Tim Worstall

Idiot.

Tony Woodley, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, writing in the Guardian:

Certainly we must move
away from the idea of the state as a passive spectator of a series of
industrial disasters. That is not, incidentally, the policy which is
propelling China’s spectacular industrial and economic growth.

Sigh. Does he not know that the Chinese economy is littered with huge bankrupt companies? That the major economic problem the country faces is what to do with these dinosaurs and the banking system that keeps them afloat with cheap loans? And that these two sectors, companies and banks, are troublesome precisely because they are state owned?

Those parts of the Chinese economy that are booming are precisely those that do not suffer from State guidance and help. In that part of the economy that is free market it is decidedly more free market than our own economy. The 8-10% per annum growth in China is not because of the State involvement in the economy, but in spite of it.

So, if you want to take a lesson from the Chinese economy of applicability to the UK one it is that when decisions on matters economic are taken for political reasons, they don’t work. When markets are let free, companies boom. Is this the lesson that he has learnt? No.

Idiot.

In

6 responses

  1. Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny

    ‘Idiot’ is putting it mildly. The history of the British car industry itself provides enough reason to keep the state out. In the 70’s the government was having to pour in an increasing amount of billions every year so that British Leyland could make cars that sold in ever-decreasing numbers.

    Reply
  2. Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny

    I’m still stunned at Woodley’s comments. I know The Guardian has a genius for dragging up irrelevant, dogmatic Marxists still living in 1968, but this guy is a major modern unionist. How can anyone in his line of work have failed to notice that the recent success of Communist countries has come from them embracing market reforms? Didn’t he notice how incredibly poor China was beforehand?

    Reply
  3. Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny

    I’ve just found this New Stasiman story. It claims that Woodley was the man who convinced
    “the former Rover chief executive John Towers to lead the Phoenix rescue consortium, giving it the credibility it needed”.
    So he’s already partly responsible for screwing up Rover once. Thank God he wasn’t able to create another disaster.

    Reply
  4. George Adair Avatar
    George Adair

    Excellent Post. How did our “leaders” become so sadly misinformed? 🙂

    Reply
  5. EU Serf Avatar
    EU Serf

    When you live in a Rich country, with steady growth and low unemployment, why would you look to a very poor country, with massive social problems, very low wages, no democracy and a total lack of basic human rights as any kind of Example to follow?
    China is a massive success, but only on its own terms. It can only sustain such rapid growth because of the basket case it was to start with.
    If capitalists like myself suggested that we lower our workers wages to Chinese levels, or give similar rights vis a vis Unions, I think he would scream like a stuck pig.

    Reply
  6. Blithering Bunny Avatar
    Blithering Bunny

    Pink bits 69

    The Guardian is pretty good at finding irrelevant, dogmatic Marxists still living in 1968, and today they’ve done it again. The only worrying thing is that this time it’s Tony Woodley, who far from being an old has-been who no-one takes seriously, is t…

    Reply

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