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Economist & Author
My Books
Economic Power
We in the twenty-first century face climate change, terrorism, gig jobs, low pay, insecurity, austerity and the possibility of nuclear war.
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There is an alternative.
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Many of society’s problems can be traced to the corporate economy and its political influence, and the lack of democracy and accountability that follow in their wake.
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Big corporations often dominate their sectors of the economy as a result of the mergers and acquisitions that governments have casually allowed, disregarding the impact they would have on competition and monopoly power. Such mergers are often paid for from the lightly taxed profits big corporations make.
But if there were a multiplicity of companies, and genuine competition, prices would be lower, and corporate power would be more widely dispersed. And with many sellers competing in a functioning free market, companies would not have the excessive profits which allow them to lobby governments, and fund think-tanks. Policy would be driven more by democracy.
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Economic Power shows the damage that big businesses can inflict, from political influence to predatory pricing, to the deliberate destruction of competitors. It examines the economic, social and cultural characteristics of the Scandinavian countries to show what a small business economy is like.
Ideals & Dogma
From the 1920s onwards, Marxism was seen as the only alternative to capitalism – a system epitomised in the minds of many by exploitation, extreme poverty and obscene affluence. Working conditions were sometimes appalling, and often, the very fact of working in a factory shortened the worker’s lifespan.
By contrast, Marxism promised to provide full employment, steady growth, and yet was also egalitarian. In the 1930s it was praised by famous people like George Bernard Shaw. The apparent success of the Soviet Union gave credibility to an ideology that might otherwise be regarded as unworkable. In the 1960s it was linked to political icons like Che Guevara. Being both fashionable and politically credible, Marxism became the accepted view of the world for many on the left.
It was only when the Berlin Wall collapsed that it came to be widely regarded as failed. But for many, Marxism was flawed right from the beginning. For philosophers such as Karl Popper, Marxism was authoritarian and unscientific. For others, it was no more than a faith, a political religion with pseudo-intellectual underpinnings.
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This book looks as just some of the goals and flaws of Marxism. At its best, it was idealistic, but this was tempered with an inability to argue logically. And when vague statements are defended with assertions and repetition, they become dogma.
What's the Worst That Could Happen?
SECOND EDITION - ON SALE NOW
The think tanks, economists, lobbyists and corporate PR staff all work hard to present pro-business policies as plans to make things better for the ordinary person, and to boost the nation's economy. Even the tax cuts are presented as a boon for the economy. The rich - and the big corporations – will, it is claimed, invest their sudden tax gain in new businesses, creating new jobs and boundless prosperity.
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In fact, the rich will often invest their new-found wealth in vintage wines, old cars and works of art. The richer they are the less they need to work at building up a business, promoting a product and creating jobs, just to make money. They have enough money. most of them will simply enjoy what they do have.
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Fortunately there are always politicians willing to cut taxes, so that the rich can keep more of their money.
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The Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne took office after a major financial crash. It was caused by banks across the world investing in what were called, sub-prime mortgages. That is, mortgages given to people who could not really afford a mortgage. But because the borrowers were slightly higher risk, banks could charge a higher rate of interest, therefore the sub-prime mortgage was seen as more profitable. Many banks bought sub-prime bonds as assets, in the same way as some people might have a savings account with a bank. But when you lend money to people who can't afford to pay it back, eventually the loan will turn sour.
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Cameron and Osborne said that Britain was heavily in debt, and that their administration would have to cut spending sharply in order to pay off this debt. The programme which they initiated was described as austerity, and put at its simplest, it was cuts in government spending.
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So spending on education, healthcare, welfare benefits, the police and funding for local authorities were all slashed.
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As a result, the quality of education deteriorated, the NHS started to struggle, those claiming benefits found themselves on the edge of survival, police staffing was cut so crime went up, and local authorities could no longer provide all the services that they had previously funded.
Successive conservative governments have presented an image of themselves as practical, or compassionate, seeking prosperity or sovereignty, and bursting with ideas with which to bring about the glorious utopia that they envisaged.
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Strangely, no wonderful ideal of perfection appeared. Year by year poverty increased, wages fell, crime rose and the economy shrank. The Covid pandemic was a useful tool for anybody hoping to damage retail companies, and the Brexit negotiations with the EU had been so magnificently mismanaged as to harm almost every sector of the economy. At the same time they had managed to be deeply offensive to the EU representatives that they were negotiating with.
What's the Worst That Could Happen?
FIRST EDITION - AVAILABLE ON KINDLE
For many countries, quality of life and standards of living have been steadily deteriorating. And inexplicably, the unsuccessful but destructive ideology driving this process is extending and strengthening its influence across the world. Progress is becoming an outdated twentieth-century concept.
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Following the crash of 2008, Britain at first initiated a massive spending programme and later, under the coalition government of David Cameron and George Osborne, took the same route as the European Union, that of austerity. This was also known by the deceptive euphemism of fiscal consolidation. But neither the confident assertions of politicians nor the discreet cloak of euphemism ensured that the policy actually worked. Top economists argued that such policies could not work, by the very nature of how an economy functioned. This raised the question, were the politicians driven by ideology or was there some hidden agenda? The policy showed little sign of paying off the government’s debts, but every indication of making the vulnerable very much worse off.
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The hidden agenda is the free market, which bans state ownership - or nationalisation - sees protectionism as harmful, as are trade unions, regulation and indeed, any sort of government intervention. These are often criticised by the far right and its think-tanks, being described as economically destructive and damaging to standards of living. On the other hand, they present spending cuts, lower taxes, protection of intellectual property rights, and lately, austerity, as a guaranteed way to bring affluence. Needless to say, these things are more likely to benefit big corporations and the rich than they are the ordinary person.
Reinventing the Economy
Some politicians and journalists have talked of how much better off we all are. But this is just a statistician’s illusion, because when we look at the figures, it is simply that Britons are, on average, better off. Within that overall picture, looking past the meaningless average, many of us are actually worse off. How did this happen, and what is going on in society?
For much of the post-war period Britain followed Keynesian demand management economics, which assumed a central role for government, managing the levels of expenditure unemployment in the economy. This was both sensible, as it maintained steady growth, and egalitarian because it ensured that jobs were secure and wages reasonable.
From 1976, under the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the political consensus shifted, so that efficiency, flexibility, competition and market forces became the accepted wisdom. Policies drawing on free market economics, such as privatisation and deregulation became the British government’s standard approach. Criticism was ignored, and some actions, such as rail privatisation, were doomed to fail.
But these policies were not only failing in organizational terms, in the efficiency and productivity that was promised, but also in terms of the improvements in welfare that were supposed to be part of the free market’s blessing. Instead, increasing numbers of workers, in a steadily growing variety of jobs, were finding themselves worse off. Not only did “flexibility” mean worse conditions of employment, but tax cuts were promoted as an economic good in themselves – one which strangely, always seemed to benefit the rich more than anyone else. Thus, the most visible effects of the free market were inequality and insecurity, combined with a deteriorating economy.
The free market is ultimately an ideology for big business, although ironically, this does not automatically mean that it benefits big business. It is simply a reflection of the view that corporate leaders wish to promote. And although politicians talk of competition, nearly every law or policy is aimed at harming small firms, or making them more vulnerable to takeover. Yet competition is beneficial, and a small business economy is far healthier and more egalitarian than the corporate monopoly economy.
We need to take control of the sort of economy we live in, if we want to have any control over the sort of society we live in.
The Lie Of The Land
Politicians in an attempt to present their intentions in the best possible light, have often described their goals or achievements in the most positive way possible. Sometimes however, they may describe their plans or actions in such a graphic way as to be deeply misleading. They may be stating the exact truth, but phrasing it in a way that gives a completely false impression. They may even step over the border between truth and falsehood, and regale the electorate with an outright lie.
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The Lie of the Land looks at a range of misleading statements, from the attractive dramatisation, to the careful phrasing to outright dishonesty. It finds that some claims look perfectly innocent on the surface, but when examined more carefully, it is clear that they are somewhat deceptive.
We tend to assume that when our elected representatives describe their aims, they are simply telling us what policies will be carried out. However, the many examples in this book show that dishonesty is actually a common feature of political debate, and we should be very, very careful when listening to their plans and promises.