Author: philmullan

Fully Automated Vulgar Marxism

philmullan capitalism, Marxism, technology

Aaron Bastani’s much-hyped Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto (FALC) woefully misunderstands Marx, capitalism and class struggle.

The immediate impression one is left with after reading FALC is that it appears to have had two authors. One is a techno-optimist; the other is autocratic, with firm views both about which technologies should be developed and which should be avoided – and also, more tellingly, about how people should live under them. Parts of the book anticipate a brave and exciting new world enabled by technological developments, while other parts are imbued with today’s illiberal and constraining zeitgeist. One author emphasises that the future is not determined, but can be shaped by politics, while the other sees capitalism as following a predetermined process of collapsing under its own contradictions. One pays homage to the ideas of the Enlightenment. The other’s prescriptions negate the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and risk-taking.

Read the full review here.

Labour won’t transform our economy

philmullan Economic policy, Politics, State intervention

‘Ambitious’ and ‘radical’ were two of the friendlier assessments of the Labour Party’s manifesto plans.

Ambitious? Labour is certainly ambitious electorally. Labour’s manifesto is published with the desperate hope that its green spending plans, an end to student tuition fees, providing student maintenance grants and the offer of free broadband for all can be so appealing to voters that it will camouflage the party’s rejection of the Brexit vote – the very issue that precipitated this election.

But ambitious in transforming society for the better? Definitely not. This is because it is not ‘radical’, either – not in the sense of getting to the roots of society’s or the economy’s troubles. Bashing billionaires might make the Labour team feel they are on the side of ‘the many’, but the plans are no substitute for a necessary programme of economic renewal that could genuinely aid the masses.

Read full article here.

This £1 trillion row leaves voters shortchanged

philmullan Brexit, Economic policy, Politics, State intervention

The squabble over the cost of the Labour Party’s policies, started by the Tories at the weekend, tells us next to nothing about the potential impact of either party’s economic programme. But it does reveal the decrepit state of the parties that were once the two big beasts of British politics.

Spending figures – large or small – do not tell us if either party is planning an economic transformation of the country. In themselves, the numbers even say very little about how profligate or prudent either party is being. When it comes to future economic performance, the impact of public spending has much more to do with what the money is being spent on, and the circumstances in which it is being spent, rather than simply how much.

The row over these figures suggests that both the Tories and Labour have yet to appreciate what this General Election is really about. It also alerts us to how little meaningful distance there is between the two parties’ economic proposals. The huffing and puffing about numbers provides camouflage rather than clarity. … Read the article here

Beyond the zombie economy

philmullan Creative destruction, Economic growth, Economic policy, Investment, Productivity, Zombie economy

The UK’s productivity problem not only long precedes the Brexit discussions. It also long precedes the 2008 financial crisis. Longer-term studies actually reveal that the decline in productivity growth, not just in Britain but across mature industrialised countries, has been pretty relentless since the 1970s. That its slowdown began so long ago means the problem is deep-seated and therefore justifies a substantial strategic response. This is usually presented as an activist industrial policy.

But the big paradox about industrial policies is the contrast between the extensive cross-party consensus on this issue and the lack of headway in reviving investment and productivity. Read the full article here.

 

The myth of Corbyn’s radicalism

philmullan Economic growth, Economic policy, Politics, State intervention, Zombie economy

Given the fears generated by the prospect of a Corbyn-led government, just how radical is it likely to be? Should we really expect Britain’s first anti-capitalist government? Certainly not on the basis of what Corbyn and McDonnell and their cheerleaders have been writing and saying about their future Labour government. Read the full essay here.