Self-interest is of course a human motivation, but not an exclusive one. Yet as an account of how capitalism really functions, that description is as false as it is repulsive. And, as commonly presented, how could it? Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall provided a symbolic demonstration of the triumph of the market economy over alternative economic systems, the dominant account of that success has claimed that greed is a prevailing human motivation that financial incentives drive behaviour and restrictions on the scope of profit and rent-seeking get in the way of overall prosperity. But the shift is also motivated by a recognition that the neoliberal project has failed to win over hearts and minds. Labour’s lurch leftward and the 2015 Liberal Democrat collapse have left the central ground open. There is an obvious element of opportunism here. After almost 40 years in which the phrase was banned from political discourse, industrial strategy is back in vogue. Energy prices are to be capped, and Theresa May has promised extended employment rights, regulation of the gig economy and new measures for worker representation. Twenty years after Tony Blair successfully staked his leadership on removing the commitment to public ownership from Labour’s constitution, and led his party to three successive election victories, Labour now wants to renationalise rail and water.īut the retreat from the economic liberalism of the years from 1980 to 2015 is most striking in the Conservative party manifesto.
It was, perhaps, predictable that high taxes on business and the rich would be central to the manifesto of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.
0 kommentar(er)
