal mandate that elects a government in ways prescribed by law”
Yes, we have that, such as it is. Since 1979, that mandate appears to indicate a broad satisfaction with the levels of equality/distribution as they are. Candidates suggesting otherwise have tended to fare badly when seeking the mandate.
“Electoral reform is about improving the method by which candidates are selected”.
OK. This appears to be the main point of your letter to the FT – you and Charles want electoral reform.
But what you haven’t explained is how and why this will change (or better reflect) the mandate of the public on this issue.
Did we say that?
We think it, but our comment was in defence of democracy itself – which was under attack
If you want to distort the truth please do it somewhere else
And I think you can find the case for PR eloquently elsewhere without me having to repeat it for you
I know you want to waste my time – and I am not playing ball
“We think it, but our comment was in defence of democracy itself — which was under attack”
Oh come on! Most people (me included) wouldn’t have a clue who Michael Power is. From a Google search, he appears to be a minor academic at the LSE who hasn’t achieved particularly much (if indeed it is him who wrote the op-ed). The idea that democracy is under attack on the basis of one article by Mr Power is absurd.
The FT shared the view
As has been noted in this blog for a long time, he expressed a widely held opinion on the right
Who he might be is irrelevant
What he said matters
Remember ‘First they came for democracy, and I said nothing……’
I saw your letter and posted on Facebook, tagging you. You’re just not interested in yourself enough, Richard;o)
To be honest, I very rarely look out for me
That Scottish video was one of the rare cases where I’ve watched something I have made right through
By the way, Michael Power has replied to your letter.
So he has
More weasel words
“we should never forget that in the historical struggle to save democracy, while capital was irrelevant, millions of lives were lost so that we can now enjoy the luxury of freedom”
That has to be one of the best sentences written in the English language this year. It’s got the words, the rhythm, and that switch at the end where you expect freedom to be a right, but no, it’s a luxury. That a Professor of Physics wrote it is all the more remarkable.