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Martin Wolf used his FT column this morning to demand that Labour increase taxes in this country. He did not do so to address the crisis of inequality that we face. He did not suggest this need arises because of the urgent necessity of redistributing to those in need. He said that raising taxes was essential because spending cannot be cut and “the [Chancellor] needs to create a fiscal path that credibly reduces the ratio of net public debt to GDP, so re-creating some of the room the country lost over two decades of crisis. This will mean a substantial fiscal tightening. The current fiscal rules are not enough.” As if to emphasise the point, Wolf concluded his article by saying, “Fiscal credibility is not a luxury. A government that does not deliver it is walking naked.” In presenting his case, Wolf also argues for increases in income taxes, by implication generally, and VAT, which is, of course, just about the most regressive tax of all. The message is, then, quite clear and comes in three parts. The first is that people must brace themselves to pay more tax. The second is that they must, despite this, expect nothing more from the government, even though they are already disenchanted with its failure to meet their obvious needs. Thirdly, all of this is supposed to be required so that the government can, to use a metaphor, put some money aside for a rainy day, whilst coincidentally keeping the City of London happy. It takes little decoding to work out the real message. It is that Wolf thinks that the bond markets rule. He thinks they must have their way. He believes that the price of them doing so must be borne by ordinary people, and by those who will be made unemployed as a consequence of the actions that he proposes. He thinks that the economy must be slowed, because that is the inevitable consequence of what he is recommending. He believes that the sacrifices that will result, whether from the failure to manage climate change, or to deliver the homes that people need, or to provide the training, healthcare and support that people will require if they are to join the current toxic neoliberal world of work, let alone meet the needs of an ageing population, must be made to support defence spending and the need for the government to accumulate reserves so that it might have the funds required in the event of crisis. The problem with Wolf’s argument is that we are in crisis. The world is already at war, led by the leading rogue states in the world, which are the USA and Israel. We are already paying the price of that. Austerity is already denying people the services they need. There is already rising political tension that threatens democracy, which is being exploited by the far right of politics, with which it increasingly seems that the City of London and the FT are aligned. If you wanted to promote fascism in the UK, Wolf’s plan is a blueprint to follow. And all of this rests on completely false economics. Wolf's foundational assumption is that the household analogy applies. The fact is that it does not. That analogy is. a myth, and a dangerous one. The government is not like a household. In fact, in almost every imaginable situation, it has to act in ways that are the opposite of any household. Despite his supposed intelligence, and the fact that he has written for the FT longer than most of its readers have been alive, Wolf does not know that. It is his belief that, like a household, the government must raise funds through taxation or borrowing before it can spend. That is not true. The government creates money when it spends. The capacity to pay tax and to save arises from the spending that the government creates, and the money that it puts into circulation. What is more, what he calls borrowing is no such thing. It is saving, and nothing more or less than that. It is already the money the country has put aside to deposit in a safe place in case the proverbial rainy day arrives. It is deposited in a place which the government provides. But Wolf does not understand that. And so he gets quite literally everything that he says wrong. In his world, the goal of government is to run a neat balance sheet. And the purpose of politics is to balance the government’s cash flow Whilst the interest group that the government is meant to serve is the City of London. None of those is true. Politics is about three things. It is about meeting the needs of people. It is about defending people from attack, including from those who would seek to threaten their well-being by forcing up petrol, diesel, gas, electricity and food prices. And it is about protecting people from those who would abuse them, and most especially those with power and finance who would exploit those without either. Wolf’s ideology does not facilitate the meeting of needs. It does not protect people from attack. And it serves the interests of those who abuse, and not those who are abused. In this life, we have to choose whose side we are on. Wolf has made his choice. He serves the forces of oppression. I am only interested in serving the forces of liberation for those who need to live with freedom from fear, which is the state to which far too many have been consigned by neoliberalism and its proponents. That is a decision we all have to make. And the need to do so is growing by the day.

"It’s how people use the technology that’s the important thing. You put the technology out there and it can be used for ill or for good. And if they use it for good, I’m very happy. And if they use it for bad, I feel badly about it. But that’s the way life works. Technology is morally neutral; it’s how we use technology that determines everything." In his Nobel Prize interview, chemistry laureate John Goodenough spoke about technology and the responsibility we all have to use it wisely. Watch his interview here: https://t.co/TfPDSj2czv