Jeremy Corbyn on Andrew Marr programme

[jimhigham]

Resources are allocated by the market place, in a free and healthy economy. I agree with you, in our economy politicians want a big chunk, not just of money from business, but peoples personal wages too. Notice how we also don't have a free or healthy economy.

What you have to understand is that the market operates organically, you can't manage an economy, just like you can't build a tree. The market is essentially a source of information, when you mess with it and try to bend it to your will, you mess up the information.

For example, leading up to the financial crisis, "not enough people have houses" was the cry. Maybe it was genuine desire to see more homeowners, maybe it was just politics, but the basic story was that we were not happy with the economy, so we tried to change it by acting upon it. We made it easier for people to borrow money, easier than the market would have at the time allowed. When the market didn't allow people to borrow so much it was because they could not afford it, that was good information on which decisions should have been based, instead we didn't like the information, so we tried to change it. To the politicians and the socialists, the market was being selfish, not letting ordinary people on the housing ladder, and instead of seeing the market as it is, dispassionate, a source of information, they saw it as something which needed "fixing". So they fixed it. What happened? Homebuyers increasing, (creates bad information about available capital) prices increasing (creates bad information about property values), (mal)investment increasing (creates bad information about the wellbeing of financial institutions)...The economic crisis which now threatens our welfare system, our health system, our entire economy, was brought on by the very same kinds of actions people are now suggesting will fix it. If we wanted more homeownership we should have tried to foster a more healthy economy.

It was the ideas of people like Jeremy Corbyn, which got us into the mess we are in. The idea that the government must interviene in the market to provide fairness and equality is a noble idea, but it's deeply misguided. It doesn't work, it's a lie.

Another lie is the promise of "free" anything. Nothing is free. The NHS is apparently free, funny that because we are all worrying about how much it costs! There is no free healthcare, education or anything else, someone is paying and despite what you think, it's probably you. Again, the idea of "free healthcare" is pretty noble. But when you say it's "free" and all costs are covered, guess what - money is mismanaged and wasted, and money which is spent where it should be doesn't go as far as it should, because when stuff is "free" (i.e. paid for by the state no matter what and without any competition), prices go up.

I totally feel the same as everyone who wants there to be less poverty, less corruption etc. But if you just act emotively without understanding how economics works then even for all your good intentions you are just going to make a mess. All those people that you hoped to get a little more for, the very people you wanted to help and protect, the most vulnerable in society, they will be the ones most hurt when the NHS goes bankrupt or worse the economy collapses.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - Friedrich August von Hayek

A very well thought out and knowledgable post but one that leaves me concerned. You state you are as concerned as anybody else about poverty but it appears a free and healthy economy does nothing to address this. So what's to be done?

 

[pb21]

A very well thought out and knowledgable post but one that leaves me concerned. You state you are as concerned as anybody else about poverty but it appears a free and healthy economy does nothing to address this. So what's to be done?

In addition [MENTION=18559]dingodan[/MENTION] post suggests that the the economy is some kind of intrinsic part of existence, but it isn’t. It’s been made up by humans and it’s been moulded for thousands of years to suit human needs (and often those who mould it the most are those who benefit the most from doing so).

The economy is just a human construct that works within rules and laws that are again just human constructs. Some laws such as stealing influence the economy, some rules such as making it easier to borrow money influence the economy too.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

I think he wouldsa that, for exactly the same reason he was criticised: people noticed. And perhaps it was easier for the Major government (for it was they) to engage knowing that others (ok, an irrelevant back bencher oppo at the time) were engaging too. Either way, it was the right thing for Jezza to do. And nobody can argue he did it to make himself 'look good'.

Well we disagree on him having any constructive influence on any significant campaign he has ever championed but prepared to change my mind if you can provide any verifiable evidence to the contrary.

 

[dingodan]

A very well thought out and knowledgable post but one that leaves me concerned. You state you are as concerned as anybody else about poverty but it appears a free and healthy economy does nothing to address this. So what's to be done?

A free and healthy economy creates jobs and fosters competition, increasing the quality of products and services and reducing their cost to people. These things reduce poverty and they are the only things that will.

I'm not sure you can say that free markets can completely eradicate all poverty, I'm not sure anything can. But if we had a free and prosperous economy then people like you and I would be in the best possible position to be able to do something about it where we find it.

Any attempt to interviene in the economy to try to make things better will fail, and will have unintented consequences, likely to hurt the very people you were trying to help. Nobody is smart enough, trusting politicians to mess with the economy is like trusting them to mess with the weather.

We have to be more Zen about this.

“If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.” - Friedrich von Hayek

"Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone" - Alan Watts