Thursday, October 06, 2022

'Truss Doesn't Understand What I Wrote about Economics' | Rick Perlstein

When the Times interviewed Liz Truss at the end of last year, she told us she "read anything" by the American historian Rick Perlstein He chronicles the rise of the new US right between 1960 and 1980, in the Nixon and Reagan eras. Perlstein is confused by her endorsement.


I have stated many times already that Liz Truss and her neoliberal, so-called trickle-down economic fantasy is going to be a disaster for this country. I stand by my words. Neoliberal economics, aka Reaganomics, aka Thatcherism is the last thing we need in the present economic circumstances. Furthermore, had such economic theory been truly effective, this country would have growth in the stratosphere by now! Thatcher came to power in 1979. She was ousted in 1990 in an ignominious coup reminiscent of a banana republic.

I was one of Thatcher’s biggest fans back in the day. But economic circumstances were totally different in those years. The UK had also been in the grip of socialism for many years prior to Thatcher’s ‘Revolution’; so, nothing in the coutry worked. Arguably, Thatcherism was the very medicine the country needed at that time.

However, no prime minister since Thatcher, be he/she a Conservative PM or a Labour PM, has ever had the courage to truly abandon Thatcherism. Now, Liz Truss is going to double down on Thatcher’s neoliberal ideas; and arguably in an even more extreme way!

Thatcherite policies are NOT what this country needs at this time. The economic problems which this country is facing and which this country needs to solve now are totally different from those that Thatcher faced. Doubling down on Thatcherism at this time is madness. Moreover, the only thing that can be said about Arthur Laffer’s ‘laffer curve’ is that it is ‘laffable’! Such an absurdidy! – © Mark Alexander