Now, I am well aware that this will not be a popular claim on my part, but I’m going to make it nonetheless because if we are to rethink economics in 2025, and how it can deliver for us all, one of the things that we have to do is give up our paranoia about the role of the state.
There is no economy without the state. Those who claim otherwise, and that capitalism is the answer to everything, and that the state is not, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. That’s because, without a state, there are no contracts, there is no enforceable law, there is no property right that can be defined, and therefore there is no claim to it, which is the whole basis on which capitalist thinking is based, and there is no market because there can be no money which is useful in exchange, and everything falls apart.
The Ur-economist actually lays it out. Peace, easy taxes and the tolerable administration of justice….
Sigh.
It makes a change from claiming a noun is a verb, I suppose.
Of course, the idea that normal people* could possibly manage to get along and make transactions between themselves without the iron fist of the state to make them play together nicely is never considered.
*Although I accept that as we have ‘progressed’ from a high trust to society to a low trust society, it is now more likely the state will be needed……..
There is no economy without the state…That’s because, without a state, there are no contracts, there is no enforceable law, there is no property right that can be defined,
That depends on the State. Try enforcing property, contract or copyrights outside of the West and – with a very few exceptions – see how it goes…
I do find it interesting- not going to kill the thread with a paragraph by paragraph fisking but this is one worth noting:
We have to, therefore, properly understand the role of politics and the role of the state in 2025. If we are to get the politics that we need to survive and do something more than that, which is to prosper, because we aren’t prospering now. But if we follow the ideas that I’m suggesting, we could, and we will.
Although Murphy’s penchant for argument meant he wasn’t included in the erstwhile authors of this book, it’s a good summary of the prescription in every area.
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526180766/
I am reading through this now and if I take the first chapter. It talks about UBI (universal basic income) as a replacement for the welfare state. The omission (and the chapter literally makes no mention of it) is any mention of immigration or whether immigrants are eligible for UBI. I know one of the authors and his response was ‘it will be limited to British citizens’ – because of course the public sector is notorious for genuflecting to those of White British origin
But in every scenario, the remedy is always the same
– Increased taxes and public spending
– Expansion of state power
– A greater role for Trade Unions/ ‘civil society’
To be frank I think any university commissioning anyone who thinks along the lines of Murphy or ‘Act Now’ needs to have its ability to award degrees rescinded. All Left wingers need to be purged from academia. The role of the state needs to be reduced hugely to that which existed in 1914. Anything else simply prolongs the agony and pain. And the likes of Murphy need to have anything that originates from the taxpayer, however filtered through ‘charities’ and other third sector bodies, removed. Let him do some honest work for a change, rather than spout nonsense on the readers of this blog’s dime.
Try enforcing your property rights against the State and see what property rights you actually have…
HS2 anyone?
TMB
Not wanting to take down the Xmas decorations I did notice that paragraph:
I’ve already discussed in a video, already produced this year, the difference between economics as a noun, which is a definition, and economics as a verb.
Economics as an action has become economics of the neoliberal market. And politics has gone the same way.
Economics as a noun talks about the study of how we achieve the better allocation of resources within our society so that the needs of everyone are met. We fail miserably to do that now.
In my schoolboy French lessons we’d frequently have to do declension of a verb (apologies if that’s the wrong term – by the 90s grammar was seldom taught outside Latin), so is it
I economic
you economic (s) ?
Is that the idea?
I know he is retired but the very fact that academia accepted such a person in any teaching role suggests there needs to be MAJOR retrenchment in the university sector. I am talking 30 or 40 institutions for starters,
V_P & TMB,
I asked ChatGPT about using economy as a verb, it makes interesting reading and points to the way Spud likes to torture the language:
So I then asked it about Spud’s framing:
And now we have seen Spud as the world’s greatest grammar guru in action.
Wonderful to see him denying the existence of the black economy. Considering it’s the only sector of your economy growing at the moment. And in respectable numbers too. It’s reckoned to be at developing nation growth rates, these days.
Those who claim otherwise, and that capitalism is the answer to everything, and that the state is not, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. That’s because, without a state, there are no contracts, there is no enforceable law, there is no property right that can be defined, and therefore there is no claim to it,
In the black economy, reputation supplants all that. And very successfully. And far less overheads.
Isn’t this just another straw man? I don’t know of anyone who advocates abolishing the state altogether. We just need a lot less of it and it needs to be a lot more accountable.
V_P & BiND
Perhaps even as we write he is working on expanding his œuvre by penning a Morphology of Political Economy?
” All Left wingers need to be purged from academia”
I have this idea that the Right should enact a similar trap to the Equality Act, which has been tripping up the Left’s opponents ever since it came in. I would suggest that a ‘Intellectual Equality Act’ be imposed on universities (as a start, I’d want to spread it across the State sector). The political proclivities of all the university staff would have to be in proportion to that of the country as a whole. Any university that failed to meet this criteria would have State funding and accreditation removed.
BiND
That’s tremendous. On AI as far as I am aware he thinks it should be subjected to total state control and may even at times advocate an outright ban to protect employment in the unionised public sector. However, I have no doubt freed of his academic position a post on it will arise later in the month, no doubt linking it to Musk, Trump , ‘Trolls’ , the ‘Far right’ and ‘Neoliberalism’….
To verbify “economics” you need to find a pattern in similar studying-subjects nouns, chemistry, physics, maths, geography. Nouns such as woodworking, cooking, sewing are already formed from a verb, so you de-nounify them to get the noun, but the others are naked nouns, with no verb in sight.
…by penning a Morphology of Political Economy?
Soz, Murphology, obvs.
It’s reckoned to be at developing nation growth rates, these days.
Of course. A third world economy for a third world nation. Shame everything still costs as much as Switzerland.
Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato.
Does he have a photo of Benito on his wall alongside Marx and Lenin? They’re all socialists together.
The mafia are pretty good at enforceable contracts, I’m told.
I don’t need a state to enforce my contracts. I have guns. A state just makes the paperwork oppressive.
Verbum meum pactum
No a state is not necessary to enforce contracts when one’s reputation is worth more than the cost of any contract.
Also the Maria Theresa dollar was acceptable (and more so than any local state’s currency) ten thousand miles away from Pressburg or Vienna, so he’s lying about that as well.
Property rights pre-date the formation of the first state “That’s my sheep/camel – leave it alone”
“ I don’t need a state to enforce my contracts. I have guns. A state just makes the paperwork oppressive.”
That’s fine until someone comes along with more and bigger guns than you to enforce their reading of the contract.
verbing the noun: economise!
I vaguely recall Ayn Rand mentioning one way of voluntary funding government expenditures was by adding a fee on to contracts and so said contacts would then be enforced by the state. No fee no state enforcement.
Not necessary. The commercial courts already cover their costs through court fees. Only the criminal courts require taxation subsidies.
Tim,
It wasn’t a method to raise income to cover the cost of the court but to fund the general expenditure of the government.
Oh, yes, I know. But now, today…..
Possibly a bit like Crassus and his firefighters.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighting_in_ancient_Rome
It occurs. You don’t even need people to have an economy, let alone a state. There’s plenty of examples of economies & trade in the natural world. Bees & flowers for a start. There’s a type of fungus lives under forest floors supplies nutrients to trees in exchange for what it needs. Inter-species trade in goods or services is actually quite common in nature. You – the cells in your body – are an example of an extremely complex economy. All multicellular lifeforms are economies in action.
Even at the cellular level there’s trade. In every cell there are mitochondria with totally different DNA from the cell assisting its function in exchange for nutrients & a place to live.