How could coronavirus remake our economy and society?

[William of Walworth]

The paper proposes both a permanent UBI and the recovery BI, the UBI proposals are light on details (they refer back to this study for details).

Is that a longer and more detailed version of the paper that John Harris linked to? Or completely different?
Will get into it later, but it is 40 pages ....

 

[Proper Tidy]

Tbh I don't really get why it would be any more of an issue with UBI then it is with, say, state pension or child benefit

 

[redsquirrel]

Is that a longer and more detailed version of the paper that John Harris linked to? Or completely different?
Will get into it later, but it is 40 pages ....

Harris linked to the short piece by Lansley. The longer paper is from 2019.

===============

Extract from a conversation between Yanis Varoufakis and David McWilliams, bit mixed.

DM: When I was born in Ireland, the country was very poor. And then it became quite wealthy, on the back of the European project, on the back of Europe’s position in the global supply chain, and with a tax policy that attracted lots and lots of capital. My sense is this model might be gone, and this style of globalisation along with it. I fear that the period when you could travel, engage, move – we might have reached the end of that open period. People will say: “This virus came from the cosmopolitan world, from the world of international movement.” Whether it’s right or not, we might begin to blame people. We know that the Black Death resulted in ferocious antisemitism in Europe. People asked: “Who can we blame for this?” And so they blamed the one community that was already in isolation in the ghetto.

YV: The loudest call in a generation. I share all of your concern for the future, although I must challenge the analysis on which it is based. The openness that you describe has always gone hand in hand with severe restriction: Nafta and the US-Mexico border; freedom of movement in Europe and Frontex along the Mediterranean. This is not a contradiction; it is the logic of a system that prizes the movement of capital over the freedom of human beings.

 

[LDC]

I haven't read the whole thread so don't know if anyone has raised this, but does anyone have any toughts on this new contact tracking app that is being trialed on the Isle of Wight atm? If this were to be rolled out nationwide then I can see some serious privacy issues with this, especially if it were to be made compulsory at some point. Even if it never became compulsory, I imagine that social pressure would make it so in a de facto way.

I'm not sure I like the idea of it, but can't quite articulate why. Maybe because I see how it could be integrated very easily into a social credit type monitoring and control system. This tech could very easily be adapted to ensure 'problematic' people are ostracised from wider society.

Been on a protest recently? Said something you shouldn't have on twitter? Well all of a sudden people are avoiding you and you don't know why. Theoretically this is the sort of thing that could very easily be done by a government wishing to do so.

Am I worried about nothing? Am I getting paranoid?

There's a whole thread about this ItWillNeverWork

 

[William of Walworth]

Is that a longer and more detailed version of the paper that John Harris linked to? Or completely different?
Will get into it later, but it is 40 pages ....

Harris linked to the short piece by Lansley. The longer paper is from 2019.

===============

Extract from a conversation between Yanis Varoufakis and David McWilliams, bit mixed.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was unclear myself whether the shortish piece that Harris linked to had any connection with the longer pamphlet.
But I'll make syre to read both (and the above).

 

[teqniq]

Written from the comfort of his financial security, it's true. But interesting nevertheless.

I made millions out of the last debt crisis. Now the wealthy stand to win again | Coronavirus | The Guardian

We need a fairer tax system so that wealthy people like me help solve the fallout from coronavirus, says the economist and former trader Gary Stevenson

amp.theguardian.com

 

[Smokeandsteam]

After the announcement on the Furlough Scheme extension yesterday I was waiting for this:



Clearly a leak from the same people in Government who were briefing last week that people were becoming ‘addicted’ to being furloughed and must be ‘weaned’ off it.

What’s interesting is that the ‘austerity redux’ plan outlined here reveals the growing splits within the Tory party which reflects the wider debate within capital about ‘which way now?’

The Telegraph story sets out the thinking of Option 1 - a zombie economy comprised of the half living parts of old economic order lurching on, pay cuts and the extinguishing of liquidity in the system.

I believe that this will be the losing side. The view that capitalism could withstand a deep depression on top of the pandemic and after 2008 is optimistic. The task of constructing consent is too risky and the collapse of liquidity and the real economy that would inevitably occur would, as Mervyn King admitted yesterday make the £50Bn cost to HMT of the furlough look like an accounting error. The HMT briefing about the necessary measures to ‘reassure the market’ is embarrassingly off given these figures that show where we are (-2%) in comparison to others:

• US: -1.2%
• Eurozone: -3.8%
• France: -5.8%
• Spain: -5.2%
• Italy: -4.7%
• China: -9.8%

Option 2 is the one we’ve discussed on this thread previously and where Johnson, Sunak, Starmer and the sharper brains of capital are heading. In that context this from Paul Mason is a brief moment of him remembering what he’s good at:



Given the shift in the debate to the economy and recovery the silence from Labour needs to be replaced with something along these lines.

 

[redsquirrel]

Light on detail but this is not a bad summary of some of the points of conflict that are going to emerge (it is focused on Europe but I'd argue is relevant beyond)

We are still in the early chapters of the Covid-19 story and it’s too soon to judge the full impact of the pandemic. But one can tentatively discern six negative trends for Europe. These had all emerged before the virus struck but are now accelerating. In various ways they are all likely to help the cause of anti-EU populists: greater economic autarky, stronger borders and more hostility to green policies.

I'd certainly agree with the deglobalisation, stronger border control and the conflict between different sets of nations states. The final paragraphs are are pro-EU rubbish, but aren't material to the main points of the article.

 

[teqniq]

Worth a read imo.

The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next?

In a crisis, what was once unthinkable can suddenly become inevitable. We’re in the middle of the biggest societal shakeup since the second world war. And neoliberalism is gasping its last breath. So from higher taxes for the wealthy to more robust government, the time has come for ideas that...

thecorrespondent.com

 

[redsquirrel]

Really?
The initial analysis at the start is not bad but the politics it advocates is horrible centre-left lesser evilism with mild social democracy masquerading as socialism

The way we conceive of activism tends to forget the fact that we need all those different roles. Our inclination – in talk shows and around dinner tables – is to choose our favourite kind of activism: we give Greta Thunberg a big thumbs up but fume at the road blockades staged by Extinction Rebellion. Or we admire the protesters of Occupy Wall Street but scorn the lobbyists who set out for Davos.

That’s not how change works. All of these people have roles to play. Both the professor and the anarchist. The networker and the agitator. The provocateur and the peacemaker. The people who write in academic jargon and those who translate it for a wider audience. The people who lobby behind the scenes and those who are dragged away by the riot police.

One thing is certain. There comes a point when pushing on the edges of the Overton Window is no longer enough. There comes a point when it’s time to march through the institutions and bring the ideas that were once so radical to the centres of power.

Vote Labour, vote Stamer, vote Biden. Fuck that.

 

[teqniq]

...
Vote Labour, vote Stamer, vote Biden. Fuck that.

Yes I didn't much like the implications of that but still I thought it worth reading. I guess I am fearful that we are likely to get austerity on steriods and anyone putting forth an alternative is worthy of attention. Personally I would like soemthing much more drastic.

 

[redsquirrel]

Yes sorry it is worth reading, it gives a good insight into what that sort of politics is thinking and where it is going, I just disagree with it.

 

[elbows]

Yes I didn't much like the implications of that but still I thought it worth reading. I guess I am fearful that we are likely to get austerity on steriods and anyone putting forth an alternative is worthy of attention. Personally I would like soemthing much more drastic.

The situation is too large and far reaching for austerity to be an option. At least that was my expectation when the pandemic got going. Nothing has given me cause to change my mind so far, if there is an austerity danger it is years in the future. I still expect us to get a new era now which resembles in some ways the norms of a previous time, all sorts of things they spent decades trying to convince people were no longer desirable or possible, back on the table in the blink of an eye.

Even the rightwing free market think tanks have dropped the austerity thing.

Rightwing thinktanks call time on age of austerity

Free market bodies relaxed about the ramping up of UK debts, though have limited faith in the Tories’ investment decisions

www.theguardian.com

 

[quimcunx]

Not specifically UK but Naomi Klein and Arundhati Roy are live now, talking about a Global Green New Deal.

 

[Mation]

I've been feeling increasing uncomfortable about the use of the rainbow to show support for the NHS. Now organisations are cancelling their Pride campaigns in favour of NHS support (and keeping the rainbow).

Coronavirus: 'I was attacked for hanging my rainbow flag'

When Alex Hancock put a rainbow flag in his window, he was subjected to homophobic abuse and a death threat.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[redsquirrel]

Another piece on economic theories and revolutions, one of the better ones IMO, goes beyond the usual Keynes vs Friedman stuff. Though the second half is less persuasive.

It doesn’t matter if that market is characterized by perfect competition and information, as in real business cycle theory, or if it is subject to sticky prices and missing markets, as it is with New Keynesianism. In all cases, the market, and the market alone, is the medium through which stability is produced by adaptive, self-interested expectations in combination with clear and predictable rules of the game.

From a rational expectations perspective, these models are useful tools for several reasons. First, they appear to embrace uncertainty. Not only is the future not assumed to be perfectly known, as in some earlier non-Keynesian models, but the whole apparatus is assembled to take account of the effect of “shocks” to the overall system

With the onset of the latest civilizational crisis with the pandemic, the limits to this conception of uncertainty, and to the state of modern economic thinking, have been exposed again, even more nakedly than in 2008. Just like then, mainstream macroeconomics of the rational expectations variety was the economics to which panicked policymakers first turned—lowering interest rates, providing “forward guidance” (the central bankers’ term for expectations-management)—only to discover immediately that it was of basically no use at all, and perhaps worse than that. Just like then, but even quicker, they hit the panic button provided by some crude variety of “Keynesianism,” in which the state is just one big, hastily-assembled pump spraying money at its closest allies (and a few workers).

 

[elbows]

Little clues lurk even in the casual way the new economic reality, the new era of government spending, appear in stories of actions taken by leaders around the world.

President Macron - in his new post-virus spend-and-invest mode - wants to act now not just to rescue the industry from the immediate crisis, but also to prepare it for a future that will be both electric and he hopes much less dependent on foreign and in particular Chinese suppliers.

Coronavirus: France announces €8bn rescue plan for car industry

President Emmanuel Macron wants France to become the top producer of clean vehicles in Europe.

www.bbc.co.uk

If I were one of these 'leaders' (perish the thought, ugh I'm allergic to states and capitalism) I'd actually have been relieved that the previous shitty agenda/ 'economic phase' was dead. I'd have been looking for an excuse to get away from neoliberalism and aspects of globalisation and well away from austerity because it was all coming to an obvious dead end in various respects that should have been obvious enough even to those who'd be considered suitable to be a 'leader' in the current world. Now with the pandemic there is the ultimate excuse to ditch the more obviously doomed aspects and do all sorts of rebalancing. Still within various confines of capitalism of course, but even that seems like something compared to the narrowness of the neoliberal era I've spent my life under. Anyway this is just a turn of speech, its not what I'd actually want to do if I were in charge of something, I'd want to ditch capitalism too but that obviously isnt what governments are planning to do in the pandemic recovery phase at this time

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Just posted this on the World Politics thread...

A significant move.

The presence of socialists in government is, of course significant. But there also appears to be political consensus on its introduction.

Three immediate thoughts are:

1. How radical this is - and the debate about that question - will now have some substance. Whilst this is clearly about saving capital rather than replacing it the actual lived experience of it will throw up political, economic and cultural processes that could be significant.
2. The return of the state and interventionist national government reverses a trend in Europe that has developed alongside neo-liberalism over the past 40 years.
3. For those, and I have occasionally lapsed into thIs myself, who dismiss academic ideas as abstract then Guy Standing appears to be conclusive proof to the contrary.

Spain to become first country in Europe to roll out a universal basic income

Government plans to keep payments ‘a permanent instrument’ after pandemic is over

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Pickman's model]

Just posted this on the World Politics thread...

A significant move.

The presence of socialists in government is, of course significant. But there also appears to be political consensus on its introduction.

did the notion come from these significant socialists?

 

[elbows]

Green new deal please.

Make Covid-19 recovery green, say business leaders

Well-known firms such as Asda and Lloyds Bank are urging ministers to prioritise the environment.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Shechemite]

Worse. It’s all going to get worse.

 

[Shechemite]

Worse. It’s all going to get worse.

In the shadow of Covid-19: Why the NHS will be forced to send patients private and ration care

Special investigation Amid the disruptive force of Covid-19, an unprecedented link with the private sector may be inevitable as the number of patients facing delays edges towards 10 million this autumn

www.independent.co.uk

 

[treelover]

It was clear the covid19 and its contingencies would lead to radical demands and change, whether that happens is another thing, but very few people would have said it would be around BLM/racial inequality that a mass movement would coalesce, the lynching of GF was a catalyst, but this type of movement was already growing, though the majority being young, may have helped with its depth and intensity. It is great thats it has happened, but when the smoke clears, milllions more, will be unemployed,, capital will push for lower wages, conditions, etc, see British Airways. If a wider social movement doesn't occur, and there are no signs it will and it didn't in 2008, many young people just don't see politics in terms of ecomomic inequality, especially the new left, then we are basically stuffed and of course it will be minorities, disabled and sick(lost 28 billion in benefits and services, lost lives, etc) W/C, many BAME, who will suffer the most.

edited for clarity

 

[Smokeandsteam]

The irony won’t be lost on Corbyn supporters but here is Johnson effectively announcing a ‘New Deal’ for Britain. Starmer has also been doing the rounds calling for a future jobs fund, a sectoral extension of the furlough scheme and a July budget. Both are ruling out spending cuts/austerity.

The devil will be in the detail of course. But on a macro level this approach, likely to be replicated across economies, is the effective recycling of the economy using Keynesian social democracy to bail out the market.

A temporary state led: investment programme, job creation scheme and expansion of planning to kickstart growth and spending.

While the irony of a programme likely to dwarf what Corbyn’s Labour proposed at the last GE is obvious there are key differences.

Going back to the details - the aim here will be to punt as much of this investment into the private sector as possible (in effect a new state led corporate bailout) and to avoid any embedding or popular understandings that might develop that question the natural order and ‘common sense‘ of the market.

There is unlikely to be a national investment bank embedding the state, unions and other public bodies into the llann

Traditionally, the Labour Party has done well when capital has had to resort to these measures to save itself (see 1945). The Roosevelt New Deal saw the emergence of strong organised labour with strong unions a key element of the delivery of high wages and full employment.

However, given the cultural cleavage between Labour and the ‘Red Wall’, the loss of Scotland and the convergence of Johnson and Starmer on this I’d argue that the normal rules won’t apply this time. The unions will remain frozen out and there will be no tripartite structures this time. More importantly a hegemonic moment between the Tories and the post-industrial working class is possible.

 

[The39thStep]

Interesting discussion about community self help . In particular the contribution from Jim Slaven of Helping Hands whose slogan is Solidarity Not Charity is of interest

 

[The39thStep]

The irony won’t be lost on Corbyn supporters but here is Johnson effectively announcing a ‘New Deal’ for Britain. Starmer has also been doing the rounds calling for a future jobs fund, a sectoral extension of the furlough scheme and a July budget. Both are ruling out spending cuts/austerity.

The devil will be in the detail of course. But on a macro level this approach, likely to be replicated across economies, is the effective recycling of the economy using Keynesian social democracy to bail out the market.

A temporary state led: investment programme, job creation scheme and expansion of planning to kickstart growth and spending.

While the irony of a programme likely to dwarf what Corbyn’s Labour proposed at the last GE is obvious there are key differences.

Going back to the details - the aim here will be to punt as much of this investment into the private sector as possible (in effect a new state led corporate bailout) and to avoid any embedding or popular understandings that might develop that question the natural order and ‘common sense‘ of the market.

There is unlikely to be a national investment bank embedding the state, unions and other public bodies into the llann

Traditionally, the Labour Party has done well when capital has had to resort to these measures to save itself (see 1945). The Roosevelt New Deal saw the emergence of strong organised labour with strong unions a key element of the delivery of high wages and full employment.

However, given the cultural cleavage between Labour and the ‘Red Wall’, the loss of Scotland and the convergence of Johnson and Starmer on this I’d argue that the normal rules won’t apply this time. The unions will remain frozen out and there will be no tripartite structures this time. More importantly a hegemonic moment between the Tories and the post-industrial working class is possible.


View attachment 220014

Might be worth posting this up in the Starmer ( be intersting to see what Labour has to say) and the Johnson threads as it deserves some real discussion. Cant just be dismissed as something from 'the most right wing govt since Hitler' type of view.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Might be worth posting this up in the Starmer ( be intersting to see what Labour has to say) and the Johnson threads as it deserves some real discussion. Cant just be dismissed as something from 'the most right wing govt since Hitler' type of view.

CBA. Inevitably the lag between what is going on and what some on the left think is going on and what they think it means is going to mean the other side have worked things out before those who claim to be on ours have. I look forward to a thread of reaction in 3 months time....

 

[The39thStep]

CBA. Inevitably the lag between what is going on and what some on the left think is going on and what they think it means is going to mean the other side have worked things out before those who claim to be on ours have. I look forward to a thread of reaction in 3 months time....

Obviously preoccupied by the sheer importance of a private prosecution of Dominic Cummings

 

[Smokeandsteam]

For those interested here is Goodwin’s latest take which should be read in conjunction with Johnson’s impending New Deal:

he Conservative Party is no longer the party of the rich while the Labour Party is no longer the party of the poor.

That is the central finding of my new report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, released last week.

As I said in a talk this week, there is no doubt that Boris Johnson is a prime minister under pressure.

Public disapproval of his government is drifting upwards.

Public confidence in the economy has collapsed.

Johnson's approval ratings have shed more than 20 points in just two months.

MPs are openly complaining about the workings of his government.

And, for the first time, when voters are asked who they think would make the 'best Prime Minister', Labour's Keir Starmer is now in first place.

In fact, as I write this Starmer is enjoying the highest rating for any opposition leader since Tony Blair was transforming Labour into New Labour in 1995 and (What's the Story) Morning Glory was topping the charts.

But look beneath the surface of British politics and far more profound changes are taking place -changes that will ultimately determine not only what happens at the next election but, potentially, many elections after what.

Britain is in a state of realignment.

As I shown with Professor Oliver Heath, things are now happening in Britain which have simply never happened before.

The Conservative Party is more popular with people on low incomes than it is with people on high incomes.

Labour, the party that was founded to speak for struggling workers, is now just as popular with the wealthy as it is among people on low incomes.

Both of Britain's two main parties have inverted their traditional support base.

This is, put simply, remarkable.

As recently as 2017, Labour still led the Conservatives among people on lower incomes -as it has always done.

But at the general election six months ago Boris Johnson and his party overturned this unwritten rule.

The Conservatives established a striking 15-point lead over Labour among one of Labour's core groups. This is the first time in Britain's recorded history that the Conservatives outpolled Labour among low-income voters.

Remarkably, the Conservatives are more popular among people on low incomes than among people on high incomes.

Much of this new support for Boris Johnson has come direct from Labour, which is why Johnson was able to tear down Labour's Red Wall.

Six months ago, Labour lost nearly one in three of its low-income voters who had turned out to vote Labour in 2017.

Meanwhile, Johnson and his party hoovered up votes from working-class people, pensioners and people who left school after taking their GCSE's, at sixteen or seventeen, while they lost ground in areas that contain large numbers of young voters, graduates and people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Johnson has been winning over the small towns and industrial heartlands but he has also been losing the cities, university towns and highly diverse areas; of Labour's 50 strongest results in December nearly half (22) came in London while highly diverse and/or young urban areas such as Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield hosted many of the others.

And these shifts are reflected in the polls today.

Ask Brits who would make the best leader and Starmer leads Johnson by a striking 44-points among Remainers, 24-points among 18-34-year-olds, 19-points among Londoners, 12-points among people who live in cities and 3-points among middle-class professionals.

But Johnson leads Starmer by 46-points among Leavers, 19-points among pensioners, 10-points among the working-class, 6-points in non-London southern England, 5-points among voters who live in seats that Labour has lost since 2005, 5-points in rural areas and 2-points in towns.

What these numbers reflect is how broader winds are sweeping through Britain's political system and pushing it into a state of realignment.

Why is this happening?

As we show in the report, the reality is that lots of people who live on average or lower than average incomes are 'cross-pressured' -they lean to the left on the economy, favouring more redistribution, but lean to the right on culture, supporting Brexit and the reform of migration.

These voters want power sent down to the regions, not up to London and the big cities. And, by the way, they wanted a much tougher reply to the unilateral tearing down of statues.

They do not fit neatly onto the traditional map of British politics.

Johnson tapped into this by leaning left through promises to deliver more infrastructure and help the 'left behind' while promising to deliver Brexit and change immigration rules.

Labour, in contrast, went in the other direction. As we show in the report, Labour's drift to support a second referendum on Brexit damaged the party among these low-income voters who noticed the shift.

This handed Johnson the keys to the Red Wall.

Most of those who switched to him were strongly pro-Brexit and wanted to see their decision carried through and implemented by their representatives.

Johnson also had another in-built advantage - more than 60 per cent of constituencies had favoured Leave at the 2016 referendum. So long as Johnson's strategy was focused on consolidating the Leave side he had a major advantage.

This was further underlined by the failure of Remainers to find unity, being split between Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

So, where do we go from here?

Johnson needs to tread carefully, for obvious reasons.

Many of the same people who switched over to him six months ago also come from those groups that have been hit the hardest by the double crisis that Johnson has struggled to manage -the Covid-19 health crisis and the accompanying economic crisis.

There is not yet much evidence that they are jumping ship.

Perhaps they are willing to give Johnson benefit of the doubt until the end of the Brexit transition period. Either way, it is not hard to see how things could start to go very wrong for the incumbent prime minister.

Immigration numbers are still high and there is also no guarantee that amid a major economic crisis these voters will continue to prioritise their values over their wallets. Nothing focuses minds like lost jobs and rising debt.

Keir Starmer has challenges, too.

Winning adulation in London and the university towns -or 'Remainia'- is fine. But Labour already holds much of this territory.

To return to power, and given the SNP's dominance in Scotland, Starmer also needs to make serious progress in non-London England -where lots of voters are instinctively socially conservative and wary of the new turn toward identity politics.

It is worth remembering that the Labour Party has not won the popular vote in England since 2001. Let me say that again - by the time of the next election Labour will not have won the popular vote in England for more than twenty years.

So, there are also huge challenges for Starmer's team.

Blair managed to crack this nut by promising to be 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime' -he hoovered up the professional middle-classes while giving the more instinctively socially conservative working-class a message that resonated.

But that was also before the values-ridden debates of today -with debates over migration, Brexit, gender, statues, the legacy of empire and who-knows-what-is-next shooting up the agenda.

Starmer will need to find his own way of navigating our values divide. But find a way he must if he is serious about winning the next election.

So, is Britain's realignment temporary or permanent? Can Boris Johnson retain his support in the Red Wall? Or can Labour repair their relationship with these low-income, blue-collar and cross-pressured voters?

Only time will tell.

And for Johnson, especially, the clock is ticking ...

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Final post before I go off for a bike ride and ignore urban for the day. Here is Gove quoting Gramsci....

“The privilege of public service” Michael Gove’s Ditchley Lecture – full text

Far too often, innovation in government is treated as though it were a mischief rather than a model.

www.newstatesman.com