This graph comes from a new report from Boston University and UNCTAD on Principles for a Global Green New Deal. It shows the shift from labour reward to profit for multinational corporations over a twenty year period. The change is stark, and almost direct: what labour has lost big business has won.
This is what is wrong with the global economy. It is being run for the benefit of people already wealthy at cost to us all:
The Green New Deal has to change this.
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What happened in 2000 to change things so much?
The neoliberal culture had bedded in
It would be nice to wipe that smile from the crocodile’s face. Permanently.
We know what needs to be done beside GND.
The supremacy of the investor has to be challenged in international law and revoked. We need a genuine stakeholder focus – who else benefits from the outputs of production? – and their needs met too.
Similarly, Pension funds need to have their remits broadened to entail that they must also prepare their funds for the next batch of retirees by not destroying the jobs of those still working. How many pension funds looking for fund growth have forced working people out of jobs or lower wages in order to get bigger returns to do that? Too many. Again a wider stakeholder focus needs to be brought into the roles of actuaries.
If these issues are not tackled, GND investment will just I’m afraid risk suffering the same fate of that that went before it. And that grin will get bigger still!
@ Pilgrim Slight Return
How I agree with you about a “stakeholder economy”. But – as I’m sure I’ve posted before – we’ve been here before. I was heavily involved in my local North London Labour Party in the run-up to the 1997 General Election. and can vividly remember attending a Fabian Society Conference at which Harriet Harman was a keynote speaker, bigging up Blair’s buzzword slogan “Towards a Stakeholder Economy”.
And my, how that evaporated, like a snowball on Mt Vesuvius, almost as soon as Blair stepped across the threshold of Number 10, because, of course, a “Stakeholder Economy” would have been in direct conflict with the corporate interests (remember Blair courted Murdoch in the run-up to the 1997 Election – an action that led to a long-serving Labour Party colleague of mine to resign from the Party, because he saw what was coming “Building on what Thatcher started”, as Blair later said!) that had already begun the regulatory and policy capture that was already bedded in in the USA via organs such as ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council see https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council, and https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed)
So, good luck with that – a Stakeholder Economy is “a consummation devoutly to be wished”, but one only likely to occur after the “Second Coming”, if the oligarchic “corporatocracy” has its way – as I fear it will.
Andrew
What are you saying?
MMT, GND, PQE, better accounting rules and standards, good and fair tax systems, dealing with offshore – none of these things will ever come to light either Andrew if we stop talking about them or stop revisiting them.
Stake holding makes sense – it has the potential to share wealth, environmental and social responsibility. Without it I cannot see GND, MMT, PQE being sustained. If we do not have a root and branch restructuring or realignment of our economic, social and political systems and their goals and control then we might as well not bother with GND, MMT, PQE etc., etc. It will be like pouring water into the sand if these peripheral issues are not addressed.
The problem was – according to Chantel Mouffe – is that stakeholding needs a genuine Left to actually realise it and that was not Blair or New Labour . They drank the Beck and Giddens Koolaid and decided to pursue more Thatcherite policies.
Mouffe (quoting Stuart Hall) feels that Blair and Co tried to ‘absorb social democracy into neo-liberalism’ but failed because the two are incompatible (the former is collective in nature; the latter is hyper-individualistic).
Thanks for the good luck – yes – we’ll need it Andrew – as will PQE, MMT, GND etc,. But you make luck by trying and keeping these good ideas alive.
I’ll say it again – stake holding is still relevant now and we need it.
I am with you on this PSR….
@ Pilgrim Slight Return and Richard
We’re clearly I’m agreement on the need for a Stakeholder Economy and all the changes you argue for, but perhaps differ on its attainability.
However, I accept your implicit criticism that I am surrendering to defeatism and even despair, but it’s just that I’ve – we’ve all – seen how the corporatocracy is able to bounce back from defeat, even rise, zombie-like, from the grave to be very sanguine of the prospects of those confrontating them.
After all, who would ever have believed that the bent shysters and fixers who nearly shafted the world in the GFC of 2007/8 would not only escape jail, but would actually prosper and even entrench their hegemonic grasp, their “mortmain”, or deathly grasp, of the system, until things really began to go wrong for them over the last 2 or 3 years? And meanwhile, to constitutionally valid, but effectively illicit Presidents, Trump and Bolsanaro, have stitched up North and South American in favour of proto-Fascist corporatocracy.
The real issue is that MMT, and PQE and GND, and all the other “sexy” TLA’s (three-letter acronyms), require a massive change of heart, consciousness, understanding and explosion of knowledge of the part of the electorate, the citizenry.
The Women’s Liberation movement and Black Consciousness realised they had to start by raising general awareness, first within, and then beyond, their constituency.
A massive public consciousness-raising exercise – in which this Blog already plays so significant and honourable a par is required in the general public, following in the footsteps of the Women’s Liberation movement and Black Consciousness movement to arm the citizenry against the poisoning of its thought processes so well illustrated in this article by Simon Wren-Lewis on the idiocy of BREXIT and its causes:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2019/01/why-uk-cannot-see-brexit-utterly-utterly-stupid
The reality is that despite the legal speak/ justifications and accounting betrayal of shareholders it is clear that currently shareholders are not prime but that the Board re-electing themselves, rewarding themselves are first that is the reality of the situation.
With the collusion of audits, auditors consultancy arms, captive regulators by those auditors, the lawyers sealing off Directors from liability (plausible deniability), the misuse of shareholders funds to defend the indefensible actions of Directors, the payment of massive fines solely out of shareholders wealth and not Directors pockets/jail time incarceration.
No shareholder would risk a 250year reputation for a 3-10year Directors Ceobbonus grab yet Directors are doing that heads they win tails you lose. eg Persimmon, Carillon, Rb s Enron etc.
Only by bringing back and using the long forgotten powers with a SNAC will the balance of power and offset return to shareholders. Any takers?
The Green Party V The Greed Party
An economy working for the many not just the few. Now where have I heard that before. O yes Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and team. However for some reason he attracts a lot of criticism on this site.
John
I approve of Corbyn’s existence and position as do many here.
My view is that the Labour party has too many right wing refuseniks who wish to undermine him. The Party has failed in a way – not Corbyn.
BREXIT has been a very toxic measuring stick for Labour and although they have made me frustrated at times I also understand how difficult it is for them (it has divided the nation for goodness sake).
But some of Labour’s policy proposals that I have heard are just meagre; they still think that they can tinker at the edges rather than being more bold.
And I sometimes wonder whether or not they are still chasing swing voters like Blair did. We have got UKIP because of that. We and Labour have to accept that politics is sliding to the Right and this has to be stopped.
Only Labour can do this by going to the Left and taking white man can with them – offering much needed relief to the millions who feel that no-one is listening to them – the same people Blair ignored with his Third Way bullshit.
You know, looking at Marxist theory again, I actually think the people have revolted but instead of the ‘revolution’ being from a Left platform, they have done so from a far Right one, as it is the Far Right (the opportunists that they are) who spotted this first (TheThird Way lacks any analysis of power structures apparently but also the world we have been living in is dominated by neo-liberalism that also ignores pre-existing power structures and the tendency of neo-liberal policies to aid those already in powerful positions in markets and society).
This is where I and others John sometimes look at Corbyn and Labour and shake our heads because of the timidity of their ideas.
The announcement about a ‘National Bank’ was welcome, but will Labour also make sure that such a bank does not just get sucked into private finance created problems? As I said above, certain other established basics that reinforce the primacy of markets over the State (investor focused finance / pension fund management) have to be dealt with once and for all otherwise a National Bank will either become a tool for the markets or actually just irrelevant.
I hear too little from any opposition party about how these immense global and problematic fundamental issues are to be tackled and until they are, any progressive party will be just trying to pee in the wind.
It might be left to the IMF to deal with them but it is much better in my view that a Left wing British government takes these battles to international courts and the EU and gets them on the discussion table so that we can begin to unlock these real problems. I see these BTW as legal issues that need to be challenged, and Parliament as our highest court has every right to seek to amend faulty law – especially that which emanates from the US concerning the primacy of investors over communities and other individuals.
This investor first primacy (and this also means pension funds as investors) that is the real engine of wealth transfer to the top percentiles on the income distribution graphs.
Polly Toynbee once asked me what my problem with John McDonnell was
My answer was that he was just not left wing enough
In reality, not in theory
Richard. This report below might be of interest to you given your two excellent posts that referenced the power of digital money: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/06/10/mmt-economics-for-an-economy-focussed-on-meeting-the-needs-of-most-people/ and the terrific slides in https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/06/12/achieving-fairness-in-the-tax-system/
This link was written by the retired deputy governor of the Bank of Canada for a Canadian ‘think tank’. It examines the pros and cons of digital money including things that you mention in the two links above.
https://www.cdhowe.org/sites/default/files/attachments/research_papers/mixed/Final%20Commentary_540.pdf
Just been listening to an episode of The Briefing Room on Radio 4 titled what next for Europe..
Towards the very end it was mentioned that one of Europe,s problems being incomes which have hardly risen over the last 20 years. No mention at all, of course, about multinational profits over that same period.
Having spent years studying, discussing and evaluating the political scene for the past 30+ neo-liberal years one reaches a point when there’s really not much more to understand. While it’s fun and intellectually challenging to continue factoring in new data and make predictions based on our individual wisdom & bias, there comes a point when one’s energy should shift significantly towards effecting change in practical terms.
As a teacher you have the huge satisfaction of inculcating knowledge and helping younger (and older) people to understand what’s really ‘going on’ and how they can make more accurate critical analyses. But for geriatrics like me there is a continuum of mounting frustration at the lack of change and the inability to do anything meaningful about it , other than by voting once every 5 years, and even then knowing that one’s vote is effectively meaningless.
One’s frustration is exacerbated by the pragmatic conclusion that, while the neo-liberal era is probably (hopefully) peaking, there are still many more decades ahead when its destructive ideology will continue to wreak misery on millions and devastation on our environment. My personal assessment is that ‘things’ will have to get worse before enough aware people have the organisational strength and resources to finally bring it down with all the attendant chaos – like the end of an empire. I’m unaware of a radically progressive government of any major democracy or, indeed, any sign of one being elected. Traditional left-leaning parties have opted for a strategy of Clinton-Blairesque triangulation just so as not to frighten the horses, which only breathes more life into neo-liberalism. Incremental change is no longer feasible, if it ever was. At least in countries with PR smaller parties get the opportunity to exert some influence, but currently they are as likely to be alt-right as well as progressively left.
I’m sorry to post such negativity, especially as forth-coming Easter should symbolically herald a period of regeneration and hope. Of course hope springs eternal but it doesn’t deal with resolving the urgent compounding issues of social and environmental injustice. So, in addition to mitigating one’s despair via Fair Trade single estate coffee and dark chocolate, what to do? Am I the only one suffering from chronic Weltschmerz?
What exactly is a “stakeholder”economy? Was that not what Thatcher was creating when she sold off council houses? Or is it what happens in Emilia Romagna where 1 in 5 people work in a co-operative? Or in cities where there are credit unions instead of banks?
Surely the re-nationalisation of core utilities must come first along with the higher taxes for the wealthy and perhaps a citizens basic income?
Let’s talk things rather than concepts, then the politicians can be monitored and held to account.
It’s where the economy is organised for the beendfit of all who live in a society
All, I stress
Andrew
Honestly – I’m not implying criticism especially on someone like you who has had a go – I felt that I had to say that yes – we know its difficult but we just keep plugging away. We have no choice really.
More specifically, I also worry that just because Blair toyed with the idea and then rejected it, that the ‘stakeholder’ society idea is seen as legitimately being rejected by the Left when in fact I feel that it still ‘has legs’ and that such rejection was not really legitimate. In fact the stakeholder idea is what could rescue the Left in my view.
I was pushing for the idea to be maintained and not forgotten and indeed woven into the other good and much needed ideas that are brought to life here – I was not criticising you in particular.
Pilgrim Slight Return
Thanks for the clarification – much appreciated.
As to the idea of a stakeholder economy “having legs” – I’m damn sure it has, given the hostility shown towards it by the corporatocracy!
Richard gives a succinct answer above to the question of the definition of a stakeholder economy:
“It’s where the economy is organised for the benefit of all who live in a society. All, I stress.”
and he has frequently fleshed this out with reference to stakeholder accounts, which are not prepared just for button-pushing “wealth managers” and investors on behalf of persons “of high net worth”, but for everyone in society.
Even those who would never dream of buying shares, but who might like to know that their High Street shops, such as Boots, weren’t dabbling (worse, up to their neck in) unethical, destructive behaviour, where Boots’s behaviour is open to question.
In other words, a matter of real choice, on the basis of trustworthy information from the purchaser’s viewpoint, while from the producer’s side, proof that their overriding objective was to make a profit, but only within the confines and discipline of serving the common good, which now must encompass serving the demands of the ecosphere.
So, stakeholder accounts “have legs” – hence the Fair Tax Mark – as an important part of a stakeholder economy, which also “has legs”.
Indeed, if we don’t move towards a stakeholder economy, we shall probably all fry in a fatally compromised ecosystem, though, as the bitter joke goes, at least business will have delivered “maximum shareholder value”, though, alas, the shareholders will have “fried” as a result.