In yesterday's Guardian Zoe Williams has written an arbitrary piece on "Skivers vs Strivers" http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/09/skivers-v-strivers-argument-pollutes
It is meant to be a polemic in favour of "a better world" and perhaps most of it should just be regarded as uplifting guff for the edification of the left (perhaps the journalistic equivalent of a Celine Dion ballad).
However there are a few points that need to be clarified.
Zoe Williams claims to be puzzled (indignantly puzzled) by the transformation of Social Security into Welfare. Is she unaware that Social Security was an insurance scheme paid for by National Insurance? But the original Social Security scheme is long gone. Governments (all of them, all parties) funked the challenge of putting up National Insurance when the cost of Social Security went up, preferring to just make up the shortfall from general taxation. Thus over decades Social Security was transformed from a scheme for workers and funded by workers to what we have now - welfare handouts distributed as largess by governments who want to buy votes. Labour is the chief architect of this slight-of-hand, but all governments have been at it.
It is both unreasonable and cynical for Zoe Williams to talk about "misinformation" just a few lines after a paragraph in which she castigates with righteous-seeming anger the views of Mitt Romney. Mr Romney is an American, living and working in America, and has no role in forming Coalition policy. To include his views in an article on British government social policy looks like an attempt at misinformation to me.
In the most farcical line of the whole piece Zoe Williams urges "If you want to make sure work pays, wouldn't it be better to force up wages than force down benefits?" How on earth, in a globalised world, does she propose to do that? You might put 10p or 20p onto the minimum wage, but that is hardly "forcing up" wages. You could have a Prices and Incomes Policy but without import tariffs all that would happen would be a rise in the costs of goods and services originated in the United Kingdom and a rushing inward flow of foreign goods and services at cheaper rates. You could close the labour market and over a period of time allow the market to compete for increasingly scarce labour (due to demographic trends), but to do this the left would have to end its addiction to immigration and we know that's not going to happen - immigrants are too useful as voting fodder. No other argument illustrates the economic illiteracy of the left than this meaningless line "force up wages".
It is meant to be a polemic in favour of "a better world" and perhaps most of it should just be regarded as uplifting guff for the edification of the left (perhaps the journalistic equivalent of a Celine Dion ballad).
However there are a few points that need to be clarified.
Zoe Williams claims to be puzzled (indignantly puzzled) by the transformation of Social Security into Welfare. Is she unaware that Social Security was an insurance scheme paid for by National Insurance? But the original Social Security scheme is long gone. Governments (all of them, all parties) funked the challenge of putting up National Insurance when the cost of Social Security went up, preferring to just make up the shortfall from general taxation. Thus over decades Social Security was transformed from a scheme for workers and funded by workers to what we have now - welfare handouts distributed as largess by governments who want to buy votes. Labour is the chief architect of this slight-of-hand, but all governments have been at it.
It is both unreasonable and cynical for Zoe Williams to talk about "misinformation" just a few lines after a paragraph in which she castigates with righteous-seeming anger the views of Mitt Romney. Mr Romney is an American, living and working in America, and has no role in forming Coalition policy. To include his views in an article on British government social policy looks like an attempt at misinformation to me.
In the most farcical line of the whole piece Zoe Williams urges "If you want to make sure work pays, wouldn't it be better to force up wages than force down benefits?" How on earth, in a globalised world, does she propose to do that? You might put 10p or 20p onto the minimum wage, but that is hardly "forcing up" wages. You could have a Prices and Incomes Policy but without import tariffs all that would happen would be a rise in the costs of goods and services originated in the United Kingdom and a rushing inward flow of foreign goods and services at cheaper rates. You could close the labour market and over a period of time allow the market to compete for increasingly scarce labour (due to demographic trends), but to do this the left would have to end its addiction to immigration and we know that's not going to happen - immigrants are too useful as voting fodder. No other argument illustrates the economic illiteracy of the left than this meaningless line "force up wages".
No comments:
Post a Comment