Author: philmullan

‘More EU’ won’t save Europe’s economy

philmullan Creative destruction, European Union, Politics, State intervention, Zombie economy

Mario Draghi’s report on the future of European competitiveness, published last month may present itself as a sober economic analysis, complete with proposed policy solutions. But this report – commissioned by the EU and produced by a former head of the European Central Bank – is best understood as a political manifesto for an ever-closer EU, controlled from Brussels.

His report is chiefly concerned with ‘strengthening governance’ – a euphemism for the extension of the European Commission’s power. Stronger governance, he writes, ‘means “more Europe” where it really matters’. And this means less national sovereignty where it really matters, too.

Read the full article here.

Unshackling Europe’s Economy: what holds us back?

philmullan Creative destruction, European Union, Politics, Productivity, State intervention

Here is a video of the talk I gave at the conference ‘Unshackling Europe’s Economy: what holds us back?’, organised by MCC Brussels on 24 September 2024.

My talk critiqued Mario Draghi’s recent report, The future of European competitiveness – A competitiveness strategy for Europe. I explained that this is not a neutral report on economic policy with new ideas to boost productivity within European countries. Rather it is a political manifesto motivating an ever-closer European Union controlled from Brussels. Europe’s real productivity slump is used as another instance of a ‘crisis’ – in Draghi’s words, an ‘existential challenge’ – in order to justify extending the powers of the EU to the detriment of national sovereignty and decision-making.

An ageing population is nothing to fear

philmullan Demographic change, Economic growth, Politics, Productivity

People are living longer lives than ever before. This ought to be regarded as something to celebrate. Yet for far too many politicians, commentators and academics, the fact we’re living longer than ever is seen as a serious problem – even as a source of despair. Last week, two reports, one on the malfunctioning National Health Service (NHS) and another on the steadily rising public debt, attributed much of the blame for Britain’s woes to our population’s longevity.

But people living longer is neither an obstacle to growth nor an unbearable strain on the public purse. This fatalism is wrong on every level.

Read the full article here.

The myth of a ‘green’ Karl Marx

philmullan capitalism, Economic growth, Green agenda, Marxism, Productivity

Since the mid-2010s, there has been a surge in articles and books supporting the idea of degrowth – a leftish environmentalist, economic argument against ‘growth-obsessed’ capitalism. Such is the depth of support for degrowth on the left, that some self-described Marxists even claim that Karl Marx himself was actually an environmentalist and early advocate of degrowth.

With the influential Marx in the Anthropocene (2023), Kohei Saito, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo, has gone even further. He claims that not only was Marx an ‘ecologically conscious person in the modern sense’, he was also a ‘degrowth communist’.

Contemporary Marxists like Saito are free to propound some vision of ‘eco-socialism’, or to dream of some red-green alliance, should they wish to do so. The problem is that they try to do so by tendentiously ‘reconstructing’ Marx in ways that cut against the very grain of his thought. There is no trace of ‘degrowth communism’ in Marx’s actual work. In fact, Marx staunchly opposed the proto-green, counter-Enlightenment forces of his own time.

Read the full critique of the fantasy that Marx was a degrowthist here.

Labour and the Tories are wedded to a failed status quo

philmullan Creative destruction, Economic policy, Productivity, State intervention, Zombie economy

All of Britain’s mainstream political parties continue to support the stagnant economic status quo. They propose policies that will keep lower-performing businesses on publicly funded life support. And they continue to shy away from the root-and-branch restructuring that’s needed to get the UK economy growing again.

There is barely a cigarette paper between Labour and the Conservatives on the economy. The truth is that neither of their two near-identical approaches can fix Britain’s economic malaise. In the name of ‘security’ and ‘stability’, Labour and the Tories both aspire to preserve things as they are. Their aversion to risk will discourage the transformative change that our economy desperately needs.

Read the full article here.