Our Brave New World - A Glimmer of Hope

 

Guardian economics editor, Larry Elliott, sees welcome change on the horizon. Our 20 year wait may soon be over.

For the past 40 years the world has been organised along neoliberal lines. This has involved long and complex global supply chains, privatisation, deregulation, small government, weak trade unions and a dedication on the part of independent central banks to keeping inflation low.

The world that emerges from the chaos caused by a combination of the pandemic and the war will be different. Supply chains are going to be shorter as countries aim for self-sufficiency in food, energy and industrial components. There is going to be a wariness about being over-dependent on autocratic regimes for key commodities. There will be pressure for much tougher regulation of utilities and even renationalisation. Governments will get bigger and a shortage of workers, amplified by an ageing population, will shift the balance of power away from capital and towards labour.

...The public is ready for more interventionist economic policies.

That’s not to say it necessarily wants the state to run everything. Nor does it mean that the UK – and other western countries – will be permanently run by left-of-centre governments. Centre-right parties might be willing – as they were in the 1950s and 1960s – to embrace the idea of a mixed economy and a better deal for labour. Ronald Reagan once said the nine most terrifying words in the English language were: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Only the bravest of politicians would repeat that message to a family struggling to pay the gas bill this winter.

Comment Response -

Neoliberalism was always a house of cards.  It transferred incidents of sovereignty such as tariffs and market access to the private sector with no quid pro quo. Capital was liberated, free to move production wherever it liked and to offshore wealth. Perfectly suited to predatory practices and those came to pass.

It was in 2005 that Ralston Saul wrote his epitaph to globalism, assuring his readers that the "next great thing" would soon usher out neoliberal globalism.  Yet the neoliberal order has tenaciously held on as the lines between capital and government blurred.

My daughter used to pay 90 Euros a month for utilities in her two-bedroom flat in Amsterdam. That has  now soared to 260 Euros per month.  She's well paid so to her it's an annoyance.  For the less well off it's much more dire.

Hi Owen. Hope you're feeling better. At our age it's always something. Neoliberalism of the Hayek/Friedman variety, flogged on the unwitting by Thatcher, Reagan and our own Mulroney, was always a scam. Just go back to the opening pitch about how free trade was going to transform our economy to a "knowledge economy" with more and better paid jobs while manufacturing was outsourced to the lowest bidder. The more jobs promise came true as many people had to take second, sometimes third jobs to make ends meet. It was a game of snakes and ladders of inequality and ushered in the greatest transfer of unearned wealth out of the middle class and into the offshore accounts of the well heeled.