I was going to write about the True Finns today to report some research I am doing at present aimed at exposing how the “left” political parties have ceded legitimate progressive issues to fringe parties who then meld reasonably sensible economic issues with offensive social and cultural stances to create a popular but highly toxic political force. The True Finns who gained 19 odd per cent of the vote in the April 2011 national election exemplify this trend. The Euro crisis is accelerating the growth of the popularist political forces in Europe who are anti-Euro (pro-nationalist) and who will not (I suspect) tolerate the Euro elites impinging on national affairs and imposing a decade or more of enforced austerity. There are political movements/parties all over Europe now (for example, Vlaams Belang, Le Pen, Lega Nord etc) which fit this mould. It would be far better for the mainstream progressive parties around Europe to take the initiative and retake control of the policy debate on what should be bread-and-butter issues for the left. Sadly, these mainstream left parties have become totally co-opted by the neo-liberal agenda and speak the same economic voice as the conservatives. The problem then is that the public debate is distorted by untruths which further reinforce the malaise. A dose of truth is required in Europe.

A repeating narrative during this crisis is that fiscal austerity is required in order to satisfy the “markets”, that amorphous collective of bond traders, gamblers, speculators, crooks and whatever else. The regular threats coming from the ratings agencies (those crooks who lied to investors in order to make profits via cosy deals with the originators of the “assets”) reinforce the idea that markets are the “regulators” of good judgement. Economics students are taught that one of the imperatives of government is to deregulate in order to allow the market signals to be clear and strong so we can act in accordance with the “markets” judgement of prudence. It is a paradigm built on a myth. Markets fail and easily become corrupted and arenas where criminals dominate. The signals they send are also deeply flawed and should not be acted upon. One of the lessons of this crisis is that our agents – the governments we elect – have to make markets work for us not the other way around. When markets fail to establish benchmarks that we do not consider to be in our best interests then it is time to reform them.

As the economic crisis has dragged on and deepened, it has changed complexion. It clearly started out as a balance sheet crisis which means it originated from the excessive borrowing of the private sector driven by personal greed and an overzealous and often criminal financial sector. Hence the term GFC. It quickly moved into a real crisis (meaning it affected real GDP growth, employment and incomes) because governments around the world reacted too cautiously in terms of their fiscal intervention. However, it was clear that the fiscal responses that were introduced saved the world from another Depression. China’s fiscal intervention helped many nations including Australia. Now the crisis is all down to incompetent government policies – not before the crisis but now. Governments are now following strategies that defy the most basic principles of sound fiscal management – it is irresponsible to cut net public spending at at time when unemployment is rising. Or in other words, you don’t send more workers into the mine when the canaries start dying.

I am sitting typing this at the airport and the TV news screen in front of me is providing a profile of the new Italian Prime Minister and claiming he is well-equipped to rescue Italy. I read a similar argument in a Bloomberg Editorial this morning (November 16, 2011) – Technocrats Step In Where Political Leaders Fear to Tread. The rise of the economic technocrats is being hailed as a model to avoid complicating factors like worrying what the voters might think or want or do. We know best so shut up and take the medicine. There are two problems with this. First, it is undemocratic. Second, even if you are not worried about that, the technology these technocrats bring to bear is the same box of tricks that created the problem in the first place. Somehow they think if they just scorch these economies into submission, the market will finally start working again. Quite apart from their flawed technology, the reality is that the private sector will not be in a position for some years to drive growth strongly again on the back of a credit binge. Public deficits will have to persist. The very anathema of these economic technocrats. That is now emerging as the problem, quite apart from whether you think the people should get a say in who they elect.