Assuming that the BBC is accurately reporting what these people have written, then the comments suggest that this is probably not a book (Britannia Unchained) that is worth pre-ordering off Amazon. 😉 The chosen quotes seem more sensationalist and silly, than informed analysis of what the authors claim to be the lessons to be learned from more dynamic economies in the real world.
At the same time, this sort of nonsense illustrated again how difficult it is to have rational economic debate in this country (by this I mean not on STW! But generally).
We have a confused economic situation right now that no one seems close to solving. At its heart are conflicting themes coming from the labour market (slightly positive) and the output data (silly gloomy, in fact increasingly so). The real question IMO is how can this be the case? The positive argument proposed by some is that the labour market is giving a more accurate reflection than the output data and that we are thought the worst. Lets hope that this is the case but I am not so sure. The alternative argument is that if the labour market is improving but output is still falling then questions have to be raised about UK productivity. But the answers are unlikely to include the more rabid quotes attributed to the book’s authors.
Still it would be nice to have sensible debate in the press about how to tackle problems on both the demand and supply side of the economy, but it would be silly to hold one’s breadth. The oddity it that the only front bench politician who is articulating any form of supply side policies is Ed Balls who made some sensible comments after the last GDP data revisions. Interesting that these comments came from a left-of-centre broadly Keynesian economist/politician rather than a Tory or Lib Dem MP.