‘There is no longer a set of social democratic ideas that will work. Keynesianism is
intellectually dead. With Trade Unions no incomes policy will ever work. With our State
industries productivity will always be abysmal. Nobody… has the faintest idea how to
redistribute income; the tax and benefit system is too complex and arbitrary to yield a
simple progressive result free from major anomalies. Social democratic theory is just plain wrong…’
- economist John Vaizey – former Keynesian, former social democrat,
a Labour Party lord -- in a letter to The Times, 1980, stating the obvious
in explaining his abandonment of his former positions.
[Quoted in Alex Millmow’s brief sketch of Vaizey’s intellectual turnaround]
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