We really don't think we believe this, no

From Will Hutton:

Economic dynamism comes not from low taxation but from high public investment and smart ways in which governments help high investment businesses better manage risks.

That would seem to militate against that idea of leaving the money to fructify in the pockets of the people. Which, given its source in the ideas of our namesake we do tend to have some agreement with.

Thus the US high tech sector is symbiotically linked to high US defence spending and in particular innovation spearheaded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

Well, yes, except Darpa tends to be small amounts to answer a specific question. A million here, a couple there, to see if one specific idea might be made to work, or whether a particular question can be answered. With no political over-ride and no government nor bureaucratic ownership nor intervention into use or roll out. Which isn’t the way any such system would work here of course, not under Mazzonomics at least.

Equally, whether in Singapore or Indonesia, the common thread across Asia is state-led investment and successful industrial policy.

That slightly gives the game away - looking at places which have had, even if only by claim, successful industrial policy does tend to ignore those places which have tried but where it’s been unsuccessful. Like, possibly, everywhere else?

Of course, genuinely confiscatory tax rates force enterprise underground – but the idea that the current British tax regime is that confiscatory is bonkers.

Ah! A testable proposition. So, currently the UK government takes 45% of everything, 45% of all economic effort and GDP.

The US government - at all levels - consumes about 28% of GDP, the Indonesian about 11% (yes, 11%) and Singapore’s some 17% or so.

So it would seem that economic dynamism is indeed associated with less than the UK’s confiscatory tax rates. Even, that fructifying idea has some empirical legs.

As ever, all economics is either footnotes to Adam Smith or wrong.

But we’re prepared to make a bet with Hutton. Even, to give him a free hand. Let’s cut that burden of Britain’s tax regime to the mid-point there, Singapore, and 17% of all economic effort by everyone in the country. We’ll also allow Hutton to play Fat Controller with industrial plans. We do indeed think the growth rate will improve - largely because with tax at only 17% of everything people will be so busy making money that no one will play a blind bit of attention to whatever it is the planners want to do.

As, we would point out, largely does happen in those other places.