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My mainm concern with economics is the promotion of democracy, for there can be neither freedom nor democracy with nothing more than parliamentary representation. We can have no democracy while leaders lie to get elected while doing this sort of thing. Part of the problem is that businesses are too big, too big to submit to national control. No government would dare take away a corporate charter, but even if they did the corporation would merely become incorporated in some other jurisdiction. Politicians don't think they are doing the right thing, although a handful are probably ideological neoliberals, but most are just massively corrupt and enjoy seeing people wallowing in poverty. We need better regulation, currently limited by the EU (and banned in North America, see MMT debacle), to control to companies, to stop their amoral masters wrecking our world and our society. Due to limited liability the people who profit from the depredations of capitalism can't be held to account and therefore this should be the first target for a democratic movement. People shouldn't be able to hide behind a corporation they partly own to avoid punishment. Another problem is that corporations largely own each other. All those stocks and shares on the market are often owned by other companies floated n the stock market. This reinforces the self-perpetuating and unbreakable oligarchy that runs the corporations as the directors of one company vote for the directors of another. These things need to be brought under democratic control, with industrial democracy and with the imposition of state power on the private sector. Scandinavia is marginally better, workers have an elected representative on the boards of companies, profits are partly shared out to workers and so on. Banks clear cheques in 3 days in stead of 7 because the law says they have to, while in the west they keep your money a few days longer and play it in high-interest bond markets. Globalisation is another problem, taking power from democratic states and putting it in the hand of corporations or, at best, international organisations obsessed with secrecy, money and their own power. I am inclined, therefore, to favour protectionism which would reduce the viable size of businesses and allow countries to control tehir borders once again. Protectionism was once known as the American system because the Americans grew their industries behind tariff barriers while England dominated the commerce of the entire liberalised world. Now America forces open the markets of third world nations so that they don't have a chance to develop in the same way. Joseph Stiglitz says that the liberalisation of places like Russia and the third world would be less disastrous if it was slower, rather than the so-called shock-therapy. This is not the case, the disaster would just be correspondingly slower. Globalisationa nd luiberalisation will always allow greater "efficiency", meaning less factories and workers are needed and a cheap and efficient Chinese factory will always manage to undercut an African or Costa Rican factory because of the plentiful supply of slave labour. The only way for other countries to go, therefore, is bankruptcy or the adoption of slave labour. Protectionism would prevent this. For the same reasons, to allay the tyranny of profit, regulations and laws are need to protect the working conditions of the workers. It will always be possible to wring out more profit through lower wages and longer hours, but this kills workers and wrecks economies, but it gains a temporary advantage for the company that does it first and all the other companies have to do it to keep up. This means more unemployment, lower wages, less liquidity, smaller economy. The free market is a proven murderous failure, no doubt can be had by any reasonable man but for the painfully ignorant. It is a universal that left wing policies are good for the economy of the nations practicing them, only the attacks of the IMF backed financiers and cpitalists make it look otherwise. These things, as I say, need to be brought under economic control, as in immediate post-War Japan, in Republican Barcelona or inter-revolutionary Russia, before the bankers brought down the Soviet with the October ("Soviet") revolution. Keynes didn't want the World Bank to be as it is, a wing of Western foreign policy to batter the third world into becoming a capitalist, feminist hell-hole. Britain had been bled by the vampire-economy of America throughout the war, so Keynes had no choice. Keynes had the right idea, though, although the New Deal was too corporate controlled over in America, notsurprising as Roosevelt was a Communist agent. Even so, Keynesianism works. Tax and spend and redistribution is the only way to keep an economy going, whether it does it responsibly as in the North or through military Keynsianism as the USA does. This all gives the poor money to spend, which helps the economy. The crisis of capitalism is underdemand, not oversupply.
Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.One of Chavez's best decisions, beyond Keynsianism (and creating armed militias in the slums which stopped the CIA-backed coup that momentarily overthrew him) wa sthe reimposition of currency controls. I would also suggest making it illegal to employ a woman ahead of a man, because men have more responsibilities. Here says: Enough is enough!That would be against the law, PLCs only have a duty to make money for their shareholders or the directors can be punished and deprived of their livelihoods. It would be an offence to put the national economy ahead of profits. This is what happens when you promote the idea that private vices make public virtues. |