Rishi Sunak says he has a moral duty to get rid of the UK's deficit. Doing so will create hardship, deny people the chance to work and leave [eople with unrealised potential kicking their heels in frustration. There is nothing moral about that.
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Agreed.
In one regard you are wrong – there IS a political imperative. It is imperative (for Rishi Sunak’s career) that he demonstrates his Neoliberal/Thatcherite credentials for the “electorate” that really matters – Conservative Party Members who will vote in the next leadership election.
True
As usual, Graeber is relevant :
If you eliminate government deficit, growth only occurs in the private sector.
Eliminating government deficit is a war on the progressive growth of public wealth.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/oct/28/david-graeber-what-government-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-debt-video
apologies for copying this :
https://youtu.be/g8k1LeSwtCw
I’m doing a review on Bigger Government by Marc Robinson and this popped up in my google search.
It suggests our opponents think that fronting propaganda with a good looking blond is the answer.
I have debated with this crowd in front of informed audiences who were given the chance to vote on the motions that we discussed
I have always won, handsomely
That’s my interpretation too of Graeber’s work plus it seems that this war between public (the collective – society) and private wealthy individuals over the utility of money is one of the longest running wars in human history.
If I remember correctly Graeber saw it as credit (debt money) versus base money ( real cash without interest) and he saw long cycles of both dominating in a sort of cycle.
Obviously a ‘money debt society’ helps the wealthy to grow the value of their money through rentier capitalism and this helps money to gravitate ever upwards and then helps the rich to cement themselves into power. We might be looking at the end of Graeber’s cycle you know, if we are not careful and only debt money will dominate.
What is bad for the UK is that there is definitely an international side to this now – where Johnson & Co most definitely want the UK to attract ‘inward investment’ from around the world – in other words Richard is right when he talks of the UK becoming a tax haven.
Imagine that – our only real industry – enabling crooks and supra-nationalists to hide their money away from any form of responsibility or obligation or over sight.
We will become an international pariah of a state – an enabler of cruelty, crime and anti-democracy world wide.
What an epitaph for the Thatcherite golden age!! Well done Maggie! History will record how hollow you and your creed were one day I am sure. And from that point onwards you and your followers will live on – in infamy. You’ll see.
Strangely enough the possibility of understanding that a government needn’t balance its books comes in part with the arrival of a nuclear deterrent. The argument for using the commodity of silver and gold to base your sovereign currency on not so long ago was that with so much warring taking place if your country was taken over by another and the currency changed so the old was invalid at least the precious metal content of coinage would still be worth something as melted down bullion. Of course, this nuclear deterrent argument doesn’t apply to a war internal to your country, a civil war where currency replacement might also occur especially if your country is relatively small.
In 17th century England, both internal and external wars took place (largely revolving around freedom of religious worship and the need for increased democratic control over monarchy) and the melting down of specie money for bullion purposes towards the end of a turbulent century was defeating England’s attempt to stop the French attacking its merchant ships. This forced the privatisation of public need with the setting up of a private bank (the Bank of England) to issue bank notes and the use of Exchequer bills which paid interest to the public to compensate them for their willingness to hold government money.
https://journals.openedition.org/histoiremesure/5209
It can be said then that the fear of money losing value especially with the possibility of war lurking in the background led to the adoption of specie money but this obscured the fact that the “collateral” that gave specie money its “safe” premium value as a nominal rather than a commodity unit of account was its retirement by the state government through taxation and other government charges. Here’s Christine Desan explaining this in short and long version YouTube versions (5 minutes and 1 hour):-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brMLr9kasLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCdKI5dGn9c
@ Adrian,
“If you eliminate government deficit, growth only occurs in the private sector.”
Many on the political right do believe this. But it doesn’t make it true. We’ll end up economic contraction in all three sectors. Govt, Private Domestic and Overseas.
Government spends money into the economy and gets some of it back in taxes. But it can’t get back more than it has created in the first place. It all comes back eventually. But that can be a long time off! Some ends up being saved both domestically and by our international trading partners who choose not to spend all the pounds they earn in the UK economy. Any delay in spending what has been earned is a form of saving.
So trying to “balance the books” is trying to prevent everyone doing any saving. Contracting the economy does that in the sense that it makes everyone poorer. They can’t afford to save and they can’t afford to buy so many imported goods.
There is a case for economic austerity if the economy is running too hot and creating an inflation problem but that’s not the problem right now.
It’s not something anyone with any sense would vote for.
I tell you that Helen’s You tube clips are really worth watching – particularly the second one where Desan describes how personal profit began to be accepted as a moral way to make money out of what was a public orientated utility – honestly – it’s well worth looking watching.
Now posted to the blog
Thanks
Reading the article from the Spectator raised huge concerns for me. A Chancellor quoted as saying, ‘There is this very large QE thing that’s going on,’ hardly inspires confidence. He then says he has not had time to read the report from the wealth tax commission but when asked about a BBC drama replied that he keeps seeing lots of stories about it on his Daily Mail app! And his attitude to the virus seems complacent as he implies that, well before all have been vaccinated, rules can be relaxed as they will have achieved the goals that they want which is to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, regardless of the fact that the virus will still be circulating, causing deaths and long COVID and we will not know how long the vaccine effect is going to last. And how detached from reality can you be if you see the furlough scheme as an example of far-reaching and empathetic policies which he seems to think characterise the government.
Then you get the distinct impression that of the moral, economic and political objections to borrowing that he professes it is the latter that really concerns him – he can’t be seen to show the falsity of the Conservative’s chief line of attack on the opposition parties and weaken his own neoliberal credentials. So yet again we must suffer in the interests of the Conservative Party.
True
[…] Schofield noted a couple of videos in the comments a few days ago, both produced by X+Chsrritine Desan to whose work she has been […]
An interesting obervation from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (equivalent of BBC) about the Australian Reserve Bank (equivalent of Bank of England) creating money out of thin air.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/2020-economy-norms-shattered-by-coronavirus-covid-19/12981360
Now I know that the UK PM has a huge admiration for Australia, adopting their immigration points system, and EU trading system (aka WTO rules), so when are they going to admit that if the former colony (who gained independence in 1901 with no adverse impact) do this, why does the UK not admit it?
On an aside Australia is facing a trade war with China at the moment (beware UK), but the Chinese are still buying Australian Government Bonds in huge quantities. Perhaps Australia could send them a case of Aussie red with each $1m bond purchased.