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Chris, you can add the decline in natural capital to the list, surely?
Usually, you end these kinds of posts by citing the potential for worker-owned firms in a market economy. Are you less optimistic about this, now?
The final crisis of capitalism?
Are we seeing the final crisis (pdf) of capitalism? What I mean is that Marx envisaged that the end of capitalism would see four features, all of which are in place now. 1. The rate of profit would fall, reducing the motive to invest and producing slower growth and bigger recessions. Although ob...
Try again, Richard. The John Lewis Partnership does not *maximise* profit - for example, what incentive does the firm have to lower the wages of its employees (through outsourcing, offshoring, etc.) to increase the surplus when that surplus goes to the partners?
The point is that rewarding shareholders can act as a deadweight on productive and creative activities because their return is not capped - their liability is limited through incorporation, but not their share of the surplus.
the real problem with AC Grayling's New College
There is one important aspect of AC Grayling's New College that has been strangely ignored, which is a shame because it is arguably the most odious, whatever Terry Eagleton might say. The media has understandably focused on the fee of £18,000 a year, and the fact that this will turn education in...
Chris, could you give this petition by Co-operatives UK a plug - http://uk.coop/yourstoshare/petition.
What I wonder is, would a greater preponderance of co-operative firms result in lower corporate surpluses and thus, a reduced public spending deficit?
Don't tax the rich
The intelligent question posed by Saturday’s march is: what alternative is there to Osborne’s spending cuts? There’s one popular answer here that I’m not happy with - that we should tax the rich. UKUncut says: Rich corporations and individuals collectively get away with dodging £95bn every sing...
"The word 'values' always leaves me with the impression that what purports to be a moral concept is in fact an aesthetic one, namely taste, or perhaps even an economic one, namely preference."
Exactly. What's so depressing is that I find people are unable to escape this way of viewing both economics and politics...
the British culture wars
One unexpected effect of the financial crisis is that it has brought the culture wars to Britain. The legacy of the 1960s hangs heavily over the US, with a mass theo-political movement dedicated to attacking and undoing it, which emerged almost as soon as the decade was over. But where the US ha...
Harvey is more substantive in analytical terms, but Hutton does at least offer policy proposals despite his credulity as regards the possibility of changing the variety of capitalism - it's not only that short-term thinking defines political cycles, it is also that it is easier to concede to concentrated wealth in order to do good in the short-term.
the state we're still in
Will Hutton is the Matt Le Tissier of British economic policy, the possible future that everyone was too gutless to harness properly. How he is able to read about Germany's record growth, while Britain languishes with an economy still serving the whimsical demands of lazy speculative capital, wi...
I thought that the Marxian analysis of profit included the social surplus as a whole, requiring an evaluation of data that differed from the official statisticians was of measuring rates of profit?
The tendency for the rate of profit to rise
Remember Marx’s tendency for the rate of profit to fall? Well, today’s official figures show that it no longer exists. If anything, there’s been a tendency in recent decades for the rate of profit to rise. The numbers show that non-oil, non-financial companies’ net return on capital was 11% in Q...
Politically, Tristram Hunt isn't what you'd call a Blairite. He's more a traditional social democrat - recently appearing on This Week to discuss the financial crisis and the need for more co-operative forms of enterprise to replace the greed culture.
He's got a good grasp of the history of the labour movement and would probably aspire towards a cabinet post. Given he's from an academic rather than trade union background, it's not surprising he'd recieve backing of Mandelson, etc.
All CLPs will be wanting more local candidates, I suspect, but as he's on the shortlist for Stoke Central it will be up to members to decide if he's the right person to be the Labour candidate there.
Forget the election - need to study Machiavelli after more Labour selection gossip
.Why's historian Tristram Hunt m'Lord Mandelson's favourite for Stoke Central?......Mandy's backing Tristram for Stoke Central as a Miliband D supporter in the post-election Labour Party leadership election, I've just been told.....I really don't see how that's going to get past the Brownites.......
Like Kent Brockman, I prefer to call it "tax avoision".
Tax-dodger, moi?
You don’t have to be a non-dom to avoid paying income tax. Over the last 12 months, I’ve paid less than 10% tax and national insurance on my income. This isn’t because I’m a non-dom - I haven’t been abroad for 15 years - or because I have a fancy accountant. It’s simply because I made a big cont...
oops! that should be "we need *to get rid of* the anti-union laws"
politics against politics
It's strange that James Purnell could well rise in many people's esteem by leaving conventional front-line politics. Richard Reeves suggests on Twitter that he "is a loss to Westminster, but not to politics. Politics is changing and the idea of the 'politician' needs to change too." This may ver...
Increased state power is a necessity for increased power for 'the market' (in other words, capital relative to labour).
I'd argue that not only do we need more cooperative and mutual enterprise to empower people, but we also need the anti-union laws which tilt the legal balance in favour of employers and against the democratic organisations of working people.
Days gone by, Labour politicians might have had a background as a trade unionist and through involvement in Labour politics end up an MP. Now it looks like the reverse may be happening...
politics against politics
It's strange that James Purnell could well rise in many people's esteem by leaving conventional front-line politics. Richard Reeves suggests on Twitter that he "is a loss to Westminster, but not to politics. Politics is changing and the idea of the 'politician' needs to change too." This may ver...
Will, I think the fact that taxation has largely been increased for those on middle and low incomes rather than across the board has played a big role in people's attitudes to taxation.
And Bruce - "Blair gave way to Brown's grip on the treasury and we shifted from the politics of opportunity to the politics of envy once more."
WTF?
Stealth tax as a term has been used since 1999 when Labour shifted from the Tory spending plans it had committed to retain to its own, which involved increases in spending.
'Not in my name'
Writing about the Chilcott inquiry last month, Jonathan Freedland gave this insightful analysis of the Iraq War: Observers of the future will surely conclude that it was the Iraq war that broke the bond of trust between this government and the nation. True, Labour won the election of 2005, but i...
I wouldn't mind such a show. Cowell has said he wouldn't be in it, and so long as it had a pretty sober moderator rather than a panel of judges, it might actually be interesting - but, not as commercially successful as X-factor. seems more channel 4 / bbc2 territory.
more pop politics
One of the more entertaining features of the Christmas Number One battle has been to watch the facebook group develop into some JG Ballardian fantasy of a lower middle class up-rising. There are some marvellous discussions about how the government are now 'shitting themselves' at the potential o...
Great post, as ever, William.
I've just got round to beginning your book Reinventing the Firm. Very timely work.
one thing financial markets can't do: melodrama
Newspapers are suggesting that the government is stepping up a discrete campaign of vengeance on the City of London, albeit a primarily symbolic one. But there is nothing new in the notion that states and financial markets are locked in some sort of wrestling match. Bretton Woods saw the state p...
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