Liberal Elite – A Song of Despair

The liberal elite were happy in their little worlds, the London metropolitan crowd and the Washington Beltway crowd.

They peered out of their ivory tower from time to time and monitored the headline statistics, everything was fine.

The liberal elite were unaware of the working poor. The Washington Ivy League graduates and the London privately educated just don’t mix with these sort of people.

They want an inclusive society, but don’t really want to include themselves in it, they are the liberal elite; sure of their values and relevance; dismissive of those without their degrees and high-flying jobs.

The working poor don’t even show up in the unemployment statistics. The other statistics show all the rewards going to the 1%, and rising exponentially within the 1%.

Suddenly they ask, “BrExit and Trump, how did that happen?” It was out of the blue.

The liberal elite were unaware of the problems that were developing outside their ivory towers.

While the working poor don’t show up in the statistics, but, surprise, surprise, they do vote.

The Conservatives found the working poor after BrExit, together with a new truly conservative leader, who wants the country to work for everyone.

Trump has appealed to those abandoned by the liberal elite. Surprise, surprise, he now runs the country.

He even fights back against selective reporting in the press that is designed to bring him down. The press say, “Surely he can’t now be punching back – it’s our place to punch him. The rules say that he should only defend himself from our blows!”

The liberal elite now peer out of their ivory tower, and feel the pain of their new irrelevance.

Still unaware of the working poor, they say, “BrExit and Trump, how did that happen?”

The liberal elite are not happy in their little worlds, the London metropolitan crowd and the Washington Beltway crowd.

Adapted from Sound of Suburbs

Steven Keen on Democracy and Capitalism

The radical Australian economist, Steven Keen, has somewhat surprisingly “come out” as an opponent of Free Trade, at least as currently practiced.

In an breakthrough interview published in The Epoch Times, Steven Keen explains how Donald Trump could revive American manufacturing. This article is tellingly entitled, “Why Free Trade Doesn’t Work for the Workers.”

Steven Keen argues Ricardo’s (1820) theory is flawed

Keen pointed out that the argument by classical economist David Ricardo (1772–1823) about wine and clothes involved the workers in one industry losing their jobs. Ricardo assumed, as do modern neoclassical economists, that workers in the losing industry can get a job in the winning industry. So it’s assuming full employment, everybody who wants a job gets a job, which is not the real world. And they also assume you can move resources from one industry into another. Certainly, workers can be retrained. While it takes time, it can be done.

Drawing an example from China, Keen noted that China now produces more of everything, and that it is not possible is turning a weaving machine into a steel furnace. And that’s why you have the rust-belt. In the case of China and the United States, the steel plants in the United States won’t become weaving machines; they just turn into rust. So what you have is absolute destruction of physical resources in one country. Or they ship the capital to the place where the low wage workers are, like China or Mexico, and what you get is a class redistribution of income. The workers in the developed country lose, the capitalists in that country gain.

Steven Keen argues that Free Trade gives Capitalists a “Free Kick”

Keen observes that in this scenario, capitalists in the developed country still own the machinery and employ people but in a different country and at lower wages. Then they sell the products back into the American markets at the same prices but at lower costs. So they gain, and the working class has to finance their consumption with increased levels of debt because they don’t have the income anymore. The workers in the developing country also gain, so it’s also a wealth transfer from the developed to the developing country.

Why BrExit “won” & why Trump won

Steven Keen comments that in a democracy you get to the point where the workers have lost so much because of globalization, they get sick and tired of hearing the fairy tale that they won’t suffer and that it’s all for their own good. And they look at their decayed streets and factories and dismal jobs and lower share of income, and they say: “You know what, I’m going to vote against this.” And that’s what we are seeing globally now with Trump and Brexit, this revolt against globalization and financialization. The absolute losers of all of this are the working class of the first world. The winners are the multinational corporations.

Welfare vs Work

In an interesting and perceptive comment on human nature, Steven Keen says that humans get their sense of self-worth by contributing to a community. If you are human and you are being paid for staying alive, you are not particularly happy about it, your sense of self-worth is pretty low. But if you have a job and can contribute to a community, that’s where your sense of self-worth is going to come from. All this welfare is replacing work which is the case in the rust-belt areas makes people angry and resentful. Their self-worth is challenged and they are not going to be happy with the establishment.

He believes that is why Trump has such an appeal, and they don’t care about him being politically incorrect. They like the fact he is like a human hand grenade. They threw the human hand grenade into Washington.


Getting closer to a nuanced view on automation than most commentators, Steven Keen begins by arguing that part of the motivation for American businesses to move production offshore was cheap labor. But with better and better robots, you can have machines you can retrain for different assembly processes. And you have 3-D printing turning up, which has become mainstream. So it means you can produce onshore without cheap labor. But it also means you can produce without labor at all.

Although he does not define what “a well-functioning human society” would look like, he thinks that in such a society producing without any labor at all would not be a problem. He believes that the problem in a neoclassical capitalist system is that the workers lose out because their only source of income is wages. If there is no need for wages anymore, you don’t have an income anymore.

My Response

Steven Keen’s analysis of the modern economic dilemma is first class, however he does not offer anything substantive in the way of a solution.

A declared opponent of “neoclassical economics,” Steven Keen is quite happy to make comments like, “In a neoclassical capitalist system [in this scenario] the workers lose out because their only source of income is wages.” However, when he goes on to say, “If there is no need for wages anymore, you don’t have an income anymore,” but “in a well-functioning human society, that wouldn’t be a problem.” In this he is contracting his own point that welfare-dependency is a self-defeating solution to current economic problems.

From the full text of this interview, we know that he is still an opponent of tariffs as a way of achieving balance within an economy, and still hankers after the socialist ideal of a world without artificial borders.

In this area, this site is closer to Donald Trump on the need for tariffs supporting national objectives. Nationalism is deeply rooted in human psychology (beginning with a mother’s care for her child). This cannot be claimed for internationalist objectives of Ricardo’s Free Trade ideology or Marxist ideology. While Keen sees the future as being “post capitalist,” I see the future being in capitalism being brought (again) under the control of national parliamentary democracy, thus reflecting the needs and interests of the people.

I am confident that Steven Keen would agree with me in the proposition that an objective of the political system should be to deliver a result that is in the interests of ordinary people (the top 1%ers are quite able to look after themselves). I am not so sure he would agree with me in seeing a nationalist capitalist system as the basis of that model. Time will tell on that point.

I promote Democratic Capitalism because I believe it will serve the majority of people quite well. Indeed, the current trend is in support of the principles of Democratic Capitalism. As evidence for this, I can cite Theresa May in the UK (“Democracy that works for everyone”), and Donald Trump in the USA (“Make America great again”).

EU Tariffs on UK goods are not scary

After BrExit, the EU and UK could impose complementary tariffs on each other’s exports at a non-discriminatory level, say 10%. EU tariffs, and balancing UK tariffs would help, not hurt, the macro-economics of both.

EU Tariffs in UK Trade

Both the EU and the UK economies are unbalanced. Some parts of these economies are going very well, but other parts are struggling. Trade is the main cause of this imbalance. Reducing trade makes it more likely that a national government could regain control of its own economy.

The continuing pressure to reduce comparative costs means that there is a growing trend for more concentration of manufacturing activity. This results in some parts of the each region booming, but other parts are left destitute. Yet “Cheaper prices for everything” is a mantra, not a complete policy. This is because it results in widespread and irreparable unemployment. It is only half a policy. A complete policy would attempt to balance employment and prices over time. 100 years of unemployment, as happened as a result of the Enclosure Movement, is not acceptable in a democracy, nor is it acceptable to most clear thinking adults.

Agricultural Subsidies cause hurt

The EU is infamous for its agricultural subsidies. These reduce the prices of agricultural goods, but make farmers dependent upon government handouts, and therefore on the tax contributions of other taxpayers. It also is in flagrant breach of the spirit of the WTO rules on trade.

If the UK did not grant its own agricultural producers EU-style subsidies, the UK could help its own farmers by introducing tariffs on all imported agricultural goods from every other nation.

In addition, if the EU continues with their agricultural subsidies, the UK would be entitled to invoke anti-dumping penalties. With that prospect hanging over their heads, the EU may be prepared to consider allowing discriminatory tariffs to be imposed on EU exports of agricultural goods into the UK, over-and-above the tariff on agricultural goods from other nations.

Tariffs are better than Quotas

Quotas can have a place in food production since it is natural objective of every nation to maintain a large measure of self-sufficiency in food for cultural and defence reasons. Yet tariffs are more economically efficient than quotas. This is because they allow the market to establish a close-to-optimal division of labour between economic sectors.

Quotas are not economically efficient. They can result in much higher prices of now-scarce goods, even leading to a doubling of prices. They can also result in super-profits for importers who have a licence to import up to the quota level, since they are now dealing in scarce goods.


Jeremy Corbyn – Labour leadership

Jeremy Corbyn resoundingly won the vote of party members, holding onto parliamentary leadership of the Labour Party.

Most Labour MPs are unhappy with the decision, believing that it will be electoral poison. Some are looking for support via the unions to change the way the parliamentary leader is elected. For them, Corbyn’s re-election was a disaster; for those who like Corbyn’s socialism it was a great victory.

How can a party so fundamentally divided really work. On the one side, British Labour is dominated by members who hate profit and want to socialize everything, led by Jeremy Corbyn. On the other side, most British Labour MPs recognize that we live in a capitalist economy, with this concept being accepted by the majority of voters.

It is time for a new party in the UK that overtly recognizes the role of capitalism in generating new wealth, and also recognizes that only democratic forces will result in this new wealth being more equitably distributed. This is the true central position, and the argument for an “equitable distribution” a basis for a full-throated contest with the Conservatives.

Democratic Capitalism, not socialism, is the way forward for the UK. It is not the “Free Trade Capitalism” of the Conservatives.

Democratic Capitalism

The economic model of Democratic Capitalism recognizes that capitalism is the engine for economic development. It will deliver economic benefits that neither socialism (of the Sanders and Corbyn type) nor communism (of the Venezuelan and Cuban type) is able to deliver. Yet the 21st century has shown that capitalism needs controls, exercised via democratic processes, to ensure that it serves everyone, not just those in control of capital.

It is time that we clearly recognized the two most important economic drivers in a modern economy, Democracy and Capitalism, and stopped toying with dysfunctional alternative models, like that one presented by Jeremy Corbyn and supported by a majority of Labour members. It is quite unlikely that Corbyn’s model will be supported by a majority of UK voters, unless Theresa May badly drops the ball (which seems unlikely).