Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Bill Mitchell — The demise of French greatness and the European Left

The GFC clearly, in my view, demonstrated that the political positions held by both the left- and right-wing governments in the West with respect to economic policy were untenable. Both sides of politics in each major and country adopted versions of market liberalism where the overlap was more dominant than the differences. While the left maintained some emphasis on social policy and the right maintained an emphasis on individual freedom (which was more about corporate freedom than anything), the fact remains that these differences were blurred by the dominance of the free market approach in each of their platforms. It is ironic, that as a consequence of the GFC, the bureaucratic state is more dominant now than it was, especially in the European Union where the political and technical elite interacts with the so-called market to create what has been called the democratic deficit. We now have technocrats in the European bureaucracy, in the IMF, in the World Bank and other multilateral organisations who contrive to implement policies which have allowed the benefits of economic activity to be increasingly diverted to beneficiaries who are at the top end of the income and wealth distribution. Today’s blog continues reporting some of the research I’ve been doing for my next book on the demise of the Left and the subjugation of public purpose in the name of austerity. It seems that we have concentrated on fiscal austerity but the general notion of austerity, which is now the centrepiece of political positions in most advanced countries, goes well beyond just fiscal policy. The response to the recent events in Paris demonstrate how far the state is willing to centralise authoritative controls on the rights of their citizens.…
Connecting the dots between economics and politics in Europe.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The demise of French greatness and the European Left
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

2 comments:

Random said...

"A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack" Mr. Erdogan told us back in 2012 when a Turkish jet was shot down by Syria.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/24/turkey-plane-shot-down-syria
"The foreign secretary, William Hague, said the "outrageous" act underlined the need for Assad's regime to go. "My thoughts and sympathies are with the families and friends of the missing Turkish pilots. I have made clear to Foreign Minister Davutoglu the UK's strong support for the Turkish government at this difficult time," he said in a statement.

"The Assad regime should not make the mistake of believing that it can act with impunity. It will be held to account for its behaviour. The UK stands ready to pursue robust action at the United Nations security council.""

Ignacio said...

Lol Random, good find!