Countering left-wing ideology

Slí Eile: It may have come to the attention of readers of this blog-site that contributors are ideologically of the left espousing solutions and advancing analysis which are not typical of the mainstream of economic and political analysis. In the interests of balance it is proposed to gather up some assertions, platitudes, assumptions and banalities in this particular contribution. Here goes:
‘We are where we are’
‘the worst is nearly over’
‘we can bounce back especially when we have been bounced into it’
‘we are all in this together’
‘we all were responsible – over-spending, two cars, credit cards, mortgages. We should all be ashamed of ourselves’
‘folks on the dole need an incentive to go out to work’
‘we would not start from here but we will not undo it either’
‘sure we would have done it ourselves if given the opportunity. Don’t be hard on anyone who got it wrong’
‘We are not Greece’
‘We are not Portugal’
‘We’ll get through this’
‘don’t mention emigration’
‘there will be pain for everyone’
‘Love the bondholders and turn the other cheek. They will love us for 6% per annum’
‘all our elderly uncles and creditors abroad said that we are good and responsible children in reducing the Irish economy to its knees. Salvation is only through austerity and all economic history proves this. Let the history of the pre-celtic 1980’s and the post Tiger 2008- be written this way’
‘never mind Krugman, Stiglitz, Blanchflower, the FT, WSJ, Guardian, der Spiegel – they don’t understand Ireland’
‘deflate and trust in expansionary fiscal contraction. Its all about trust’
‘the evidence fits the theory and theory is ideology-free’
‘its awful but we have no choice’
‘beggars cannot chose or negotiate’
‘a plan is a set of targets, soundbites and aspirations’
‘a strategy is based on tough choices’
‘ the tougher the decision, the greater the pain the more impact on market sentiment’
‘the pain should be shared equally so that someone on the bread line experiences the same quantum of pain as someone on an income of €200,000’
‘if corporate tax rates are increased foreign direct investment will flee. Loads of anecdotes and threats by various people confirm this’
‘growth will be 3% per annum because exports will grow by 5% because wages and other costs are cut and because the world will grow because….’
‘there is no relationship between GDP growth and domestic fiscal policy and if there is it doesn’t matter anyway’
‘if growth drops cut spending more and keep cutting spending until growth stops dropping’ (get it!).
‘all economists believe that austerity is the only way to recovery. Anyone who says otherwise is not patriotic and is not a qualified economist – they couldn’t be …’
‘compassion, fairness and equality are fine sentiments. Economics is a hard science and life is tough and in a small open economy you don’t have many choices. We can do all the moral and touchy-feely stuff after we get the country back to working order again = 3% deficit and debt/GDP = 60%’
‘leave moralising to feminists, liberation theologians and lefties – economics is for rational solutions trusting in markets and governments who know who to impress markets’
‘public expenditure was out of control’
‘for every 5 Euro spent we are collecting 3 Euro. So cut back from 5 to 3 Euro. Its as simple as book keeping’
‘an economy is just like a household – a cut in spending equals a saving of the same magnitude’
‘social welfare and public sector pay are the highest in the world (well almost)’
‘there are thousands of public service workers falling over each other’
‘public service pensions should be aligned with private sector pensions after the share market collapse. Likewise, public sector workers should be levelled down to the private sector level and all workers should be competing with workers in the Bric countries’
‘we were losing competitiveness largely because of high pay’
‘going forward we can restore order – repeat order – to the public finances repeat by cutting spending’
‘every empirical study demonstrates that cutting expenditure is more effective than raising taxes’
‘last time (1980s) we raised taxes too much. This time we’ll do it right according to a ratio of 2:1 cuts/tax hikes’
‘changing or reforming the tax code is terribly complex. Take your time. Set up commissions and taskforces. Delay, delay. Don’t do anything radical – especially in regard to capital taxes or corporate taxes – it might frighten the horses.’
‘the multiplier is terribly low in Ireland due to high import propensity. Fiscal stimulus would not work, has not worked and will not work (except to recapitalise zombie banks’)
‘if you let a bank – even just one bank – fail you will lose all credibility’
‘the way to restore market confidence is through penitential exercises – flog harder and impress – flog harder still and impress and shock even more’
For a truly effective shock treatment on the market lasting more than one weekend wipe out all welfare.
Trust in the experts – they know about banking and complicated terms like derivatives, spreads, debt swaps etc.
‘lets all get together and form a national government and put the people and the country first’
‘form an advisory council with all the top brains in the country’ They will come up with the right answer – there being only one right answer.
Postscript
No matter how hard it gets – the ‘insiders’ will always walk away and stand to lose much less than those on the outside. Problem is that the insiders have the power and they get to write the history when future generations read it.

Time to grow up and be angry

James Wickham: Quite early in the crisis, Colm McCarthy remarked that ‘anger is not policy’ (Frontline 28 September 2009). As others have commented, this was a highly political comment. Claiming that a particular political position is not political is what old-fashioned Marxists used to call ideology. That itself is an old-fashioned term, but at least it doesn’t imply personal dishonesty or personal immorality, and it’s probably therefore still useful.

There are two problems with the “There’s no point in getting angry” argument. They both say a lot about the relationship between economics and political choices.

Firstly, and most obviously, in the context in which it was made the remark suggested that there was no point in trying to blame someone for the current crisis. Confronted by a disaster such as Ireland now experiences, you would have thought that most adults would want to know how we got here, and furthermore, who if anyone was responsible for it. If we declare such questions irrelevant, then we can’t reflect critically on the policies of the previous decades, we can’t ask questions about the quality of political leadership. Even if we buy the argument that the only solution to the crisis is competitive deflation (slash and burn), it hardly follows that the best people to do this is the same government and the same elite that got us into this mess. Yet ‘not getting angry’ had that implicit and highly political meaning in that particular socio-political context.

Secondly, and more interestingly, the remark raises the relationship between economics and moral values. Like many or probably most conventional economists, McCarthy would like his prescriptions to be taken as ‘value-neutral’ and disinterested. The problem is that ultimately most economic choices have consequences for people. Equally, the range of choices we discuss is itself bounded by moral choices.

One obvious economic solution to our current problems might well be to sell all Irish children as slaves on the global market. After all, there are estimated to be 27 million slaves in the world today and surely we should get a share of this lucrative market? McCarthy might produce a cost-benefit analysis that would conveniently suggest that this wouldn’t really be profitable after all. If we got a few Nobel Prize winners to challenge his calculations, he’d probably shift his ground. He’d end up saying that such a strategy was ‘immoral’. While most of us might well doubt his first economic argument, almost all of us would accept his moral argument.

It seems to me that such moral judgements are necessarily also emotional arguments: we feel that it’s wrong to sell children. And that feeling is valuable. Fortunately we’re not yet considering selling the children, though the government may well make cuts that will shorten some people’s life expectancy. Oddly enough, getting angry might help a more grown up discussion about economic choices.

In the meantime, I would suggest that all ‘objective commentators’ re-read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal...