In early 2009, when I got off a plane to begin an overseas posting in Washington, the city seemed to fizz with energy. The US was in recession but Barack Obama had just become president after a campaign which promised “hope and change”. I thought back to those days recently when Rachel Reeves, the UK shadow chancellor, went to Washington to deliver a speech that seemed to tap into the new political zeitgeist — an approach she has dubbed “securonomics”.After years of slow economic growth, a global pandemic and a war in Europe, people are in no mood to believe in grand visions any more, and politicians have moderated their rhetoric accordingly. In fact, their promises seem to have retreated right down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to settle at the basic necessities of life. Hope and change is out; “security” is now in.
In her speech, Reeves said the world was living through an “age of insecurity” in which countries like Britain were “buffeted by global forces”. Her answers to this problem were very similar to those advanced by the Biden administration: friendshoring over globalisation; industrial policy over laissez-faire; resilience over efficiency. “It is time for us to admit that globalisation, as we once knew it, is dead,” she said.
I think the diagnosis is right. But when it comes to the economy, I am less convinced about the cure. Insecurity is indeed a real and deep problem in countries such as the UK, but it’s hard to see how globalisation is to blame.