The fund reports that Britain’s finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal, and says privatisation is to blame
Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier.
It’s why your tax credits keep dropping, and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant – because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it “crowding out” private money. It’s why water bills are so high and train services can never be counted on – because both industries have been privatised.
From the debacle of universal credit to the forced conversion of state schools into corporate-run academies, the ideology of the small state – defined by no less a body than the International Monetary Fund as neoliberalism – is all pervasive. It decides how much money you have left at the end of the week and what kind of future your children will enjoy, and it explains why your elderly relatives can’t get a decent carer.
I don’t wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would be filed before you could say “east coast mainline”. Instead, I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary.
The Guardian
1 comment:
Neoliberals love “big government” as long as they own and control government. For neoliberals, a “big and oppressive government” is any government that neoliberals do not own and control. A “dictator” is any national leader that neoliberals do not own and control.
For neoliberals the actual size of government (big or small) is irrelevant. What matters to neoliberals is ownership. Publicly owned government is “big government." Privately owned government (owned by the rich) is "small government."
On a different note, some of this article is in error. Example…
“The IMF report found that the UK had among the weakest public finances of the lot. With less than £3 trillion of assets against £5tn in pensions and other liabilities, the UK is more than £2tn in the red. Of all the other countries examined by researchers, including the Gambia and Kenya, only Portugal’s finances look worse over the long run.”
No. The UK government (which creates its spending money out of thin air) cannot be compared with the Portuguese government (which cannot create its spending money out of thin air).
Nor can the UK government, whose currency is widely negotiable in the world, be compared to Kenya or Gambia, whose currencies are not. (You could spend British pounds in Kenya or Gambia, but you could not spend Kenyan Shillings or Gambian dalasi in the UK.)
Nor does the UK government have a "debt crisis" or an "unfunded liabilities" crisis.
“Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used our North Sea oil money to pay for swinging tax cuts.”
Thatcher decriminalized finance, but oil profits did not “pay for” tax cuts, since the UK government has no need for tax revenue. The UK government effectively destroys tax revenue upon receipt.
I agree with the article that mass privatization is always and everywhere disastrous. With mass privatization, rich owners suck the life out of the nation until the host nation collapses.
Fortunately for neoliberals the peasants are addicted to suffering. Suffering is like a cocoon or security blanket. It “explains” the peasant world, and protects against the unknown. It absolves the peasants from having to think. “There is no alternative” to suffering.
Most people cling to suffering all their lives. Suffering is familiar, and perversely comforting. As such it becomes a mindless habit.
Hence when you explain the facts of MMT, most people smugly dismiss you as an idiot or a communist.
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