Economic warning ignored?: do we ever learn?

Systemic change in UK and global institutions is essential if dynamic capitalism is to be harnessed to the common good.

Writing in 1995 Will Hutton argued for a written constitution, the democratisation of civil society, the republicanisation of finance, recognition that the market economy has to be managed and regulated, both at home and abroad, the upholding of a welfare state that incorporates social citizenship and the construction of a stable international financial order beyond the nation state.

Not much had been achieved before the 2008 crises, but the agenda seems to embody elements of the Lisbon Treaty, forced nationalisation of UK banks, the new welfare implementation mechanisms applying pressure to return to work, a belated shift from light touch and self regulation and an apparent agreement on the need for international solutions rather than beggar my neighbour policies.

So we may be at a tipping point. The booms and bubbles of the past 15 years have caught up with us at all levels including local economic development which may require different approaches to recession and structural change.

But to revitalise Britain@apostrophe;s great cities, to reduce unemployment significantly, to rewrite the social contract requires a level of institutional change for which political hunger is lacking.

Have RDAs and the SNR proposals merely added to the institutional crises?

The State We Are In Will Hutton, Jonathon Cape, 2005