By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
I’ve described British political tectonics as British reality caught up with Coalition spin. I’ve described the shift in public tolerance in Britain and France for the current dominant political and economic ideology. I’ve discussed the kind of leadership I think the circumstances require.
To the information presented previously, I should add that, since I last posted, the Dutch Coalition has imploded. The Dutch Coalition had been among the strongest advocates in Europe for enforcing the Eurozone’s twin policies of “austerity” and “competitiveness” on Greece. But once it came to the Netherlands, it was all just too much to face. On the very day France showed its dissatisfaction with Sarkozy and his policies in the first round of voting, the Dutch Prime Minister and his Coalition cabinet resigned following a breakdown in negotiations over austerity measures.
Time to be direct
In this piece I argue for change in policy based on a liberal faith in free trade in the free market. Most long term economic measures suggest austerity failed, both in the Eurozone and the UK. What can be done in the global marketplace? I believe the answer lies in reexamining the specifics of the West’s commitment to liberalized free trade in the free market.
Needed, a framework of mutually respected, commonly held values and ground rules with real mechanisms for real enforcement
I am not an opponent to free trade or a free market. I advocate free trade in a free market ... in context. That context is a market of mutually respected, commonly held values and ground rules-- with real mechanisms for real enforcement-- designed to create a fair and even playing field.
There is no such thing as absolute freedom in civilized society, an understanding suggested by Winston Churchill to be at the heart of the difference between a pure liberal and a pure conservative.
Consider football without a defined pitch and goal posts, a rule book, defined roles for players, standards for their conduct (on and off the pitch), referees, officials, and, yes, commentators and statistics to keep them all honest, improving, and responsive to fans. How long would we love, respect, and follow such “sport”?
We wouldn't dispense with such a framework for the game of football. But we appear to many to have dispensed with some of the most important of the equivalents for trade and the marketplace, institutions which undergird a sustainable society. In the rush to penetrate new, emerging markets, to create wealth for the "wealth creators," we forgot to mind the ball for the neglected markets which are home base, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, respectively.
Glossed Over
We glossed over a predictibale reality that a free-for-all form of liberalized free trade in a liberalized free market without effective mechanisms for enforcement will likely cause economic bubbles and a redistribution of money and capital from the competitor of higher cost and standards to the competitor who can and will provide satisfactory quality for substantially less cost, investment, and hurdles to overcome in order to produce. We glossed over the predictible reality that the consequence of such a situation could be that the imbalances thus created could collapse upon the partners of least leverage in the economic relationships.
All these “could's” have become a “done did.”
Austerity and Competitiveness
When we realized what we had done, we did not abandon or adjust the strategy. We instead declared “protectionism” an evil to which we could not return for the sake of all mankind- a grand eloquence typical of a self-serving delusion challenged by inconvenient reality. We abandoned trying to raise the boats of the exploited. Instead we sought to reduce ourselves to compete with those who exploit them. The vehicles of this race to the bottom were packaged as "austerity" and "competitiveness."
We burned the village to save it.
Beyond austerity and competitiveness
The basic framework isn’t there. Europe itself does not provide a pitch of mutually respected, commonly held values and ground rules with viable enforcement. Much less so Africa, Asia and South America. Yet we continue to fawn over the “emerging markets,” deserting our own. It seems to many a mad effort to save, if not improve, the wealth of a very few Western entrepreneurs and banks who may profit or lose from liberalizing trade in emerging markets.
It isn't working. It may someday work, but it isn't working now.
We need to reaffirm our social responsibility to each other. Instead of dismantling our institutions in a mad dash for the bottom, we need to rebuild our own, neglected home base markets. In doing so we cannot ignore the global realities, agreed. But we need to concentrate on building a Common Market of the West, with mutually respected, commonly held values and ground rules-- and mechanisms for enforcement. For this Market the phrase, “we are all in it together,” has to be more than high sounding rhetoric because it is a fact whose razor edge is at the West's collective throat.
If we do not undertake such a Common Market we will lose what we have been striving to give a very few the more they will never see. It is time to move beyond austerity, beyond competitiveness. Working together we can.