White Paper, White Flag -how Market Failure Rewards Capitalists

The publication by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities of its flagship policy Levellling Up the United Kingdom, raises too many questions to be dealt with in this post, but I shall highight one aspect of it.

First, it is a White Paper, a statement of the Government's intentions on a policy forming part of a Bill intended to become Law, which usually runs to five or six pages, and not more than 5,000 words. The details appear in subsequent papers as part of the First, Second and Third Readings of a Bill before Parliament.

This White Paper is 332 pages, not including lengthy introductions by Boris Johnson, and a joint introduction by Secretary of State Michael Gove and former Bank of England economist Andy Haldane. This is a book, not a White Paper.

And as books go, this one is riddled with incompetent editorial mistakes, and passages copied and pasted from Wikipedia, as this article in the Independent shows -
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2006757.html

My point is derived from this remark in the Executve Summary p.xiv which refers to the Medici family of Florence and what later on (page 3) is referred to as the 'Medici effect'-

"the Renaissance fourished in Italian city states that combined innovation in fnance with
technological breakthroughs, the cultivation of learning, ground-breaking artistic endeavour, a beautiful built environment and strong civic leadership.".
"This contemporary Medici model, our twenty-frst century recipe for a new Industrial Revolution, depends on harnessing an array of interventions and catalysing a range of sectors.".

The point of interest is that interest was considered a sin by the Roman Catholic church, which did not formally allow Usury until the 19th century and in theory still considers it a sin. But how did the Medici family become rich and powerful enough in Florence to fund the arts? Not from their market genius, but because they allied themselves as bankers to the enormous wealth and power of the Roman Catholic Church, and using the figleaf of 'Bills of Exchange' rather than formally charging interest, which was how Jews became rich bankers in Christian Europe, being exempt from this sinful practice, though their success in doing what Christians were reluctant to do continues to form the basis of anti-semitism today, as noted with the vicious attacks in the US on George Soros.

So where were the markets in all this, the foundations of Capitalism? Somewhere stuck between the Papacy and the management of Florence as a City State, riven with violent disputes between the emerging capitalist class of Merchants typified by the Medici, and the landed aristocracy and allies of the Pope, more interested in conserving their wealth and privilege.

And it is relevant now, because in effect, what this Levelling Up White Paper/Book tells us, is that it is State Intervention that is going to unlock the value of economic growth across the UK and mostly in those areas that have 'fallen behind' -ie, are less successful than London.

It means the billions of pounds sloshing around the City of London owned by Merchant Bankers, Hedge Funds and Banks can reap the rewards of the State investing where they do not. Indeed, why make the Market work when the State can do it better? And who better to finance the business opportunities and economic growth the Hedge Funds can benefit from, if not than the Tax Payer? We stump up the money to fund the growth from which they benefit. Sort of Communism in reverse.

Thus we have Boris Johnson, and a Cabinet, almost half of whom want Brexit to mean the retreat of the State and Government regulation, basing their entire economic recovery programme post-Covid and Brexit, on what in the USSR might have called 'The Five Year Plan'.

Markets be damned, the taxpayer is King. Long live the Republic! (Eh? Hence the Contradictions of Capitalism).

Whether or not Boris Johnson survives in Office long enough to read his Government's White Paper, all 332+ pages of it, remains to be seen. I have heard he is writing a book about Shakespeare. Perhaps he will devote a chapter to Shylock, Usury and Markets in the Serene Republic of Venice?

The White Paper is here in various formats
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...united-kingdom