Skip to content

This from a Professor of Political Economy

First, capitalism is killing itself. Since, as a matter of fact, capitalism depends upon the existence of markets in which there are many participants, and the whole trend within our current economy is for there to be fewer and fewer meaningful participants, with the sole remaining companies servicing some sectors looking more and more like monopolists with the absolute power to abuse consumers for their own private gain, then capitalism is dying from within.

Jeebus. Capitalism and markets are not the same thing. There is no requirement for there to be markets in capitalism. We’ve actually got some rather fierce warnings about what happens with monopoly capitalism.

We also don’t require capitalism to have markets.

They’re just different things. And a Professor of Political Economy doesn’t grok this?

That expansion of the universities wasn’t a good idea, was it?

Second, in that case it is for the Tories to say what they going to do to regulate markets to ensure that they are effective when every current trend shows that markets are trying to destroy competition which is the only thing that neoclassical economic theory says makes them efficient.

The capitalists would destroy market competition in a heart beat. As would all too many socialists of course. It’s not the markets trying to destroy the competition, it’s the other lot, those people entirely orthogonal to markets and or competition’ existence.

Third, it is absurd to claim that either capitalism or socialism provides a single, simple answer to the future nature of the UK economy. The truth is that the free market is a myth: there is, quite simply no such thing, and nor can there be without effective regulation. And at the same time, there is absolutely no appetite in the UK for a socialist economy where the right of a person to undertake trade on their own account, or with others, is denied.

That last sentence has absolutely nothing at all to do with socialism of any form. It has to do with hte absence of markets an the entry of competition into them.

To put it in a nutshell then, Danny Finkelstein’s argument is nonsense

Rich considering the preceding, isn’t it?

17 thoughts on “This from a Professor of Political Economy”

  1. Ritchie today:

    http://www.t*xresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/05/21/duh/
    “Duh…. The peak is because the pound is fallen. These are wholly connected variables.”

    Duh, what kind of thicko doesn’t know that….

    http://www.t*xresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/07/11/time-for-a-cgt-hike-and-an-investment-income-surcharge-to-tackle-a-booming-stock-exchange/

    George says:
    July 11 2016 at 3:11 pm
    Richard,

    I suggest that there is a fourth reason for the rise in the FTSE 100 index; currency.

  2. The Meissen Bison

    The truth is that the free market is a myth: there is, quite simply no such thing, and nor can there be without effective regulation.

    Like a fine claret, this is a sentence whose complexity and predictable finish deserve to be savoured.

  3. Elsewhere on t*xresearch:

    The International Accounting Standards Board claims that its International Financial Reporting Standard will result in general-purpose financial statements of use to the public. Rarely has a more misleading claim been made. IFRS accounts are not general-purpose financial statements; there are tools designed to assist high-frequency stock market speculation. And since most of the public does not participate in that activity for the vast majority of users of financial statements the information provided by IFRS accounts is knowingly not fit for purpose.

    That’s right, folks. We’re going to facilitate high-frequency stock market speculation with a document that’s produced once a year, several weeks after the financial year-end.

    And City University pays this idiot?

  4. If gibberish is uttered by a Professor, is it still gibberish?

    ‘capitalism depends upon the existence of markets in which there are many participants’

    Wut?

    ‘The truth is that the free market is a myth: there is, quite simply no such thing, and nor can there be without effective regulation.’

    You can’t be free without government control. Orwellian.

  5. Actually the totally free market is, by definition of “free”, one *without* government regulation, whether that be effective or ineffective.

  6. “First, capitalism is killing itself.

    Second, in that case it is for the Tories to say what they going to do…”

    it’s just bonkers stuff. Mad non-sequential unconnected squawlings

    First dolphins are endangered

    Second, in that case it is for Spud to say what he is going to do

  7. From a post of his earlier this month

    ‘The number of companies per head of population has doubled this century.’

    By his own reckoning, we have twice as many companies in just 18yrs. How does that square with markets having less participants?

  8. Bloke in Costa Rica

    I have decided that calling Murphy a cunt is not apropos. After all, cunts are useful and if handled adroitly can bring much please to both handler and handlee. This does not describe Murphy.

    He’s more like an inflamed vermiform appendix: vestigial. serving no purpose anyone can discern, red, swollen and full of shit, and ideally removed surgically.

  9. “Admission free – all welcome”.

    He’s testing one of those economic principles. The one about unilmited demand for a free good. He is about to prove that wrong by his own definition of good but maybe not by everyone else’s.

  10. “That last sentence has absolutely nothing at all to do with socialism of any form.“

    “. . . absolutely nothing at all . . . “ ??

    I ask because instead I expected “ . . . fuck all . . .”

    Tim, seriously, illigitimii non carborundum.

  11. Since capitalism has apparently been killing itself since about the 1840’s, it’s not exactly been doing a very good job of it, has it?

  12. A couple of gems on the site this morning Tim – His posts about both the IFS report on the NHS (he effectively advocates removal of all Pension and ISA incentives) and how criticism of Peoples QE from the Tories means he is ‘doing something right’…

  13. ‘The truth is that the free market is a myth: there is, quite simply no such thing, and nor can there be without effective regulation.’

    Why does he fight so hard against that which doesn’t exist?

  14. And over at the Grun Georgie Boy has completely failed to understand what Limited Liability is, thinking it lets *employees* get off scott free for their actions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *