The antidote to the politics of destruction and the economics of failure is the economics of hope, the partner of the politics of care. It now appears in this blog's glossary.
The economics of hope is the alternative to and antidote for the economics of failure. It is an approach to political economy that uses democratic power, honest accounting, and public investment to build an economy designed to meet need, reduce insecurity, and sustain the future. Where the economics of failure manufactures decline to discredit government, the economics of hope demonstrates that good public policy can deliver well-being.
First, the economics of hope begins with purpose. The goal of an economy is not growth for its own sake, but security, dignity, and opportunity within planetary limits. Policy is judged by how it treats those with least power. If the vulnerable are protected, society is stronger; if they are abandoned, both morally and economically, policy has failed.
Second, it recognises real constraints. Governments like the UK that issue their own currency are not financially constrained in the household sense. The limits on public spending are resources and inflation, not myths about balanced budgets or “taxpayer's money”. Honest macroeconomics allows governments to invest when investment is needed and stabilise demand when recession threatens.
Third, the economics of hope rebuilds public provision. Health care, education, housing, transport, energy, water, and social security are infrastructure for a functioning society. When these are publicly accountable and adequately funded, productivity rises, inequality falls, and trust grows. Where privatisation has failed, democratic control can be restored.
Fourth, it tackles rent extraction. Proper taxation of wealth, land, monopolies, and excess profits curbs pleonexia and redirects resources towards productive activity. Regulation that limits monopoly power and secrecy jurisdictions restores fairness to markets. Finance becomes a servant of the real economy rather than its master.
Fifth, the economics of hope strengthens demand. When incomes at the bottom and middle rise, spending increases, businesses invest, and growth becomes sustainable. Multipliers work in the right direction. Inequality falls, and the economy becomes more resilient.
Sixth, it invests in the future. Maintaining the five forms of capital (financial, physical, environmental, human, and social) ensures long-term prosperity. Education, health, climate transition, infrastructure, and community support are not costs; they are investments that expand real economic capacity.
Seventh, the economics of hope restores democracy. Transparent public accounts, fair taxation, accountable institutions, and strong social security allow citizens to participate confidently in public life. Economic security makes democratic engagement possible.
Finally, the economics of hope replaces the narrative of scarcity with one of possibility. It recognises that most modern economies have the resources to meet basic needs; what is lacking is the political will to organise them fairly.
The economics of hope is therefore the pathway out of the economics of failure. It replaces the politics of destruction with politics for people and a politics of care, creating an economy built on accountability, fairness, and shared prosperity that works because it is designed to serve society as a whole.
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Thanks to all for a relevant and encouraging article!
In short, might it be that the economics of destruction is a predatory, parasitic type of economics whereas the politics of hope is a symbiotic type of economics?
Yes
Something hopeful which we can exploit in the current climate, is the disruptive effect of the new parties on a previously uniform neoliberal economic orthodoxy supported by a supine lazy sold-out press corps.
1. The re-emergence of genuinely progressive and heterodox economics on the left, and a politician able to aggressivey talk about it on air – Zack Polanski.
2. The willingness of Reform UK Ltd., however incoherently and divisively or dishonestly, to tilt at some neoliberal windmills, such as QE/QT, BoE Independence, and interest paid by BoE on CBRs to commercial banks.
3. The creative tension engendered by the transfer of Tory right-wing economic thinking to Reform UK Ltd, now that “Honest” Bob Jenrick is Reform UK Ltd Treasury fascist spokesperson. (Eg: a Reform U-turn on the 2 child benefit cap & BoE independence) and the fact that Jenrick will be disagreeing on a lot of things with his party leader (he can’t help it, it’s in his genes), possibly in public, possibly terminally.
4. Major and bitter economic conflict between Rupert Lowe’s “Destroy Britain” gang, and Reform UK Ltd., as they compete for the “left-behind” and “racist-old-white-git” vote and compete to appear to be the most economically heterodox (while protecting their own wealth) – and because, as Richard has pointed out, they really HATE each other.
They will be desperate to differentiate themselves from the STP and from each other. That tension has already produced some useful public arguments and draft legislation from Reform.
Normally such things are never discussed on air or at press conferences. But now they may be. It won’t be pretty, but it could have some useful spinoffs.
Here’s an example and a challenge (for our community) – how many usefully disruptive topics are raised in this Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/18/reform-uk-restore-two-child-benefit-cap-jenrick-bank-of-england-independent
and how could they best be turned into economically heterodox talking points that Rachel Reeves/Tory Shadow Chancellor (whoever it is now – Mel Stride?) would not want us to discuss?
(I found about 17 economic issues, without even beginning to rant about social justice issues, or racist legislation – and Jenrick and Fa***e seem to disagree on all of them – which looks exciting since this is the first day since proud father Farage has taken his latest kidnapped Tories out in their prams since adoption papers were signed.)
Below from The Crisis, No. 17 — Towards imagination
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-crisis-no-17
Mike Brock, Feb 15, 2026 [Notes from the circus]
…The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States contains one word that has always mattered more than all the others.
Not “liberty.” Not “justice.” Not “union.”
Posterity.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The founders wrote the republic into existence for people who did not yet exist. That sentence — that single, extraordinary act of imagination — is the most radical thing in the entire founding. More radical than the declaration of rights. More radical than the separation of powers. More radical than the overthrow of the king.
Because the founders oriented the republic toward imagination. Toward the unborn. Toward the ones who would inherit the compass and carry it into territory the founders could not see. They did not write for themselves alone. They wrote for the third vertex that had not yet arrived — the new consciousness, the new observer, the child who would one day stand in the tension between memory and imagination and steer.
This is what Jefferson’s substitution meant — the replacement of property with the pursuit of happiness that No. 14 traced to its philosophical roots. Property orients toward memory. It is what you have accumulated, what you hold, what you defend against loss. Happiness orients toward imagination. It is what you are pursuing — the not-yet, the unbuilt, the becoming. Jefferson turned the compass. He pointed the republic toward imagination. Toward the children.
And the founders understood — could not have articulated it in these terms, but understood in their bones — that posterity is not a beneficiary. Posterity is the purpose. The republic does not exist to preserve what was built. The republic exists to make it possible for the ones who come after to keep building….
Posterity – time – the essence of being – and the thing we only know becaue of the second law of thermodynamics