‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’ are the opening words of a poem by the celebrated poet Robert Frost. Whilst he was writing about his own personal life’s journey, they are words that could not be more appropriate to the situation that not just the UK, but the planet, finds itself in. The COVID-19 pandemic which has brought world economies to a standstill and threatens a deep recession is uppermost in our minds, particularly those people who have been directly affected by the disease or by loss of their employment. But those immediate threats, devastating enough as they are proving to be with no immediate solutions and a government anxious to get the economy going again regardless of the potential human consequences, are overshadowed by another peril. Climate change remains the biggest challenge of all, risking as it does the very survival of the planet’s ecosystems and by implication human existence.
Our daily routines have until now imposed a false sense of permanence. The illusion that despite the cyclical economic instability which capitalist societies are prone to, everything always, eventually, returns to ‘normal’. Even when normal has patently shifted. We have accepted this as part and parcel of how things are, even when it hurts people. But the severity of the pandemic is challenging that view. We are finding that in addition to the risky nature of life which COVID-19 has revealed, danger also comes from the fact that our economic system has been built on shaky ground indeed – one might say quicksand. The rolling death toll and the degradation of our public services is a daily reminder.
As the country moves towards a lifting of lockdown and a return to semi-normality, we are seeing more cars on the road, beaches crowded with day-trippers, people travelling hundreds of miles to visit beauty spots, the prospect of schools re-opening amidst huge controversy and airlines proposing to recommence flights, the question hangs in the air about what sort of future lies ahead. Whether we can indeed continue along the perilous path of growth we have been travelling along without some sort of future reckoning. And if not, what should our world look like?
COVID-19 and its associated threats have revealed in the starkest way possible that the economic system which prevailed for the last forty years and more has left the world unable to meet the challenges so cruelly posed by the pandemic. All as a result of a toxic neoliberal ideology which has left our public and social infrastructure in ruins, impoverished people as a direct consequence of a globalised world which has kept wages and living standards down and focused on the primacy of the individual over collective action. Politicians have listened to the so-called economic gurus and put their faith in a mystical market as if somehow it alone can direct the orchestra from the celestial podium. Letting it rip to find that non-existent perfect equilibrium by serving global corporations through legislative means, promoting the lie of trickle-down, and claiming that the public infrastructure depends on so-called ‘wealth creators’.
We have paid a heavy price and we are indeed at a fork in the road. Where we go from here is not clear. And yet the choices we make next will make all the difference.
Earlier this week, the President of the World Bank said that ‘the pandemic and shutdown of advanced economies could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty’. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the same week warned that Britain was facing a ‘severe recession the likes of which we haven’t seen’ which would cause severe damage to the UK’s economy. He also went back on earlier predictions of an ‘immediate bounce back’ as the lockdown was lifted and said that there would be more hardship to come.
This came as the Treasury confirmed that around eight million UK workers have now been furloughed and two million are expected to receive support from the government. The government’s spending has risen massively to support those affected and keep businesses ticking over until such time as a recovery is underway.
Although there has been some talk of more austerity to pay for this spending, even the most hawkish of commentators from neoliberal institutions like the Adam Smith Institute recognise that the last thing we need now is to worsen the prospect of a full-scale depression, even if those observations are still couched in household budget terms. Borrowing whilst interest rates are low or growing the economy to improve tax revenues are the oft-repeated caveats to that spending. Clearly, this is not closing the door to such false household budget narratives.
It is politically expedient to accept the need for spending to stop the economy from collapsing and causing infinite damage to the business infrastructure and profits much as the Labour government did in 2008 when it bailed out the banks. But in time, those narratives will likely be given a fresh breath of life at least in terms of continuing to deliver a political agenda.
It will likely bring the next instalment of austerity for public services and their employees’ wages and carrying on along the well-trodden path which favours corporations by delivering a legislative framework not just at national level but international level through the pursuit of free trade deals.
The state with its power of the public purse being used, not for the public purpose, but for quite a different estate – the corporations and a few wealthy elites. Indeed, this week the media, economists, politicians and political commentators have been priming the public for the acceptance of more austerity by reinforcing the message that governments have to borrow or that government has to collect money from tax revenue or other charges before it can spend.
Both the Huffington Post and the BBC ran articles this week discussing how governments pay for the government’s increase in spending through bond issuance. Peter Hitchens tweeted that Rishi Sunak’s furlough billions were just giant payday loan that the country will have to pay back with interest (at some future date). And Boris Johnson when challenged about the decision to continue charging health and care workers to use the NHS (before the decision to rescind the charge) suggested that the money was needed to run the NHS. Indeed, Captain Tom has been knighted for his work in raising money for the NHS as if the institution was a charity and not a publicly funded organisation which does not require tax or other contributions to fund it.
The narrative being reinforced in in the public’s mind is that at some time down the track it will all have to be paid for through more austerity or increased tax. It is worth repeating here that a sovereign currency-issuing government does not need to borrow in order to spend. Indeed, logically speaking how could it borrow money unless it had been spent by the government first? What looks like borrowing isn’t and bond issuance has quite another role. It is instead a smoke and mirrors exercise designed to give the appearance of borrowing and continue the narrative that governments are beholden to money lenders in private markets or that the markets call the tunes.
Dispelling the myths about how governments spend is a priority if we are to give ourselves half a chance to make a different and better world. As was indicated at the beginning of this blog COVID-19 and recession are just part of this picture. The talk about ‘getting back to normal’ overshadows the biggest threat that we still face – climate change and what our response should be. The false narrative of the burden of debt and paying it back will, if allowed to persist, persuade people that action to deal with any of those threats whether unemployment caused by a COVID-19 induced recession or climate change is unaffordable in the long term. That there is always a financial price to pay.
The reality is that the price will not be monetary, it will be in the lives of people who are unemployed, and a trashed planet not fit to live on. We will be rulers of a dead planet, poisoned by our own hand.
There is an alternative. It starts with knowing about how money works and being able to challenge the current narrative that success is to be judged by how well our politicians managed the public accounts.
Contrary to Mrs Thatcher’s oft-repeated slogan ‘there is no alternative’; there is one.
This is the moment to think about a permanent Job Guarantee to manage both the catastrophic effects of COVID-19 on people’s lives and the economy in terms of stabilising it through ending involuntary unemployment and facilitating the transition towards a green and sustainable world. So much potential but will our government act?
Maybe that time is coming; only time will tell. The political discourse has so far been dedicated to a return to normality, growth and rising GDP.
Fiona Harvey, the environment correspondent in the Guardian began an article this week with a stark warning:
‘Global leaders must heed the lessons of the financial crisis of 2008 when they look to repair the damage from the coronavirus pandemic, leading experts have warned, to avoid entrenching disastrous social, health and environmental inequalities and hastening climate breakdown.
The stakes are high.
Earlier this month the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment published its paper ‘Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change?’
In its introduction, it noted that the crisis had demonstrated that governments can intervene decisively once the scale of an emergency is clear and public support is present. It went on to say that:
‘The climate emergency is like the COVID-19 emergency, just in slow motion and much graver. Both involve market failures, externalities, international cooperation, complex science, questions of system resilience, political leadership, and action that hinges on public support. Decisive state interventions are also required to stabilise the climate, by tipping energy and industrial systems towards newer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper modes of production that become impossible to outcompete’
Its recommendations for contributing to achieving economic and climate goals were:
- clean physical infrastructure investment
- building efficiency retrofits
- investment in education and training to address immediate unemployment from COVID-19 and structural unemployment from decarbonisation, — natural capital investment for ecosystem resilience and regeneration
- clean R&D investment.
A state-run Job Guarantee implemented to serve both national and local community objectives offers the perfect vehicle to deliver a green-led recovery and reduce the inequality of past decades. Retrofitting existing buildings, creating cities which are cyclist and pedestrian-friendly, digging trenches for broadband connections, planting trees or putting in networks for charging electric-powered vehicles are just a few examples of the work that Job Guarantee participants could accomplish. Our imagination can determine the rest. Serving the public purpose must be the quest.
A Job Guarantee provides an immediate solution to the problem of rising unemployment to stabilise the economy, an opportunity for training the workforce and, out of the catastrophe of pandemic, also provides the perfect opportunity to start along the path towards a more equitable, greener and sustainable world.
We as a nation may also want to consider what sort of future we want in terms of public infrastructure to serve the public purpose. Do we want more state provision – a publicly provided and paid for infrastructure and employment to ensure that we can meet whatever the future holds? If the current situation is anything to go by, there are lessons to be learnt. Or do we prefer to continue as we are and move into a Mad Max dystopian type world where corporate profit is the guiding light and government is its servant?
Brian O’Callaghan, a co-author of the paper said that it was ‘this is the single biggest opportunity for the government to shape the future decade…’ which indeed it is.
Robert Frost ended his poem:
‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.’
Therein lies the challenge. Not directly a personal one in this case but one which involves us all. Do we continue as we are or choose another path for the sake of the future and those that will inherit it?
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