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Introduction This chapter builds on the basic arguments of the two previous chapters. Money is an inherently imperfect and shifting measure of value. It is endogenous to capitalism but this is not equivalent to seeing it as ‘non-state’, because the state itself needs to be conceived as within, not without, the capitalist system as a whole. Institutional forms change how money works, and the actions of these institutions, particularly of states, matter in the sense of making a real difference not only to monetary forms but to accumulation. The next section
‘socialism’ has become extremely flexible and it is possible to incorporate elements of Keynes’s thought under such an umbrella. But overall this is misleading. While there are undoubtedly radical aspects to his thought, Keynes is better understood as a pro-capitalist, not a socialist thinker. As the fourth and final section continues, Keynes brings in the state, but in a quite consistently liberal way in that he still conceives the requisite level of state intervention as being minimal, albeit while raising the bar. Keynes is right to point out that states do act, and
Republic of Korea (South Korea), Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia – namely, fragile bank-dominated financial systems, poor prudential surveillance and weak central bank regulation and supervision of commercial banks, a large build-up of non-performing loans due in part to excessive lending to inefficient, over-leveraged state enterprises, and a largely state-owned financial sector that may be almost insolvent – led many observers to conclude that the contagion’s virulent spread to China was imminent. However, the Middle Kingdom beat the odds. Although the Asian flu affected
public policy debate has been about whether the state should continue to deliver many of these foundational services. This is an important debate because, as we will argue, privatisation and outsourcing of foundational services is damaging. But we have lost sight of the fundamental 2 Foundational economy issue about the unique value of foundational consumption and how it is not guaranteed by high or rising individual incomes. This last point was very clearly understood by earlier generations of socialists and liberal collectivists. For R.H. Tawney in 1931, piped
Keynes’s insights. The third section argues, following the discussion of the previous chapter , that Keynes’s insights into liquidity preference and state power can be better reinterpreted as second-order effects, grounded in a classical/Marxist view of profits as the basis of interest but acknowledging questions of institutional power within finance, in the state and inter-state relations, from which both Marx and Keynes abstract. So reinterpreted, Keynes’s insight allows progress beyond the classics’ generalisations particularly in terms of understanding interest
necessity of some further regulation of the individual’s liberty to do as he pleases, he can plead no right against this regulation. (T.H. Green, Lectures on the principles of Political Obligation (Green 1895/1941, pp. 147–8) What does it mean to be a citizen and how should we determine the duties of citizens and the rights that citizens have to The constitution of the foundational 87 foundational goods and services? In this chapter our argument turns to issues of moral economy, political philosophy and the principled basis of state action in the foundational sphere
inevitably have significant positive consequences for the sustainability of Greek debt. However, debt held by fellow member states could not be restructured, according to international practice. By postponing the restructuring, therefore, Greece was exchanging debt that could be cut with debt that could not be cut. The day after this interview, the Prime Minister’s ‘displeasure’ was leaked from his office. The government felt that this public intervention on the part of a previous Prime Minister had come ‘at the most inopportune moment’, and the Minister of Finance stated
, ideas and political battles of Thatcherism, the Treasury proved crucial to bringing actual, practical change. But at the same time, much of this change came to be directed by the Exchequer's own imperatives. The institution was more focused on asserting control over government departments and public expenditure and on forcing state withdrawal from national economic management of all kinds. This started with destroying older visions, alliances and practices rather than offering coherent alternatives. There was no grand economic vision of what would come next
This chapter looks at the opening up of communications markets to privately owned companies (known as liberalisation) and the privatisation of state-owned monopoly telecommunications companies that brought large-scale investment into Africa to create mobile voice networks. This was both a political and a legal challenge. What follows describes how market liberalisation and privatisation pitted the inefficient state telecoms behemoths against new mobile market challengers, with the latter introducing innovations like pre-paid calling. It
create and distribute money. Controlling the money supply There is some recognition of these problems among policy makers, and, as such, the state does attempt to exert some control over the money-creation process. However, the three policies they traditionally use are ineffective at controlling private credit creation and allocation in any meaningful way. I will outline the issues here. Those who want a more detailed account should refer to the more scholarly and expert work of system critics like Pettifor, Ryan-Collins et al