My long-running book-in-progress, Economics in Two Lessons is nearly done. I have a nearly complete manuscript, and am hoping for news from the publisher soon. Thanks to everyone who commented on the first 13 chapters.
Here’s a draft of Chapter 14: Policy for full employment. Two more chapters to come after this
Comments, criticism and praise are welcome.
With all the grim news from the US Supreme Court today, it’s easy to feel despairing. And there are certainly strong arguments to support a pessimistic view.
On the other hand, we’ve been here before many times before. Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem Say not the struggle naught availeth was written in 1849 the aftermath of the collapse of Chartism, a movement that demanded universal male suffrage, secret ballots and other democratic reforms. Clough himself spent 1848 in Italy during the “Year of Revolutions”, most of which were defeated within a few years. Yet, in the end, the Chartist demands were met*, and then surpassed through the struggle for women’s suffrage. The struggle for democracy in Europe as a whole has ebbed and flowed (it’s ebbing at the moment), but has so far been successful.
Coming to the US situation, even though the right has all the levers of power, they are still losing ground on lots of issues, both in terms of public support and in terms of actual outcomes
* Obamacare has survived, and there’s now rising support for a single-payer system.
* The Republican tax cuts are less popular than ever.
* Equal marriage is firmly established, and talk of a constitutional change to stop it has disappeared.
* Gun control, one of the few issues on which the right had gained popular support in the culture wars, is now back on the agenda
There are lots more examples both economic and cultural, including minimum wages, Confederate monuments, and the decline of for-profit education.
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That’s not to say that we are necessarily on the winning side of history. It’s easy, for example, to imagine a scenario where the Republicans offset steadily declining support with steadily increasing voter suppression. And the strength of racist/xenophobic appeals to a formerly dominant group, on the way to becoming a minority, can never be underestimated.
On the other hand, if the existing support of the majority of the public translates into a Congressional (or at least House) majority in November and a progressive Democratic President and Senate in 2020, a right wing majority on the Supreme Court won’t be able to reverse trends like those I mentioned above.
* The only exception being the demand for annual Parliaments.
The big word on the Left in response to Anthony Albanese’s Gough Whitlam oration was “nothing”. Bill Shorten observed that “there was nothing in the speech that caused me offence at all”. Twitter was full of observations that there was nothing to suggest any kind of split or leadership challenge.
I have a mixed reaction. The Press gallery always loves leadership stories and sees everything through that frame, even though Labor’s rules make a leadership challenge virtually impossible between elections. So, the pushback is understandable.
On the other hand, I think we could shorten (sic) Shorten’s response to “there was nothing in the speech”.
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
There was quite a bit of buzz last week about a survey undertaken for the (propertarian) Centre for Independent Studies, the results of which were summarized (reasonably accurately) as Millennials and socialism: Australian youth are lurching to the left. The key finding
Nearly two-thirds of the group view socialism in a favorable light, with similar number believing that capitalism has failed and more government intervention is warranted. Furthermore, Millennials contend that the government has cut its spending on social services such as education and health – something our polling shows they strongly believe should be reversed.
The authors of the report, Tom Switzer and Charles Jacobs don’t present any arguments against government intervention in the economy or increased spending on health and education. Rather their case is “Stalin was a socialist, Stalin was bad, therefore socialism is bad”.
That’s not surprising coming from the CIS, but I was disappointed to see the normally sensible Bernard Keane pull the same trick in a Crikey piece The 10 truths the left can never admit. Like Switzer and Jacobs, Keane states that “Socialism has been tried and, no, it didn’t work”, defending this claim with reference to the Soviet Union and (another favorite punching bag in exercises of this kind) Venezuela*.
That’s the title of my latest piece in the Guardian.
Opening paras
Privatisation has been the last fiscal resort of desperate governments for decades. By now, just about everyone in the community understands that the supposed windfall achieved by selling income generating assets is spurious. Voters have routinely tossed out governments that have advocated or implemented privatisation, sometimes by stunning margins.
The only people who haven’t got the memo are the politicians who make budget policy and the journalists who write about it. The politicians’ reluctance to abandon privatisation is understandable if discreditable: when electors throw them out, they are virtually guaranteed a lucrative post-political career in the financial sector.
The failure of political journalists to understand what they write and talk about for a living is more surprising. Yet the coverage of the Queensland and NSW elections suggests that there has been no improvement in understanding of the basic issues.
The right is fond of decrying as “class war” any proposal that would benefit Australian workers and low income families. But, we finally have a genuine “class war” election in view and it has been launched by Malcolm Turnbull, with his attempt to tie future governments into massive income tax cuts for high income earners.
The good news here is that, despite some wavering, Labor held its nerve, opposed the second and third stages of the package and voted against the entire bill. Some people (I imagine the kind who call themselves “hardheads”) were worried that defeating the entire bill would be hard to explain to voters. They didn’t apparently consider how they would campaign against regressive policies they had already voted for (or maybe they supported those policies).
In any case, voters in Australia finally have a clear choice. Massive tax cuts for companies and high income earners, or a progressive tax system that provides the revenue we need to provide decent public services. It seems that a majority of younger voters, at least, know where they stand (more on this soon, I hope).
