The first part of this paragraph is predicated upon the fiction that the rise of Thatcher/Reagan set two Western Economies on the right track : away from the Post War Welfare State, toward a Utopia predicated upon the the Free Market Myth and its Trinity Hayek/Mises/Friedman.
During the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of the early 1980s, the two largest English-speaking democracies rebooted their growth machines and put paid to fears of enduring malaise. Both were right to chafe at the price controls and worker unrest of the 1970s. Yet they over-corrected.
The Financial Collapse of 2008 puts this in the category of self-apologetical fiction, that demonstrates that Neo-Liberalism was not ‘The Royal Road to Prosperity’ but ‘The Road to the Poorhouse’ for the 99%. Mr. Luce is a Corporatist, as if the regular reader of his essays needs a reminder!
In the second part of this paragraph is devoted to a brief cautionary tale: those canny French Lawyers and Financiers moved to ‘The Promise Land of The Free Market’ , only to inflate London Real Estate out of the purchasing range of those Virtuous British Lawyers and Financiers!
Hundreds of thousands of French lawyers and financiers may have moved to London in the last generation. Many more British have been priced out of their own capital city.
The whole of Mr. Luce’s essay has about it the aura of a rickety Fable, hastily written against a fast approaching deadline.
Old Socialist
https://www.ft.com/content/58bf0c00-5052-11e7-bfb8-997009366969
