GeofCox on Nostr: As an Englishman that emigrated to France I found this article by Will Hutton ...
As an Englishman that emigrated to France I found this article by Will Hutton insightful...
"Between 1949 and 1978... [UK] net public sector investment averaged 4.5% of GDP. It then fell precipitately in the Thatcher years to zero, before climbing under New Labour from those depths to nearly 3% of GDP in 2010. Austerity prompted another steep fall, since when it has bumped along at about 2% of GDP.
"Overall, the rate of public sector investment from 1979 to 2021 has run at less than half the rate of the previous 30 postwar years...
"In France, arch-representative of the economic EU corpse to which Brexiters claim we were shackled, public investment has run at levels half as high as ours again for the past 20 years. As a result, the country works – from its high-speed train network to mandatory enrolment of three-year-olds in nursery schools. A generous welfare system and sector-wide collective bargaining arrangements mean it has much less poverty than Britain – and the investment in research and development is paying off too, with France registering twice as many patents as we manage...
"The remedy for our decline stares us in the face... copy France, borrow from the Keynesian 30 years up to 1979 and invest in ourselves. It’s not so hard."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/03/chaos-in-skies-crumbling-concrete-in-schools-grim-symptoms-british-disease
"Between 1949 and 1978... [UK] net public sector investment averaged 4.5% of GDP. It then fell precipitately in the Thatcher years to zero, before climbing under New Labour from those depths to nearly 3% of GDP in 2010. Austerity prompted another steep fall, since when it has bumped along at about 2% of GDP.
"Overall, the rate of public sector investment from 1979 to 2021 has run at less than half the rate of the previous 30 postwar years...
"In France, arch-representative of the economic EU corpse to which Brexiters claim we were shackled, public investment has run at levels half as high as ours again for the past 20 years. As a result, the country works – from its high-speed train network to mandatory enrolment of three-year-olds in nursery schools. A generous welfare system and sector-wide collective bargaining arrangements mean it has much less poverty than Britain – and the investment in research and development is paying off too, with France registering twice as many patents as we manage...
"The remedy for our decline stares us in the face... copy France, borrow from the Keynesian 30 years up to 1979 and invest in ourselves. It’s not so hard."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/03/chaos-in-skies-crumbling-concrete-in-schools-grim-symptoms-british-disease