Transition, Vol. 16 No. 34, 2014.
Original scientific paper
DISSENT & DEVELOPMENT IN THE CULTURAL RENEWA OF BALKAN COMMUNITIES
Fred Harrison
; Director of the Land Research Trust, London
Mason Gaffney
; Emeritus of Economics, University of California (Riverside)
Abstract
Western governments and the International Monetary Fund deployed “austerity”policies in response to the financial crisis of 2008. The authors explain that, farfrom laying the foundations for sustainable growth, the austerity strategy isdeepening the crisis by eroding social cohesion without delivering fullemployment. Austerity is a method for short-term management of chaos in themarkets, with the high costs carried by the most vulnerable sections of society.
The authors elaborate a financial model that would restructure the pricingmechanisms in both the public and private sectors on principles designed todiminish the cyclical booms and busts that are driven by the misallocation ofwhat Alfred Marshall called the “public value”. Fiscal policy is identified as theone viable strategy for restructuring the economies of Eastern European.
Transition to a new financial settlement would empower people and theirenterprises to work towards balanced growth while simultaneously renewingtheir communities. This model is grounded in the classical thesis that, to achieveoptimum use of all productive endowments (land, labour and capital), peopleshould pay for the benefits which they receive from society. The practical effect
would be to socialise economic rents, which enables policy-makers to privatiseearned incomes and the profits from saving and investing. Abolishing taxes thatdamage the health and wealth of nations is identified as the central remedy forpathologies that will otherwise remain as dangerous flashpoints for populations
under stress.
Keywords
austerity; excess burden; economic rent; public value
Hrčak ID:
133725
URI
Publication date:
2.2.2015.
Visits: 748 *