Imagine the invented machine in this guy’s pocket is neoliberal economics (because economics IS , after all, a human invention).
Instead of recognizing that the ‘ trickle down ‘ idea we had in 1984 of allowing a few people to make lots of money at the expense of the many (neoliberalism) was a really bad one, what we’ve done – especially since the 2008 financial crisis – is make a bigger and bigger pocket to accomodate it.
Our current government, in rejecting significant tax reforms- even those proposed by its own tax working group- has signalled it has no immediate intention of cutting the neoliberal machine loose.
Well, one day, that pocket is going to rip and we are going to have to fix our pants.
We shouldn’t be trying to accommodate our society to meet the demands of an economic theory that is clearly not fit for our collective purpose.
Economics should reflect the society we want to have , not determine what kind of society we will be allowed to have.
In other words , let’s dump the economics of selfishness that’s dragging our society down and have,instead, an economic policy of sharing that fits into our social pants so that we can all stride forward together.
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Margaret Thatcher’s TINA (There Is No Alternative) was a massive lie; there are plenty of alternatives. However, those with a vested interest in wealth transfer upwards control the system. And those who do not recognise the system for what it is keep the system intact.
A slave who is bound by chains will work inefficiently and and will have thoughts of escape. A slave without chains who is threatened with severe punishment if they try to escape will think twice about escaping. A slave who is bound by invisible chains may not reconise he/she is a slave and will work for the slave master with zeal.
The best kind of slave is one who thinks he/she is free and who will fight to the death to preserve the slave master’s right to own slaves. Which most of ‘middle New Zealand’.
Welcome to Slavelandia.
Debt slaves, slaves by a different name, but still slaves with invisible chains, that house and feed themselves, and most weird of all, struggle though ‘hell’ (traffic jams) to get to the slave plantation.
Sorry, only one ‘and’ intended. 6am syndrome?
sorry for the oversized comment. like hyour work on economy and wanted to send this to you Bryan.
Neoliberal economics is dead!
I am not sure that our government has heard yet but neoliberal economics has had its time. A place is being found for it on a shelf in a back room where all wrong ideas go.
A new wave of economic thought is emerging from economists who have been in the background figuring out how to bring down neoliberalism.
They are now communicating their ideas more widely.
They are not all new ideas. For those who have been arguing against neoliberalism for some time, the economists’ critique of it is not new.
But what is new is that it is economists who are giving us the ammunition. The ammunition to call bullshit on neoliberal arguments.
So let’s use this ammunition.
It is called Modern Monetary Theory.
This is not new un-tested theory.
It appears to be Keynesian economics updated for how financial systems are currently structured.
The foundation for this new wave is the economic thought that got us out of 1930s depression, rebuilt economies after the war and had us at full employment during the 1950s and 1960s.
New Zealand economists like Geoff Bertram from BERL, are publishing about this:
https://berl.co.nz/economic-insights/employment-and-skills-gdp-and-inflation-global-issues-government-and-fiscal
Here is a brief outline from an Australian economist Steve Hail, with references to important books. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tackling-deficit-myth-steven-hail/
And some more detail from him in this talk. https://soundcloud.com/anz-institutional/we-re-already-in-mmt. Enough detail to make your eyes glaze over!
And to turn it into ammunition, see this from Australian economist Bill Mitchell. On how to call bullshit on “the lying metaphors” of neoliberalism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vNURrebGxw&feature=share
And for some inspirational policy proposals, check out publications from http://www.levyinstitute.org/.
But pay particular attention to the Public Service Employment program or job guarantee. http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/public-service-employment-a-path-to-full-employment.
http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/guaranteeing-employment-during-the-pandemic-and-beyond.
And this important and timely talk about employment guarantees (from June 13th). https://rokfin.com/post/13263
Imagine a world where anyone who is unemployed can voluntarily sign up to become a public service employee, for a living wage, administered at local level e.g. councils. This could operate as a gateway to employment for young people, a gateway to on the job training. Other benefits include that all of the precarious jobs would disappear as employers would have to compete with public service wages. It could also operate as a gateway towards self employment or small business.
This would be an alternative to throwing money at the problem of unemployment by throwing jobs at the problem instead.
Let’s do it!
And in response to the usual lie that we can’t afford it, see Modern Monetary Theory. And the lie that it would replace market driven economic activity which would be inefficient. It is targeted at underutilized resources in the economy, i.e. spare capacity and see Modern Monetary Theory for the benefits of doing this and the absence of inflationary consequences.
There are more fundamental economic changes which could be made, and probably will eventually be made. Changes that would move us towards living in the best of worlds. For example the Resource Based (or money free) Economies.
Modern monetary theory is not bringing down capitalism.
But it is offering steps that can be taken now. Steps to again contain the boom and bust cycles of capitalism and ameliorate much of the suffering. With the death of neoliberal economic policy, we can then be dreaming of more wonderful ways of providing the economic infrastructure within which we can all live with compassion for people and planet.
All the evidence indicates we have run out of time and resources, and have wrecked the environment beyond recovery (well not within time scales that matter to humans and most other extant species).
‘The foundation for this new wave is the economic thought that got us out of 1930s depression, rebuilt economies after the war and had us at full employment during the 1950s and 1960s.’
Never forget that in the 1930s US oil extraction was rising and the Middle East had hardly been tapped. The reason the US was able to contribute so much materially was because it was the world’s biggest extractor. All that change in 1970, when conventional extraction commenced its terminal decline. Shortly after that the western world’s energy predicament first became clearly visible. Desperation measures have propped up the system but the end of the line is clearly in sight.
Also, you might like to note that the world population in the 1930s was ‘only’ about 2 billion (already far too many). And atmospheric CO2 was under 300 ppm.
Had proper economics (not the phony stuff taught in schools and universities as economics for the past four decades) been adopted in the 1970s -when all the makings of our present predicament had been clearly identified, and to a large extent quantified- we would not be in the mess we are in now.
Sorry but old mainstream ideas (even if they are called new monetary theory or new economics) just won’t work in a grossly overpopulated world that is experiencing terminal decline of energy sources and environmental meltdown. And now social meltdown.
‘ With the death of neoliberal economic policy, we can then be dreaming of more wonderful ways of providing the economic infrastructure within which we can all live with compassion for people and planet.’
Those are mutually exclusive concepts insofar as economic infrastructure (along with overpopulation) is at the heart of the predicament we are in.
AFKTT
Some good points.
Its more than neoliberal economics that has to change.
There is a far bigger picture.
NZ is always slow in making corrections to programs that they have set up with enthusiasm.
Self-criticism anywhere? And having enough cunning to fudge about making a mistake and get change? They just aren’t clever enough to be devious politicians.
I tried lying when I was a kid and sticking to it when the evidence showed clearly I was wrong. But I have learned better from growing up and getting out into the world and understanding that everybody makes mistakes. Smart people find a way to get out of them, by talking with enthusiasm and facts to back up, about the new, improved version. So there you are in a few words, pollies and civil servants with fertile brains, and you could spend a day’s workshop with this as the summary. So efficient for you to read it now.
” Neoliberal economics is dead!”. Really. How so? Just how much has changed? Nothings changed. Just a lot of BS talk with no action. The Government and Big business to need start this change. But don’t hold your breath. The Govt. is busy getting “back to normal”, nothing else. They want to ramp Immigration asap, why?. To continue the low wage economy. NZ doesn’t need this, neoliberalism needs it. The Govt. is focused on more Growth to fund the Covid19 recovery. More more more. Big business won’t stop them. No, the Govt. is not even going to try.
100%, but you say Government and big business need to start this change.
And then you say the Govt and Big Business won’t even try to make the change.
So the people need to make the change.
Called revolution.
” Neoliberal economics is dead!”. Really. How so? Just how much has changed? Nothings changed. Just a lot of BS talk with no action. The Government and Big business to need start this change. But don’t hold your breath. The Govt. is busy getting “back to normal”, nothing else. They want to ramp Immigration asap, why?. To continue the low wage economy. NZ doesn’t need this, neoliberalism needs it. The Govt. is focused on more Growth to fund the Covid19 recovery. More more more. Big business won’t stop them. No, the Govt. is not even going to try.
GreenBus – we’d be asking the wrong agencies to lead us on this out of the wilderness march. They need the status quo. Both of ‘them’.
Our antique political ‘systems’ are based on being for the few, not the many – and many of the many don’t want the responsibilty anyway. (All that political crap. If I’m not busy I’ll vote once every three years, if I remember.)
Big business requires safety and security and the ways things were when money was easy and people were compliant. It’s the nature of business. Conservative. Very. They serve proven and cash-producing goods and services relatively efficiency. So long as it pays.
A balancing of hope and fear. Working across many fronts because, although we’d love it to have happened ‘now!’ it can’t because the old systems can’t take the challenge.
Perhaps with new games and toys, we can. Along the lines of cell phones and online gaming. Social uptake across the divides. Rapid feedback. Language and concepts.
But not traditional ways. Cultures have changed too much for that to be possible. (Look at trade unions to see how they’ve morphed and collapsed as heavy industry folded, literacy improved, and people’s comfort expectancies rose. Trade unions are for the low paid and poorly treated: ‘we’re not like Those People.’)
Try for change through play and feedback. They’re more appealing than heavy-handed regulation. And they can work, too.
i agree. was just trying to be hopeful. and offering something that they could implement now particularly if we get discussion going during the election.
but really hoping that an employment gaurantee administered at local level could support local community development which would take some power away from corporates in the economy.
and there is plenty of alternative local economic stuff happening and possible that could flourish given some help. and no not shovel ready projects that had all the usual bureaucrats coming up with things to fund.
Grant Robertson is a keynesian. Buy Bitcoin, it’s the only way .. that or get in front of fiat money spigot to enjoy the Catalan Effect.
Yay BB, we need to fix those broken pants. The split needs more than a mend – a new pair of pants with the designer label ‘socialism’, or ‘communism’.
If you want to keep wearing neo-liberalism, must mean you’re doing pretty well and don’t give a toss about the rest of us who need a fundamental change in society so we can live decently.
The world (surprise surprise) is controlled by the rich and powerful (there use to be a difference but communism is dead). You can call it what you like, but it’s as old as history. Neoliberal economics is a good name, but it has nothing to do with economics. The solution does not lie in a change of economic policy. I’m not sure how we get from here to there. I fear that the rich and powerful have to want it (like western social democracy as begrudged alternative to communism from WWII to 1979).
I’m guessing that the poor (i.e. 99.9% of us) are unlikely to win a class war because all we have is numbers, not power. You can probably hold off 1 to 10,000 pitch fork wielders with an AR15, let alone a tank.
China is not the new communism (AKA ‘alternative’) because it is really just a rich person’s dream (state and money one and the same – the actual definition of fascism). All that without the pretense of ‘democracy’ and all the costs of manipulation that involves. N.B. That lack of sophistication and its authoritarian control will be China’s downfall – people will be rewarded for obedience rather than original thought and free thinking. There lies the end of China’s economic, scientfic and cultural influence.
I wonder if the end of affordable fossil fuels and the mass death that will follow will be the only thing that will change things. Nations (or villages?) will regain their sovereignty and power will be forced to become localised again.
One thing is for sure, the answer does not lie in looting Nike shops and branding Donald trump a racist (war criminal?: Yes, racist? MSM propaganda). Like the liberal elite in American gives a rat’s arse about African Americans – or anyone else. Besides, America has racial equality, the last war criminal president was black. Brilliant.
If the MSM gave a shit they would also talk about NALMT (Native American Lives Matter). ‘Thank God for genocide, at least they’re not a problem we have to worry about.’ Murdering indigenous people is so much easier than slavery – we have to keep slaves around and they have a nasty habit or rebelling and that costs bullets.
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