How Neoliberals weaponise the concept of an ideal market

This new book by Colin Crouch will perplex many on the left who simply believe neoliberalism has to be overthrown. Indeed the author starts his book by talking about the Grenfell Tower disaster, which he along with many others believe epitomises the failings of neoliberalism. Yet he writes that the book

“is not a contribution to the demonology of neoliberalism, but an attempt at a nuanced account. Only in that way can we assess its capacity for reform.”

Such an account can of course also be justified on the basis of intellectual curiosity, but in addition the author sees some positive aspects of the ideology: He summarises these as

“the discipline of price and calculation [recognising efficiency and opportunity cost}; helping us appreciate the limitations of democratic government; facilitating trade and reducing barriers to it; and facilitating links among people [reducing national divisions].”

So what exactly is neoliberalism? He defines it as

“a political strategy that seeks to make as much of our lives as possible conform to the economist’s ideal of a free market”

The problems and deficiencies of this strategy come when the conditions required for the free market to be ideal do not hold, and the author’s long discussion of these problems would be useful for any economics undergraduate.

One of these conditions for an ideal market is competition: a free market is an ideal from a social point of view if (alongside many other conditions) each good is produced by a very large number of producers. The author recognises, for obvious reasons, that most neoliberals (as opposed, perhaps, to ordoliberals) tend not to go around wanting to break up monopolies and reduce monopoly power. As a result, he distinguishes between market-neoliberals who might, and corporate-neoliberals who would not. He talks about past competition (that may have resulted in monopoly) and current competition. As Luigi Zingales describes it rather well here, business tends to be in favour of a competitive market before it enters it, but once it has a dominant position in that market it is happy to put up barriers to further competition.

The author goes on to discuss conflicts between corporate and market neoliberalism, and much else besides. I think it is a great book, free from unnecessary jargon that you often find elsewhere. It got me thinking about the concept of neoliberalism again as you can see below. Whether that is a good thing or not, I would encourage you to read the book. The author also of course discusses whether he thinks neoliberalism can save itself. For his answer to that question you will have to read the book.

Now, for what it is worth, are some of the thoughts the book inspired. They go back to the distinction between market-neoliberals and corporate-neoliberals. It seems a little odd to define an ideology as the evangelisation of the free market, and then go on to say most neoliberals happen to exclude a crucial component of that free market (competition) when it suits them. I am quite prepared to believe that some of the people who first wrote about neoliberalism many years ago (and perhaps one or two today) could be described as what the author calls market-neoliberals, but as I have suggested in the past I think neoliberalism has evolved (or if you like been distorted) by ‘big money’ or capital to become a tool for self justification.

As a result, I would tend to suggest a slightly different definition that seems to work quite well today. The definition would be: 

neoliberalism is a political strategy promoting the interests of big money that utilises the economist’s ideal of a free market to promote and extend market activity and remove all ‘interference’ in the market that conflicts with these interests.

This replaces a definition based on following an idea (the author’s market neoliberalism), by one of interests promoting an idea so long as it suits those interests.

This alternative definition seems to fit two cases I have used in the past to question more conventional ideas. Large banks benefit hugely from an implicit subsidy provided by the state (being bailed out when things go wrong), but neoliberals do not worry too much about this form of state interference in the market (whereas economists do). Regulations on the other hand they do complain about. It is a very selective focus on market interference.

The second is executive pay. This is always justified by neoliberals as being something determined by the free market, when obviously it is not. Yet if you pretend that there is a market in executives and salaries etc are set by that market and not the remuneration committees of firms, then you are being a good neoliberal by defending these salaries. This example is interesting because it involves defending one part of ‘big money’ (CEOs or some workers in finance) at the expense of another (shareholders). It is why I do not talk about the interests of capital in my definition. 

Is this alternative definition simply negating the power of ideas and going back to good old interests? Only in part. Interests utilise an idea because the idea is a powerful persuasive tool. There is an obvious lesson for the left here. Because neoliberals promote the concept of an ideal market only when it suits them, so opposing neoliberalism does not necessarily mean opposing the concept of an ideal market. The left should utiliise the same concept to oppose monopoly power, for example. The idea of a free market is too powerful an idea to cede to the other side. 

The IMF on Bank Subsidies

If a bank is too important to fail (TITF), it in effect gets a subsidy from the public. That subsidy is like an insurance contract for those who lend to these banks: if the bank looks like it will fail, it will be bailed out by the government and depositors will get their money back. This in turn means that TITF banks can borrow more cheaply, so they get the benefit of this subsidy every year. TITF banks could do various things with this subsidy: they could make their loans to firms or consumers cheaper (thereby undercutting competition from smaller banks), they could make higher profits that go to either shareholders or as bonuses to bankers themselves, or they could take excessive risks. They will probably do some combination of all of them.

In 2009 the Bank of England calculated the value of this subsidy at £109 billion: that is about £1750 for each person in the UK. The TITF banks of course dispute this figure. (Donald MacKenzie has a very readable account of one example in the London Review of Books.) A week ago the IMF published their own study (pdf), using two different market based methods to measure this subsidy. (The IMF chapter is very readable, but Simon Johnson also has a good summary here.) This is a very imprecise science, but the IMF confirm that subsidies to TIMF banks are very large, although the £109 billion figure quoted above is probably at the upper end of the range of estimates (as the Bank also acknowledged in a later study). However, if we described this number as each member of the public’s contribution to help pay bankers bonuses (which it could well be), I think everyone would agree even a more modest figure is unacceptable.

There are two particularly interesting features of the IMF analysis: it calculates numbers across countries and across time. On the first, some might have assumed that TITF subsidies would be largest in the US, but this is not the case. In dollar terms subsidies in the UK and Japan are of a similar size to the US, and of course the UK is a smaller country, so per capita subsidies are larger in the UK. In dollar terms subsidies appear largest in the Euro area. The IMF also calculate subsidies before the crisis (2006-7), during the crisis (2008-10) and after the crisis (2011-12). The worrying aspect of these calculations is that the subsidies do not seem to have fallen substantially in the post crisis period compared to pre-crisis.

Worrying, but hardly surprising. In principle the TITF problem is fairly easy to solve: as Admati and Hellwig convincingly argue the proportion of the bank’s balance sheet that is backed by equity should be much much higher. (In simple terms, if a bank gets into trouble there are many more shareholders able to absorb losses before a government bailout is required.) The problem of TITF banks is political. As I discussed here, the lobbying power of the TITF banks is enormous. This is not just a matter of bribing campaign contributions to politicians. In the UK there is some evidence that the depth of the recession is partly down to lack of lending by banks, and the bank’s response to any proposals to tighten regulation is to imply that this will ‘force’ them to lend even less. If it is suggested that additional capital could come from reducing bank bonuses, they say all the talent will migrate to overseas banks. Quite simply, the TITF banks have immense power. Until the political will to take on the banks is found, we will each continue to subsidise bank bonuses.

And there will be further financial crises. For those in the UK who think the Vickers Commission put this problem to bed [1], it is essential to read this article by one of its members, Martin Wolf. In reviewing the Admati and Hellwig book, he writes: “Once you have [understood the economics], you will also appreciate that we have failed to remove the causes of the crisis. Further such crises will come.”

Postscript: for more, see this discussion via Mark Thoma.

[1] Because the IMF study tracks estimates of the subsidy to TITF banks through time, it can look at how the subsidy changed when the Vickers report was published (Table 3.2 and Figure 3.8). Publication is associated with a significant fall in the subsidy, but it was not nearly enough to eliminate it.