Larry Elliott, the economics editor at the Guardian, is more leftist than I thought, as he takes an old fashioned view on the EU rather like in the Tony Benn tradition. That's like me, although I was very pro E.U. up until a few years ago, where I even wanted the Euro not knowing what a disaster that would be.
I saw Europe as the bastian of social democracy, but sadly, I came to realise it had become Thatcherite- neoliberal too, a conspiracy against the public. Anyway, it looks like not everyone at the Guardian was for remain.
spiked: Why did you vote to leave?
Larry Elliott: A number of reasons. I didn’t think the economy was working very well for large chunks of Britain. Economic change comes through shocks – Brexit was a massive shock.
I also have an old-fashioned left-wing view of the European Union. I don’t think it is democratic, I don’t think it works very well, and I think it is run in the interests of big business rather than ordinary people. I voted to come out in 1975, along with a large portion of the left, for what were then seen as Bennite reasons: democracy and the fact that it was pro-boss and anti-worker. I haven’t really changed my mind over the past 40 years.
Greece is a pretty big example of this. There’s the way the single currency works – it has austerity ingrained in the Stability and Growth Pact. The way it operates is driven by German thinking: balanced budgets, very hardline monetary policy. You see this in the way Brussels has become a haven for lobbyists for big multinational corporations.
Spiked
So why is it Larry Elliott would rather die than talk about MMT in his articles. And why as head of the economics section in the Guardian does he allow the reporters under him turn out regular Neoliberal slop articles that harp on about monetary sobereign governments needing to balance their books like a household? Elliott needs to walk the walk not talk the talk!
ReplyDelete“And why as head of the economics section in the Guardian does he allow the reporters under him turn out regular Neoliberal slop articles that harp on about monetary sobereign governments needing to balance their books like a household?”
ReplyDeleteBecause as a result of the methodology he was educated under, he has no cognitive ability to understand or advocate for any thesis/theory other than the one he was specifically taught (which obviously wasn’t MMT)...
Sadly, I think you're right, Schofield.
ReplyDelete