Truss, Kwarteng and economics
The Truss-Kwarteng policy is not Thatcherism, but Reaganomics. Thatcher and Reagan, early 1980s leaders of what came to smother the world under the name “neoliberalism”, had much in common; but also differences. Orthodox Thatcherites are shocked by Truss and Kwarteng. The chief difference is this: Thatcher was a budget-balancer. She avoided government budget deficits. Such budget-balancing is a standard neoliberal line, though by now even Germany’s official economists, the most rigid on the issue, agree that governments should run temporary budget deficits in sharp slumps. (It’s a myth that...