We don't have much hope for this IFS Deaton Inequality Review to be honest
That Angus Deaton has the Nobel and we don’t - we wouldn’t gain one in aggregate let alone individually - is true. It is still true that the mouse may look at the King, that even Blind Homer nods and all that. We’re thus not entirely sure that this new IFS Deaton review on inequality is going to be of much use, In fact we think it will end up being entirely misleading.
Any such report will depend upon the numbers that go into it. Has inequality increased? If so which kind? What are the exact numbers being used, where did they come from, how were they composed? And if they start from this sort of point then the report is indeed going to be wildly misleading:
And there is much evidence to support their belief. For example, not only have median wages been stagnating in the US for the last 50 years,…
Well, no, they haven’t. Nominal wages have obviously risen. To get to real wages we must subtract inflation. Here we generally use the consumer price index. We know that the CPI for the US has been overstated over the decades. By exactly how much is still argued but anywhere from 0.5 to 2% per annum is considered within the reasonable range. That makes real wages from 128% to 269% of what they were 50 years ago. We might describe only a 28% rise as stagnation over that time but a near threefold rise isn’t.
Wages not being the number we should be using anyway. Compensation - what’s the total amount gained by going off to work? That has risen strongly - as it must have done for productivity has and the labour share hasn’t fallen until very recently. The is ably described by Paul Krugman, here.
Rising inequality - or falling, whatever - isn’t even well described by wages or compensation anyway. It’s the post tax, post benefits situation that matters. The American welfare state - yes, we know the claim that it doesn’t exist but they do spend some $trillion a year on it - has indeed grown over this time.
And then even that’s not the important number. We want, if we want to know anything about inequality that matters, to look at inequality of consumption, not income. Consumption being determined not by cash income alone, we have to add the consumer surplus to get that. That explosion of free stuff from Big Tech in recent decades hugely, vastly, changing that relationship between GDP and the consumer surplus.
After all, if we’re studying inequality we should note that access to the Google search engine is estimated - realistically too - to have a value of $18,000 a year, email some $8,000, Facebook some $1,000 and you, me, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates - well, not Gates as he has to use Bing - and the homeless guy using the library computer all have equal access at exactly the same price, $nothing.
If our starting point, our input into our analysis, is that US median wages have been static this past five decades then we’re simply not going to end up with an accurate portrayal of current inequality. After all, garbage in, garbage out isn’t restricted to computing.
We’re willing to be pleasantly surprised by the IFS Deaton examination of inequality. But we don’t think we will be. We expect the inputs to their musings to be the incorrect yet currently fashionable and that’s really not a good way to be doing science.
People marched for beer
The momentous day was May 14th, 1932. New York Mayor, Jimmy Walker, organized a march through his city by people who wanted beer. Originally planned as a “Beer for Taxation” march, it soon transformed itself into a “We Want Beer” parade, with over 100,000 taking part, and with banners bearing that slogan.
The point was that New Yorkers were as fed up with Prohibition as was most of the rest of the US. Without revenues from alcohol duty, New York had been forced by lack of funding to cut back its police and fire department budgets. Gangsters had taken over the production, import, distribution and sale of alcohol. There were estimated to be over 400 bootlegging-related murders in New York every year, and corruption was rife among the police and judiciary.
There was also rampant unemployment as the Great Depression gripped America. The Mayor’s case was straightforward. If Prohibition were ended, it would cut crime, raise revenue in taxes, and create tens of thousands of jobs. It was compelling. He might have added that it would stop ordinary Americans who wanted a drink becoming criminals at odds with the police and the law.
The marchers chanted “Beer for Prosperity,” but they also chanted the question, “Who wants beer?” and shouted in response, “We Do!” It had an effect on events because it took place shortly before the Democratic and Republican Conventions for the upcoming Presidential election. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, running for the Democrats, took due note, and let it be understood that he would not oppose the repeal of Prohibition. This was brave because the “drys” still commanded huge voting strength across the country.
Roosevelt took office the following year, and December saw ratification of the 21st Constitutional Amendment, repealing the 18th that had banned alcohol. Prohibition was ended, and the marchers celebrated with the beer they had demanded. The demonstration saw a successful outcome because it didn’t inconvenience people and because it was supported by authority. Ordinary Americans were fed up with gangster violence, graft and prosecutions, and preferred instead the combination of jobs, better public services, and of course beer. The authorities listened because they wanted it, too.
Tesco boss - tax them over there to benefit me and mine
It’s necessary to call this out for what it is. This isn’t a careful and considered attempt to work through the problems that assail us. It’s a naked insistence that them over there must be taxed to benefit me and mine:
Online retailers should pay new sales tax to support struggling British high street shops, Tesco CEO says
We might even think this an admission that Tesco’s online adventures aren’t going well given the demand to inflict extra taxation upon the sector.
Internet giants such as Amazon should pay a new sales tax to support shops on the struggling British high street, the boss of Tesco has said.
Dave Lewis, who has been the CEO of Tesco since 2014, warned that the current business rates system is “unsustainable” as many shops are facing crippling bills on their properties while battling competition from online rivals who pay much less.
Mr Lewis called for these high street stores to get a 20 per cent reduction on their business rates, to be paid for with a 2 per cent levy on online retail sales.
There is that technical problem with this. Business rates are incident upon landlords, a sales tax upon online would be incident upon consumers. A reasonable assumption therefore would be that the boss of Tesco is looking at how his business is a substantial landlord and not a substantial consumer.
Pfft. Treat the suggestion with the contempt it deserves therefore.
However, there’s a bigger problem underneath this. Why should we help out struggling high streets?
Sure, at one stage of technological development that was the best manner of gaining the retail services we desire access to. But technology changes - as does fashion - and the optimal answer to one generation isn’t so for another. All this internet stuff now means that the high street is no longer optimal. Or at least isn’t for that 18% or so of retail sales which now take place online.
We’ve today also an example of how fashion changes:
You can barely throw a stick without hitting a man sporting an immaculately groomed beard.
The trend for male facial hair has seen barbers become the fastest growing shops on the British high street, bucking the downturn that has seen fashion stores close at a rate of knots.
Barber shops were the fastest growing retail category in 2018, with 813 units opening.
It was a similar story the previous year, when 624 opened and analysts say that numbers are already outstripping growth again this year.
If the high street was still full of those electronics retailers who have fallen victim to internet sales we’d not have the room to cater to this change in human desires, would we?
The basic truth about economies being that what it is possible to do changes as technology does, what we want done changes too as fashion does. The trick is to enable the move from the old to the new to happen with the least friction possible so as to continue to gain that additional value creation. You know, that more GDP which is economic growth.
This obviously meaning don’t tax the new in order to subsidise the old thereby preventing that change and that growth. Dave Lewis’ demand for an online sales tax is both grossly self-interested and also wrong. So better if we don’t do it, eh?
The Cantillion Effect
The conventional history of economics usually starts with Adam Smith, David Ricardo and J. S. Mill. But there is one who came before, who might deserve to be just as much of a famous name: Richard Cantillion. The Irish economist of French descent (see, there are redeeming features of French economics!) is crucial to the history of economics.
In 1734, as if from a film noir classic, Richard Cantillon was murdered by a disgruntled former employee and his home was set ablaze. His seminal work, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General survived the fire and was published in 1755. His work ignited not just Adam Smith’s writings, but intellectual giants of the following centuries from Jean-Baptiste Say to Friedrich Hayek.
Cantillion’s contribution to monetary policy is just as important today. In Essai, Cantillon provided an advanced version of John Locke's quantity theory of money, focusing on relative inflation and the velocity of money. Namely, when you print money, it causes more pounds to chase fewer goods, pushing up the average cost resulting in inflation. His theory has been dubbed ‘The Cantillion effect’, and is a lesson to us all on the effects of inflation ‘financing the financiers’.
Printing press enthusiasts often speak of the virtues of spending as a way to help those at the very bottom of society. From lavish government programmes for the purposes of ‘job creation’ to recklessly inefficient welfare spending, well-intentioned policy in theory often leads to not so well policy in practice. These outcomes can even be contrary to the intended effects of alleviating the status of the poor. Examples are plentiful: rent control, tariffs, planning restrictions, minimum wage laws and zero hour contracts that all hurt the poor under the pretence of helping them.
Monetarists such as Noble Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman have long argued about the importance of curbing inflation but more generally, government inflation has greater ‘unseen’ effects which are ignored.
While Friedman argued that money is ‘neutral’ (meaning an increase in money supply won’t actually change the amount of resources in the economy in the long run), in the short run, inflation as a policy tool has far-reaching socioeconomic effects. It favours time-responsive actors such as investors rather than wage earners who will feel the effects of the increased money supply in the end. It would impose "forced savings" and lower real incomes on those whose income was not changed due to monetary inflation, possibly leading to unemployment.
Cantillion wrote:
“The river, which runs and winds about in its bed, will not flow with double the speed when the amount of water is doubled.”
Inflation is not simply an average rise in prices. Prices do not rise proportionally or simultaneously. This results in arbitrary benefit to some who have not created any economic value and detriment to others who have not destroyed anything of economic value by destroying savings for example. This is the Cantillion effect.
In response to the change in relative prices, more resources are allocated to long-term capital goods such as shares since they are spent by the most time-sensitive actors such as investors e.g. by buying stocks and profiting when prices are low. The sudden increased demand for stocks in the financial market bids up asset prices, this may even happen before the rise in the money supply is taken into account.
This results in deadweight loss (due to market distortions, rather than say, real price signals) due to new investments that may not be as well suited to the economy. This may result in large losses and possible bankruptcies by the owners of these capital goods. To the extent that these adjustments are widespread, they pose a threat to capital markets and the banking system.
The result of the adjustment to the increase in supply may quickly result in this river turning swiftly to one of mud. Why does this effect matter? This regressive tax is often attempted to be overcome with further progressive taxation and this phenomenon has been largely ignored by groups and political parties on the Left.
Cantillion’s work has very real implications, the Cantillion effect of inflation is one of many of his myriad of theoretical contributions. Ranging from basic methodology to complex macroeconomic models that include the circular-flow model and the price-specie flow mechanism. Cantillion is, unfortunately, one of the more underrated economists of our time. He deserves to be put in classroom economic history textbooks, just like Smith, Ricardo and Mill.
It is not just students who are naive, politicians are often blind to the true consequences of their magic money tree promises. Ironically it is those that aim to help the common man who advocate for disastrous spending policies that hurt us all. Politically this may seem like a monetary sleight of hand, ensuring the flexibility of the labour market and gaining voters, but in practice, inflation is a regressive tax, often under the pretence of egalitarian stability which exacerbates the inequalities it attempts to mitigate.
Even Richelieu did something useful
Cardinal Richelieu is remembered for making France into a centralized state by building up the power of the crown and weakening that of the nobles. He used brutal methods to do so, building up a network of spies and informers, having the rivals and opponents of his power executed, and banning political discussion in public bodies. His reputation was forever cast by Alexandre Dumas in “The Three Musketeers,” who portrayed him as a ruthless, power-hungry and cynical ruler. He will be remembered for his famous observation, “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” And he did have quite a few people hanged.
He deserves to be remembered, however, as the inventor of the table knife on March 13th, 1637. He finally tired of the appalling table manners of his guests, who would stab at chunks of meat with daggers, and even worse, pick their teeth with the sharp points afterwards. He ordered his staff to grind down the points of his house knives, so they had rounded ends instead of points. Because he was famous as well as feared, the practice caught on, and French households copied the idea in order to be thought fashionable and well-mannered. The subsequent King, Louis XIV, banned pointed knives altogether, partly to prevent violence, particularly against himself, and partly to foster the idea of civilized and gracious manners. Thus began the modern table knife.
Richelieu is regarded with some respect in modern France. An elegant kind of lace bears his name, as does a Paris Metro station, and four warships have been named after him. It would have been five, but the aircraft carrier’s name was changed from the Cardinal Richelieu to the Charles de Gaulle. All of this honours his role in changing France into a modern centralized state, while his invention of the table knife is less well known.
It was, however, symbolic. As recent ASI lecturer, Steven Pinker, showed in “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” violence has steadily declined over the centuries. The sharp daggers once used to wreak random and casual violence, have evolved into delicate instruments that enable us to display exquisite table manners. Swords have been turned, not into ploughshares, but into practical and useful items. Despite those who constantly moan that the world is heading for hell in a hand-basket, it is becoming better by almost every conceivable measure. Deaths in infancy, deaths in childbirth, deaths from disease and starvation, all are declining, as is the daily violence that people inflicted upon each other. Even Cardinal Richelieu contributed to that improvement and did at least one thing that was useful.
They're not really understanding octopus farming, are they?
Actually, they might understand the details of octopus farming but they’re not grasping the larger point at all. We’re told that octopi are complex, possibly sentient, beings and that farming them has certain problems. Some stemming from that sentience, some from the desired nature of their diet - other fishy things. Those technical problems may indeed be problems. But that larger point they are still missing:
But the case for octopus farming is weak, according to Jacquet and her co-authors. The main markets for the animals – the US, Europe, Japan and China – are areas where people are already well-fed. Octopuses are delicacies and do not deserve to be the focus of intensive farming.
That’s to entirely miss how product development works. Everything always does start out as a luxury - it’s that capitalist desire to profit from making more of it that drives down prices as competition enters. Mobile phones used to cost what a used car did - a good one - and air time was per minute the hourly average wage. Now they’re cheap enough that real poor people out there in the undeveloped countries have them. Leading to that famed economic growth lifting so many out of that poverty. Ford’s democratisation of the automobile came decades after the rich man’s toys.
But yes, it gets worse:
Indeed, the case in favor of octopus farming is weak. The main markets for farmed octopus—upscale outlets in Japan, South Korea, northern Mediterranean countries, the United States, China, and Australia—are largely food secure. (Food security is defined as when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.) As consumers become increasingly concerned about animal welfare and sustainability, the case against octopus farming should only become stronger. If society decides we cannot farm octopus, it will mean relatively few people can continue to eat them. But it does not mean that food security will be undermined; it will mean only that affluent consumers will pay more for increasingly scarce, wild octopus.
Right now, the farming of octopus is constrained by the technology—it has been difficult to reliably keep animals alive through the early stages in their lives. But with further investments, research, and testing, the technology may well become available to farm octopus at an industrial scale. It is our hope that if such an option does become practical, society will recognize the serious welfare and environmental problems associated with such projects and octopus farming will be discouraged or prevented. Better still would be for governments, private companies, and academic institutions to stop investing in octopus farming now and to instead focus their efforts on achieving a truly sustainable and compassionate future for food production.
It’s not, and it shouldn’t be, society which decides such things. That is and would be the tyranny of the majority. We, the consumers, get to decide these matters on an individual basis. As with any other moral point in fact. There are those who are vegetarian, ovolactarian or not such, vegan, piscatarian, near entirely carnivorous and the most of us, omnivorous. Those who are any of these on moral grounds get to make their own choices about that sort of thing. That’s what being a liberal, living in a liberal society, means. We get to apply our ethical insights to our lives.
It’s an illiberal society that determines such behaviour for people.
That is, if an individual decides she doesn’t want to eat farmed octopus that’s just great, that’s freedom for ya’. Even that prodnoses tell us we shouldn’t eat farmed octopus is just fine - to attempt to persuade others of your ethical vision is indeed part of that liberty. But to impose a ban on even trying to farm octopusses is the imposition of one moral view upon all who may not share it.
Actually, to demand the ban is to insist that all don’t, for why ban if you think that no one will want the production anyway? To insist that the process cannot start is to insist that at least some will consume the output. Which is being illiberal, to impose ones’ own view on everyone else.
That is, as ever, the liberal polity is the free market one, where each can and does choose to consume according to their own measures and moral visions.
Venezuela Campaign: Chavista Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism has formed a key part of Chavismo, Hugo Chávez’s political ideology, and is now maintained by Chávez’s successor Nicholas Maduro. From the early days of his presidency, Chávez targeted Venezuela’s small Jewish community with abuse and sought to push them out of Venezuela. This was despite the absence of any anti-Semitic tradition in Venezuelan culture, which was always welcoming towards its Jewish population. When Chávez came to power in 1999, 30,000 Jews lived in Venezuela. Now only an estimated 5,000 remain after two decades of persecution.
Chávez propagated classic tropes of anti-Semitism, including the notion that Jews controlled world finance and had “taken possession of all the wealth of the world.” Also prominent was the argument that Jews were dangerous fifth columnists, seeking to disrupt Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolution. “Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews,” he urged Venezuelans in one notable address. State owned media outlets promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous anti-Semitics hoax. Chávez went beyond demagoguery, going to far as to both incite and directly order violence against Venezuela’s Jews. In March 2009, police officers were caught vandalising Venezuela’s largest synagogue, daubing “we don’t want Jews here!” on the walls and destroying holy books. Chávez also sought to impose bureaucratic restrictions on Venezuela’s Jews. In 2012, the interior ministry required extra permits for the importation of Matzo, the unleavened bread essential to the Passover festival. When the Jewish community sought to make representations about this or other discrimination, they were directed to the foreign ministry, to indicate that the regime viewed them as aliens.
Anti-Semitism was also a tool with which to tarnish political opponents. Chávez extensively deployed anti-Semitism in his 2012 election campaign against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. Although a devout Catholic, Capriles had Jewish ancestry, so cartoons in the Chavista press featured him wearing a Star of David and pink shorts, the latter a homophobic reference to the fact that he was unmarried. Chavista propaganda accused him of: belonging to an international Zionist cabal which controlled the media, Hollywood, and global finance; disloyalty to Venezuela and its people; belonging to a group of exploiters responsible for the misery of others; being an “illegitimate” Catholic; and fronting a Zionist conspiracy to take over Venezuela.
Anti-Semitic activity intensified after Maduro took over from Chávez. Over 4,000 anti-Semitic incidents occurred in Venezuela during 2013 according to Venezuela's main Jewish organization, CAIV. Maduro and his regime continue to invoke anti-Semitic tropes to this day, including conspiracies of opposition leader Juan Guaidó as a US and ‘Zionist’ puppet. In a February 13th interview with al-Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese media outlet, Maduro stated that Guaidó’s inner circle was full of CIA agents serving “American and Zionist” interests.
Why are the Chavistas so anti-Semitic? Firstly, the regime likes to blame alien conspiracies for the dire state of the economy as well as other regime failures, and Jews neatly fit this requirement. Secondly, Chávez himself was strongly influenced by anti-Semitic ideas, partially through his friendship with the Argentinian fascist intellectual Norberto Ceresole. “Ceresole was like the parrot on Chávez’s shoulder,” said Sammy Eppel, the head of the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuelan Bna’i Brith. “He wanted to bring the far left and the far right together, and he persuaded Chávez that he was the man to do that.” The first chapter of Ceresole’s book extolling this model was titled “The Jewish Problem,” and anti-Semitism became the glue that bound together the Chavista government approach in which an all-powerful leader directs the people, unrestrained by tiresome limitations such as an independent judiciary.
Finally, the Chavista regime allied itself with countries and groups strongly opposed to the USA and western foreign policy, such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Russia and Libya, and most of these promote anti-Semitism to various degrees. Chávez established a particularly strong political and commercial relationship with Iran, forming at least $20 billion worth of joint ventures with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including a bank and an airline used by Hezbollah. The relationship with Hezbollah is still strong, as revealed by a recent New York Times expose of secret files compiled by Venezuelan intelligence agents which reveal how one of Maduro’s closest confidants, industry Minister and former Vice-President Tareck El Aissami helped Hezbollah establish a drug-smuggling network across Latin America.
The Chavista regime espoused anti-Semitism and wielded it as a political weapon. The regime lies to the Venezuelan people and disguises its own failings under the cover of international conspiracies. Chavez and Maduro’s actions have been reprehensible, and one hopes that successor regimes will draw a line under this ugly period in Venezuelan history.
More information on the Venezuela Campaign can be found on their website.
The Barons' ultimatum
One of the defining moments in English history occurred on May 12th, 1215, when the Barons presented King John with an ultimatum demanding that he recognize their established rights as Englishmen. The king had no alternative but to agree, and 34 days later, in a ceremony at the Thames water-meadow called Runnymede, he signed the document that set out the rights of Englishmen and his commitment to uphold them. It came to be known as Magna Carta, the Great Charter.
It proclaimed that church rights would be protected, that the barons would not be imprisoned illegally, or denied swift justice, and it restricted the monarch’s right to demand feudal payments. It has a chequered history, annulled by the pope, reissued with modifications, incorporated into a peace treaty between a subsequent king and barons, and reissued again in return for agreement to new taxes. The Jurist Sir Edward Coke used it in the early 17th Century to argue against the Divine Right of Kings claimed by the Stuarts. Since then it has been regarded as one of the cornerstones of English law.
Its reputation is largely symbolic, since it was more concerned with the rights of those with rank, rather than with those of ordinary people, but it had a profound influence on the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, and on the Constitution of the United States. The late Lord Denning described it as "the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot." Notions such as habeas corpus and Parliamentary rights can be traced to its influence. It limited the powers of rulers, and brought them under the law. Its words still resonate.
“No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice.”
The extension of its principles to protect the rights of ordinary people has been conveyed by subsequent Parliamentary Acts and legal judgements. William Pitt, later Earl of Chatham, expressed it in 1763.
“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter, - but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
Isn't the world full of surprises - we agree with Owen Jones
Presumably it had to happen at sometime, Owen Jones stumbling onto a good idea:
Denver’s move is just the latest outbreak of common sense on drugs – how depressing, then, that Britain remains so backward on the issue. That is mostly the fault, I’m sorry to say, of the Labour party. You’d expect the Tories to take a punitive, snub-the-evidence approach (even though, before assuming the Tory leadership, David Cameron accepted that drugs policy was a failure). But where is the leadership from Labour? The so-called war on drugs is a catastrophic failure, and it hurts many vulnerable people Labour was founded to represent. Drugs should be treated as a public health issue, not a part of the criminal system.
Actually, it’s largely the free market right, the libertarians and classical liberals, who support that decriminalisation. We are obviously at the extreme end and have been for some decades, arguing for full legalisation of course. But Portugal’s decriminalisation, mentioned by Jones, has received full throated approval from the Cato Institute over in the US.
There being two drivers of this - one being the harm reduction, just the greater sense of learning the lessons of Prohibition and so on. But also that basic idea of freedom and liberty. In the absence of third party harm consenting adults should be left to get on with life as consenting adults wish. Yes, this includes the liberty to ingest to choice even when others disapprove of said choice. You know, as with the deployment of gonads and any other choice on how to spend our all too brief time upon this Earth.
There is no hope of the Conservatives showing any leadership on this. Labour’s refusal to commit to decriminalisation is weak: if Britain committed to a sensible, humane approach, it would represent a devastating blow to this most catastrophic of global policies. For the sake of common sense and basic humanity, Labour should say enough is enough – and publicly declare the death rites for the “war on drugs” once and for all.
If it turns out to be Labour that brings in sensible policy then we don’t mind. Won’t be the first time we’ve advocated good policy that they have instituted - that London Congestion Charge started with Alan Walters here on this classical liberal, free market, right long before Red Ken brought it in. Good policy is good policy and so why not bring it in whoever claims the credit for it?
David Cameron as Prime Minister
It was just 9 years ago, on May 11th, 2010, that David Cameron accepted Queen Elizabeth's invitation to form a government and became Prime Minister. In doing so, he became, at age 43, the youngest one since Lord Liverpool in 1812. His Conservative Party had not won a majority, but it emerged from the election as the largest party, and was able to negotiate a coalition, Britain's first since 1945, with the Liberal Democrats. Their leader, Nick Clegg, became Deputy Prime Minister.
In assessing his record, future historians might reach a more favourable verdict on his tenure than contemporary commentators. He will probably be praised for his leadership in legalizing same sex marriages, putting it through with the support of Labour and Lib Dem MPs, even though a majority of Conservative MPs voted against it.
He might well be praised for steering the UK through the turbulence that followed in the wake of the Financial Crisis, reducing both deficit and debt as a proportion of GDP, and restoring stability.
His referenda will undoubtedly feature in any assessment. He agreed to hold one in 2014 on Scottish independence, giving voters a straight "yes or no" choice, without a third option for enhanced devolution. He backed the Better Together campaign, but kept a low profile, wisely reckoning that an English public-school-educated figure would not resonate well with Scottish voters. The convincing rejection of Scottish independence vindicated his stance.
He had agreed to a referendum on changing the voting system as a condition of the coalition agreement, but campaigned personally against changing to an Alternative Vote system. Again, the result favoured the status quo by a comfortable margin.
Another referendum, called in 2013, asked the Falkland Islanders if they wished to remain an Overseas Territory of the UK. This was to counter Argentina's assertions of sovereignty. On a turnout of 91.94%, 99.8% opted for the status quo, with only 3 people voting for change.
His final referendum, the 2016 one on EU membership, went against him. Some commentators suggested he had only agreed to it to ward off a UKIP challenge, expecting to lead another coalition government that would prevent it happening. When his party won an overall majority in 2015, he had to follow through with his commitment and hold it.
In retrospect, he might be remembered for the one thing he did not want to happen, the UK's withdrawal from the EU, and the biggest constitutional change in half a century. If the UK prospers on the world stage after regaining its sovereignty, he might be remembered more kindly as the Prime Minister who made that possible.