George Monbiot doesn’t seem to know the facts here (Copy)

George Monbiot has a new book coming out, telling of the perils - no evils - of neoliberalism. There is something of a slight problem here, which is that George seems unacquainted with some basic facts about reality:

A vast amount of money has flushed through this country. Science has advanced by leaps and bounds; health and labour-saving technologies have greatly improved; we know exactly how to build good homes, treat sewage and improve democracy.

Instead (literally, in the case of our rivers) almost everything has gone to shit.

OK, rivers. England has had capitalist, profit seeking, water companies. Wales and Scotland varieties of non-profit and government owned. NI stuck with local councils then to government owned. The last time someone did a proper comparative study (OffWat, 10 years after these changes) prices had risen least, water quality in the taps risen most, effluent into the environment reduced the most, in England. Then Wales, Scotland and NI, in order of the march away from capitalism and profit.

For all the recent shrieking no one has in fact done a comparative study across the four systems. It’s entirely possible to say that England isn’t good enough, if that’s what you want to say. But is it better than the other management systems? That’s the important question and not one we’re being told - because there has not been that full comparative study. So to blame this all on neoliberalism is a bit difficult - as the best results we’ve got so far show that more neoliberalism does better.

Or:

If we keep working harder, one day we’ll pay for the public services we need; one day we’ll earn the economic security we crave; one day we’ll have more leisure time.

Hmm, leisure time. Anyone who tries to measure working hours without including unpaid labour in the household is going to get this wrong. And when we do proper time use surveys which do include all hours we find that leisure hours have been increasing. Divide the day into personal time (things others cannot do for you, sleep, washing, eating), household labour, market labour and leisure. The leisure hours are the balancing item after the first three. These have been increasing in these recent decades - heck, they’ve been increasing for centuries. And that’s before we get to longer childhoods and increased decades of retirement - both leisure in such a measurement. No group of humans, ever, has had as much leisure as the inhabitants of a currently rich nation - no, not even hunter gatherers (those estimations of 20 hours work a week are for food only).

Neoliberalism is an ideology that sees competition as our defining feature.

Snigger. A market transaction is a cooperation. Competition only comes into the decision over who to cooperate with upon which terms.

If George is so ungrounded in these basic facts then his critique of the world is going to have certain flaws, no?

We would like to be able to dig deeper into these flaws for you but for some unaccountable reason our review copy doesn’t seem to have arrived as yet. Tsk. We might even have to - shudder - buy a copy so that we can analyse it properly. Which, if necessary, we shall do, possibly even at book length.