Something to Celebrate!

The "neo-con" era is over!  The idea that you can leave it all to "the Market" (ie to big business), is, officially, bunk!  Privatisation and deregulation, as a guiding and all powerful policy, is toast!

This is what The Financial Times (Martin Wolf) had to say on 25th March> "Remember Friday March 14 2008: it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died." Pretty unambiguous.  Here is the rest of his excellent article.  

Oddly, although it is suggested that the cause of the crisis was poor regulation, he concludes that we need more of it.  John Kay, another economist, suggests contrariwise that regulation cannot work - because it asks civil servants to second-guess the business decisions of billionaire managers. 

Quite rightly (in my view) he says that when things are going well, no businessman or woman is likely to heed the advice of the public sector. Especially, as he also says,  "the financial services industry is the most powerful political lobby in the country". Do you suppose, he asks, that the managers of Northern Crock would have listened to the FSA if they had called them before they went down the pan?  Here is his article in full.

In yet another piece, someone else in the FT laments that the new situation represents, "a remarkable change after three decades in which the market appeared to be the answer to everything." He, however, takes solace from the assumed fact that "the Left", apart from suggesting more regulation, also have no idea about what to do next. This is his article.

He is wrong, of course, on the latter point. I don't know which "Left" he was looking at (he quotes the "Socialist Workers Party - SWP"  (otherwise known as the Society of Wedding Photographers). But that is a very poor choice of a caricature socialist party.

So, if the answer is not more, nor less, regulation, and second-guessing clever business leaders, what is it?  

Watch this space.

  

You thought there were three main parties?

Well you were wrong. There's only one party, but it has three wings. Here is what the FT said in an article headed - "Why UK political parties look more and more the same".

Here are a few snippets >

Mr Blair’s decade in power demolished almost every recognisable landmark on the British political scene as he drove his party towards the centre.

The two parties have raced to be first to announce near-identical policies, be it cutting death duties or tackling illegal immigrants or knife-wielding drug dealers.

The narrowing of the political debate is not unique to Britain and is partly a result of external factors. Globalisation has limited politicians’ room for manoeuvre on economic policy: footloose capital can pick and choose between the most favourable tax and business environments.

Nick Clegg has been described by a senior colleague as “Cameron’s stunt double”.

Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will fight the next election with the same proposed tax and spending totals until 2010-11.

All three parties have embraced the idea of the private and voluntary sectors having a bigger role.

In actual fact the FT is a bit slow. It has been clear for many years that working people have had their political voice neutered ever since the "Labour Party" embraced the "Globalisation" doctrine.

A new party is urgently needed. Have a look here at the website for the Campaign for a New Workers Party.