I just saw this, from the Resolution Foundation, and could not resist sharing it:
Austerity worked then, didn't it?
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Austerity has worked beautifully. It has transferred wealth to the rich and lowered living standards for the poor.
… Oh, you thought your government was about achieving the election aims, rather than the ones they keep quiet about… bless…
When I hear the current chancellor talking about ‘our strong economy’ when we are hovering on being plunged into recession I sob. When I hear that we are at ‘record employment’ when so many are in precarious, poorly paid and dead end jobs I weep. When we were told by Mr Osborne that by implementing ‘expansionary fiscal contraction’ and that by cutting government expenditure would free the private sector to make the investments necessary to provide the dynamism and therefore reward from which all would benefit I cry.
I then look at the graph and laugh hysterically.
Oh yes, “record employment” being an absolute number rather than a percentage. “Record employment” signifying nothing more than population growth and a deliberate attempt to deceive.
Don’t you just want to strangle everyone that comes out with that little gem? I do.
Public spending increased each and every year post 2008., so any claims abut cutting public expenditure are wide of the mark.
That is an utterly naive view, ignoring inflation, factors beyond the government’s control (the so-called automatic stabilisers), changes in GDP and simple reality
Apart from that the argument is sustainable
Please don’t reveal yourself to be an unthinking fool here
He just wants to be strangled.
Does it not also matter where the cutting in public spending has occurred?
Don’t come in here telling us that local authorities (esp. away from the SE) are doing fine — we all know very well they are not.
The subsequent loss of associated services then piles pressure onto other parts of the system. Need I go on?
Absolutely, the trickle up economy is working well.
Desp
I suppose the 2010 wage suppression was the kick-back for voters letting the bankers hyper-inflate house prices for nearly five decades.
oofft!
anyone got a magnifying glass?
Often economic data makes no sense. The UK migration numbers reached an all time high when last published. (I don’t mean migration rate for any pedants), and that’s despite the health service being in perennial crisis and Osborne’s austerity programme. Ireland on the other hand has had higher austerity, more growth and has had negative net migration in 5 of the last 10 years.
I wonder if the story of austerity in the UK needs re-telling, to show that Osborne and his successors overspent badly, increased the national debt, and spent the additional expenditure on the wrong things.
The evidence is stark, but we need to change the language to get the message across. The use of terms such as “austerity” and “neo-liberalism” has become a hackneyed means of identifying or self-identifying groups of people either advocating or opposing the advocacy of particular political or economic positions. They work well and reinforce conviction and belief in the respective echo chambers, but they rapidly lose all force and meaning. They mean very little to the vast majority of ordinary voters – except perhaps when they are encouraged by the media to use them as convenient labels for things they either like or dislike.
We need to use language much more accurately and precisely to describe reality. Neoliberalism is simply a mutation of capitalism that has played out in a particularly vicious manner. It began as a backlash against the capitalism-shackling post-war Keynesian social welfare settlement and as a response to the breakdown of this settlement in the ’70s and to the emergence of fiat currencies. In a global context it generated considerable economic benefits, but it also generated increasing inequality and unsustainable economic behaviour in many of the advanced economies that led to the GFC. This mutation is close to running its course and the fear is that the current mutation is generating illiberal economic nationalism.
Austerity is simply deliberate government failure to manage and stabilise the advanced economies so as to preserve the pre-GFC mutation of capitalism. Rent-seeking, or, more accurately, the sustained capture of excessive rewards and returns facilitated by the enactment or bending of laws, rules and regulations is simply officially authorised theft. Financial innovation is simply another manifestation of this officially authorised theft in most instances. The late Paul Volcker considered the ATM to be only useful financial innovation he encountered in his lifetime.
A large number of people are well aware of the rottenness at the heart of the political and economic system, but they don’t have the language to describe it. They are mostly being served up out-dated ideological clap-trap and mumbo jumbo by both the right and left.
We need to name our world or the coming mutation of capitalism will be even more vicious and damaging.
I agree that our narratives are vital
There is no argument about narratives being vital, but the Tories will be making the political weather and in control of the narrative for the foreseeable future and I see little evidence of a recognition of the effort that will be required to counter this narrative and to craft one that will secure the popular support and consent to evict them from office. On one hand, one should not underestimate the PM’s ability to capture the zeitgeist as, in his words, a “Brexity Hezza”, or of Dominic Cummings’s intent to reform cabinet governance to ensure effective delivery of policy. But, on the other, we need to recognise that terms like the “Green New Deal” can be far too easily characterised as stealthy attempts by left-wingers to effect a socialist transformation of society by using the climate emergency to frighten voters so as to secure the popular support and consent they would not otherwise be able to secure.
Similarly, the promotion of “community-based, grassroots activism” that is currently favoured by many of the Labour party leadership candidates won’t cut the mustard with a majority of voters. Oscar Wilde put his finger on it almost a century and half ago: “The problem with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings”. Most people have far more pressing daily concerns. At the start of her premiership, Theresa May began to address these concerns with her talk of “burning injustices” and of the “just about managing” (JAMs). But it was primarily a tactic to shore up political support, it lacked any serious commitment, the then PM lacked the ability to craft or convey a compelling narrative and it was soon overwhelmed by Brexit.
But it did bear some fruit in terms of the misguided electricity and gas price caps and efforts by Greg Clark to push for the design and implementation of a more forceful consumer protection policy. These led to a formal request by the Competition and Markets Authority for more powers and resources to enforce more effective consumer protection and a report by the Public Accounts Committee. All of this has languished since the middle of last year, but it addresses matters that impact on the daily lives of most citizens and resonate deeply and widely.
Again, in place of this “community-based, grassroots activism” and “rent-a-mob opposition to Tory policies” the case has to be made to give power and money to local authorities to improve the lives of all within their areas.
And those who remain committed to the virtues of the EU must recognise that the behaviour of EU institutions during and since the GFC has contributed to growing support for economic illiberal nationalism both in the UK and across the Union. In particular, the inane imposition of fiscal restraint complying with the dogma of the so-called neo-liberal project (and which George Osborne cheerfully implemented) and the treatment of Greece and Ireland did huge political and economic damage. The EU institutions would be far better employed displaying some humility and conceding their role in stoking the forces that led to Brexit rather than sending “love letters”, such as the recent Timmermans one, that simply invite justified scorn. And they should be compelled to do in the context of the negotiation of the future relatiionship between the UK and the EU.
That should be enough to be going on with.
For those interested in the full extent of the Tories economic disaster – I mean miraculous strong economy – the full report by the Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation can be found here:
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/the-economic-history-of-the-2010s/
Lots of charts to amuse yourselves, or despair of, there.
Terrific graph. It is worth noting that the greatest period of earning was during the war period, and the sky didn’t fall in. While knowing that Osborne’s period of austerity diminished earnings, I was not aware how badly it compared. A bit of a surprise. This graph deserves to be widely shared. BTW, I could not find it on the Resolutions Foundation’s website.
It was in a email
Seems to me that, if the objective was Brexit, austerity has worked rather well? It was tied in to convincing the working class it was all the EUs fault but they seemed to have achieved that also? I despair of the ability of moneyed sources to delude and defraud the electorate.
I can only hope and work for an independent Cymru to be achieved before we are subsumed into the poisonous, selfish, Xenophobic state England has become.
Richard Jenkins,
You’re at a bit of stretch saying that Brexit was the aim of Austerity. None of the main characters or timelines or match-up. Brexit certainly served as a diversion but that’s a different proposition.
I think the operative word I used was ‘if’? Other than that……..
Why were the 1980s so good?
Bubble market, Paul.
Correction followed.
There was some good music though.