Author: philmullan

Burnham’s first ten days: Andynomics is just managed decline with a smile

philmullan Creative destruction, Debt, Democracy, Economic growth, Politics, Welfarism

Prime minister Andy Burnham is planning a national tour this summer to meet the British people, dubbed ‘Burnham-on-Sea’.

If you see him, here are three questions you could ask him.

When are you going to start being honest with us about the painful disruption to our lives required if your government really wants to bring “growth to every postcode”?

When are you going to stop borrowing and taxing to pay for public services and welfare that the country cannot afford?

Why are you so unwilling to put the plan you call “the biggest change moment in 40 years” to the British public and try to win yourself a democratic mandate?

This article explains why these questions are so important.

The dystopia of a world without growth

philmullan Economic growth, Green agenda, Politics, Welfarism

UN agencies, academics and other policymakers have launched an alternative to what they call the ‘doomed strategy’ of economic growth. Signatories to this ‘roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth’ include Olivier De Schutter, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, Thomas Piketty, Kate Raworth and Jason Hickel.

Their ‘roadmap’ is typical of much contemporary growth-critical writing – it is wistful, authoritative and extremely vague about how the post-growth future can be realised.

The notion of a post-growth economy can appear dotty. Yet it embodies the influential ‘progressive’ frame of mind that upholds the need for abstinence on the part of the general populace. These particular economists are among today’s best-known growth sceptics – a splendid term coined by Daniel Ben-Ami to encompass the increasingly celebrated medley of ‘degrowthers’, ‘anti-growthers’ and ‘agrowthers’ (‘a’ is for agnostic). Predicated on the notion that humanity has breached, or will imminently breach, nature’s limits, their message is that human societies have to start curbing their economic and material development.

Read the full article here.

The US has emboldened Iran and abandoned Israel

philmullan Changing world order, Democracy, Geopolitics, Rivalries, United States

The Islamic Republic of Iran kills its own people and sponsors terrorism in Israel, Lebanon, Britain and far beyond. The world will be a better place when this brutish regime is destroyed. Unfortunately, the reckless US assault on Iran has made this prospect even less likely than it was.

This war was doomed from the beginning. It is important now to absorb the lessons of this US-led calamity because it is very unlikely to be the last such rash military venture – especially as Washington struggles incoherently and haphazardly to manage the US’s decline from its hegemonic, superpower status.

Read the full article here.

Britain’s addiction to borrowing is a recipe for disaster

philmullan Debt, Economic policy, Politics, State intervention, Welfarism

Is Britain about to be plunged into even greater economic chaos? Pundits have highlighted a remark made by the supposed prime minister in-waiting, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, in an interview he gave to the New Statesman last year. The government, he said, had to ‘get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets’. Understandably, the worry is that Burnham – who, if successful in the upcoming Makerfield by-election, will likely replace Keir Starmer as prime minister – would water down Labour’s ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules to finance even more public borrowing.

Burnham’s, and Labour’s, openness to further public debt needs to be defeated once and for all. Our addiction to borrowing – a near-permanent feature of British politics since the Second World War – is at the root of three issues that have led us to the financial and social abyss we find ourselves in. Borrowing has become financially destructive, it has sustained a class of weak and cowardly politicians, and it has entrenched a culture that has become increasingly dependent on handouts and subsidies. It must be ended.

Read the full article here.

No, America’s war with Iran is not about China

philmullan Changing world order, China, Geopolitics, Rivalries, United States

Since the United States-Iran war started, experienced commentators have been trying to make sense of it. A common claim is that the war on Iran is really about China.

It is understandable to want to make sense of an increasingly unsettled period in geopolitics. The old US-led world order that began in 1945 is over. The form that any stable replacement world order might take is unknowable. Negotiating the complexities of today’s international interregnum isn’t easy. In such uncertain times, people are more susceptible to wanting to endow occurrences with meaning. But we should avoid making up narratives about developments – like Iran-is-really-China – that offer over-simplistic and misleading explanations.

There isn’t always a neat story behind messy reality. Sometimes it is the arbitrariness of events, the absence of a strategic plan, which is their significance. Making too much “sense” of haphazard actions can cloud what is happening. Worse, it can reinforce false stereotypes about the greatest dangers to peace. This distracts from focusing on the immediate and substantive threats.

Read the full article here.