A week or so ago one of the commentators on this blog asked if I might suggest now to be the time for a 1945 style economic recovery, with associated spending plans, as well as an associated radical restructuring of the associated relationship between the state and private sectors. It looks as if the new head of the CBI, Tony Danker, part-way beat me to it yesterday.
In his first major speech in his new role Danker made a number of wholly appropriate suggestions, including this:
It may seem that to talk now of the decade ahead is misplaced. But I think it's what the crisis demands.
Build Back Better is easy to say but it is much harder to do. It needs a vision, a plan and a consensus as a nation to pursue it.
I don't think we did that after 2008.
We stabilised the economic system immediately. Then for the long run, we stabilised the public finances. And we achieved modest economic growth.
But our productivity growth flatlined. And our society divided rather than united.
So, what will we take from this crisis? Where, in our darkest times, have we made real shifts for the better?
Most notably — of course — in the aftermath of the Second World War, when post-war reconstruction gave birth to the NHS and the creation of the welfare state.
The message could not be clearer. Attlee's Labour got right what Cameron's Tories got wrong. As if there was doubt, he added:
I believe we must, and we will, come together to forge a better decade.
More 1945 than 2008.
Yet, I am also a pragmatist — a businessperson. Above all, I like governments and businesses working together; something our competitors do far better than us.
Which is true.
There was a final quote worth noting:
History will judge how we used this moment to map the path to get to 2030.
So, here's what we propose: first, a national economic vision and strategy.
A vision for the long term — no less than a decade — to overcome political cycles.
A vision that is for growth but growth that's shared. Growth for every region; and for every corner of our society.
There was much pro-business blather around this, of course.
And there was a very clear failure to describe the role of employees and others in this process.
There was also no mention of how the economic relationship between the state and the private sector was to be managed.
Nor a hint, beyond criticising the obsession with balancing the public finances, that the Attlee settlement was done against a background of very high public sector debt.
But I am going to take what I can. This was a serious speech that explicitly argued, as I do, that there is no ‘state right / market wrong' (or vice versa) dichotomy. There is, instead, always going to be a mixed economy.
The time has come to recognise that this is true. If the CBI can do that, it's time politicians across the serious spectrum did. That is the only basis we have for our future. It is the basis for what we really need, which is a Green New Deal. And it needs to be negotiated, now.
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Perhaps interesting to note that New Zealand which is effectively cut off from the outside world by its tight border controls has only had around 25 deaths from covid and life continues almost as normal for its citizens. Notwithstanding, their economy shows signs of growth with unemployment reducing apparently.
The simple strategy of suppressing the virus and managed quarantine with only returning residents allowed in seems to be working a treat. I assume the UK government can’t or won’t organise a similar strategy to their former colony. I think NZ are planning to start their vaccination programme around April this year.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124119700/shock-fall-in-unemployment-to-49-per-cent
Huh! Things have come to a pretty pass, when (even?) the CBI outvisions the Labour Party (currently locked into timid, minimalist “flat-earther” economics, as exemplified by Anneliese Dodds’s Mais Lecture), and comes up with a request for an Attleesque strategic plan for the coming decade, clearly predicated on large, targeted planned expenditure for the common good.
Such strategic planning and spending plans for the common good used to be Labour’s USP – were, as recently as the last two General Elections.
That apart, this development is a reason to turn from despair to hope, since it means that, if something like “neddy” (the tripartite National Economic Development Council, bringing together government, capital/business and labour/workforce) is recreated, business will be a willing, active and essential partner in such strategic planning – and implementation, I would hope.
For all three components of a (revived and restructured, to meet the challenges of the 2020’s, so inevitably majoring on climate destruction) NEDC – capital, Labour and government – must he there, and be equally important.
“This was a serious speech that explicitly argued, as I do, that there is no ‘state right / market wrong’ (or vice versa) dichotomy. There is, instead, always going to be a mixed economy.” Yes, very much so. Extremes of right or left in economics and politics are no good. Free market libertarianism? No thanks. Communism? Ditto.
Agreed
Labour’s too busy working out which way up the Union Flag should be flown. Starmer said ‘ the Labour movement and patriotism were “two sides of the same coin” ‘ (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/30/labour-should-not-shy-away-from-patriotism-says-starmer)
Instead of setting up focus groups to come up with the answer that what people really care about are patriotic flags, they could at least think about the Green New Deal. If speaking to you directly is a non-starter then they could go to the Green New Deal Group and speak to some of your colleagues – I see they even have one of their MP’s on the group.
All based around that trick word GROWTH.
Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
🙂
“Build Back Better” is a Trumpian/Dominic Cummings/Boris Johnson, say nothing but sound good, phrase.
“Build Back Fairer” the title of the COVID-19 Marmot Review says so much more. I would like to see a party use this as their headline. We cannot do what we did to the poor and our public services in 2008. We have seen what that does to us in a crisis and, although we have a party in power and its supporters that wants to work on the American style of personal liberty before the greater good this is surely not our countries standpoint. Or, sadly, is it?
How good it would be to hear a party say they believe in Social Liberalism and the mixed economy. None of our main parties have declared their fulsome support for public services balanced with a regulated market economy at any time in the recent past.
I like that much more
Absolutely right – there is a gaping hole in the political offerings at the moment for that combination of a mixed economy and social liberalism. Labour seem to be retreating from what I’d think of as a core value in trying to bring back hard-core Brexit voters, when they should be pointing out loudly how they have been utterly conned by a Tory Brexit.
Economically they are being terribly cautious. Perhaps they are trying to re-fight the last 2-3 elections, scared of being seen as financially irresponsible. At a time when the current government is throwing money around like confetti (most of it badly), that should be the least of their worries.
‘Build Back Better’ is NOT Trumpian!
It is Biden. And Bozo just ahead of him.
Proof of that exists & easily available on the web. It was just a few months ago !
Curious isn’t it, how fast such fake narratives appear?
I did not, at any point, say that Trump said this. I said it is “Trumpian”, i.e., a style of speech often used by Trump. I was certainly not posting a “fake narrative”. Just because Jo Biden used and and he may turn out to be one of the good guys does not mean that this style of three word mantra, with no literal meaning, cannot be originally attributed to people such as Trump/Dominic Cummings/Boris Johnson, which is exactly what I was doing.
[…] have long argued for a Green New Deal. Now many others – from the CBI onwards – are suggesting that we need a new economic consensus to rebuild after coronavirus. In this video […]
The Postwar Government didn’t come out of the blue. Left to Rothermeer & co and Pathe they would have easily handed it back to the Tories to restore the great pre-war Imperial Dream (with perhaps extending an occupation of the sub-continent in defiance of Yalta and other accords.)
There would have been no NHS or the massive amounts of decent social housing and schooling.
That post war Atlee led government came out of the Soldiers Parliaments – which were uncontrollable by the Generals. Winnie and the Press Lords were not able to reach that far into the camps.
That forgotten/hidden history is again more Narrative rewriting.
We really must get past the naive belief in everything the MSM whispers and shouts into our eyes and ears if we want REAL choices. Without Soldiers Parliaments only grassroots movements with careful self policing to avoid being guaranteed infiltration by agents of the status quo can repeat that. JC’s Labour was offering that. That is why the old forces were unleashed to stop it.
The Establishment has spent every single moment since 1945 to reverse and erase the gains of that social democratic covenant. With BrexShit and crucifixion of JC and now with the Brittannia Unhinged Daleks under the control of Dominic Davros, they have achieved that end.