This is quite a surprising editorial comment in a UK newspaper today:
If there is a silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has injected a sense of togetherness into polarised societies. But the virus, and the economic lockdowns needed to combat it, also shine a glaring light on existing inequalities – and even create new ones. Beyond defeating the disease, the great test all countries will soon face is whether current feelings of common purpose will shape society after the crisis. As western leaders learnt in the Great Depression, and after the second world war, to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone.
It's surprising for three reasons.
First, this is in the FT.
Second, is that this is an outright renunciation of neoliberalism by the Financial Times.
And third, they give themselves no wriggle room on this.
The editorial is so significant that I think that in the public interest share it (which I would never normally do) since ti has to utterly reposition the Financial Times and the stance it takes on economics for a very long time to come. This is what they say in the rest of that editorial:
THIS TEXT HAS BEEN DELETED BECAUSE OF FT COMPLAINT
The above being noted this paragraph is enormously significant:
Radical reforms – reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades – will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix.
What they are saying is this: radical social democracy within a regulated mixed economy is now our future.
The Financial Times and those who read it must never be allowed to forget this. There is no hint of an apology in the editorial for the part the FT played in bringing us to this point in time - as it undoubtedly did.
But now it is time to shape this future. Let's get on with it.
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I think I’ll need to go and lie down. The paper that cheered Osborne on as he slashed and burned. The paper that publishes one of “the gold standard nut cases” and several other off-the-wall right wingers, that has a regular piece called “Rich people’s problems”, has a glossy supplement on “How to spend it” celebrating egregiously conspicuous consumption, that writes almost exclusively for and about the 1%, that seems (seemed?) unaware that there were poor and homeless and destitute people in this Tory neoliberal nirvana and that they were poor and homeless and destitute because there were others who were obscenely wealthy and were syphoning off more than their fair share, the paper that happily ran Grover Norquist’s bath for him to drown government in……
Could this be a game changer?
I bloody well hope so
You’re not the only one, Graham – except that rathe rthan down I nearly fell off my chair.
Quite unbelieveable and thanks to Richard for sharing as I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.
Truly amazing. And surely there’s no way back from this for the FT. They therefore must have thought long and hard before publishing it, perhaps spured on by the fact that so much of the neloliberal ‘orthodoxy’ they have promoted as inevitable and necessary for years has now been exposed as nothing more than what it always really was: dogma, greed and exploitation.
As you will see – the FT threatened
You will have to sign up to see it now
There is a very limited access to free FT content available
Perhaps they do not like being rumbled for having been wrong for 40 years?
I believe that you do not have permission to re-publish this content to the extent that you have.
Please amend accordingly.
I notice that you state that you think our content is in the public interest. Please direct people to our site if that is your view. Our terms are very reasonable in our view for people who want to view a limited amount of our content.
You clearly do not understand what is in this public interest.
When your story is the news then it is in the public interest to quote it at length
Given all the free time I have given to FT journalists over the years, and that this is the first time I have ever done this, this is decidedly small-minded of you
You are aware that we are living in exceptional times, I presume? Or has that passed you by?
It is one, very unexpected editorial, but do not be carried away on a wave of excitement. Perhaps what “Please amend accordingly” means, is that you have overestimated the extent of the Damascene conversion. This was a single editorial announcing the conversion of FT principles of government to the world; so, we might expect they would wish to shout it from the rooftops, especially to those who might benefit from this categorical imperative; “to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone” …….
To the best of my recollection, St.Paul did not direct converts to a paywall.
And what is really bizarre is that their Covid 19 content is free right now – and I did put in a link
They are really being very crass – this was advertising for them
Richard this is a wind up!!!! it has to be
Why?
‘St Paul did not direct converts to a paywall’
Thank you John – I shall treasure that one!
I liked that a lot
Mind you, I think some US evangelists do…..
Dear Mr Murphy,
I have checked our records this weekend and can find that we requested that or made a request to you that do not re-publish our content to the extent that you did. Thank you for amending your blog accordingly.
I cannot find a record of ft.com having threatened or having issued a threat to Tax Research LLP or yourself. Please could you withdraw you claim that a threat was made.
Stay safe and stay sane.
I am not making a further change
Your comment clearly had threat implicit in it – it was apparent that if I did not comply you were threatening further action
Everyone I have spoken to thinks that was absurd on your part
I was quoting the FT story precisely because it was the story – not because I was as such republishing it – and in the process I was promoting the FT – in an article that would be well-read – and was
Instead you did very clearly imply a threat of action, or your rather public request had no weight to it, and that made you look rather foolish
Shall we let the matter lie? I think the relevant suggestion is ‘stop digging’.
[…] aren't, you may have noticed, shiny bright blue sky now. The economy has instead taken a battering, as the FT has acknowledged today. And the time for People's QE – which was always direct monetary funding (DMF) of government […]
My impression is that they have been moving this way, for a while, with Redwod and the like becoming more outlier than median. And if they are helping their target demographic understand which way the wind is blowing, then they’re doing a useful journalistic job for them. There’s always ‘How to spend it’ for their comfort-reading. But they are being awfully silly waving a big stick over your citation.
I would love to be optimistic about this but I must say that my feelings about it all are pretty well described by William Keegan in today’s Guardian. I also believe that a major shift needs to come from the Labour Party and that isn’t going to happen.
Question: What has changed? Four decades ago were the issues of fairness, equity, redistribution, “public services as investments”, “the privileges of the elderly and wealthy”, the insecurity of “labour markets”, and so on, not as real then as now?
Yes
But what has changed is the loans through which we view them
How we see reality is always a matter of choice
I have always found the FT to be pretty fascinating to read – just too costly to do it. Sometimes it has a split personality – on one wing rather gung ho, unapologetically capitalist and on the other a bit more soul searching, a little more uncomfortable with what is going on, a little pre-Big Bang, pre-Thatcher, pre-barrow boy, more bowler hats and suits and steady growth. Poor old Martin Wolf seems to be genuinely conflicted at times and it’s painful or delightful to read, depending on what mood you are in.
The person whom I take rather seriously there is Gillian Tett – is she still there? – I don’t know but I’m sure she is an anthropologist by training (like David Graeber) and she has appeared in many a documentary about 2008 and all that, giving forth on the issues with finance in a way that many in finance and the Shitty (sic) would not be able articulate – she’s an interesting character and if I were to have a task force on these matters (oh, wouldn’t I just!), not only would I have Richard there but Tett also.
I agree however, that as soon as this is over, there is no guarantee that things will change and the elephant in the room that is getting bigger by the day is the ‘now we’ve got to pay for it’ brigade like the IFS and Torsten Bell(end) as well as too many bloody stupid, ignorant and badly read middle class idiots writing for the Guardian and the Observer who make me so BLOODY ANGRY with their bullshit (can’t you tell?).
Gillian Tett is still there – based in the US
The FT might have “got it” (possibly, but don’t hold your breath) but Goldman Sachs certainly have not… yesterday’s FT also reported that GS have bought 2 private jets as a “cost saving measure”…… you could not make it up!!
Bizarre….
Two private jets!!
It just shows you doesn’t it………………………………..wouldn’t spending money on pandemic planning have been a ‘cost saving measure’ for the NHS? One rule for the public sector – no rules for the filthy rich private sector.
Incredible isn’t it?
[…] wealth on this blog in fact, very soon precisely because IÂ am all in favour of taxing wealth. Even the FT is now. But I do not wish to tax wealth for the reasons these authors note. In fact, I think that there […]
Steady on PSR
Richard M is part of the ‘private sector’. Most of the people who supply you with goods and services on a day to day basis are in the ‘private sector’. They are not all ‘filthy rich’. By all means feel free to kick seven shades of sh1t out of the likes of Goldman Sachs and their ilk. That would include much of the City which at times I have had the (mis)fortune to see close up. (Definitely not to be classified as ‘essential workers’)
Generalising about the private sector is part of what alienated many people about Corbyn and his closest allies. Its as unhelpful as dismissing anything vaguely left of centre as some kind of Soviet style socialism as today’s Tories do. Unless you really do want to get rid of the ‘private sector’… That strategy does not have a good track record.
I firmly believe in the mixed economy
Agreed – we need a strong state to create a level playing field, with healthy public services funded by progressive taxes with an unforgiving approach to tax avoidance/evasion. I’m a fan of UBS.
But that also needs a healthy business ecosystem – small, medium and large. Clamping down hard on the malpractices need not mean killing it altogether. Unless you really are in the Marxist/Leninist camp.
Annaliese Dodds is sensible centre left as far as I know from my dealings with her
I think the use of the FT published content would in this case be covered by crit and review rules and so I think it extremely difficult that the FT could do anything about the usage.
I do too – but it was the first time they had ever reacted