Further economic imbecility

Ha-Joon Chang, who teaches economics at Cambridge, has written a teaser for his pending book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, on CiF. "We lost sight of fairness in the false promise of wealth: Acceptance of inequality rests on assumptions that 'free markets' make us all richer in the end. Growth figures tell it differently", he says.

After three decades of deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, growth has slowed down, rather than accelerated, in almost all countries. The world economy, which was growing at about 3% in per capita terms in the "bad old days" of widespread regulation and punitive taxation for the rich in the 1960s and 70s, has grown at about half that rate in the last three decades. In Britain, average annual per capita income growth rate was 2.4% in the 60s and the 70s, when the country was allegedly suffering from the "British disease"; but it fell to 1.7% during 1990 to 2009, after it is supposed to have been cured of the disease thanks to Margaret Thatcher's heroic struggle in the 1980s.

Dozens of variables are involved in economic growth and to reduce them to more or less regulation, or more or less taxation, is the work of a simpleton. So is his use of (highly dubious) statistics averaged over twenty year periods of great economic variation. Even assuming the figures Chang cites are correct, note also the cheat of comparing British growth figures with world figures instead of with those of comparable economies.  

There was nothing "alleged" about the British disease, nor anything false about the growth and prosperity that was squandered by the Blair-Brown regime in pursuit of its "equality" agenda during more than half the second period Chang selects for comparison with the golden age of nationalised industries and endless strikes.

Seems my old university is letting just anyone teach there these days. In the "bad old days", a mediocrity like Chang would not have been admitted as a student, let alone permitted to teach what he calls "economics".