Just as the neoliberals took advantage of the mess of the 70s, so the left can offer its own radical solutions for today’s turmoil

When Liz Truss and her chancellor drew up the policies that crashed the pound and threatened pension funds, they were working to a blueprint devised in the Hotel du Parc of Mont-Pèlerin in 1947.

Among those gathered were the economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman and the philosopher Karl Popper, and they were profoundly depressed. “The central values of civilisation are in danger,” they declared, caused by a “decline of belief in private property and the competitive market” after the Great Depression and world wars. They fleshed out a belief that the state and collectivism were mortal threats to the individual’s ability to succeed: Margaret Thatcher and her would-be torchbearer Truss would come to follow it with zeal.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

Mutations, politics, vaccines: the factors behind India’s Covid crisis

Analysis: experts believe a number of things coalesced to cause the world’s…

Angela Merkel says Germany must do more to fight climate change

Chancellor surveys flood damage and meets survivors as German death toll passes…