What's still wrong with our economy?

The source of much of the damage to our economy and well-being is of course the banks – still largely unreformed – and also globalisation driven by the avarice of individuals high up the corporate ladders and in hedge funds operating in a patriotism-free zone allied to their political placemen. There is a perverse competitive force at work that belongs more to Catastrophe Theory than the ‘dismal science’ - the sadly apt nickname for economics – and the Lemming-like mentality of "the other lot have made a fast buck out of shutdown-and-offshore so we will too".
Thus it was that real industry, especially manufacturing and engineering, was eviscerated and other productive sectors such as agriculture have had their standing reduced. We sometimes hear talk of a ‘post industrial society’. You can certainly have post-industrial societies in Europe and the US. Indeed we may yet get to find out what one is like. What you cannot have in a country larger than the Cayman Islands is a post-industrial economy.
I have said for many years that when the US Government came to see that the globalisation trumpeted by self interested executives was not working for the country they would stop singing along with the shrill brass. There is evidence that this is now the case in Democratic circles – but not of course in those associated with the likes of Bain Capital.
‘Free trade’ is a hypothetical concept never realised in reality. It might work to the mutual benefit of sections of societies when practised by responsible agents between countries with similar values. Here I’m not talking in terms of ill-defined concepts of ‘capitalism’ or ‘socialism’. I refer to moral stances in relation to fundamental concerns such as the use of child labour, pre-Victorian working conditions and befouled environments. And on the positive side the concept of the Common Good.
‘Free trade’ - is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Its merit depends on the conditions and principles under which it operates. A bit like America’s constitutional right to bear arms - one thing in the birth of a nation phase, quite another today. What can produce great benefit in one set of conditions can be malignant in another.
And trade is not the only thing that should be ‘free’. The people producing the goods to be traded should be free too. Unless they are, you do not know that the export / import imbalance in their societies is what they would choose. And national currencies should be free to find their own relative levels. These conditions do not exist in many major participants in global trade.
There is another critical factor - the distribution of power and choice in overseas countries and regions used - I choose this term deliberately - by globalised corporations to make their products. Used and then ignored in the ruthless quest for ever greater ‘shareholder value’ and executive bonuses.
The domestic consequence has been the demise of great swathes of the Midlands and North of England and the Midwest of the United States. The production of industrial wastelands and ruined communities at home is as corrosive a by-product of global profiteering as is the effluent discharged in countries to which jobs and production have been taken.
An essential context for free trade to work properly is morality and social conscience. We’ve seen the lack of principle (which resulted in the lack of principal) in the banking sector and the disregard for the fate of communities shown by those entrusted with the power to manufacture.
Executives should not be free to act regardless of scruple (nor should they want to - a change essential for a long run solution) any more than they should be free to ignore chemical pollution. Corporations should be trusts, not in the sense of being monopolies (although they are often effectively these anyway) but in the sense of holding the livelihoods of individuals, the life of communities and the self respect of nations in their hands. We need due diligence here too.
The timescale required for such changes could be a generation. We’ve seen the resistance to social pressure to reform disgusting bonus cultures and the continuation of contempt for people seen as ‘punters’ in banks and other ‘services’. There needs to be a comprehensive re-education of our corporate and political leadership. And to get the policy right, the funding of political parties needs to be freed up from the unseemly and unseen influence of big donors. In fact we need our own cultural revolution.
The original name for economics was ‘political economy’. What is needed now is ‘moral economy’ where concern for the human consequences of decisions is embedded in the mindset of the captains of industry - as should be a sense of responsibility to the society that gave them the opportunities that they so frequently abuse.
Genuine competition might not be a bad idea too, rather than the spurious competition (such as in banking, communications, power and fuel supply and a good chunk of retailing) that is informal cartelisation designed to exploit consumers. Included too should be the politicians who have so often seen their primary role as the reinforcers of, and apologisers for, this dire mis-managerial capitalism.
Internationally, future trade round discussions, if any, should have an infusion of social and moral as well as environmental responsibility.
At home governments constantly tamper with educational syllabi. As part of the much needed moral restructuring of society there should be moral economics as well as ‘bog standard’ economics on the syllabus.
All this is a tall, but the time to start is now. And it is a journey we need to make since the current crisis is ethical as much as economic. Failure to get a grip on the greed and disloyalty of globalisation, the culture of cheating and deceiving, the disregard for sustainable limits to growth and the lack of morality that produced these and other undesirables will result in a post-industrial wilderness in the West.

Lighten Up!

Here I’m not referring to the advice I often receive but to the question of Summer (Daylight Saving) Time. The clocks go back this evening and each year at the end of October marking the start of the ‘dark nights’. This is always a bit depressing and in my opinion we should have the clocks set two hours rather than one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time in the summer and one hour ahead of GMT in the winter months.
It is an established fact that this would save lives in traffic accidents. This arrangement would also be better for evening sport and outdoor activity in general. It would also reduce the impact of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as people, on the whole, would experience significantly more daylight. And, as is also well known, it would save energy too.
So why isn’t this apparently good idea brought in? It is reported that some people in very high places don’t like getting up in the dark, but I find it hard to take this seriously. Our farmers may grumble - and indeed they’ve much to complain about as undervalued contributors to the productive part of our economy - but I imagine that livestock go by other perceptions of time rather than how we choose to set the nominal dials on our timepieces.
I believe that most people in England (three out of four according to a recent survey) support such a measure - and have done so for a long time. But I understand that Scotland wants to keep the present system so that’s apparently that. In my view they should be told to keep their own time and go their own way in this as in other matters.
All in all we do need more illumination at home - not to mention in our national affairs and I suspect few people would disagree with that! The Government recently let a private members bill fizzle out and there’s little chance that the Government will see the light anytime soon. So no change there then!