I said I would be spending time thinking and that I would be revisiting my hastily written 2011 book, The Courageous State, when doing so.
I have done that, and am pleased with some of what I have found, although it most definitely has serious gaps within its structure. which my more recent work has been addressing.
But I liked my rediscovery that on page 114 I said:
The achievement of potential is the goal of economic entities; the reasons why we fail to achieve our potential are the issues that require explanation.
In what follows, the core economic objective for people is the achievement of potential. The reason for government involvement in the economy, which underpins the whole logic of this book, is that nothing guarantees that the widespread achievement of potential will happen, but government intervention definitely helps it to do so.
That was the kernel of the section on economic theory in the book, which I strongly suspect is the part no one has read.
How would I put that now? Not in quite the same way, I think. My writing style has changed. I have changed. The world has changed. I might try this now:
Human beings are social, caring, creative and interdependent creatures. The purpose of society is to create the conditions in which every person can realise their potential. The purpose of the economy is to support that task. The purpose of the state is to help society achieve it.
Contrast this with the neoliberal objective, which might be summarised as:
Human beings are autonomous individuals pursuing their own interests. The purpose of society is to facilitate voluntary exchange between them. The purpose of the economy is to maximise efficiency, growth and consumer choice. The purpose of the state is to protect property rights, enforce contracts and otherwise stay out of the way of the achievement of individual's objectives.
The contrast is this:
Neoliberalism tends to begin with suspicion of the state. The state is viewed as inefficient, bureaucratic, potentially coercive and a threat to freedom.
The Courageous State begins with a different question. If there are things we can only achieve together, how do we organise ourselves to achieve them? The state becomes not a threat but a possibility, a mechanism through which society acts collectively and a means of creating capabilities that individuals could never create alone.
If reduced to a single sentence, the neoliberal worldview says:
Human flourishing emerges when individuals are left as free as possible to pursue their own interests through markets.
The Courageous State worldview says:
Human flourishing emerges when society deliberately creates the conditions in which every person can develop their capabilities and participate fully in collective life.
Discussion about everything else, whether it be tax, spending, regulation, public services, ownership, social security, growth, sustainability, debt and democracy, is ultimately an argument about which of these two propositions is closer to the truth.
Is that fair?
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This is of course a philosophical question at heart – what is life for? Having done some exploration of various philosophical approaches I am probably closest to Whitehead. In essence, I agree that life is about relationship and that relationship is the progenitor of ‘things’ in the widest sense. It is the foundation of life and the quality of that life is directly related to the quality of our relationships – with each other and the world at large.
Whitehead is intyersting – I agree, and challengfing to much of modern life
Yes that is fair.
I think the problem with society is that the rich see the government (democracy) as there to serve them first. A state that sets out to do the opposite (as Attlee’s government did) is frowned upon and has to be brought down because it prevents the rich/capital from seeking exploitation of the populace and threatens their preeminent position in society.
There is a lot of bullshit written about extolling competition in economics and MBA’s but the simple dirty truth hidden by for example Neo-liberalism is that capital/the rich do not like competition, they are naturally monopolistic – they are pleonexic and they want it all.
Democracy should act as a buffer to that human propensity among some of us to dominate. That starts by acknowledging how damaging that is. We are still – even now – in denial of this, all the way from the birth of so-called ‘modern’ democracy in Greece. According to the late David Graeber and Mike Hudson however, older societies did find ways around this and Greece is not the best template.
I much prefer the ‘flourishing’ worldview. Selling this idea to voters seems beyond any politicians or aspiring ones in the current climate, I fear. A great deal of education of the electorate would be needed to move the overton window back to the centre of discussions. Every day, the discussion is pushed further right, always aided and abetted by a largely corrupt media. Most of the people in the country appear to have been brainwashed into believing what is, palpably nonsense.
But I haven’t and never will, so I have to hang on to the truth, even if all around I’m bombarded on a daily basis with economic hokum propounded largely by people who know better. Andy Haldane was on with Peston this week, pushing the lies with a knowing twinkle in his eyes, even when confronted with the truth by Clive Lewis. Andy is a former BofE economist, now advising the CBI. At least he never asked where the money would come from, or hinted at a bankrupt country. If he had, I’d be shopping for a new telly this weekend.
Haldane is a figue of the establishemnt.
He rocks the boat ever so gently, at most.
“Genuine social cohesion enables individuals and groups to develop and use their individualities of being, playing and working.”(From Dame Sara Khan)
Correct
Of course it is!
Politicians who espouse neoliberal economics deliberately devalue and literally destroy millions of unique human lives each year.
An example – Trump’s cowardly mobster fascist administration closed down USAID in 2025 – a decision which, it is estimated by Boston University, destroyed 600,000 unique human lives in the first year, due to preventable infectious disease. Lost potential to flourish x 600,000.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/the-shutdown-of-usaid-has-already-killed-hundreds-of-thousands
Just one single destructive decision by the evil orange mobster and his criminal gang to NOT use the power of the world’s richest economy for good.
Neoliberals still believe in the state – but as a tool for repression, and destruction (ICE, Border Force, surveillance, police, courts, prisons, and armed forces) – not for flourishing and achieving of potential.
Reeves & Starmer, Macfadden, Burnham, Streeting, Reynolds, Jarvis, Badenoch, Jenrick, Fa***e, Davey, all pretend to be helpless, in the face of macroeconomic forces, but they are lying. They are culpable, for their actions AND inactions.
“We have left undone those things that we ought to have done; and we have done those things that we ought not to have done;”
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/daily-prayer/forms-penitence
(If Yaxley-Lenin, Badenoch and Fa***e want some “traditional English Christian values”, then they don’t come much more traditional or English than the CofE’s penitential prayers, with roots in the 1622 Book of Common Prayer).
“Reeves & Starmer, Macfadden, Burnham, Streeting, Reynolds, Jarvis, Badenoch, Jenrick, Fa***e, Davey, all pretend to be helpless, in the face of macroeconomic forces, but they are lying. They are culpable, for their actions AND inactions.”
So much to agree with
Alos true of your reflection
agreed but I think 1662 not 1622
sorry for the history teacher bit but it shows I read you, Robert
I read you too, Ian!
My reference to a 1622 print edition is correct, but a bit obscure.
https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/vic449/lima
According to that article, the major revisions of BCP were published in 1554, 1559 and 1660 (revised because of highly contentious theological politics!).
The 1622 English edition (London, Norton & Bill) is of the 1559 revision and is notable for having been bound with an undated Greek New Testament, and an English copy of the Psalms, plus notes in Greek and Latin.
(I only learned all that half an hour ago, I’m trying to sound cleverer than I am!! I stumbled on 1622 after choosing that particular search result in DuckDuckGo out of a pageful of hits.)
I’m sure Yaxley-Lenin, Fa***e and Badenoch recite their English penitential prayers every day! 😉
I like….
I have a 1661 [sic] prayer book. It includes most but not quite all of the 1662 revisions, and an amusing (to some) misprint. https://cassland.org/images/PrayerBook/
Paul
Might it be that the power of an economic/socio-economic theory depends more upon the powers of those who promote/impose it and the gulliblity and inertia of those who receeive it/have it imposed uopn them than upon its intrinsic merits?
It feels that way
Remember this: If Farage gets into power, then it will not be the ‘will of the people’. It will be the ‘willy of the people’ because those who vote for him will be complete dickheads.
I had a chat with my next door neighbour the other day about life. We actually get on – he has lent me his roof ladder for example, I help him out too. He mentioned immigration again to which I responded with austerity. Even after that, he could only say ‘but we are still giving money to immigrants’. He sort of has a point but within it, there is an acceptance of austerity isn’t there? He accepts less money and therefore not helping immigrants. It is weird how the English serfs (thank you Mike) accept their lot, but at the same time make sure someone else pays, someone has to be worse off than them, and then – apparently – less for them is acceptable. Hold on, that’s Fascist society isn’t it?
I ended the conversation jovially but I did tell him that I was working class, and what I always valued about that was that the old working class knew who it was who was fucking them and didn’t need to be told. But not any more it seems……………..he actually agreed with me at that point.
🙂
Would revisioning be advantaged because now there is 15 years of austerity (aka neoliberalism) evidence to substantiate its utter failure.
Someone recently shared with me that A Burnham’s recent critique of necro-politics neoliberalism was based on a calculation that a mass would understand exactly what he was talking about, (albeit his solutions are TINA).
I thought this was a useful reflection as it shows evidence of where the public are on necro politics, perhaps a different place to 2011. Although in the MSM Westminster bubble we are treated like dumb ignorant beasts, their cattle with no voice, to be done to… So many people now understand we are being forced to accept necro-politics, and they want the politics of care – a Courageous State, not a Cowardly, Callous State.
They know TINA is a lie.
Much to agree with
And in a sense I am shocked by his little has changed in 15 years.
Just another thought, a short synopsis of key countries now within neoliberal hegemony.
Although it is disputed whether or not she did say this, anthropologist Margaret Mead was supposedly asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilisation. Mead said that the first sign was a femur that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, and has tended the person through recovery. True or not the point remains: in this scenario I expect the Neo-liberal state would demand to see your individual health insurance first. The caring state gets you to hospital, gives you treatment because you need it and it is paid for collectively.
I have heard that story, and like it.
I have a t-shirt that I wear often with a slogan from the comic V for Vendetta (it’s also in the film). It reads: ‘People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people’.
I wear it to promote comment from strangers who read it and often express sympathy with the statement, agreeing with it. I don’t. This promotes opportunity for conversations with people I would otherwise not converse with.
Governments and the people they are supposed to represent should NOT fear each other but should trust each other and work together for the benefit of all.
Currently this is not the case. This needs to change.
What you wrote in this piece is exactly this. Government needs to support us and lift us up, not suppress us. Currently there is fear in both directions (easily seen by how much of our money they spend protecting themselves from us). Instead of promoting fear and othering ‘outlanders’ – aüslanders – politicians should focus on bringing us together so we can all grow, not just a few.
Well, that’s my penny’s worth.
Cheers Prof.
Thanks, Keith
“Human flourishing emerges when individuals are left as free as possible to pursue their own interests through markets.” This is essentially the freedom to exploit others if you are smart/cunning/immoral/wealthy/brave enough to do so and the freedom to be exploited if you are not.
“Human flourishing emerges when society deliberately creates the conditions in which every person can develop their capabilities and participate fully in collective life.” This the opportunity to just be a calm, unambitious, family-focused person and still have a comfortable, secure life without suffering the consequences described above. This describes at least 99% of the population, so how do you persuade 99% of the population to vote for it?
That’s the hard one….
We should have recognise what would follow when Thatcher uttered those ominous words “There is no such thing as Society”.
Yes it is fair. I would add however that I think the neoliberal/right’s use of the phrase personal responsibility’ is quite powerful and needs addressing
Neoliberalism has been taking control of the functions and parameters of “the UK state” for over 46 years.
Took Downing St. 1980-
Fleet St – long before that
Broadcasting – commercial broadcasting since ITV started. The BBC, really only over the last 20 yrs or so.
The internet/social media/data highway/political information and influence – since at least 2015 (Cambridge Analytica etc) – giving us Brexit, Trump, Fa***ge and Starmer.
A reflection – “Who/What” decided on the latest series of events this week – resignation of Jonathan Healey, & Al Carns (who?), discussion of national defence plan, and the austerity needed to “defend” the defence budget, and, miraculously today, the hijacking of a “Russian” ship by UK forces, as Dan Jarvis gets his feet under his MOD desk and Reform UK start quoting Ant Middleton in the by-election. Everyone (xc Greens who are suddenly off stage) has basically agreed on the same austerity neoliberal defence-focussed agenda to lead us into Makerfield. So who exactly decided on the “Who Dares Wins” Special Forces Hunger Games news agenda for this week? We are being played.
Suddenly, its wall to wall muscular Special Forces heroes, foreign threats, and everyone is agreed we can’t afford defence AND expenditure on our own residents and the Greens have to be smeared as irresponsible antisemitic surrender monkeys. It stinks.
You are right, it stinks to high heaven.