Purposive Drift

Time to stand and stare

Regular readers will probably be aware that I sit at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Samuel Brittan. But curiously I often find myself warming to him when he expresses his sympathy for ideas like a land tax or a basic citzen's income. See if you can get which bits of the following two paragraphs I responded to positively:

"The world is not yet one single economy, but it is moving in that direction. The integration of nations such as China and India into it is the equivalent of multiplying several-fold the amount of unskilled labour relative to the supply of skilled labour and capital. The conventional response is to say that US and European industry needs to move continually upmarket, developing new products and processes, to maintain its position. There are limits to how far this can go. Not everyone can be retrained to undertake high- technology jobs.

Moreover, is it really desirable that everyone all the time should be engaged in non-stop reskilling (misleadingly called "lifelong education"). "What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare"? The western response should surely be to keep its own frontiers open to gain the benefits of trade but redistribute income to those who would otherwise lose out. My longtime slogan, coined before the word "globalisation" was invented, has been: "Redistribution yes, equality no.""