The merits of a mixed economy

Posted on October 8 2020

We live in a mixed economy.

For the foreseeable future - by which I mean in this case, a very long time to come - that's what we're going to do.

Political debate does not reflect that. Nor does it discuss how economic relationships between the state and private sectors need to be properly managed.

Even debate on who does what often fails to reflect the reality that almost all activity ends up as some degree of mix.

In this video I ask that we address these realities, for realities they are:

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6 Responses

  1. Paul J says:
    October 8 2020 at 2:08 pm

    Just listened to a great debate on Nihal’s show on 5live discussing the future viability of capitalism in the context of David Attenborough’s recent comments. Dr Tim Jackson shooting holes in Benedict Mcaleenan’s arguments.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n4cg

    Starts about half way into the first hour.

  2. Maggie Downie says:
    October 9 2020 at 10:58 am

    The point that you don’t make, Richard, (lack of time in a short video?) is that the public sector actually sustains a goodly part of the private sector.

    So many people seem to regard public sector spending as pouring money into a big black hole where it promptly disappears, whereas, because the state produces nothing itself, all public sector resources are provided by the private sector and all public sector wages are spent in the private sector.

    Even if one believes that the public sector is paid for by taxation (which I don’t now that I have discovered MMT..) then most state spending is ultimately recovered through taxation, either corporate, personal, or through VAT. The only ‘leakage’ is from savings and tax avoidance but this would happen whatever system is in place.

    And for those who would argue that the private sector is more efficient I would point them at current spectacular failures in private sector provision during our ongoing covid crisis.