As regular readers will have seen last week, our colleagues at the Fraser Institute in Canada, in cooperation with the Foundation for Teaching Economics in the US, the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia, and ourselves at the IEA, recently published a report entitled 'Perspectives on Capitalism and Socialism: Polling Results from Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom'.  

It shows, among other things, that 53 per cent of British Millennials and Zoomers think that socialism would be the “the ideal economic system” for the UK.  

“So what’s new?”, I hear you say. “We already know that young and middle-aged Brits are overwhelmingly left-wing. Do we really need another survey confirming this?” 

And you would be right: the headline figures are broadly in line with what we already knew, summarised in the 2021 IEA paper 'Left turn ahead: Surveying attitudes of young people towards capitalism and socialism'. 

But what’s innovative about the Fraser report is that they try to tease out what exactly these people mean when they say “socialism”. Do they really mean this in the classic Marxist sense, i.e. collective ownership of the means of production? Or is socialism just some fluffy term which they like to use, because they think it means “being nice”?  

It’s a long story, but in a nutshell – the split seems to be around half-and-half. For example, one in four Zoomers, and one in three Millennials, give the same answer when you use the more aggressive-sounding word “communism” rather than the more anodyne-sounding word “socialism” (i.e. they say that communism would be “the ideal economic system” for the UK). That’s not a majority, but we’re still talking about millions of people.  

For free-marketeers, that’s not exactly reassuring. It means that we’ve got work to do, to say the least.  

I have written about the Fraser report’s findings for CapX and our own blog, and I’ve also referred to it in City AM, in my review of Dr Rainer Zitelmann’s latest book “In Defence of Capitalism: Debunking the Myths”.  

Kristian Niemietz
Head of Political Economy, Institute of Economic Affairs

REBUILDING BRITAIN

This week the IEA was delighted to publish 'Rebuilding Britain: 'Restoring confidence, competitiveness and compassion', authored by the Lord David Owen. Lord Owen, former Foreign Secretary in the Callaghan Government and co-founder and former leader of the Social Democratic Party, previously wrote for IEA journal Economic Affairs in 1983 when he became leader of the SDP. In his article he laid out the case for a compassionate market economy and why he believed Britain needed to chart a third way between what he saw as the hardline free market views of Margaret Thatcher and the unbridled socialism of Michael Foot.



In his paper, Lord Owen advocates a policy agenda linking market competition with social concern and explores a variety of policy areas ripe for reform. Fundamental to Lord Owen's vision is that the UK must become more open to business.

Among other measures, Lord Owen suggests that the government cancel the planned rise in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent and that windfall taxes should be abandoned. 

Commenting on the paper, IEA Director General Mark Littlewood said:

“Lord Owen is correct that the British state needs a radical overhaul. Britain today faces the highest tax burden since Clement Attlee was Prime Minister, a complex tax code thirteen times the length of War and Peace, and a civil service that focuses on looking at ways to redistribute, rather than grow, the wealth of the nation.

“If we want a compassionate society, we need to pay for it. This means a vibrant and growing economy.

“The Chancellor should review his plans to raise Corporation Tax and instead use his Budget to introduce pro-growth measures that will encourage businesses to our shores.”

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Much of the coverage surrounding this week's International Women's Day focussed on how capitalism has subjugated womankind. But while the original International Women's Day had its roots in the early 20th Century labour movement, isn't it time we started celebrating the opportunities that capitalism has offered women? 



IEA Communications Officer Reem Ibrahim discussed this with Kat Murti, Associate Director of Audience Acquisition & Engagement for the Cato Institute, on the IEA YouTube channel.

Watch here.



Reem also wrote in The Telegraph criticising the left's hijacking of the feminist movement. Commenting on the positive impact that deregulation could have on gender equality, Reem wrote:

'While some women would like to work less in order to spend more time at home with their children, others would rather take on more hours, yet find childcare prohibitively expensive. Were we to deregulate - by, for instance, bringing teacher:child ratios more in line with those in some European countries - we could lower costs substantially."

IEA DIGITAL

The IEA's YouTube channel is home to all of your digital free market needs. From lectures with leading thinkers to informative public policy explainers, we have it all. On this week's schedule, we had:



What caused Putin?... IEA Research Assistant Daniel Freeman recently travelled to Oxford to interview Russia expert Professor Peter Oppenheimer. This explored whether Boris Yeltin's failed economic liberalisation in the 1990s facilitated the rise of Vladimir Putin.

Watch here.



The butcher, the brewer and the baker... This year marks the 247th birthday of Adam Smith and in this week's podcast, IEA Communications Officer Harrison Griffiths asked Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, about what we can learn from the thinker today.

Watch here.

IN THE MEDIA



Polish productivity... IEA Director General Mark Littlewood has written his fortnightly column in The Times highlighting Poland’s strong record of economic growth. Comparing Poland's record to the UK's, Mark wrote:

“If you can maintain Polish growth rates of 3.6 per cent for half a century, your economy will be nearly six times the size at the end of that period. If you crawl along at a mere 0.5 per cent, your economy will expand by barely a quarter in the same 50 years.



Look East... IEA Communications Officer Harrison Griffiths also discussed Poland's impressive economic policies, this time in City AM. Harrison commented:

"the Labour leader led the chorus of criticism for reducing the top rate of income tax to 40 per cent last year. If he thought that proposal was radical, Poland’s 32 per cent top rate might blow his socks off. Although Starmer supported reducing the basic rate of tax by 1 per cent to 19 per cent, that is still a far cry from Poland’s 12 per cent rate on income below 120,000 Zloty (£22,400).”



Morbid stupidity... IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon appeared on GB News to discuss new data projecting that UK obesity rates may hit 63.9 per cent by 2035. Appearing on Real Britain, hosted by former IEA Head of Media Emily Carver, Christopher said:

“If I wrote a list of the 100 biggest issues facing the United Kingdom or the world, obesity would not be on it – it’s not that big a deal, it’s a matter for individuals"

Watch here (from 1:40:44):



Taxation by stealth... IEA Head of Public Policy Matthew Lesh has been quoted in the London Evening Standard warning of negative consequences for Londoners if income tax band are not adjusted for inflation in the budget. Matthew wrote:

“The freezing of the income tax thresholds is a gigantic tax rise by stealth, it means hundreds of thousands of middle-income earners across London facing an ever-higher tax burden. While inflation devalues the real value of our earnings, the tax man is coming in to take a little extra."



An invitation... Published in 1828, IEA Head of Cultural Affairs Marc Glendening has written an open letter to Gary Lineker inviting him to come to the IEA to discuss his recent likening of the government's immigration strategy to the Nazi ideology in the 1930s. Outlining the nature of the proposed event, Marc wrote:

"This will be a panel discussion revisiting Friedrich Hayek’s famous book The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944. The aim of the event will be to discuss the central thesis of this work. Namely, that the advent of fascism in Germany and his native Austria were the outcome of the ways in which the state had assumed incrementally ever more control over the economy from the late nineteenth century. This dangerous concentration of power was hugely accelerated by the First World War and continued into the Weimer period."

VINSON CENTRE 

Our partners at the Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics and Entrepreneurship will be hosting a seminar at the IEA. Dr Lawrence Haar, Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Brighton, will be delivering a seminar at 2 Lord North Street on Wednesday 22nd March, entitled 'The Fiscal Incidence of Renewable Energy Support'.

Click the flyer below for more details.



The Institute of International Monetary Research, based at the Vinson Centre, is also holding its Winter Term Money Webinar Series. Click on the flyer below to register for the next seminar.

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS



Join the IEA's internship programme!... We are now welcoming applicants. From editorial work to aiding our operations team, there are a variety of opportunities on offer for sixth form and university students. Want to work for the UK's original free-market think tank? Click here to find out more and submit your application.

Our current cohort of talented interns put together a video providing an insight into what you can expect, which you can watch here.

Applications are still open for Camp Vinson, which will now run from 26-30 June at St Antony’s College, Oxford! You can submit applications until Friday 31 March for this exclusive residential programme run in conjunction with the IEA, Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity, Vinson Centre for the Public Understanding of Economics and Entrepreneurship and the Institute of International Monetary Research.

Find out more and apply here.



And a reminder that applications for our Future Thought Leader Programmes for sixth-formers and undergraduates are now open. There will be two weeks for sixth formers in April, and one in July. The undergraduate programmes will take place in July and August.

You can find out more information on the programmes and how to apply here.