Aaron Bastani in Novara Media writing about inequality and the myths regarding the death of the high street.
It is important to recognise that it is compelling, simple to explain… and dead wrong to attribute the death of the high street to the internet.
For some reason, Brits now take this for granted, accepting the logic that our high streets are shit, because, well, the internet.
So yes, the internet has permanently changed how we shop. But that’s no excuse for town and city centres looking like something out of a zombie movie. We are implored to accept the inevitability of technological change, precisely because that depoliticises questions of who has cash to spend. High streets, and their unevenly distributed downfall, are about regional and income inequality. For decades we’ve been told that diverging incomes, by place and profession, is the cost of national success. Walk down your nearest town or city centre and decide for yourself.
This struck a chord with me, so I responded at the source of where this article came to my attention (Instagram)
Yup. This is what a neoliberal hell-hole looks like. When the extractive machinery drains everything of financial value out of our towns and cities. When there is nothing left but empty wallets and broken lives. When will we say enough is enough?
https://www.instagram.com/p/C22XJZQutaG/c/17989273658609783/
Later I was reading recent posts by Bill Mitchell, that chime with this. I am not an academic, so it is great to have an academic spell out the arguments for me, with rigour.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61530
Bill Mitchell preparing for a trip to the UK and his focus is on exactly the same topic: the deterioration in public infrastructure.
His key point is that the neoliberal approach on this is myopic. In the long run things will be worse than any short term fix that might be achieved.
First of all, though he frames Tory policy as a deliberate policy for diverting blame.
It is obvious that the Tory government has sought a depoliticisation strategy by cutting local government spending capacity as a way of diverting blame for the consequences of their austerity push.
He moves on to a report by the Institute for Government (IFG) in 2022 drawing out the size of the cuts to local government…
the UK government reduced grants to local authorities by £18.6bn (in 2019/20 prices) between 2009/10 and 2019/20, a 63% reduction in real terms.
…and the nature of their impact…
The problem was two-pronged.
First, the grants were severely cut thus compromising the supply capacity of local governments.
Second, the overall austerity inflicted on the nation as a whole caused a rise in demand for social care services, particularly in the most disadvantaged council areas, which then placed further pressure on the councils.
This problem is worse in poorer areas. Poorer councils have less opportunity to generate their own income through council and business rates, and the social care demands are higher in poorer areas.
Overall, the effect is that social fabric starts to fall apart. Damage is done that needs to be repaired and the bill is far higher than it would have been if austerity had not happened.
Eventually, the strategy backfires and the outlays necessary to repair the damage outweighs the so-called ‘savings’ in the short-run.
There is much more to say on this topic, especially about the response to climate change. But for another time.
Bill-MitchellMacroeconomicsMainstream-EconomicsMMTModern-Monetary-TheoryNeoclassical-Economics Economics