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.

A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

So the Liberal Democrat conference is over. The leadership will no doubt be pleased that any signs of revolt over their propping up of the most reactionary government of modern times have receded. Of course we had the predictable attacks on the Tories and bankers by Vince Cable and Chris Huhne, but the Liberal Democrats are now the party of bankers and the Tories - the attacks being merely a few crumbs thrown to party activists to help them to sleep a little easier at night.

However, you can bet that Cable, Clegg and Huhne themselves sleep very comfortably at night. After all, they are now all government ministers on good salaries at a time of austerity. But their greatest satisfaction must be that they have successfully achieved what Blair and Brown also achieved with New Labour - a right wing coup which has taken their party from the centre to the right of politics. The Liberal Democrat Party, like the Labour Party before it, has now become a shell, a hollowed-out organisation dedicated to putting the leadership into power, another vehicle for the political class, rather than a democratic party for promoting the political aspirations of the membership, and for building a better society - see here.  It is now a truly neoliberal party. As we saw with New Labour, when a party is in power it is all too easy for the leadership to ignore the views of a party membership rendered docile by its party being in government.

In case you are wondering about the title of this post, it originates in one of the most famous soliloquies from Shakespeare, delivered by Macbeth on the discovery of his wife's death, and can be found here. I selected it, because for me, it perfectly describes Nick Clegg's conference speech. Because Nick Clegg is an idiot if he really believes that by slashing welfare, destroying the NHS and wrecking the economy with austerity that he is "doing the right thing", as he claimed in his speech. Even by the standards of neoliberal politicians this was a mendacious and dishonest speech, completely detached from the realities of the crisis of capitalism we are in. It offered no real understanding off the difficulties we face, no hope for the future and It contained the usual lies - Labour caused the deficit and the "economy must be run for ordinary people not big finance" being but two examples. What Clegg said was that his government was doing "not the easy thing but the right thing". He is wrong. What this government is doing by implementing an austerity programme is the easy thing and the wrong thing to do, and it will make our children poorer than us and our grandchildren poorer than our children.