" holy grail of flexible labour markets " ? Please elucidate. Go into great detail. Spare us none of the lash to be inflicted on the people for being poor and having nothing to sell but our labour. Don't be mealy-mouthed. Give it to us straight. I don't expect a response. Its a secret right ?
@Gordon Bradley Hello. In Germany flexible labour markets mean: Reducing state labor laws, for example, less protection against dismissal, temporary: temporary workers have fewer rights and are paid less .....than the normal employees. If you don´t know about the relation between workers and companies speak with normal workers.
Andi Jack Hello. That's exactly what " a flexible labour force " means everywhere. No rights ! No security! Dogs wages ! Bosses behaving like tyrants. Huge profits and bonuses on the backs of the peoples poverty and misery. They cannot stop until they have taken everything !
The "gig economy" sounds kind of sexy and free and entrepreneurial until you find out it's just a euphemism for per diem wage slavery with no security or benefits.
Pennington finds 'moral' arguments in the Thatcher government's adoption of Hayek? Does he know the difference between moral and moralising? Thatcher had the moral intelligence of an upwardly mobile middle Englander at a garden party.
There's an explanation for Hayek's ideas: he escaped Austria when his family was persecuted by the Nazis. Hayek tried to create a system that avoided the concentration of power on politician's hands - like happened in Germany. If that is a moral argument I really don't know. What is really strange is how, given the evidence, people still believe in neo-liberalism - a model as failed as communism.
Pennington's critique is essentially on the right track. The first speaker's contribution is yet another superficial analysis of "neoliberalism" that fails to distinguish adequately between the propositions of neoclassical economics and those of classical liberalism. For a clear analysis of the differences, see Norman Barry's "Welfare". It also over-emphasises the influence of "neoliberalism" on policy. This myth was debunked as long ago as 1985 by Taylor-Gooby's analysis of Thatcherism. In short, the state in liberal democracies is more intrusive now than it has ever been.
He is right in the sense that the real issue is not whether the state has a role in a capitalist economy and that it is not a matter of size. Capitalism without thale state would have never existed and would collapse . In reality ,it is a question of what does the state actually do , what is its perpusive function. Social democracy ( the old one moreso but also the more modern one that moved to the right) used the state to exclude spheres of the economy from commodification.( Health, education etc.Neoliberalism expanded this sphere of commodification to boost falling profits and facilitate new markets for capital. It moreover crushed organised labor and advocated for freeing the labor market, through this individualistic market idea of freedom. It was generally ,a move for marketization of society in a polanyian sense.Also ,in the case if finance , neolibralism meant more regulation ( more legislation, more complex one )but of the kind that facilitated speculation, risk taking and large profits ( analogous to risk taking). He is right in criticism of the author but he told us nothing about the devastating effects of those policies. Wage stagnation, productivity delinked from real wages, small anemic growth in the long run( especially compared with the post war era) , debt bubbles and inequality skyrocketing.
these are no "intellectuals" these are apologists for the rich. Apologists of 1) destruction of society, 2) destruction of state, 3) destruction of the planet. These are apologists for the destruction of everything people hold dear, all for a small fee.
In the end, marx is right about the fundamentals of capitalism but not on the solution of those fundamental contradictions. Socialism was historical a prophecy covered in dialectical mystification. The analysis of capitalism in its pure form was nonetheless monumental. Keynesian progressive and monetarist conservative solutions stumble across these fundamental contradictions highlighted by marx. From the one to the other, the system tries to perpetuate itself. In the absence of a real alternative, which is not in sight, we are condemned to see this pendulum go on forever.
the first guy is supposed to be a barrister, too. One I wouldn't hire; not yet, at least. Barristers need to be good performers, actors. Let's hope he gets better as he grows up..
that's interesting that Hayek considered everything inherently inefficient. but the problem is that the narrative it was best or most efficient under a neo-liberal regieme. it also smacks of similar notions that the soviet union wasn't real communism. if ideas transform in application to a disordered reading of their underlying ideology then claiming seperation or "innocence" is perhaps a childish defence.
Pennington is boringly typical of the standard academic response to ANYTHING: well, it's complicated. Academics are often crippled by their aversion to saying anything worthwhile or, worse, letting anyone else.
I thought Mark Pennington's position is a bit desperate not least because he decided to cherry pick his anecdotes from a comparison of the lesser market..london vs wall street. where there are numerous other markets in the world regulated in many different ways that were hit by contagion stemming from the US market which is hard to attribute to over or good regulation.
1:01:10 Globalization as a way to restore the profit share, suggests Skidelsky. Agreed. But I wonder why he never makes it explicit the huge role immigration has played in the scheme.
What is it with academics and their need for long, droning preambles describing their project as opposed to the actual content? Don't talk about the genealogy of your research and name-drop every last person you've read/worked with/studied under. Give us your thesis (original, if you can), support it, answer challenges, then sit down. Also, why the monotone? Why the complete lack of affect? Is the complete lack of personality an academic conceit meant to create the impression of detached objectivity? The only thing successfully detached is the audience's interest.
Pennington takes a much more strident tone, attacking Krugmanite ‘revisionism’ than Stanford Jones towards neoliberalism - defensive? The knife to the heart of 2008 must be blamed on something other to keep the faith.
