Council Members
Secretariat
Guest Authors
Quantitative easing risks generating its own boom-and-bust cycles, and can thus be seen as an example of state-created financial instability. Governments must abandon the fiction that central banks create money independently from government, and must themselves spend the money created at their behest.
The paper outlines the case for fiscal policy to regain a permanent status of primacy in modern macroeconomic management, beyond the pandemic emergency and makes the case for public job programmes
see films clips of authors introducing their chapters in PEF’s book , The Return of the State
We had an exceptional public health emergency to deal with and, like other national emergencies, such as the Second World War, we simply had to spend the money to deal with it. Just as we didn’t panic about repaying the debt as fast as possible after WW2, instead building the NHS and the welfare state, so today we shouldn’t be panicking about it, either
“After decades of assault by state-shrinking ideologues, a collision of crises has revealed how only the power of good government can save us. Covid, climate catastrophe and Brexit crashed in on a public realm stripped bare by a decade of extreme austerity. Here all the best writers and thinkers on the good society show recovery is possible, with a radical rethink of all the old errors. Read this, and feel hope that things can change. ”
Polly Toynbee
The budget was singularly lacking in ambition when it came to the government’s role in creating a sustainable, inclusive and investment-led recovery.
There was no new green stimulus despite the UK facing a £100bn funding gap to reach its net-zero by 2050 target and despite its hosting of the global COP26 climate change summit this November.
“I am highly sceptical about this story of ‘pent-up demand’. A shrinkage in national income by 10% implies a fall, not rise, in national saving. Saving out of income may go up, but income itself is lower. That’s why it’s not like in a war, when you have full employment and rising wages, but less to spend money on. “
Dag Detter, Stefan Holster and Josh Ryan-Collins In his spending review this week, the Chancellor made clear the scale of the economic crisis facing the UK. Much discussion has followed
As government borrowing takes the ratio of public debt in Britain to national income above 100%, listen out for the alarms raised by fiscal conservatives that our profligacy is perpetuating debts that your children will have to pay
The focus of economic policy should be on maintaining a high, sustainable level of employment. This is correct theoretically, practically, and socially. It counterbalances the capitalist market system’s tendency not to create a high level of employment.
© copyright Progressive Economy Forum & respective authors.
To see how we use cookies on this website, view our Privacy Policy.
We use cookies to personalise your experience, by using our website you agree to the terms and conditions set out in our privacy policy.
