A lot of bald assertion here. Such as about the EU. “It is the best solution we have to safeguard our fundamental rights” etc etc. Oh is it really? And why is that? Because of the ECHR? Because the Conservatives can’t repeal “the EU” like they can the HRA? The last point raises its own worries about the EU and just how good it is. Judging by this it seems to “fourth way” of social democracy is to rely on institutional inertia in the face of the collapse of the “third way”.

Arjun, what your post lacks is an account of why the “Third Way” explicitly rejected social democracy. (I suspect that if either of us could afford the requisite couple of million, Blair would tell us that it was because social democracy was unelectable after 1989 and will be forever more. But as we want to know why we can save ourselves the money.) Until you can give such an account, it’s hard to move forward.

I have consistently argued here that the failure is due to rwo separate (but maybe related) historical developments, one external to social democracy and one internal. The external factor is the degree of social solidarity that existed mid-century due to two world wars (and the betrayal of ordianry working people and their families by Lloyd George after the first one). This solidarity created the welfare state, permitted the nationalisation of (some of) the commanding heights of the economy, from coal mines to the Bank of England and built large amounts of social housing.

A generation later it had been replaced by individualism, prefigured by a conversation in my household. Me (sulky 15-year old): You wouldn’t want one if everybody had one. Dear Mama: Of course not.

The combination of individualism and structural unemployment, whether in Baltimore or a former mining village in Nottinghamshire, creates unending generations of drug abusers and dealers who have ceased even to want any other way of life.

We need to re-make the case for solidarity. Unfortunately, there are severe practical difficulties. As I noticed above, it has only ever successfully been made once, and nowadays military technology precludes conscription (one lesson of Vietnam that the American ruling class did learn). And we are faced with four or five readers of a right-wing paper for every reader of a left-wing one; and not because they are duped, either – if one thing can be guaranteed to shatter solidarity, it is multi-culturalism. I’ll confine myself to one example. White people with mild mental health problems often benefit from psychotherapy, a collaborative endeavour with a basically egalitarian ethic. People of Asian descent do better to find a guru – their culture is hierarchical rather than egalitarian. (I once described a doctor to an Asian ward sister as “only another human being” – a statement of the obvious to (white) me, but heard as a bullying racist remark and complained of as such.)

Perhaps there is a connection between a globalised nation and the collapse of political theory on the left. After all, Marx and Engels could happily make Eurocentric assumptions and pass them off as human universals… And perhaps too it is because what theory there is – from the likes of Peter Singer, for example – is as much an attack on the lifestyle of the average lower middle class Westerner – including LC contributors – as it is on plutocrats. After all, both our own physical health and the survival of Planet Earth require compulsory veganism. But LC has never carried an article on this subject AFAIK, let alone set an example by requiring veganism of its contributors. Being a real leftie in the 21st century is just too dam’ painful…

Social democracy with a strong reliance on a central state to act as detailed manager of welfare has become intellectually and politically moribund everywhere. The wider framework of a strong collective presence manging the macro-economy, offering local and personal support, choice and opportunity is alive and increasingly vigourous. A good starting point in the UK for this thinking is at http://socialliberal.net/ .

Dismantle The Third Way?

C’mon. No one took the Third Way seriously apart from Blair, his acolytes and the captive gurus, like Anthony Giddens.

I followed the debate in the press fairly closely after the launch of the Third Way in 1998 and the notion was panned in the heavyweight weeklies. For a start, it was never clear what Blair intended it to mean in terms of substantive policies even if its intended function was sure enough – which was to fill the ideological void remaining after Socialism and Social Democracy had been dumped on Blair’s road to power and glory.

There’s an old HMT trick of substituting the title of one political abstraction for another in position statements to see if the substitution makes much substantive difference. When it doesn’t . . ?

Try substituting “Milinarianism” for “Social Democracy”.

Don’t ask about the connotations of Milinarianism because those are no better defined in popular discourse than the connotations of Social Democracy are.

Sadly, IMO Thomas Hobbes had it right in the Leviathan (1660):

“For words are wise men’s counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever” [Leviathan Bk.1 Chp.4]
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-a.html#CHAPTERIV

A fruitful point of departure for used-to-be socialists is Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz on: Whither Socialism? (MIT Press 1996) – which has much to say about market failure.

“Our ideology is in need of an intellectual renaissance…[the] third way has now failed, with its intellectual foundation in tatters.”

Intellectually social democracy isn’t in crisis at all. If your goal is serving the total social good and you believe that the state [or state-supported micro/local social initatives] has a substantial role to play in this, while not wanting to do away with all private economy/democracy in favour of state control, then hey presto, you’re a social democrat.

Then it’s simply a practical question of how much of a substantial role the state has to play. The Third Way wasn’t an intellectual innovation, it was the assertion that pragmatically almost everything ought to be left to private, non-state means (PFI, private sector provision of health and education, intense relaxation about the rich getting richer).

There are lots arguments being advanced for state involvement to tackle the wrongs of the market: Oliver James’ ‘Affluenza;’ Nudge; Richard Wilkinson and the Spirit Level etc. If the unconstrained free market leads to unhappiness, inequality, ill health, social dischord and oh yes, it’s own recent collapse, then what other intellectual basis do we need?

Mike @ 2

The combination of individualism and structural unemployment, whether in Baltimore or a former mining village in Nottinghamshire, creates unending generations of drug abusers and dealers who have ceased even to want any other way of life.

The most ridiculous sentence, I thought, that I had ever read on LC.

Until I came to

But LC has never carried an article on this subject AFAIK, let alone set an example by requiring veganism of its contributors.

Nor cannibalism………

2. Mike Killingworth. Good point about social solidarity due to the wars. Someone said to me that the First World War did more to break down the class barriers than the Second. The fact that the very wealthy lived with the poor, went over the top together and died together, created a bond. An example would be H MacMillan’s respect for the miners after having served with them in trenches.

I would suggest it was individuals which gave us the Industrial Revolution, not the state. The Non-Conformists craftsmen who were not part of the Anglican Tory and Whig ruling class, provided most of the industrialists and engineers who created the Industrial Revolution.

[7] If you’re right, Charlie2, then solidarity should have been (in practice) more commonly found amongst men than women. I suspect you could argue that one either way…

This solidarity created the welfare state, permitted the nationalisation of (some of) the commanding heights of the economy, from coal mines to the Bank of England and built large amounts of social housing.

2. At that time it was widely believed that nationalised monopoly industries would be more efficient than private competing companies. Now that that belief has faded, so has the support for nationalised industries.

The lyrics of The Lambeth Walk in the musical of: Me and My Girl (1937) – with the reference there to “the Lambeth way and the Mayfair way” – don’t suggest to me that there was much inter-class bonding in the interwar years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oimHJCURbo

A persisting cause of acute social divisions was the huge differences in unemployment rates between the south of England and the midlands on the one hand and the north and south Wales on the other. See this webpage about “Unemployment between the wars” for summary accounts of controversies over policy which still have their echoes today:
http://www.historyshareforum.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=2056

The last débutantes were presented at Court in 1958 after Queen Elizabeth II abolished the ceremony:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9butante

To be honest I think that the things that the left, and therefore social democrats, will have to face are:

1) The deficit. Currently equal to about one quarter of government expenditure. Is there anyone on the left who wants to cut that? Because we are going to have to cut it.

2) The economy. Before the recession the non-financial private sector was shrinking. If the banks are no longer going to be paying the bills, who will?

What Dave Semple said + fact “social democrat” no defined in article so everything else just bluster and assertion, much of it dubious and some of it borderline inconsistent.

10. Bob b. it was the young men who served together and the women who worked on the factories who started the process of breaking down the class barriers.

The 1920 recession and the 1930s hit heavy industry yet in London many suburbs and factories producing electrical goods were constructed.

Mike, that was some pretty bizarre comment right there

(I once described a doctor to an Asian ward sister as “only another human being” – a statement of the obvious to (white) me, but heard as a bullying racist remark and complained of as such.)

Huh? How could this be racist? And I’d be surprised if anyone actually ruled that as racist.

We need to re-make the case for solidarity. Unfortunately, there are severe practical difficulties.

I agree. But it doesn’t need another world war for that to happen.

After all, both our own physical health and the survival of Planet Earth require compulsory veganism.

Despite being a veggie even I don’t believe that. But the cost of meat is indeed vastly subsidised. In the end we’ll have synthetically produced meat – which for me is a happy compromise.

ad:
1) The deficit.

See J M Keynes.

2) The economy.

We need to revitalise manufacturing again and stop spending so much on things like defence for a start.

“We need to revitalise manufacturing again and stop spending so much on things like defence for a start.”

It will be easier to back out of the wars and defence spending than to revitalise manufacturing in the face of competition in international markets from developing manufacturing industries in China, India and in eastern Europe.

According to this in The Economist, Britain is especially well-endowed with low-skilled young people compared with most other major European economies:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7843638

“One third of employers have to give their staff remedial lessons in basic English and maths, a survey suggests. Managers said staff needed to be able to use correct spelling and grammar and should be competent in simple mental arithmetic without a calculator. One in five employers said non-graduate recruits of all ages struggled with literacy or numeracy, the Confederation of British Industry poll found.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5263812.stm

This report dated August 2009 on the NEETs (not in education, employment or training) under 24 looks very inauspicious:
http://education.icnetwork.co.uk/national-student-news/2009/08/18/record-numbers-of-18-24-year-olds-not-in-education-or-work-111036-24468899/

“The statistics also show a surge in the numbers of 16-18-year-olds considered Neet. There are now 233,000 Neets in this age group, 13,000 more than the first quarter of 2009, when the figure stood at 220,000. In the second quarter of 2008, 209,000 16-18-year-olds were Neet, 24,000 fewer than the same quarter this year.”

15. Bob b . Very good points. Unless we greatly increase the technical education in this country, expanding manufacturing will be very difficult.

The author’s problem: “We need to force our parties to reconnect with them in order to distinguish themselves from the liberals”.

The author’s solution: “progressive social movements … being fervent promoters of equality legislation … ‘politically correct’ … fight for migrants, refugees … standing up for international human rights”.

Am I the only person who sees a disconnect between the problem and the putative solution? I would count myself as an amicus curiae on Liberal Conspiracy – an actual liberal rather than a believer in socialism (which, in fairness, is the true ideology of this site). But surely there is some role for socialist economics in any attempt to reconstruct old-line social democracy.

“We must never falter in our understanding that our future is international and the European Union is not simply an association of sovereign countries, but rather, the Union is our collective future. It is the best solution we have to safeguard our fundamental rights and to enshrine our social solidarity. The Union however, has to be reformed. Allowing the Union to legislate on economic areas, but not on political areas is counterintuitive. This bifurcation between economics and politics is a fallacy.”

I’ve long maintained that the UK (or perhaps England to be more precise) simply isn’t a social democratic country in the way that many European countries (and perhaps the Celtic fringes) are. And the idea that EU membership is the only way to preserve/impose social democracy upon England simply reinforces my UKIPness.

But then you already knew that.

Sunny:

“We need to revitalise manufacturing again”

I know this has been mentioned before here but you really do need to take a look at the economic statistics here. Yes, of course there’s been a slump in manufacturing over the last year or two: that tends to happen in recessions. But that aside manufacturing output is only a couple of percentage points off its all time high (without going and looking it up I think the peak was 2002/3 or so).

It is manufacturing employment which has fallen, not manufacturing itself. And this is normally thought of as a good thing. It’s the side effect of rising productivity in manufacturing: fewer people can produce more things.

I know this will surprise some but manufacturing output is at least double (again, from memory) and possibly treble what it was in the 1950s even as manufacturing employment is a fraction of what it once was.

This process has been going on everywhere by the way, it’s not something unique to the UK economy.

The other statistic is that manufacturing has shrunk as a portion of the economy: but that’s because services have grown faster.

The idea that we must “revitalise manufacturing” really rather depends upon the idea that the sector has shrunk over the years. Which, recession aside, simply isn’t true.

The best parallel is with agriculture. A century ago it employed 40/50% of the population (erm, maybe two centuries ago). Now it employs 2%. Agricultural output is hugely greater than it was though.

This is a good thing. It frees up labour to go and do all the other things we enjoy: libraries, the NHS, the internet, insurance, cars and so on.

Thank you for all your comments, in response, I have responded to some of the comments below; first, I just want to say that I find it surprising that everyone automatically made nationally-specific comments/observations rather than take an international or European approach.

In response to Dave Semple:

To be fairly bold and perhaps, a little controversial, I find it difficult to remember the last time a minority group, be they women, ethnic minorities, LGBT persons and so on, gained equality via the legislative branches of governance models. They were gained via the judicial branches of governance models.

The judicial branch of any governance system may be akin to a regulatory body with sufficient regulatory capacity to over see and over-rule, legislate or remove laws that they deem unfit with broader norms and ideals. The EU is such a regulatory body; it is not a state nor is it moving in that direction. For more on this, I recommend the following paper by Andrew Moravscik: ‘In Defence of the Democratic Deficit: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union’: http://www.ces.fas.harvard.edu/publications/docs/pdfs/Moravcsik92.pdf

The reliance therefore, on institutional inertia is not simply justified, but required.

–

In response to Mike Killingworth:

I first want to point out that the piece is not supposed be an analytical work, rather, it is a prose written on a strong belief I hold in the tenets of what is broadly termed as social democratic. When it comes to answering the ‘why’ therefore, it requires a work that is much longer and analytical. (Something on which I touch upon in my PhD work).

In addition, I vehemently disagree that multiculturalism ‘shatters solidarity’. Unfortunately, I cannot find a freely available an on-line version of this paper, but in a piece of work by Banting and Kymlicka ‘Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State’, where they argue that ‘multicultural policies are likely to sustain, rather than erode, national solidarity when (a) they contain a destigmatising dimension, (b) they are supplemented with nation-building policies and (c) they are integrated into a national narrative that is a source of collective pride. When these three conditions are in place, the effects of heterogeneity and recognition are unlikely to be corrosive’ (301).

The authors then illustrate that it is possible to connect the idea of nation building with multiculturalism, where it is seen, as in the example in their paper, ‘”un-Canadian” to oppose multiculturalism and affirming multiculturalism has become part of what it means to “be Canadian” and, more specifically, part of what it means to be a “good Canadian”‘ (301).

Therefore, in order to ensure effective multicultural policies in European countries, it is important to integrate the idea within the formation of European nation building.

Your assertion therefore that multiculturalism is a concept that shatters solidarity is, I would argue, an older way of thinking of social solidarity.

If the point is to re-create our societies and re-create social democracy, then it is important to remove the shackles of old ways of thinking and creating new policy conceptions based upon our social democratic values and ideas.

–

In response to David Moss:

To be conspicuously controversial, there are no longer distinctions between the public and private spheres.

Take the example of Microsoft. In 2000, the company made $9.4bn in net-profit and had, according to Moody’s On-line, a market capitalisation of roughly $310bn. This profit and capitalisation though, had very little to do with economic decisions concerning ‘productivity’ of the company’s workers or to the economics of producing software.

Instead, Microsoft’s profits were entirely dependent on intellectual property rights, on the state sanction that backed up these rights and on Microsoft’s ability to harness this state sanction for its own ends. Thus, it does not matter whether Microsoft spent billions of dollars to ‘invent’ its computer programmes; either way, the programmes take only a few pounds’ worth of CDs to reproduce, to the byte. The only barrier preventing this latter act is the law. Remove the state sanctioned law for such procreation and Microsoft’s profit and capitalisation would fall to zero. Microsoft may be a ‘knowledge company,’ whatever that means, but its profitability depends squarely and solely on the politics of knowledge.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that this symbiosis between private profit and state action makes Microsoft’s profitability depend on how well the latter is able to affect intellectual property rights. To the extent that Microsoft is able to affect intellectual property rights represents a capitalisation of the state and society at large.

For more on this, I recommend the paper by Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler: http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/1/

–

In response to ‘ad’:

I don’t know from where you got your numbers, but according to EuroStat (Last Accessed: 14 November 2009: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database), the current UK deficit is NOT equal to one quarter of GDP, rather, it is equal to only 7.1% of GDP, with the gross UK GDP being 55.5% (2008).

This is interesting, as EU Member States traditionally seen as ‘big spenders’ and being social democratic welfare states, actually have lower gross debt levels, Sweden (38.0%) and Finland (34.1%).

–

In response to Edward:

I accept your criticism whole-heartedly. I will agree that the piece does not point out the inadequacies of neo-liberal economics nor does it give any understanding, whatsoever, of what I would deem to be apt to a functioning society. I shall not attempt to rectify this grave miss-step on my part:

Based heavily on the work by Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, my analysis is steeped within the political economy of international finance and my starting point to understand the current economic crisis is based upon the concept of differential accumulation, which emphasises the power drive of dominant capital groups (in the UK defined as those companies listed on the FTSE 100) to “beat the average” and exceed the “normal rate of return”. In doing so, four regimes of differential accumulation are articulated; internal breadth via mergers and acquisitions, external breadth via green-field investment, internal depth via cost-cutting and external depth via stagflation. The inter-connected relationship between these regimes, as well as their larger societal impacts, are analysed in light of the current economic crisis.

From this, I draw five conclusions, (1) of the four regimes; mergers and acquisitions and stagflation are the most vital and tend to fluctuate contrariwise against each other. (2) Over a long period, mergers and acquisitions grow exponentially relative to green-field investment, contributing to the stagnating tendency of modern capitalism. (3) The wave-like pattern of mergers & acquisitions reflects the break-up of socio-economic “envelopes”, as dominant capital moves through successive mergers and acquisitions at various organisational levels. In this sense, the current economic environment is an integral facet of differential accumulation. (4) Stagflation compensates for the periodic lull in amalgamation. Stagflation, although appears as a crisis at the societal level, contributes significantly to differential accumulation at the disaggregate level.

The current stagflationary crisis shall be “resolved” when dominant capital breaks its existing envelope and pushes to continue mergers and acquisitions. Given however, there is nothing more to conquer beyond the global level, future stagflationary crises may prove more difficult to tame.

I hope, Edward, that this clarifies my position on the political economy of international finance from a social democratic perspective.

–

In the above response, I meant to say: ‘I shall NOW attempt to rectify this grave miss-step on my part…’

[19] Many thanks for your considered reply, Arjun. I don’t know if B & K’s paper is freely available on-line but on the basis of your comments I am not inclined to feel that it refutes my position. If (as I suspect) they are Canadian they are dealing with the unusual case of a capitalist society without a reserve army of labour. It is therefore necessary to attract labour and providing a welfare state (along with a refuge from persecution) is a good way to do so. Clearly none of that applies to Britain. Of course, as the US example shows, it is not the only way to do so.

Arjun, great respect to you for taking the time to respond.

@19:

On budget deficits, Eurostat as a data source is usually behind the times. According to The Economist (12 Nov), Britain’s budget deficit in 2009 is 14.5% of national GDP, which compares with 11.9% for the US:
http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14857253

In the Eurozone, Spain has the largest deficit relative to national GDP at 10.8%.

This is The Economist’s prescription for Deflating the State:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14505343

[23] Bob, that Economist article (I think you flatter it by calling it a “prescription”) simply shows how hard it will be to “deflate” the State. Noticing that there has been “producer capture” of almost half the extra money poured into the NHS, and identifying a couple of small universal benefits is hardly going to balance the books.

I made a (small) profit from my recent hospital stay – because I was fed and watered for free: surely “hotel” charges could be introduced for hospital in-patients? Charging £20 for each GP visit (refundable for those “passported” via housing benefit, or waived for the over-75s) would reduce the primary health care burden on the taxpayer by about a third. A democratically-elected government probably couldn’t make old age pensions means-tested in one go, but could do so for those born after 1945 (or 1950) thus “capping” the liability.

In education, the school leaving age could be reduced to 14 (reducing the cost of schooling to the taxpayer by a sixth).

Further savings may be obtainable by adopting a “caveat emptor” approach to all transactions, whether involving state agencies or purely in the private sector (in reality this would amount to the privatisation of the regulatory function).

I hasten to say that I don’t support any of these measures and it’s interesting that our economic liberal and libertarian contributors (or “The Economist”) don’t offer them either. But if you’re right, Bob, about the size of the problem, these are the sort ofmeasures which will be needed.

@24: Mike

I begin to understand why Gordon Brown finds the idea of the Tobin Tax attractive for its (hypothetical) capacity to generate revenue. To let you into a little secret, in another manifestation more than 20 years back, it was suggested to me that I might write advocacy papers and push for a Tobin Tax. After a short look into it, I said it wasn’t a good idea because: (a) countries competing for lucrative financial services markets probably wouldn’t follow suit, (b) the costs of administration and ensuring compliance. Finance markets are very adaptable.The City benefited from the burgeoning Euro-Dollar markets in the 1960s and after which had developed originally in response to regulations introduced by the Kennedy/Johnson administrations to curb interest payments to foreign holders of Dollar balances. Good intentions can have unintended consequences.

While Cameron has promised to ringfence spending on the NHS if elected to government, by reports the government is already aiming for annual savings of £20 billion in the present NHS annual budget of c. £104 billion – which implies quite steep cuts:

“The NHS may need to cut its workforce by about 10 per cent — the equivalent of 137,000 staff — to help to meet planned savings of £20 billion, according to a leaked Department of Health report.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6818817.ece

I feel pretty sure that there is scope for savings in the cost of Incapacity Benefit and in the many education Quangoes. Three years back, Blair was on about weaning a million off IB out of the total of 2.4 million recipients. As for Quangoes:

“Hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of cuts to UK education and training quangos have been proposed by the government’s chief skills guru, on the basis that ‘we’re going to have to do more with less’. Chris Humphries’ radical plans include mergers, re­moving government funding from organisations and subjecting every education quango to a regular check-up to see whether it is worth keeping.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/000ddef4-be62-11de-b4ab-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

Bob,

Humphries is trying to save his own skin since many impartial observers of the UK education sector would see his organisation and job right up at the top of the list of things to go after the already-doomed LSC.

UKCES really have achieved very little (although some of their subsidiary SSCs have done good stuff).

[25] Wake up, Bob. The government has already replaced Incapacity Benefit with Employment and Support Allowance. Early indications are that Blair’s target will easily be reached if not exceeded.

In response to Bob B [23]:

Thank you for your response. The reason I trust the information available on Eurostat is that they equivalise their numbers in order to allow for a comparative analysis as definitions of variables differ depending upon the country in question.

The numbers according to the Economist seem to have a base different than a base used by the ONS. According to this table from the ONS, excluding financial sector interventions, the UK budget debt as a percent of GDP would be roughly 10% less than it is now: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/psf1009.pdf

–

In response to Mike Killingworth [21]:

I have found an on-line version of the paper: http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/GSSW/schram/banting.pdf

Historically, Canada has always had a higher level of unemployment in comparison with other countries: http://laborsta.ilo.org/STP/guest (I’ve compiled a graph on Excel on the unemployment rates of Canada, UK, US and Sweden from 1971 – 2008 from ILO data, to ensure comparability; the data clearly show that Canada has had a higher unemployment rate from 1969 – 2008 in comparison to all the aforementioned countries except for 1975 and the period from 1985 – 1988, the US was higher in the former with the UK higher during the latter period). I’m happy to e-mail the graph to you.

–

In response to Edward [22]:

Thank you for your comment.

@27: “Wake up, Bob. The government has already replaced Incapacity Benefit with Employment and Support Allowance.”

A rose by any other name . . .

Some reflections relating to @26 and @28:

As mentioned before, the London borough in which I live regularly comes at or near the top of the annual league table for local education authorities (LEAs) for England based on the average attainment of candidates at local schools in the GCSE exams.

Contrary to popular myth, borough residents are not unusually affluent – official figures show the local distribution of income is close to the average for London – other boroughs, such as Kensington & Chelsea or Richmond, are far more affluent. The reason for the borough’s status in the schools league table is a local cluster of outstandingly good selective grammar schools for boys and girls. But the really interesting factor in the present context is that the borough is a relatively low spender on education. Excellence in schooling does not entail big spending.

As for the comparative size of Britain’s budget deficit, we’ll need to look for definitive comparable figures from the IMF or OECD. Meanwhile, try this interim report from the OECD (fig 3.1):
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/62/42421337.pdf

Data in The Economist matter because of the large and wide circulation of this weekly.

The live political issue is what should the government do about trimming Britain’s fiscal deficit.

Most agree that early spending cuts risks sending the economy into deeper recession before it has recovered. Most will also likely agree that there is evidence of much waste in public spending – successive reports of the HoC Public Accounts Committee and of the National Audit Office are good sources of information about wasteful spending. Most will likely agree that bad administration in procurement by the Ministry of Defence has been going on for decades.

A warning about jumping into charging for NHS healthcare is that it would be necessary to create new administrative systems to do this as existing NHS structures do not provide for charging – and btw those on state pensions are already supposed to inform the pension authorities if they go into hospital. Public spending on healthcare in Britain as a percentage of national GDP is still running lower than in several other west European countries.

Try the (incomparable) IFS on Britain’s Fiscal Squeeze: The Choices Ahead:
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn87.pdf

[28] Thanks. I’ll try to make time to read it.

[29] The best estimate is that the E&SA will achieve a greater reduction in claimant numbers than the one you thought appropriate.

AMERICANS GETTING ORGANIZED!

A majority of Americans agreed with President Obama in 2008, that the interests of the community are more important than are the interests of the individual. As a result, a new union organizing movement has begun, creating the Community Voters Union (CVU).
Using the popular Card Check Program, community organizers forming the CVU will bring voters into a union, simplifying their community life. When 1% of people in a region sign the CVU card checks given them at shopping malls, places of employment as well as door-to-door, the CVU will officially form. They will be responsible for voting the interests of the community. Voters need never go to the polls again. Union leaders voting the community’s interests block big-money right wing attempts to sway voters. Dues from each voter will pay the costs of this welcomed voter service. The Community Union Councils gather periodically to decide who will hold elected offices as well as new legislation and enforcement procedures. The voters in community will never again have to worry about making those choices. The President encourages voters to take advantage of the CVU so the voting process is more orderly and predictable. Because of his enormous popularity, people are rushing to obtain voting cards to sign up. CVU will usher into American Politics a glorious new day of certainty and peace in voting. Right-wing extremist critics claim the first card checks will have only names from the graveyards to establish CVU supremacy. They claim CVU is patterned after the USSR soviets, regional community voting blocs that transmit community interests to one central presidium or parliament. They are partially correct, in that the American Congress will be changed to a parliament and the Constitution set aside as a historical document only. However, only community interests are important, which assigns to the CVU the control over what was once called “private property” and bank accounts in each of the regions they control. This will assure Americans that the wealth will be spread around, as the President was so well credited in his campaign. There will no longer be term limits assigned to the office of President, only that he receives a periodic vote of confidence from the CVU. Succession falls to the choice of the President when the need arises. This, most Americans agree, is how an orderly government works. For thousands of years, orderly government rested with a sovereign, a chief of state, where family members were trained to take the reins when the need arose, so we can look to having one of Obama’s daughters rise to that leadership position. (Is this really an absurdity? claysamerica.com)

[30] I am far from convinced. Regression analysis is extremely tricky (how can you be sure that your proxies are doing all and only what you want them to do?) and the inclusion of “exceptional” non-European states in my view significantly weakens the whole exercise.

As for proposed public spending cuts, the News of the World contributes a valuable insight:

“There has been mounting speculation in recent months about the personal wealth of the leading figures in the Conservative Party. Interest has heightened after the Tories announced that they would implement an austerity budget, slashing public services, if elected to Government. Research carried out last year by the News of the World recorded 19 millionaires in the Shadow Cabinet, giving some indication of the level of wealth at the top of the Conservative Party. Here Times Money has updated the list.”
http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/11/10-wealthiest-tories.html