Letters | Letters to the editor

Letters

On globalisation, mussels, Russia, politics

Those who are left behind

Your briefing on the regions of the world that have been marginalised by globalisation stated that economists “once thought that, over time, inequalities between both regions and countries would naturally even out” (“In the lurch”, October 21st). I am not one of them. I have always believed that the global economy “can be imagined to be a self-equilibrating mechanism of the textbook variety, or it can be recognised as subject to processes of cumulative causation whereby if one or more countries fall behind the pack, there may be dangers of them falling further behind, rather than enjoying an automatic ticket back to the equilibrium solution path. These two alternative, conflicting views of real-world economic processes have very different implications regarding institutional needs and arrangements” (“Managing the Global Economy”, 1995).

The same applies to regions. There is no reason in theory, nor evidence in practice, why they should enjoy virtuous circles of convergence rather than vicious cycles of divergence. Thus, at the time of the Brexit referendum it was said that income per head in Britain was back above pre-financial crisis levels. As Andy Haldane, the chief economist at the Bank of England, pointed out subsequently, this was true in aggregate, but at a disaggregated level it applied to only two of Britain’s regions: London and the South-East.

JONATHAN MICHIE
Professor of innovation and knowledge exchange
University of Oxford

More freedom for people to move raises wages for everyone. Increased competition to attract workers makes them better paid. But in Britain our shortage of homes and the benefits regime make it hard for people to up sticks to take advantage of better opportunities. We have created a pernicious, very British, hukou system; a 21st-century Statute of Labourers that stops workers from relocating. Governments are happy to support helping less advantaged places. Let’s not neglect the easiest ways to help people.

JOHN MYERS
Co-founder
London YIMBY

In a small and densely populated country such as Britain, The Economist’s proposal for long-distance migration is unnecessary to solve the long-term issues of regional inequality. A better solution would be to improve the transport connectivity between rich and poor areas.

For example, the “grim up north” conurbation of East Lancashire is Britain’s most deprived area: 200,000 people live there, about the same as Milton Keynes. However, it takes an unbelievable three hours to travel by train from East Lancashire into the booming city of Leeds, just 45 miles away. By contrast, the similar distance from Milton Keynes to central London takes 35 minutes. No prizes for guessing which of the two is the more affluent. Why move when you can easily improve?

PETER BRYSON
Chair
Skipton and East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership
Addingham, West Yorkshire

The argument that migration is the answer to what is largely a question of distribution brought to mind the parable in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”. The migration of the Joad family from the dust bowls of Oklahoma to the unfulfilled promise of abundance in California is a cautionary tale of transplanted inequality.

JOSEPH HALE
Melbourne, Australia

A passing wind

Nature continually reminds the contributors to our global-warming discourse that it is far more complex and unpredictable than they care or dare to admit. You reported that one unintended consequence of the boom in offshore windpower is that the pilings for the turbines are being inhabited by mussels (“Flexing the mussels”, October 14th). These molluscs generate significant amounts of methane, which is up to 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its impact on warming, and nitrous oxide, which is 265 times more potent. Mussels, oysters and clams are thought already to produce a tenth of all methane and nitrous-oxide emissions from the Baltic Sea. The ecological trade-off in this complex dynamic is yet to be understood.

Nature has limitless time and much irony. Humanity has limited time and much to learn.

PIOTR NEY
Farnham, Surrey

Tsar-like qualities

I was struck by the fact that Mikhail Glinka’s “Glory to the Tsar” was played during Vladimir Putin’s coronation-like inauguration (“Enter Tsar Vladimir”, October 28th). That piece is the epilogue of Glinka’s opera, “A Life For the Tsar”, which during Soviet times was known as “Ivan Susanin” for the peasant hero who dies for the tsar.

The opera’s events take place during the “Time of Troubles” at the start of the 17th century, when Mikhail Romanov is attempting to consolidate power and fight the Poles. Ivan offers to guide the Polish army to meet the Russian troops. He leads them deep into the forest, taking them out of the action. When they realise the deception, they kill him.

The piece represents the founding of the Romanov dynasty, a reference that many Russians would find significant today.

TAMARA PETROFF
Maryport, Cumbria

Russians are discontent with corruption and point the finger at bureaucrats and politicians. Mr Putin’s sky-high approval ratings can be explained in part by his image as tsar-batiushka, our Tsar the Father, a benign dictator undermined by incompetent underlings.

Ivan the Terrible terrorised the boyars, a high-ranking aristocracy in medieval times. The mistrust of political advisers persists in today’s society. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens commiserate with the burden of rule bestowed on their leader. Boris Godunov, a boyar who succeeded Ivan the Terrible, laments his new royal headgear in Alexander Pushkin’s play: “Ah! Heavy art thou, crown of Monomakh!”

The hero-worship that is bestowed on Russia’s leader is tinged with sympathy.

YACOV ARNOPOLIN
London

The Bolshevik revolution was seen by radicals as an endorsement of Marx’s dialectical materialism. Marx abhorred the static nature of “determinism”. There is no direct Lenin-Stalin-Putin line, dictated by Russian genes or the genetics of history. Change does not automatically lead to the conclusion of “tragic irony”. Even the gods gave Oedipus a choice; or is that choice only ever Hobson’s?

JULIAN LAGNADO
Strasbourg

The same old record

I enjoyed Bagehot’s remark that unreconstructed Thatcherites think that all they “need to do is replay old vinyl records of Margaret Thatcher’s speeches” to win votes (October 14th). That observation is reason enough to resubscribe to The Economist.

MICHAEL DRIVER
Ichihara, Japan

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