Monday 20th July 2020
Five [notes]. Apologies: Two
Will we go back to pre-Covid structures or will we Build Back Better? Are ideas about ‘the market’ still the world-wide way of doing things? Will the free market be the dominant modus operandi? Will any contrary ideas fail? Currently the treasury rescue measures feel socialist and interventionist. The state has shown once again it is the lender of last resort. Economies linked together like never before.
Authoritarianism – do people like strong leaders? A crisis in capitalism never seems to benefit the left – people who feel they are not benefitting from the free-market turn to the right. Authoritarians can be of the left and the right. We looked at China’s interventions and the ‘long game’ they seem to be playing (particularly with African countries). Economies are often judged by how much growth there has been.
Are we going back to what we did before? Interesting that lower paid workers had less opportunity to work from home. On-line shopping causes more people to be in the gig economy, delivering more stuff. Has the current crisis caused many to want/need/desire more stuff? Is it progress to have stress related work?
Housing – we discussed the impact of the sale of council houses. Council houses were sold for 1/3 of market price. Home ownership is the aspiration of many. A counter argument was put in the group – owning one’s home creates more agency. Thatcher’s sell-off of Council houses without honouring the commitment to build new ones drastically reduced the affordable rental housing stock. But owning their own house makes people feel in control of their lives, whereas the provision of social housing puts them in a passive position.
Long term – more public ownership is now possible, caused by this crisis. More Keynesian economics and will the shrinking of the state be halted? Johnson’ ideology, if he has one, is to shrink the state to set people ‘free’. He is anti-statist but current intervention is the state paying for things to prop up the economy.
We finished by looking at what was described as the essential corruption of the body politic – donations to political parties to influence policy (Trade Unions also, though their members make democratic decisions). Media owners want to influence events. Can this system actually change?