Ditto Ed Milliband, also a leading member of a government which launched the Iraq war is OK but Bairbre de Brun MEP of Sinn Fein, one of, or perhaps by now the, largest party by electoral support in the North of Ireland, when the IRA has destroyed all is weapons, is unacceptable. Again to avoid any confusion it was absolutely right to have both Ed Milliband and Bairbre de Brun there.

As I was also apparently a person to be excluded let me repeat my views. I believe in a society in which every single person enjoys a standard of living in which they can live their best possible life and which is totally democratic in character. Despite the fact that road to get there will be long and difficult I remain completely optimistic humanity will make it in the end. It just won’t be achieved all in one leap and progress will be difficult and uneven. Don’t forget less than a century ago women did not even have the vote and today women still remain far behind in income and many other rights. We are less than half a century away from the collapse of the final colonial empires and international inequality remains an affront to any idea of a just human society.

In this long hard road China, which constitutes one fifth of humanity, has had to overcome innumerable difficulties and problems – to be more precise the country has gone through more than a hundred and fifty years of agony (attack by Britain to impose import of opium, attack by innumerable European powers to impose their law and concessions on parts of, invasion by Japan with the death of 30 million people, civil war, the madness of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution) to get where it is now. No surprise it is very far from a perfect society. It is just one that is going forward – which is why you don’t want to address the question that to lift 620 million people out of poverty is a gigantic contribution to humanity. I will deal with some of your other points below.

This also relates to the points made by Donpaskini in a comment on a previous post. It does not aid anything to claim I know nothing about economics and therefore my ideas don’t have to be replied to – as anyone who reads Socialist Economic Bulletin, which has been appearing for many years, can easily judge. Also as I wrote my first long article explaining the success of the Chinese economic reforms 18 years ago, when I was being paid by international companies, don’t introduce the anyway irrelevant argument that I have my analysis of China because I am paid to do so! Just address the arguments. The issues being discussed are very important for literally billions of people so it is best to debate them as clearly and calmly as possible – calmness normally aids clarity.

There are two discussions. One about China, one about economic policy in general.

The whole attempt to talk about China as a ‘model’ for a country such as the UK is misleading and I certainly don’t advocate it. I look at some basic questions of economics and how they apply both in the UK and China – that is not to present China as a ‘model’ for the UK.

China, despite its very large economy, is a country at a stage of economic development far less advanced than the UK. To take the latest IMF data, , using Parity Purchasing Powers to avoid distortions, GDP per capita in the US is $46,400, in the UK $35,200, and in China $6,500 – i.e. GDP per capita in the US is more than seven times that of China, and in the UK almost five and a half times that of China. With such economic realities, to point out/accuse China of not having the same standard of living, including social protection, health care etc as Britain or the US is senseless – there is no objective possibility for China today to provide such things.

China’s greatest achievement, and it is a colossal one, is to take 620 million people out of absolute poverty. This is, to repeat, greater than the entire population of Western Europe and is twice the population of the US. The scale of magnitude of that achievement is shown by the fact that it is the entire reduction of the numbers of people in absolute poverty in the world.
But even at its present extremely rapid growth rate it will take China 25 years to achieve the present GDP per capita of the UK and 30 years to reach that of the US. At these levels of GDP per capita China will, of course, then have the same ability to provide at least an equivalent level of social protection to the UK and US – and if it didn’t, I promise I will be the first to condemn it. But it is not a serious argument to point out China does not provide equal social protection to countries which have five and a half or seven times the GDP per capita.

A more relevant comparison is with India. In 1949 GDP per capita in India and China were roughly the same. Today GDP per capita in China is 2.2 times that in India. Anyone who visits Delhi and Beijing, the political capitals of India and China, or Mumbai and Shanghai, the financial capitals of the two countries, knows there is absolutely nothing like the fearful slums in Mumbai and Delhi in China – and I say that as someone who is a very great admirer of the economic successes of Manmohan Singh the prime minister of India. I have no hesitation is saying the fact that China has achieved twice the level of economic development of a country which started off with the same GDP per capita is an achievement to be greatly admired. Hopefully India will achieve the same result and I will be equally pleased. The result of these processes is that eradication of poverty, illiteracy and innumerable other evils has advanced rapidly in China and this is an immense benefit to the whole of humanity.

The key to China’s development of greater social protection and democracy, which I certainly welcome, is its rapid economic growth. Also one of the strongest correlations in the world is between economic development and democracy – all the advanced economies are some form of democracy in their own borders (although regrettably they all too frequently meet out and support barbaric invasions and dictatorship abroad as the invasion of Iraq, support for the Saudi dictatorship and numerous other examples remind us). I have no doubt the economic development of China is the key not only to economic improvement and social progress for its people but also to its democracy. I therefore welcome its economic development for both reasons.

Turning to economic policy outside China it is not in the slightest necessary for, as Keynes put it, a ‘somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment’ to have a dictatorship. Indeed if this is the best and most functioning economic system it will eventually be chosen by democracy.
The point I made was that the economic recession in Europe and the US is driven by a collapse in investment. This accounts for almost three quarters of the downturn in the UK, the whole of the economic decline in the US, etc. I favour, as Keynes did, direct intervention into the investment mechanism to halt that decline in investment – i.e. in the UK large scale transport, housing and other programmes. I made the point that in China state investment had been used to prevent there being any decline in output at all. That is to illustrate an economic point (the cause of the recession is a fall in investment) in two different countries – China and the UK. It is not to present China as a ‘model’ for the UK.

As regard the specific point about the balance between investment and consumption in China, which is the issue posed by Donpaskini’s comments about China’s savings, the guiding line in economic policy must be the most rapid possible sustainable development of living standards in China – sustainable self-evidently meaning including environmental protection. This is, however, not best achieved by the transfer of the maximum possible amount of GDP to consumption. Modern econometrics confirms that, after participation in the national and international division of labour, investment is the most powerful instrument of economic growth. Under those circumstances better to invest and grow. Therefore the very high savings rate in China, which is necessary to finance the high investment rate, contributes to the most rapid possible sustainable rate of increase in living standards – the increases in consumption created by the very rapid growth rate are much greater than those that would be achieved by redistributing national income to consumption and therefore having a very much slower growth rate. So I am for the most rapid possible sustainable development of consumption in China (including a health service and social protection) and for that reason favour a high investment rate and therefore a high growth rate.

I plan to write about it for CIF…

Duncan: I’m not really interested in the Nick Cohen school of political debate

Neither am I – but there comes a point when inviting people like Galloway and Islamists become a liability. I know plenty of more progressive and moderate Muslims who’d say very intelligent things about grassroots organising.

I’m not really interested in the Nick Cohen school of political debate (this man/group has links to bad people, he is/they are bad!) and I think there’s a much more relevant criticism of Ken Livingstone and his firm conviction that ruling London is his birth right: that he’s already had 8 years in office to prove his credentials as ‘Red Ken’.

This is interesting though:

Re Sinn Fein: two wrongs don’t make a right, and the Labour party has never been merely the political wing of the Iraq war!

I’m no fan of Sinn Féin but I’m confused about the relevance of this. It’s obvious the Labour Party aren’t the political wing of the Iraq war but equally obvious that the PIRA have, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist and that it’s now getting on for close to a decade since Sinn Féin could reasonably be considered the political wing of an essentially military group.

So, on the one hand, you are supportive of Jon Cruddas even though he openly supported unleashing carnage in Iraq beyond anything witnessed in Northern Ireland yet regard the invitation of Bairbre de Brún, a woman who is a member of an organisation which has renounced violence as a means to achieve its political aims some years ago, as ‘unacceptable’.

Can you see why there might be grounds for some confusion here?

Also this term:

ultra-hard left

makes no sense at all.

And politics is something that has to be fought for. And climate change is arguably the most important politics of the modern era.

It could be much worse.

You could have written a really, reall dumb interview when you were a cocky 21 year old undergraduate who was simultaneously feeling very sorry for himself.

and that could be the top search result if people put “interview” next to your name into google.

and oh my god, would you really regret that.

!

And I don’t want to set myself up as an expert – this is a horrifyingly nasty and endlessly googleable area, and I want my life back. so I am not sure I should have even written it

yeah, what BBC doc? (I don’t have time to watch telly!)

Giles,

how amusing that CiF commissioned you to rewrite something. In the past they’ve fobbed me off with “no we can’t run this, you wrote it on your blog already”. I’d rather they just said “not good enough”, like Sunny does!

best,

The grauniad are being very slow in responding to Cif piece. They ASKED me to adapt ClimateHate for them, but not so sure it works now; blogs so much more sponteneous.

I was going to look at the latest nef piece proving we can’t grow. Should I bother? I mean, in the words of Paul, am I just kicking the fat kid?