MANUFACTURING POLICY
'Quite inadvertently we let the impression build up that we were interested in something called the "new economy" and we weren't interested in traditional manufacturing', Patricia Hewitt.
Industry Minister Hewitt's qualified mea culpa over the government's indifference begs the question, how such an impression arose, and how New Labour's policy can be described as 'inadvertent'. In fact DTI advisor Charles Leadbeater coined the phrase 'knowledge economy' to describe the government's indifference to manufacturing, insisting that we are all in the 'thin air' business these days. But a few months ago, Leadbeater was mocking the idea that we can all 'live on thin air', even though this was the central thesis of his own best-selling book of the policy, called 'Living on Thin Air'.
What the government could do to reverse industrial decline is less clear in the discussion. For years the government pooh-poohed anxiety about the country's manufacturing base on the grounds that its earnings were overshadowed by those of the City of London. Between 1989 and 1998, manufacturing fell from 24 per cent to 19.5 per cent of gross value added, while financial services grew from 18.5 to nearly 24 per cent in the same period. According to brokers David Murray and Andrew Smithers
'History shows that both banking and hedge funds are extremely risky businesses. They flourish during periods of rising markets, but are subject to bankruptcy when conditions reverse. Since 1980 world bond and equity markets have experienced one of the longest and strongest rises in history.' (Britain: The World's Largest Hedge Fund, Report No. 141 14th January, 2000).
If that trend were reversed it would represent real problems for the British economy
GERMANY TO THE RESCUE?
Widespread dissatisfaction with the drift towards war against Iraq has failed to materialise into an anti-war movement, with a mood of fatalism smothering any popular reaction. But a recent outburst by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder raised hopes amongst some that there would be opposition to American plans to invade. 'We're not available for adventures, and the time of cheque book diplomacy is over once and for all', the Chancellor insisted. That last comment is particularly pointed. In the lat Gulf War, the United States strong-armed its less well-armed allies to foot the bill for America's troop deployments - an expenditure that fell principally upon Germany and Japan.
Revulsion at the US's knee-jerk campaign against the Iraqi bogeyman makes it easy to welcome any opposition from whatever quarter. But Schroeder's dissent from the War Against Terror is less progressive than it appears. Rather than any sympathy for the people of the Middle East, his argument with Washington is driven by a desire for an independent German military policy. 'There must be a German way, that we must decide for ourselves what is to be done', Schroeder expanded. The sentiment for German militarism to free itself from US leadership is a common theme of the post-Second World War period, which has become more insistent since the two nations' economic interests diverged in the 1970s. Reunification allowed the first stirrings of an independent foreign policy - unilateral recognition of Yugoslavia's breakaway republics, a policy that led to years of bloody civil war. America is not the only threat to world peace among the great powers.
Commentators have noticed that President Bush's military drive is growing more insistent as his domestic difficulties over Enron and corporate sleaze grow. But Schroeder's appeal to German pride is also intended to avoid domestic pressure over rising unemployment during a difficult election campaign.
THE FREE WEST
'There is no such thing as spontaneous social behaviour, every action is the result of influences', according to Italian health minister Girolamo Sirchia, who wants broadcasters to flash health warnings across films whenever a character lights a cigarette. What he means is that we are all nothing more than the sum of influences upon us, and that is why we continue to smoke - because film stars are telling us to.
Throughout the Cold War, the idea that individuals are free to make their own choices was held, less out of a substantial belief on the part of the ruling elites, but as an ideological riposte to Stalin's claim that artists should be 'engineers of the human soul'. Now that there is no totalitarian threat out there, the pretence can be dropped, and European ministers reveal their deep-seated prejudice that our choices are not our own.
-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'