The giant consequences of China’s 6.5%-7.0% growth target

By John Ross
The following analysis of China's decision to adopt a growth rate target of 'at least 6.5%' for its new 13th Five Year Plan for 2016-2020 originally appeared at China.org.cn.

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The economy tops the agenda at this year's National People's Congress (NPC) with a focus on both prospects for 2016 and the 13th Five Year Plan for 2016-2020. Discussion on both was framed by two major events. On March 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping made key statements on China's long term economic strategy while attending a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang delivered the government's work report to the NPC focusing on medium to short term targets. The relation between the two was clear.
At the CPPCC, Xi Jinping reiterated that China's fundamental economic structure would continue to be based on "diverse" forms of ownership which would develop side by side with a state sector that would play the "dominant" role - a firm restatement of China's fundamental economic strategy since reform was launched in 1978. This economic structure generated in 1978-2015 an average annual GDP growth of 9.6 percent - the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history.
Xi Jinping's emphasis may be placed in the context of two statements he made in November. At a politburo study session China's president emphasized that a Marxist political economy would continue to guide China's economic policy. Following a meeting of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, the president stated that economic growth during the 13th Five Year Plan period must average "at least 6.5 percent."
Premier Li Keqiang's work report to the NPC outlined medium to short term projections within these fundamental parameters. As the international media focused attention on 2016's growth target of 6.5-7.0 percent, and the Five Year Plan's minimum annual 6.5 percent, these will be analyzed first.
Qualitatively, China's target is to achieve a "moderately prosperous" society by 2020. This translates into the Five Year Plan's arithmetic.
To achieve "moderate prosperity," the previous 12th Five Year Plan set the goal of doubling GDP for 2010-2020 - requiring a 7.2 percent annual average growth over the decade. However, in 2010-15 growth was faster than the targeted rate - averaging 7.8 percent. To complete the goal by 2020 now requires 6.5 percent growth. This constitutes the basis of the "at least 6.5 percent" target during the 13th Five Year Plan reiterated in Li Keqiang's government report. The 2016 growth target is to meet or exceed the annual rate required to achieve "moderate prosperity" by 2020.
Both the Five Year Plan and 2016 targets are aimed at achieving their goals without economic overheating. In 2016, inflation is forecasted at 3 percent, accompanied by a budget deficit of 3 percent of GDP - modest by current international standards. Environmental protection is emphasized with energy consumption per unit of GDP targeted to fall by 3.4 percent in 2016. The Five Year Plan, for the first time, incorporates a total cap on annual energy consumption - an equivalent of 5 billion metric tons of coal by 2020. To sustain technological innovation, R&D expenditure will rise from 2.0 percent of GDP in 2015 to 2.5 percent by 2020.
Socially, strong emphasis was given to poverty reduction, with central government funds being increased by 43 percent in 2016. Over the course of the Five Year Plan, all of China's 70 million people remaining in poverty will be lifted out of it, with 2016's goal being 10 million. Life expectancy, the most sensitive overall indicator of social well-being, is projected to rise by a further year during the Plan.
Achieving these goals will have truly dramatic consequences for China, constituting an enormous increase in human wellbeing. But to understand the world changing consequences of China achieving these goals, and therefore the scale of challenges faced, it is necessary to translate these figures into international standards.
China in 1949 was one of the world's least developed and poorest countries and has already transformed the world by achievements in poverty reduction. From 1981 to the latest World Bank data, 728 million people in China were lifted out of internationally defined poverty - the whole of the rest of the world achieved only 152 million. Now, after 37 years of rapid growth, China is about to transform the world towards the top range of international income levels.
"Moderately prosperous" is a specifically Chinese target, but the World Bank establishes an international criterion for a "high income" economy - per capita GDP of $12,736 in 2016. While exchange rates would affect the exact figure, China achieving the 13th Five Year Plan's growth and inflation targets would bring it to the threshold of or exceeding World Bank criteria for a "high income" economy.
But in the latest World Bank data, the combined population of all high income economies is 1.368 billion, while China's population is 1.364 billion. China entering the ranks of high income economies would, in a single step, double the number of people living in these countries.
Chinese people achieving "moderate prosperity" would transform the global economic situation. It would also transform China's position in the world, being reflected in corresponding changes in China's defence spending and foreign policy weight. But as a consequence, rather than concentrating on the enormous step forward for humanity that China's "moderate prosperity" would constitute, some forces are attempting to block China's rise - even if this means China's people, one fifth of humanity, would not achieve prosperity.
The most powerful such forces are U.S. neo-cons whose goal, in the words of a recent study for the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations on "Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Towards China," was, "preserving U.S. primacy in the global system ought to remain the central objective of U.S. grand strategy in the twenty-first century." To practically achieve this, it called for "new trade arrangements in Asia that exclude China." Parallel anti-China propaganda campaign attempts are seen as otherwise inexplicable attempts to portray China as facing a "hard landing" when China's growth rate is almost three times that of the U.S. with China adding more to the world's GDP each year than the U.S.
The fact China has set a growth rate goal of 6.5 percent and above for the next five years has a far greater significance than in domestic terms alone. It is the most important economic target on the planet.

China won't have a hard landing - because it is not a capitalist economy

By John Ross

Some US hedge funds, echoed by parts of the international media, are currently trotting out the perennially inaccurate myth that China's economy is about to suffer a "hard landing." This invariably incorrect prediction has been periodically repeated for decades since China launched economic reforms in 1978. The claim then was that by failing to privatize companies, not adopting what became known as "shock therapy" in Russia and Eastern Europe, China condemned itself to stagnation. Instead in 1978-2015, China experienced average annual 9.6 percent GDP growth - the fastest by a major economy in human history.

Making these claims particularly vocally has been Kyle Bass' Hayman Capital Management, who has been taking positions summarized by the Wall Street Journal, "Hayman Capital's portfolio is … expected to pay off if the yuan and Hong Kong dollar depreciate over the next three years - a bet with billions of dollars on the line, including borrowed money." "'… this is much larger than the [US] subprime crisis,' said Bass, who believes the yuan could fall as much as 40%." 

If Bass sticks to these positions, he will lose a fortune as analyzed below.

George Soros similarly recently claimed, "A [China] hard-landing is practically unavoidable." Soros has a disastrous record of investing in Russia and China - having lost approximately $1 billion in Russia's Svyazinvest telecommunications company.

Hedge fund managers speculating on RMB devaluation are self-evidently unreliable sources given that they have a financial interest in spreading "doom." Therefore, before showing the fundamental reason such views invariable turn out to be wrong, similar media errors can be noted. 

In 2002, Gordon Chang was promoted by the Western media as a "China expert" for writing a book The Coming Collapse of China which concluded, "A half-decade ago the leaders of the People's Republic had real choices. Today they do not... They have run out of time." Well over a decade later, China had not collapsed - but Chang has continued appearing on Bloomberg TV as a "China expert." 

In June 2002, The Economist produced a China supplement "A Dragon out of Puff" analyzing, "the economy still relies primarily on domestic engines of growth, which are sputtering. Growth … has relied heavily on massive government spending … the government's debt is rising fast … this is a financial crisis in the making … In the coming decade, therefore, China seems set to become more unstable." In fact, China then experienced the decade of the fastest growth ever by a major economy.

Such claims regarding a "China hard landing" are invariably false because they violate any serious sense of proportion. Take current claims on RMB devaluation, in January CNBC news claimed, "China is playing a dangerous game with its currency, moves that could send the global economy into recession. China's control-minded central bank allowed the biggest fall in the yuan in five months on Thursday."

In reality, the fall in the RMB's exchange rate against the dollar has been small compared to other major currencies. From January 2012 to March 2016, the dollar's trade weight rate soared 23 percent - the euro fell against the dollar by 18 percent, the yen by 24 percent, and RMB only 5 percent. From the RMB's peak dollar exchange rate in January 2014 to March 2016, the RMB fell against the dollar by 8 percent, the yen by 10 percent and the euro by 21 percent. 

Similar "intellectual shoddiness" was Bloomberg's recent claim China's economy was in a crisis paralleling Greece. "Chinese policy makers … have exhausted whatever magical powers they had been using to keep their economy aloft … the world … has had a few years to contemplate a Greek exit from the euro. But if the world's biggest trading nation suddenly hit a wall, it would be a catastrophe of a different order, wreaking havoc on economies near and far." Comparing Greece, whose economy shrank 26 percent in 2007-2014, with China whose economy expanded 81 percent in the same period, is bluntly ridiculous. 

The most fundamental reason claims that China will suffer a "hard landing" invariably turn out to be false is because they do not understand the consequences of the fact China is not a capitalist country. "Hard landings" occur in such economies because all major companies are privately owned and the state therefore has no ability to stop the investment collapses which cause "hard landings." 

During the post 2007 "Great Recession," US household consumption fell by 3 percent but private investment by 23 percent - the US "hard landing" was dominated by the investment decline.

Following 1990, Japan suffered a "hard landing" of a quarter century of less than 1 percent annual average GDP growth. However, in 1990-2013 Japan's household consumption rose by 31 percent. But Japan's fixed investment fell by 16 percent - the severity of Japan's stagnation therefore was exclusively due to its investment fall.

In contrast to the US and Japan's investment decline, creating true "hard landings," in 2007-14 China's fixed investment rose by 105 percent creating economic growth of 81 percent. This was possible because China possesses a large State sector which can be used to raise investment if the government needs to take anti-recessionary measures. Most fundamentally, China hasn't and doesn't suffer "hard landings" because it is a socialist not a capitalist economy.

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This article originally appeared, under the title 'China doomsayers misunderstand how socialist economies work' at Global Times.

Crisis remains an investment crisis

By Michael Burke
Prior to the recent G20 meeting leading international economic bodies such as the IMF and the OECD made tentative calls for increased investment, although this was often confused with increased spending. This is a belated or partial recognition of the real source of the crisis in the advanced industrialised countries. In terms of actual changes to policy it seems to have made no impact at the G20 whatsoever.

As the world economy is once more slowing and there are again a series of spurious explanations offered for this, it is worth revisiting the actual causes of the ongoing crisis which first became widely apparent in 2007. In this piece the advanced industrialised countries as a whole will be the reference point, using aggregate data for the OECD. But each individual economy within the OECD simply provides its own unique combination of these common factors, including Britain.

If one word can summarise the entire crisis in the advanced industrialised countries it is: Investment. The fall in Investment preceded the fall in GDP. It was also the largest component of the fall in GDP and it is the sole component which has failed to recover.

These points are illustrated in Fig.1 below, which shows real GDP, Final Consumption and Investment (Gross Fixed capital Formation, GFCF) for the OECD as a whole, using US$ Purchasing Power Parities.

Fig.1

Investment (GFCF) first fell in the OECD in 2008. Both GDP and Final Consumption Expenditure continued to increase and only fell for the first time in 2009. Falling Investment caused the crisis. On a full-year basis the total decline in Investment was 13% from its pre-recession high to the low-point of the recession in 2009. By comparison GDP fell by 3.5% and Consumption fell by 0.3%. The fall in Investment was far greater in proportional terms than GDP or Consumption.

Even though Investment is a far smaller proportion of GDP than Consumption in the OECD, its decline in monetary terms was far greater. From the pre-recession peak to the low-point of the recession Investment fell by US$1.3 trillion (in PPP terms). Consumption fell by US$ 0.03 trillion, or US$30bn, and barely constitutes a blip in the chart above. The fall in Investment was the largest component of the crisis.

Since the trough of the recession in 2009 real GDP has recovered by US$3.95 trillion. In 2014 GDP was US.55 trillion larger than its peak in 2008. Consumption is stronger. It has increased by US$2.17 trillion since 2009 and is now US$2.26 trillion above its pre-recession peak. By contrast Investment has recovered by only US.94 trillion from 2009 to 2014 and it remains US.37 trillion below its 2007 peak, or US$366 billion. The economic crisis in the OECD remains an investment crisis.

Consumption requires Investment
Economics should be the study and practise of achieving the greatest sustainable material well-being of the whole of society. For most of humanity this still revolves around the struggle for food, shelter and clothing. In the advanced industrialised countries, the required quality of those necessities has increased alongside the desire for good health services, education, welfare, access to recreation and leisure, and so on. Unfortunately, for material reasons a great deal of confusion surrounds that goal and the methods to achieve it. 

The (inverted Say’s Law) argument that increased Consumption will lead to increased Investment has evidently not materialised in the current crisis. As noted above, Consumption has increased but Investment has not. This was also the case in the Long Depression at the end of the 19th century as well as in the Great Depression of the 1930s. In both cases Investment continued to stagnate or fall despite a rise in Consumption. Currently we are in a phase of what Marx called the hoarding of capital. Keynes used the terms liquidity preference.

The reason is simple. The advanced industrialised countries are capitalist economies. Capitalism does not exist to satisfy human needs, or the desire for material well-being. It is not driven by ‘demand’. It is driven by profit. Under circumstances where Consumption has recovered, but profitability, or anticipated profitability has not, then Investment will not increase. This characterises the current situation in the OECD economies.

All Consumption of any good or service must be preceded by its production. Any attempt to increase Consumption without increased production simply leads to the creation of debt, a claim on future production. It is unsustainable. The current downturn in the British economy arises because household debt and overseas indebtedness have both increased to unsustainable levels. 

There are two principal methods of increasing production. One is to just get more people into work and/or make them work longer hours for less, or some combination of the two. The other is to increase the productivity of labour through increased Investment, either in the amount or quality of the means of production or through the increased skills of the workforce. The former cannot lead to rising living standards as it relies on working longer for less, and is the path Britain has chosen over the past period. The second method, the increased productivity of labour requires Investment.

Therefore, in order to raise living standards and to sustainably improve both the quality and quantity of goods and services generally available (including housing, health care, education, welfare and so on), it is necessary to increase Investment. Increased Consumption first requires increased Investment.

Levels, ratios and proportions
The Consumption of goods and services is a measure of the material well-being of the population. Yet, there are two main uses of all output, it can either be consumed or invested. So, if it were possible to sustainably increase the level of Consumption by reducing the proportion of the economy directed to Investment and increasing the proportion devoted to Consumption, then the level of Investment should be reduced to a minimum or even zero. In reality, the opposite is the case. The greater the proportion of the economy devoted to Investment, the faster the rise in sustainable Consumption.

Taking just the OECD data cited above, in the period from 2007 to 2014 investment as a proportion of GDP fell to 20.5% from 22.5% in the period 2000 to 2007. Consequently the proportion of GDP devoted to Consumption rose. Yet the level of Consumption increased by a cumulative 18.6% in the earlier period and has increased by just 6.4% in the same 7-period since the recession. The level of Consumption rose more rapidly when it was a smaller proportion of GDP.

This seems to be paradox, in that a falling proportion of Consumption in GDP leads to its faster growth rate. It is extremely important, since the population naturally does not care what proportion of the economy it is consuming, only that its material well-being is rising. But there is no paradox if it is understood that there is no such thing as a Consumption-led economy. On the other hand, as Investment increases the means of production, then the economy as whole can expand with rising Investment. From this expansion of GDP it is possible to increase the level of Consumption.

This is why the economic policy framework outlined by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell recently is so important, because it is correct. There is a clear emphasis on borrowing for investment, and that the current or day-to-day budget will be in balance over the business cycle. The National Investment Bank will be the principal vehicle for the investment. This amounts to the public sector having a greater role in the investment function, thereby leading to stronger growth. It is primarily from this source of rising activity that the current budget will be brought into balance as tax revenues increase and social welfare outlays related to poverty and underemployment decline. Over time the entire austerity could be reversed and living standards raised.

It is George Osborne’s refusal to invest, indeed his ridiculous ban on productive investment that will deepen the crisis. The new framework from the labour leadership begins to offer a way out of perpetual crisis and austerity.

Labour now getting it right on economic policy framework

By Michael Burke
Below is a series of short extracts from recent speeches or articles by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They amount to the beginnings of a major campaign to reorient the economic debate in Britain along the correct lines.

Together they are based on the correct economic framework that investment is the decisive driver of economic growth and prosperity. As a result it is logical, as Socialist Economic Bulletin has repeatedly argued, to borrow for investment and to prioritise the creation of a National Investment Bank to focus on infrastructure and other investment. This in turn leads to a correct position on the budget deficit – there should be borrowing for investment but consumption over the business cycle should be financed out of taxation (i.e. over the business cycle there should be borrowing for investment but not current expenditure).

This clear distinction between investment and current expenditure stands in sharp contrast to the parallel errors of both George Osborne and confused self-styled ‘Keynesians’. Osborne would try to rule out Government borrowing for either investment or consumption - but actually he cuts investment and encourages households to take on debt to fund consumption. The self-styled ‘Keynesians’, who have nothing in common with Keynes (or Marx), would borrow permanently for Government consumption – a long term unsustainable position which leads to the lowering of the percentage of investment in GDP, and therefore over time both a slower growth rate and a slower rate of increase in consumption. In both cases borrowing for consumption leads to ever slower growth – or in current circumstances it produces very slow growth. Because it was the wrong economics the self-styled ‘Keynesians’ failure to distinguish investment and consumption undermined Labour’s economic creditability, while Osborne’s failure to make the distinction, thereby banning borrowing for investment, undermines his credibility both with most serious economic commentators, companies and trade union.

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have set out the outline of a correct framework for economic policy. Jeremy Corbyn’s full speech can be read here.

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Jeremy Corbyn: “Labour’s alternative will put investment first. We will only borrow to invest over the business cycle.

We will put public investment in science, technology and the green industries of the future front and centre stage.

Only by driving up investment will we achieve the higher productivity we need to guarantee rising living standards for all.

We want to see the reindustrialisation of Britain for the digital age driven by a national investment bank as a motor of economic modernisation based on investment in infrastructure, transport, housing and technology. That provides a solid return."

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John McDonnell: “We need to begin by underlining our commitment to bringing the government’s day-to-day spending into balance.

We know the importance of borrowing for investment, which lays the foundations for future economic prosperity.

Few things are more urgent than delivering the infrastructure our economy is crying out for, infrastructure which pays for itself by expanding economic activity and raising tax revenues.'

The full piece can be read here

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John McDonnell: “Winning back economic credibility is the most important fight in a generation. Step by step we need to demonstrate that of course we can manage government budgeting effectively. This isn’t about accepting cuts but making sure our income from taxation and economic growth matches our spending. It also means recognising the importance of borrowing for investment, which lays the foundations for future economic prosperity. Investment in our infrastructure pays for itself by expanding economic activity and raising tax revenues.'

The full piece can be read here.

The mystery surrounding the ‘productivity puzzle’

By Michael Burke
The latest official data show how far the UK economy is lagging behind other industrialised economies in terms of productivity, in this case output per hour worked. There is too a long-standing discussion amongst economists in Britain about the so-called ‘productivity puzzle’. There is a genuine crisis of productivity in Britain. But in reality there is no productivity puzzle at all. It is easily explained by the weakness of investment. In particular, the recent fall in in the stock of capital in the British economy explains the almost unprecedented decline in UK productivity.

Currently, debate in Britain is dominated by the possibility of ‘Brexit’. This is an error. Under current circumstances, whether Britain is in or out of the EU is a trivial matter in economic terms compared to the crisis of productivity. This is because, contrary to George Osborne (and those on the left who are confused and echo him) it is not possible for consumption, or wages to lead economic recovery. Sustainable increases in consumption require sustainable increases in output. Unless that is achieved by more people simply working longer hours, then it must come via increased productivity. Without it, living standards will fall. This will be the case in or out of the EU.

Yet the latest ONS data show that productivity is falling. It also shows how far the UK economy lags behind other industrialised economies. Fig.1 below shows the relative productivity performance of the UK economy versus the other countries of the G7. According to the ONS, UK GDP per hour worked in 2014 was lower than the rest of the G7 average by 18%. Within that, it was lower than both the US and France by 31% and lower than Germany by 36%. The sole G7 economy whose productivity is lower than the UK’s is Japan, which has been stagnating for 25 years.

Fig. 1 Productivity Trends in the G7 Economies

 

 

This relative weakness is not confined to most of the G7. According to the ONS, UK productivity also lags that of Spain by 5%, Ireland by 30%, Belgium by 34% and the Netherlands by 45%.

 

The effects are twofold. If UK productivity is stagnating or falling, so will living standards. If relative productivity is declining the British economy will be less able to sell goods abroad, and its domestic industries will increasingly collapse through under-competitiveness. This is what is currently happening to the steel industry, for example.

 

The ‘productivity puzzle’

 

The purpose of all analysis or commentary should be to illuminate what is otherwise hidden or obscure. But economics differs fundamentally from the natural sciences in this key respect. No physicist has an interest in obscuring or denying the fundamental laws of physics, or in basing analysis on anything other than fundamental laws (although there is a strong interest in revising or reassessing them in light of new data).

 

However, in economics there are vested interests at work, social classes, whose enrichment or otherwise depends on economic outcomes. Therefore there is a very great material incentive to falsify or obscure the fundamental forces at work in the economy. This is why the fall in productivity has been a ‘puzzle’. Analysts and commentators have a false understanding of the fundamental laws of economics and attempt to fit empirical facts such as falling productivity into that false framework.

The official discussion of the crisis in productivity began with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in 2012 and was later taken up by the Bank of England and many others. The timing was not coincidental as what had been a very weak recovery in productivity started to go into reverse from 2012 onwards. Productivity actually fell. This was by the worst performance for productivity of all recessions in the post-World War II era. It is almost unprecedented coming out of recession as Fig.2 below shows.

 

Fig.2 Productivity (output per hour) trends following recessions

Source: ONS

 

The argument has been advanced that the crisis in productivity reflects the changing composition of output, with the decline of relatively high productivity sectors and the increase of low productivity ones. Specifically, it is said that the decline of North Sea oil output, as well as the crisis in financial services have depressed productivity while the allegedly low level of public sector productivity has the same effect. Using ONS data is it easy to refute these claims (Table 1 below).

 

Table 1

* Workforce jobs figures, benchmarked to Labour Force Survey totals

Source: ONS

 

North Sea oil output (under Mining & quarrying) is the most productive sector of the economy, with output per hour worked 12 times greater than for the economy as a whole. It fell 7.3% during the recession, slightly more than the economy as a whole (since revised upwards). But as it accounts for just 2.7% of all output, arithmetically it cannot be responsible for the weakness of productivity as whole

 

The output of the finance sector is a very large component of the British economy, whose measured productivity level is approximately half as great as the economy as a whole. But its output fell slightly less than that of the economy, so its decline cannot be responsible for the productivity crisis.

 

The public sector is also widely held to be a low productivity sector, although measuring outputs from sectors such as health or education is done at market prices, which almost certainly undervalues them. The output of this sector initially rose during the recession, which is natural to cope with a rising population. But the total economy productivity crisis persisted after the recession and deepened from 2012 onwards. The combined output of the civil service, health and education sectors have all risen since then by a combined 5.4% between 2009 and 2012, according to ONS data. At the same time the public sector workforce has shrunk by 8.9% because of the austerity policy. There has therefore been a significant increase in public sector productivity, outstripping all other sectors of the economy.

The productivity crisis is not caused by the changing composition of output. It is a crisis of the private sector and embraces all sectors.

 

Much of the confusion on the source of the productivity crisis arises from an incorrect economic framework. One of the clearest expressions of this misunderstanding is as follows:

 

“Ever since the industrial revolution, economic growth has rested on the firm foundation of better use of buildings and machines and improvements in the level of output for every hour worked.” Chris Giles, Economics Editor of the Financial Times, Solving the productivity puzzle is key to government finances

This is the view that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) “the better use of building and machinery….” is the driving force behind economic growth. But this proposition is ridiculous when set in this historical context. The driving force behind economic growth is not that better use has been made of buildings and machines since the industrial revolution, but that there have been vastly more buildings, machines and other contributors to the productive capacity of the economy since that time. According to Bank of England data (Three centuries of economic data) from 1850 to 2000 the accumulation of productive capital has been twice as fast as the growth in output. This is entirely in line with the analysis of Adam Smith and Marx, who respectively argued that the ‘rise in stock’ or the ‘rising organic composition of capital’ exceeds the growth rate of output itself.

 

It is also not possible to explain the uniquely poor performance of UK productivity by reference to TFP or ‘better use of buildings and machinery’, as in a modern economy businesses based in Britain could simply learn those techniques and/or buy the technology from overseas to make better use of their existing stock of productive capital.

 

The reason for the calamitous decline in UK productivity is because it has been reducing the existing stock of capital in the economy.

 

Scrapping productive capacity

 

It is extremely rare for the level of productive capital to decline. The Bank of England data noted above records only two instances since 1850 in Britain when the capital stock fell, the first two years of World War I and in the Great Depression.

More usually, the capital stock grows. Indeed it is this drive to accumulate capital for the purpose of realising profits that gives capitalism its dynamic force and its capacity to raise the material level of society. However, all capitalist economies are determined by the realisation of profit, not by the accumulation of productive capacity for its own sake, or to raise the material level of society. Profit is the raison d'être. As a result, if profits are declining, or by scrapping unprofitable plant or machinery profits will increase, it is quite usual for productive capacity to be scrapped. Individual firms do this on a continuous basis. In exceptional periods there may be circumstances when capital in aggregate is being scrapped. This characterises the current period (Fig.3).

 

Fig. 3 UK Capital Stock Index

 

The close correlation between the trend in capital stock and the level of productivity is shown in Fig.4 below. In fact the level of capital stock leads the productivity level by one year, so that the capital stock first fell in 2011 and the first recorded fall in productivity was in 2012.

 

Fig. 4 Capital Stock & Productivity

Furthermore, this outright decline in the stock of capital is unique to the UK economy in the G7 currently. Among the economies for which there is data, since 2010 the US capital stock has risen by 4.1%. In Germany it has increasd by 2% and in France by 1.9%. Italy has increased by just 0.6%, and so is effectively unchanged. But in Britain it has fallen by 2.1%.

 

The relationship between the level of productive capital and the level of productivity is clear across the industrialised economies. If other factors are unchanged, the higher the stock of capital, the greater the level of productivity. This can be illustrated in Fig.5 below, which shows the trends in the capital stock in selected G7 economies.

 

Fig.5 Trends in Capital Stock in Selected G7 Economies

This is almost a mirror image of the trends in productivity shown in Fig. 1 above. Changes in productivity track changes in the productive forces of the economy, led by the stock of capital. Over this period, the US has both the largest increase in capital stock and the greatest increase in productivity. The UK, which had previously been a relatively strong performer both in terms of the growth in productivity and the growth in capital stock, is now the sole economy shown where both productivity and the capital stock are falling.

 

Conclusion

 

There is no mystery around the ‘productivity puzzle’. It is a function of the weakness of UK investment in both absolute and relative terms. The decline in productivity is preceded 1 year by a decline in the capital stock. This declining capital stock is itself an extremely rare event. According to Bank of England data it has only occurred twice previously in Britain since 1850.

 

The puzzle arises only because there is a mystification of the driving forces behind productivity growth and economic growth in general. In the first instance, after the division of labour, growth is driven by the amount and quality of capital in productive in use in the economy.

 

In the UK productive capacity is being scrapped. This is not because there is no unsatisfied demand in the UK economy. On the contrary, there is both a scarcity of necessities, such as in housing and healthcare and other areas, as well as a large trade deficit. The productive capacity is being scrapped because its owners cannot make profits, or do not anticipate sufficient profits in a situation of growing competition and sluggish growth in consumption, for example in the steel industry. To survive and prosper, the owners of the UK steel industry would have to leap towards the front of global productivity or technical quality through very large scale investment and they are unwilling or unable to do so.

 

A reduction in the stock of capital is one way in which capital can overcome declining profitability. Marx identified some of the others as increasing the working day, which is happening in the UK and US but not elsewhere. Other factors which can offset falling profitability are a reduction in the cost of capital goods (the means of production), a reduction of (real) wages, increasing the division of labour through the growth of foreign trade or by boosting profits through increased financial speculation.

 

Many of these factors are at work in a number of countries. But Britain is the only G7 country where the capital stock is actually falling. The other OECD economies where the capital stock has fallen are Denmark, Greece and Slovenia. It is possible Britain may be a harbinger of more general international trends.

 

For now though, this weakness puts the British economy in a uniquely vulnerable position in the global slowdown. So it is no exaggeration to say that under current circumstances the need for state-led investment to rescue the economy and living standards from renewed crisis is more acute in Britain than elsehwere in the G7 economies. When John McDonnell says, “our mantra is investment, investment, investment,” this is exactly what is required to stave off renewed economic weakness.