He starts out by noting that the economy as an idea is very recent invention. And yet it tops the list of voters concerns.
"If you had told Mr Gladstone that "the economy has grown this year", he would not have understood what those words meant."
(William Gladstone was the British Prime Minister, on and off, between 1868 and 1894. He is considered to be one of the great British PMs.)
"Gladstone was the most financially literate statesman of the 19th Century. But the idea of something called "the economy", which could "grow" or "shrink", did not exist."
"It (THE economy) first appeared in a major manifesto in 1950 and didn't get its own section until 1955. That's also when terms like "economic growth" appeared in Parliament."
“What we now call "economics" was usually termed "political economy”. "Economy" was not a technocratic exercise, but a moral and political arena."
"… it subordinated a moral and political judgment (what is "good economy?") to a blunter question: how do we make "the" economy bigger? In reality, economic choices were still moral and political. But they were cast as technocratic questions about "competence" and know-how."
"(and) … it turned "the economy" into a "thing", to be weighed against other, different "things": such as "the environment" or "saving lives". And it encouraged a tendency to make "growth" the goal, without asking what was growing, why and to whose benefit."
I recommend reading the whole thread if you are interested to learn how we got here.
And looking forward?
"Recognising that our concepts are historically specific - that they have been different in the past and might be different in the future - helps us to imagine other ways of talking and thinking in the present. In an age of so many economic challenges, we surely need more of that."
https://bsky.app/profile/robertsaunders.bsky.social/post/3la...
He starts out by noting that the economy as an idea is very recent invention. And yet it tops the list of voters concerns.
"If you had told Mr Gladstone that "the economy has grown this year", he would not have understood what those words meant."
(William Gladstone was the British Prime Minister, on and off, between 1868 and 1894. He is considered to be one of the great British PMs.)
"Gladstone was the most financially literate statesman of the 19th Century. But the idea of something called "the economy", which could "grow" or "shrink", did not exist."
"It (THE economy) first appeared in a major manifesto in 1950 and didn't get its own section until 1955. That's also when terms like "economic growth" appeared in Parliament."
“What we now call "economics" was usually termed "political economy”. "Economy" was not a technocratic exercise, but a moral and political arena."
"… it subordinated a moral and political judgment (what is "good economy?") to a blunter question: how do we make "the" economy bigger? In reality, economic choices were still moral and political. But they were cast as technocratic questions about "competence" and know-how."
"(and) … it turned "the economy" into a "thing", to be weighed against other, different "things": such as "the environment" or "saving lives". And it encouraged a tendency to make "growth" the goal, without asking what was growing, why and to whose benefit."
I recommend reading the whole thread if you are interested to learn how we got here.
And looking forward?
"Recognising that our concepts are historically specific - that they have been different in the past and might be different in the future - helps us to imagine other ways of talking and thinking in the present. In an age of so many economic challenges, we surely need more of that."