Posts Tagged ‘neo liberalism’

Budget 2014 preview: Labour must change the language it uses to talk about business and economics

19/03/2014, 07:00:50 AM

by Rob Marchant

Today Britain’s political focus turns, as it always does sooner or later, to the economy. It is the last Budget which will come in time to make much of a difference for the election, an election for which all parties now start to gradually gather together their support from various quarters and interest groups.

Osborne will set out his pre-election stall and Miliband will respond. We have yet to see just how he will respond, but it seems pretty likely that it will be along the lines of his op-ed in yesterday’s Guardian.

Reading it, thankfully, Miliband seems to have learned his lesson from the awful “predators and producers” speech of the party’s 2012 conference and is now more careful with his wording. But if you want to really understand what a politician is thinking on a particular subject, you should look to their advisers on that subject; those who may unguardedly say what their bosses cannot. More of that later.

Now, one notable absence – or, more unkindly, gaping hole – in the 2010 election campaign was any noticeable support from the business community. A stony silence replaced the modest set of endorsers for the party’s business policies who had previously spoken in support of the party. And that was in the days of Prime Minister Brown, whose administration certainly had a more business-friendly character than the party’s current leadership.

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Sunday Review on Tuesday: “The price of civilization” by Jeffrey Sachs; “Betterness: economics for humans” by Umair Haque

10/01/2012, 09:37:53 AM

by Anthony Painter

The most infuriating aspect of recent political history is the way in which the old regime has reasserted itself so quickly. There is little doubt that the downside of neo-liberalism has been demonstrated in spectacular fashion. What is the response? Neo-liberalism.

A different way of doing things is desperately needed. It is not just about a different ideology, but also new institutions, a different way of thinking, of doing business, and of running an economy. At this time of enormous opportunity for change, the left has responded with sanctimonious triumphalism and off-the-shelf Keynesian social democracy. And so default neo-liberalism is winning. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Both Jeffrey Sachs and Umair Haque have constructed a credible alternative argument – one is aimed at US politics, though is relevant this side of the Atlantic too, and the other is aimed at business. Haque challenges business to be better; not more profitable but more meaningful. Sachs challenges society to be more “mindful” and politics to adhere to a greater ethic of good. This is all well and good, but it is in their practical arguments that both succeed – and make a contribution to helping us understand how we can shift our economy and society away from neo-liberalism. (more…)

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