Apparently 'economics' means screwing the workers

Last week we heard that Vince Cable had decided to kowtow to his Tory masters and introduce a range of 'reforms' which are intended to make it easier to sack workers and 'create more jobs'. This is an ideological class-war driven attack on workers rights which follows hot on the heels of the recent lengthening of the period of no fault dismissal for workers from one year to two years, and apparently implements some parts of the discredited Beecroft Report, described as 'crap' by Coalition government insiders. It's important to point out that there is no evidence that these measures will create any more jobs - just evidence that the 1% are using the economic crisis that they caused as an opportunity to bash the workers. This is part and parcel of the well known 'Shock Doctrine' described by Naomi Klein, you create a crisis, then use it as cover to attack the living standards of the 99%.

Cable - screwing the workers

Now, these attacks are being followed by renewed calls for an end to national pay bargaining in the public sector. According to the Guardian '25 senior academic' economists have called for individually negotiated public sector contracts.  This is a blatant attack not only on employee rights but the trade union movement itself, and has been a Tory dream for decades. All the usual bogus arguments about 'labour market flexibility' and 'job creation' are predictably trotted out. What's crucial here is to understand that this is really 'free' market fundamentalist ideology dressed up as 'economics'. This is not about the economy it's about politics. The so-called economists who have dreamt up this stuff are capitalist economists  - the same blinkered individuals who promoted the ideas that caused the economic crisis in the first place and who see the solutions as more of the same or 'business as usual'. This is about screwing workers -  allegedly to make markets work better. It is not a science or an academic discipline but a belief system, and these economists are the high priests of the system, worshipping at the altar of the market.

These are the very same neoliberal 'free' market fanatics who believe in 'externalities' which is capitalist economic speak for explaining away the right of corporations to dump their costs free of charge onto communities and the environment, in the form of pollution and unemployment, causing health problems, hardship for millions, and massive environmental destruction. These are the same sort of people who believe that basics such as food can be traded as commodities - in short they are people without human values who should not be taken seriously and represent a danger to the well-being of millions. Their type of economic 'solutions' are responsible for death and destruction on a global scale, and, of course, they won't be the ones to suffer pays cuts and unemployment as a result of these proposals. They will remain safe in their cosy academic bubble while the rest of us get our standard of living cut still further.  

Of course economics doesn't have to be like this. There are economists who recognise that economics has a social dimension, and at its heart should be the well-being of people and communities, not abstract notions about money which favour corporations and the rich. For an excellent analysis of the ongoing destruction of the social contract in Europe by neoliberal economists, and its consequences, read this excellent article by the economist Ha-Joon Chang. At its root this debate is not about economics at all - it is really about values. The values of humanity, decency and pay equality for hardworking people doing the same job versus the anti-human, 'abstract', and immoral values of the 'free' market, and screwing the workers.

David Cameron's illiterate class war 'economics'

Once again David Cameron's chums in the capitalist class have seen an opportunity to kick the workers of the UK whilst they are down. Workers who have been subjected to pay freezes and pension cuts to pay for a crisis that was not of their making are to have their employment rights trashed to benefit those  'free' market fundamentalists who helped to cause  the crisis.

David Cameron: economically illiterate class warrior

In time-honoured fashion whenever a UK government has a 'problem' to solve they turn to a 'businessman' for ideas. And those ideas, which are habitually presented as being from someone who is 'dynamic' and 'innovative', always personally benefit the individual who came up with them, and people like him, at the expense of other people, usually workers. In this case, step forward Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist and Conservative Party donor, who thinks that fair compensation for loss of earnings at an employment tribunal, and reasonable notice of redundancy are hampering 'growth'. Even people inside government recognise that Beecroft is talking nonsense. See this quote from Garry Gibbon's blog about Beecroft's 15 page report:

"Government aide: “crap – supported by only one person in No. 10,” (Steve Hilton, allegedly)".

And Beecroft  is one of the people behind the company Wonga which provides small short term 'payday' loans at 4214% and have been described by campaigners as "legal loan sharks".

The Daily Telegraph claims this is a war on red tape, but then I guess that the pundits at the Telegraph think that any legislation which makes our society fairer and gives ordinary people decent protection at the expense of their chums in business has got to be a bad thing. I have no doubt that David Cameron's, and the Telegraph's lust for worker-bashing will only be satisfied when most of us are reduced to the abject penury and wage-slavery that they and their 'free' market fundamentalist buddies appear to think ought to be the lot of all UK workers - their own children and families excepted of course.

This is pretty pernicious stuff in itself but what makes it worse is that it is economically illiterate also. These kind of so-called 'structural' changes won't make one iota of improvement to UK growth, in fact, by making people poorer they are likely to reduce it. It was James Tobin the economist who came up with the financial transaction tax known as the Robin Hood Tax who said; "structural labour market policies can make only marginal improvements". 

Just as 'growth' and 'cutting red tape' are the fraudulent excuses for David Cameron waging class war on UK workers, now the government have shifted their excuses for our failing economy onto the Eurozone crisis. Before it was Labour government overspending that was the cause. So, one lie replaces another. Finally, one bit of good news today is that the Guardian now seems to have caught up with reality. Its well worth reading this editorial, and I'm quoting one of the key passages:

"At the heart of this calamitous [government] strategy is a wholesale misdiagnosis of how the market economy functions and a complete failure to understand why the financial crisis took place, the profundity of its impact and its implications for policy. For a generation, business and finance, cheered on by US neoconservatives and free market fundamentalists, have argued that the less capitalism is governed, regulated and shaped by the state, the better it works. Markets do everything best – managing business and systemic risk, innovating, investing, organising executive reward – without the intervention of the supposed dead hand of the state and without any acknowledgement of wider social obligations.

The lesson of the financial crisis is that this is complete hokum that serves the political and personal interests of the very rich."[my italics]

Really pleased to see that the Guardian has at last picked up on my "free market fundamentalist" tag. Someone must have been reading my blog :)