8 September 2010
Tony Blair and the laws of economics
Did Tony believe economic theory was on a level with gravitational theory?
I happened to hear Anthony Seldon (Blair's biographer) talking about that biography on the BBC over the weekend, and - apart from saying you learned nothing new from it - he listed three things in particular which the book should have shed some light on, but didn't.
1. Why did Blair join the Labour Party?
2. Why did his decade in power achieve so little? OK, peace in Northern Ireland and devolution to Scotland and Wales, plus the banking bubble - but what else?
3. Why has there been such a slump, in mood and economics, since he stepped down?
They are the key questions and they all speak to the real mystery about Blair: why did so little change?
What seems to me to be most frustrating about the Blair and Brown years (for all their rivalry, there wasn’t a great deal to distinguish their policies apart) is their failure to confront the issues. There was a reluctance to tackle economic causes head on. At the time, it seemed more like miserable supplication to the most powerful forces on the planet.
But there is a kind of explanation. Blair implied strongly that he is among those people who believe that the forces of economics are in fact immutable laws, laid down with the laws of physics at the start of the universe.
We, as new economists, do not.
Of course there are some obvious contenders for immutable laws – you can’t pay yourself more than you earn, for example, though Keynes disputed that one.
There are clearly economic constraints that have to be respected. But the rules by which economics is run are not immutable. They tend to favour the wealthiest and the most powerful. They tend to corrode the well-being and wealth of the poorest. They are a constant and ever-ready danger to the planet.
They are not laws at all. Unfortunately, the Blair and Brown governments did not grasp that, or dared not grasp it. So they were wasted years and the years of real economic reform lie ahead of us.
Share this:
Connect with us
Recent blog posts
-
Back to the 90s?
16 May 2012
-
Into the Bank of England archives
1 May 2012
-
Making localism work for the new economics
30 April 2012
-
Mapping the global transition to a new economics
10 April 2012
-
The real meaning of allotments
26 March 2012
-
How Heathrow entrenches our economic problems
16 March 2012
-
Making the new economics mainstream in the USA
7 March 2012
-
Introducing defunct economics to the tipping point...
7 March 2012
-
A game changer for local economies
5 March 2012
-
To British business, drunk or sober
24 February 2012
Comments
08 Sep 2010 at 19:51
Will Davies
There may be a more general principle here. In my own research, and much other work on economists as policy-makers/advisors, it becomes clear that economists are far less guilty of reifications and exaggerations than the customers for their expertise. Economists are conscious of quite how much they assume in their models, how much uncertainty survives, whereas politicians are less interested in these things. Economists (like doctors and climate scientists) get paraded into various public, legal and political arenas in order to give an 'answer' or a 'testimony', and the audience is rarely interested in ambiguity. However, economists are not free of guilt here. On the rare occasions that they go in search of advice from rival human sciences (as happens at the moment with behavioural economics and neuroeconomics), they expect psychologists and neurologists to supply them cast iron laws on a plate, as if the secrets of behaviour and of the brain were like laws of gravity. I guess it's a feature of intellectual tourism more generally.08 Sep 2010 at 19:52
Will Davies
There may be a more general principle here. In my own research, and much other work on economists as policy-makers/advisors, it becomes clear that economists are far less guilty of reifications and exaggerations than the customers for their expertise. Economists are conscious of quite how much they assume in their models, how much uncertainty survives, whereas politicians are less interested in these things. Economists (like doctors and climate scientists) get paraded into various public, legal and political arenas in order to give an 'answer' or a 'testimony', and the audience is rarely interested in ambiguity. However, economists are not free of guilt here. On the rare occasions that they go in search of advice from rival human sciences (as happens at the moment with behavioural economics and neuroeconomics), they expect psychologists and neurologists to supply them cast iron laws on a plate, as if the secrets of behaviour and of the brain were like laws of gravity. I guess it's a feature of intellectual tourism more generally.08 Sep 2010 at 19:53
Will Davies
There may be a more general principle here. In my own research, and much other work on economists as policy-makers/advisors, it becomes clear that economists are far less guilty of reifications and exaggerations than the customers for their expertise. Economists are conscious of quite how much they assume in their models, how much uncertainty survives, whereas politicians are less interested in these things. Economists (like doctors and climate scientists) get paraded into various public, legal and political arenas in order to give an 'answer' or a 'testimony', and the audience is rarely interested in ambiguity. However, economists are not free of guilt here. On the rare occasions that they go in search of advice from rival human sciences (as happens at the moment with behavioural economics and neuroeconomics), they expect psychologists and neurologists to supply them cast iron laws on a plate, as if the secrets of behaviour and of the brain were like laws of gravity. I guess it's a feature of intellectual tourism more generally.03 Mar 2011 at 20:03
juffennarcefs
Hello. And Bye.