Answer: out towards the far right. Today’s blog adds to my previous posts where I consider so-called progressive interventions in the policy debate and show that they are really nothing more than attenuated forms of neo-liberalism. The evidence is that what goes for progressive input these days bears no resemblance to what we used to consider represented progressive thinking. The way the population has been inveigled into accepting policy positions and justification that are represented as “centrist” but are, in fact, what we used to call right-wing positions is one of the success stories of the neo-liberal era. The tendency of so-called progressive organisations to mimic the language and concepts of the right is one of the main constraints on advancing a solid attack on the conservative orthodoxy that created and perpetuated the crisis and which is setting nations up for a repeat in the coming years.

I read an interesting briefing yesterday (October 13, 2010) from the latest Morgan Stanley “Daily Downunder” report Money for Nothing. I cannot link to it because it is a subscription service. The briefing is notable because while it is thoroughly mainstream in its tack, it does present for the first time an awareness that the underlying national income distribution in favour of an ever increasing profit share is problematic and will not sustain a stable recovery. The report also clearly demonstrates that fiscal policy promoted real income growth over the last few years – the only source of private income growth – but this growth has been captured by profits without commensurate growth in employment. The argument resonates with earlier blogs that I have written and confirms two things: (a) the deficit terrorists who want to push for increasing fiscal austerity are dangerous and if successful will push the world economy back into recession; and (b) apart from sustaining the fiscal support for aggregate demand and private saving there needs to be a comprehensive redistribution of income towards the wage share. As a first step a major policy intervention focused on job creation will help achieve that desired redistribution. But more structural policy interventions are required to reverse the neo-liberal attack on the wage share. Once we realise that we have to reject the whole logic of neo-liberalism. That is the challenge – and the necessity – in the period ahead – if broadly shared prosperity is to return.

I am writing this on late Friday afternoon European time. Today has been very busy and so I don’t have a lot of time to write this blog. I had a birthday in my immediate family to deal with and so some special celebrations were in order. Then I had meetings with two government officials – one from the Flemish government and the other from the Dutch government – they travelled down to Maastricht for consultations. The topic was the Job Guarantee and how they could implement such a buffer stock employment scheme into their own policy thinking. I will write up some thoughts about this meeting next week. Then I had to wade through a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report – World of Work Report 2010 – which has estimated that high unemployment will persist for much longer than they had previously forecast. The talk is that the “product market” (real output) recession is now becoming an entrenched labour market recession. Meanwhile, I also read the latest IMF World Economic Outlook report and noticed they were advocating changes to macroeconomic policy positions across the advanced world that would by their own reckoning increase unemployment and prolong recovery. They are still appealing to the nonsensical idea that fiscal austerity is good for a nation. Their view now is nuanced but still a disgraceful mis-use of econometric modelling. So only a relatively short tour through this work today.

Today I am heading into the lands of austerity – those scorched, barren places where people with increasingly hollowed out faces are being forced by their misguided polities to forego wages and conditions and pensions and their happiness because some neo-liberal told them that government deficits were bad and all that. I am off to London this afternoon (I am typing this on the train to Sydney) and then to Maastricht University where visit each year and my colleague Joan Muysken is located. I have been thinking about various efforts that have emerged in the recent period suggesting that a new progressive agenda (narrative) is required to reverse the onslaught of neo-liberalism. This is clearly a topic close to my own heart. I have been thinking about the development of an alternative economic paradigm for my whole academic career. So whenever I see some progressive efforts I am always interested. This blog considers that question. So now a long flight then I will report on how hollow those faces are becoming.

The article by Fairfax economics editor Ross Gittins today (September 27, 2010) – How to limit the looming interest rate rises – is a testament to how ingrained the neo-liberal thinking is when it comes to discussing sensible economic policy. He argues that the Australian government needs to get back into budget surplus as quickly as possible and then continue to generate bigger and bigger surpluses and pay down all the outstanding public debt. Evidently this is because we are experiencing strong export conditions and face a dramatic inflationary threat. However, even if that is true (the boom and inflation threat) there are better ways to manage the adjustment process so that inflation remains stable especially when the private sector is still so heavily indebted (as a result of the last credit binge). The other policy options available to the Australian government clearly warrant continued budget deficits. The sticking point: Gittins and most other commentators think that when you have 13 per cent of your willing labour resources idle you are approaching full capacity. I consider that the fact that that proposition has currency is the ultimate evidence of the success of neo-liberalism in poisoning our judgement and distorting the policy debate and policy choices.

I read the headline in the UK Guardian from yesterday (September 15, 2010) – Unemployment claimant count rises unexpectedly which apparently confounded forecasts. The hopes for an export-led recovery as the expectations of the forthcoming public austerity damage private spending plans took a further hammering with the data release showing the “highest balance of trade deficit on record” in Britain and “surveys of the services and construction sectors showing employer sentiment deteriorating sharply”. Why is this surprising? The fact that the so-called analysts and the press are surprised only tells me that they do not understand the way the macroeconomic system works. When there are already severe aggregate demand constraints and the government announces that soon enough they will brutalise public spending what would you expect but a further decline in economic activity? When the rest of the world is easing the fiscal stimulus under the concerted attack by the deficit terrorists why would you expect the balance of payments to dramatically improve? None of this surprises me at all. It is exactly what an understanding of the monetary system would lead one to predict.The reality is that to lower unemployment you need to spend more. There are no surprises in that.

Yesterday, I indicated that I would provide some commentary on the latest Morgan Stanley briefing (August 25, 2010) – Sovereign Subjects – which received a lot of press coverage in the last few days and roused the interest of many of my readers. I cannot link to it as it is copyrighted. But the MS document is another example of how you can spread nonsense by ignoring the elephant that is sitting in the corner of the room. The MS briefing is essentially a self-aggrandising rant which perpetuates the standard neo-liberal myths and offers nothing new. I sincerely hope that the author’s company and all of their clients take his advice and lose significant amounts of their investment funds. The more losses are made in this respect the more quickly people will see through the cant that is served up by these clowns.

I often read articles that follow their own logic impeccably except they leave the main part of the story out. They ignore the elephant that is staring at them from the corner of the room. In doing so they avoid facing up to uncomfortable realities and just perpetuate the standard myths that characterise economic debate in this neo-liberal era. Some other articles build on this deception and just plain invent things to beguile their readers into thinking they have something important or valid to say. Tomorrow I will review the latest Morgan Stanley briefing (August 25, 2010) which is an example of the latter. But in general the conservative commentators exploit the fact that the general public do not what the debates are in economic theory and thus litter their proselytising with spurious claims while the elephant laughs away in the corner. It is almost comic book stuff except the standard of narrative in most comics is vastly superior to the trash is pumped out daily in the World’s press.

There was an interesting forum in the The Economist Magazine on August 11, 2010 which considered the question – What actions should the Fed be taking?. The Economist assembled a group of academic economists (mainly) and the opinions expressed largely will make any person who understands how the monetary system operates and what the current problem is shudder in disbelief. What the discussion reinforces is that the mainstream economists really have failed to understand what the crisis was all about and do not comprehend the nature of the solution. Most of the contributions are just mindless repetition of what you might find in any mainstream macroeconomics textbook. It is very scary that these characters continue to be heard. If only the citizens knew what was going on!

The Australian federal election campaign is in full swing and last night the federal opposition in Australia staged their policy launch for the federal election to be held on August 21, 2010. This is a campaign where both sides of politics are running on their respective claims to be better at implementing fiscal austerity measures. It has become a matter of who is promising the biggest budget cuts the earliest. It has made the parties barely distinguishable in terms of their overall policy appeal and has rendered both unfit to govern this country. It used to be said that procyclical fiscal policy was destabilising. This was typically in the context of neo-liberals claiming that expansionary policy always came too late and added to private spending that was already on the rebound and thus increased the inflation risk. But the reverse doesn’t appear to apply for the mainstreamers. Cutting public spending when private spending is weak is being held out as virtuous and the only way to engender growth. This inconsistency exposes the ideological nature of the austerity measures, which reflect as one UK commentator said recently – a desire to complete the neo-liberal demolition of the welfare state started 30 years ago but still incomplete or a reflection that the deficit hawks are total lunatics.