Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Richard J Murphy"
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Unfortunately, Richard I'm not sure the import of your message has really hit home looking at the bottery in the comment section. The message that you are trying to get across is that economic deprivation fosters mental ill health in neoliberal economies. Remove the economic deprivation - which is the result of the misallocation and ineffective and inefficient distribution of resources within neoliberal economies - and societally-wide mental ill health will signifucantly decrease. Humans love stories, but their no substitution for the truth. Myths dominate our thinking and are relentlessly and neoliberalism's biggest myth is that money is wealth, and that those who do not have money, who are poor are to blame for their poverty. This myth is built on another myth - that being wealthy is a sign of virtue or talent. And the people who push this myth are often the asset wealthy, who spend their money buying media outlets to push these lies. The truth is that both cream and sewage float to the top. Luck as inherited asset wealth is the reality, and how deeply embedded this myth is in our culture, is reflected in our obsession with class, and other ways to "divide and rule". There are hard working, talented people who never get asset wealthy, or even enough money to live. I'm thinking of Robert Tressell, the author of the novel "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists." Tressel was an Irish migrant working as a decorator, who wrote his novel at the kitchen table at night. Poverty ensured he never lived to see his novel published, as he died of Tuberculosis, a disease of deprivation, before his daughter got it published. This all happened at the beginning of the 20th century, and yet in the 21st century we're repeating the same myths and the same mistakes as were perpetrated in the early 20th century. And the world is in some ways even more malevolent than the 1910s. We have forgotten the lessons people in this country at that time learned, because the problems they were dealing with, are still being fought with in the 21st century. And in many ways, we are in danger of going backwards. That's what people don't realise, that we've been here before, where the asset wealthy were unperturbed by the loss of the poor and deprived. Qui Bono? Who benefits from that? It may have taken two world wars and a global financial crisis to persuade people to look at things differently, but at least they walked around and examined the elephant in the room, and decided to clean up the growing pile of poop. We're not even really looking. Intergenerational forgetting? Probably, and we're self-harming the fabric of our society as a result. And increasing mental ill health is a symptom of our neglect of the basic realities of running an effective economy. For it to be effective, capital - social and economic - can't be hoarded by a minority, at the detriment of the majority, because it's unsustainable in the long run. That's why we are endangering ourselves. And a those suffering from depression and anxiety are exhibiting a sane response to an insane world, where the winners spend money to gaslight everyone else. Reality can't be ignored, because that way madness lies. I hope we wake up and start resisting the myths and the lies, because it's not only damaging the economy, it's damaging us as people.
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Redistribution is the only answer because there are perverse incentives at work. And tax incentives together with using taxation for productive investment would do that. The State can do it when the private sector won't or can't. If we tax speculation more and provide tax credits for productive investment, we would find asset bubbles would recede. Indeed, there is a tenable argument that tge financial sector is too big. When you look at which sectors contribute most GDP, it's not the ones that provide the most jobs. Financial Services is the largest sector, but it's making only a minority wealthier. Manufacturing employs more people, but provides less GDP than Financial Services. This is why we need a different economic framework to work with. One that looks at productive and speculative input and output differently, instead of being misled by the aggregate. Indeed, we are told we are the 6th richest country in the world by GDP value. But by GDP per head we are 29th richest. And the Labour Share of GDP - the share of GDP paid to workers - has been falling in size for years. But nobody noticed because they had new toys to play with like more consumer credit, credit cards, cheap white goods that were so cheap because the countries making yhem were being exploited. Now it's very different, because as Richard noted the winners from that period, who got wealthy don't even invest here. So, we need to look at things differently and less opaquely, so people better understand what's really going on.
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I think you are obsessed with it, because you're ignoring a very simple fact, that the wealth of the middle class is disappearrung, because the value of their wages and their home is being encoded by how neoliberalism works. It's a parasite, whose mode of survival is to transfer wealth to those who control the financial system. And the middle class no longer do that, and the assets they do own are in real purchasing power being devalued. Most of them have only their jobs, their houses, and their pensions, to counterbalance the puke of debt they took on to pay for it, and the hope they can repay all that debt is disappearing everyday. Why do you thing social mobility is disappearing even for the middle classes? And AI will drive that reality home, because it's the white collar jobs that the aspirational middle classes want that will be targeted by it. So, your confirmation bias is blinding you to the reality of the economic apartheid that is a feature of Neoliberalism and not a bug. The wealth illusion for the middle classes is going to be a painful wake-up call, because it is. The only assets growing in real terms are debt-based assets. And it is the owners of debt who are the real winners, and not the middle class who will lose what they have as much as the working class has already. When AI kicks in within the next generation, if neoliberalism hasn't been moved away from, they will be poorer too. That's the irony. There will be even less social mobility. And what if the middle classes then?
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It's understandable to feel unsettled right now, as the reality of our current system may differ significantly from what we once assumed. If we take the excitement surrounding AI at face value, there's a real concern that many white-collar jobs could be eliminated under capitalism. So, what can we do about this? It's crucial that we encourage our children to work to live, rather than live to work. They should learn to think strategically for themselves, rather than relying on external sources for what they cannot provide. The opportunities that existed in the 1970s are fundamentally different from what we see in the 2020s, and this economy is unlikely to return to those times. Therefore, we need to prepare our children to be adaptable and independent thinkers rather than trying to force them into rigid roles that no longer fit. If their sole focus is on securing employment, it’s important to note that self-employment stands as the only truly guaranteed path to lifelong work. However, the journey of self-employment is not without its challenges; it demands self-discipline, foresight, curiosity, and courage. While success or wealth isn’t guaranteed, the foundation of employment is still there for many. With the right priorities in place, a fulfilling life is indeed within reach, as it is these priorities that enrich our very existence. What is more significant than the external chaos is what brings meaning to our lives. This journey also encompasses taking responsibility for yourself and your loved ones. Although a job may offer less responsibility, we must acknowledge that true security is becoming increasingly rare, as capital continues to replace human roles with automation. The jobs that remain may be those beyond the reach of AI or robots, and there are valid concerns about whether they will provide a living wage. Thus, even within this context, we ought to approach our circumstances with an open mind; harbouring resentment over these changes can often be a futile exercise. Until humanity finds a way to either reform or replace capitalism with a more sustainable alternative that meets our material and other needs, we must learn to adapt to the pressures of the current system.
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Not really, it's not economic. It's financially correct, and stopping land becoming a speculative asset, or a financial instrument is better for farmers and for consumers in the long run. Truth be told, the idea that we can import from everywhere across the planet cheaply is becoming untenable. Would you rather your money went to British gamers or the shipping companies that are hiking their transportation costs? Simply, food is going to cost more due to a. Climate change, b. Geopolitical tensions, c. Globalisation failing. So, we need food production to increase, and not land being used as tax avoidance schemes. So, getting the asset wealthy to stop buying land and forcing up prices, would be a bet benefit.
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There are two types of theories:
1. Theories that describe what is as factual maps of reality (facts) and
2. Theories that prescribe what should be as ideological arguments in frameworks (beliefs).
MMT is a descriptive theory and not a prescriptive theory like Keynesian Monetary Economics.
MMT and Keynesian Monetary Theory share only the description of how the government can issue its own currency at will, and how the level of taxation relative to government spending is a policy tool that regulates unemployment and inflation. After that, they disagree on how these powers should be used.
Keynesian Monetary Theory argues that government money creation should only be used as a temporary fix to address acute unemployment and underinvestment in infrastructure, and predicts that there will be inflation problems if carried on for too long.
In contrast, MMT argues that Keynesian Monetary Theory ignores the role taxation plays in controlling the money supply and curtailing inflation. Therefore, government money creation can be used for acute and chronic underinvestment in the economy as long as taxation is employed to remove excess money from the economy when inflation occurs.
In short, Keynesian Monetary Theory ignores taxation as a monetary policy tool, while MMT does not, and argues that it can be used in a targeted manner to control the money supply and prevent chronic inflation.
So, your critique ignores the following:
a. MMT ≠ Keynesian Monetary Theory
b. MMT is more accurate in its descriptive map of what monetary tools are available to the government than Keynesian Monetary Theory.
c. Describing What is ≠ arguments about what should be.
d. We already have empirical evidence of the impact of government money creation during times of underinvestment, and the impact of taxation. We have:
- historical accounts of how the UK handled the financing of wars and pandemics, what tools were used, and the results.
- data from other countries since the post-WWII period of economic performance regarding GDP per capita, inflation, and levels of taxation.
All these are available online, and the data reveals that MMT, as a framework, may have a point. High taxation does not correlate with economic underperformance as expressed by GDP per capita. Indeed, to give a complete picture, it is essential to look beyond simplistic "straw man" arguments and consider the data. And even more importantly, we must have the courage to embrace nuances. Like underinvestment in infrastructure is economic failure, which can lead to unemployment and inflation because of the consequences that follow on from market failure. That more, isn't necessarily better. And excessive speculation, and rentierism has negative consequences for economies, because they divert investment away from the production of goods and services that are needed to maintain a functioning economy that can provude materiall growth for more than a few.
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I'm sorry but your prejudices are showing. You are blaming a cog in the machine instead of the bright sparks who changed it's design. HR unsurprisingly are employees who are there to protect those who are running the business. They do not get to decide how that that should be done. They are told what their priorities should be, and will lose their job if they do anything else. HR does not get to define anything operational or what priorities should be pursued. Consequently, you know get a lot of employers bending the rules to get what they want, not what is the right and fair thing to do. Rather, poop always run down hill. HR is just trying to keep their job just like any other department. Fail to do as they are told, and they too will be unemployed. So expecting anything more from them is naive. It is the people who have the power to set the priorities of that organisation who are to blame, and they are as much enculturated by a set of incentives that do not put customers as the highest priority. Rather it is profit, and shareholder primacy which together are the demons that are possessing the minds of those people running enterprises. Since the Neoliberal world view has become preeminent, we now promote the creation of inefficiency to ensure everyone one but the employees and Middle and lower management gets their cut, and in turn, nobody challenges the follies being perpetrated. Corporatism is the handmaiden of Neoliberalism, and in short, it's a scam. It's a squeeze, where customers and society at large become resources to be exploited rather than be maintained or served. Is it inevitable? No; but as long as we tolerate it this parasitical relationship between corporations and society, things will only get worse. In extracting as much profit from the process, corporations are becoming more parasites, than protectors and maintainers of society. Indeed, the UK is being run more like a extraction colony of some unseen empire everyday for the last 50 years. Consequently, living standards for the majority have stagnated or collapsed, and productivity has declined relative to our rivals. But we've got more fat cats more than ever. Go figure.
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