When you think about it, JB Clark’s neoclassical economics–founded to put an end to the ideas of Henry George–is not a new classical economics; it’s an anti-classical economics. Arguing that the rent of land may be privatised by companies and individuals turns the classical economists on their heads, because they considered the nation’s surplus product, or economic rent, was the public’s – naturally, and equally.
How did we succumb to accepting this travesty? Mason Gaffney, Fred Harrison and Chris Feder saw it as the ultimate “Corruption of Economics“, a 180 degree turnabout from classical economics.
It appears that any longstanding, decent politico-economic view will eventually become corrupted over time as self-interest begins to gradually eat at the uniting principle upon which it was founded. Is not economic rent the glue which binds societies together in prosperity and freedom, as patiently explained by Henry George? Isn’t poverty unnatural? Does not the increasing privatisation of economic rent explain the political bifurcation that has occurred – to the great detriment of western civilisation?
To further this rationale of turning things on their heads, let’s look at the two main Australia political parties. Who could possibly entertain the thought that Liberal party is now a liberal party? It has become an arch-Tory neoliberal, or anti-liberal, party. The irony of the name is immense. It has done a turn-about. It should be the Neo-Liberal Party!
If to a lesser degree, this is also the case with the Australian Labor Party; the rot began to set in in the 1960s. Bob Hawke’s ALP government took it to another level when he came to adopt the neoliberal economics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It has clearly become an anti-labour party; the Neo-Labor Party?
The two parties may be different on public health policy, but are very similar on education, defence and the neoliberal, anti-liberal, economics which aims to achieve balanced budgets at great cost to the public good. Paradoxically, the Albanese government revels in its current surplus, and is commended for being such, if accidentally, by mainstream media. Those acquainted with economic reality see the growing surplus as foreboding a great social ill.
[The only ‘neo’ I find that isn’t ‘anti’ is neo-Malthusianism. Curiously, it is still ‘pro’ the Reverend Malthus. It remains we, the overpopulated, who are generating all our economic ills. Although we appear to be curbing our breeding, it seems we still need to get really fair dinkum about it!]