Slides for lecture given as part of UCD module, 'Gender and the Economy' - 4 November 2013

1. Gender and the Economy
Lecture Nine:
The Financial Crisis
and ‘Economic Man’
4 November 2013

2. 11 May 2010
Dear Chief Secretary,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Sincerely,
Liam Byrne.
chief secretary to the Treasury.

3. “The British Government has
run out of money because all the
money was spent in the good
years.”
George Osborne, 25 February
2012

4. “So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our
economy - rebalance demand, restructure banking, and restore the
sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only jeopardise
recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King, TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

5. 5 March 2009. QE : £75 billion
10 October 2011. QE : £75 billion
2009 – 2011. corporate bond purchase
via asset purchase facility : £375 billion
2012: Monetary Policy Committee
approve a further £50 billion.
“So we cannot just carry on as we are. Unless we reform our
economy - rebalance demand, restructure banking, and restore the
sustainability of our public finances - we shall not only jeopardise
recovery, but also fail the next generation.”
Mervyn King, TUC Conference, 15 September 2010.

6. “In the European context tax rates are high and
government expenditure is focused on current
expenditure. A “good” consolidation is one where taxes
are lower and the lower government expenditure is on
infrastructures and other investments.”
Mario Draghi. 24 February 2012.
“The ideal fiscal consolidation ... must be focused on
spending cuts and not tax hikes.
It is essential that [this consolidation effort] is perceived
as credible, irreversible and structural to have impact on
sovereign debt spreads.”
Mario Draghi. 15 November 2012

7. Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to 523 banks – 3yrs @
1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to 800 banks – 3yrs @
1 per cent

8. Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO)
21 December 2011: €489.2 billion to 523 banks – 3yrs @
1 per cent
29 February 2012: €529.5 billion to 800 banks – 3yrs @
1 per cent
“Some banks, particularly in Spain and Italy, used
portions of those funds to buy higher-yielding bonds
issued by their governments at a time when most
investors remained skittish, and it helped reduce
government borrowing costs.
But many banks primarily used the funds to pay down
maturing debts or simply deposited the money at other
banks or with the ECB itself, even though they yield less.
The infusion fell short of some politicians' hope that it
would stimulate bank lending to customers in struggling
European economies.”
Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2012

13. Implementing reform is a real
challenge and this requires that we
win the hearts and minds of the
people.
Countries are faced with the option of
either profoundly reforming their
public expenditure and social security
systems or putting their long-term
sustainability at risk.
Jean-Claude Trichet, 31 May 2004

14. 1. Cut government spending
2. Cut wages
3. Use central bank credit to buy
paper assets
4. Keep inflation at a low rate

16. Financialization refers to the increasing importance
of financial markets, financial motives, financial
institutions and financial elites in the operation of
the economy and its governing institutions, both at
the national and international levels.
Gerald Epstein, „Financialization, Rentier Interests, and Central Bank Policy‟,2002
1970s – The Monetarist revolution
1980s – war on labour
1990s – Credit as a substitute for wage increases
2000s – Credit solution for wage stagnation fails
Present day – open conflict over monetary policy once again

17. Some characteristics of Neo-liberalism  Attacks the post-war compromise between producer capital and labour –
compromise that put severe checks on free movement of capital
- Great Britain and Northern Ireland = Social Democratic Welfare
State
- Irish Republic = Corporatist State / Rerum Novarum
(Vocationalism)
• Pushes a monetary policy designed to benefit financial rentiers
• Privileges asset-price speculation over producer-led employment
• Needs to kill inflation in order for asset price profit-seeking to work

24. “[According to the BIS*], due to central banks’ success
and gained reputation in fighting inflation, inflationary
pressures would first show up in asset price inflation and
increase the vulnerability of financial systems. Is this
something a central bank should be concerned about to
a degree that policy strategies have to be amended?
Should a central bank react to asset prices directly or
indirectly with regard to possible future threats to price
stability? Do we know which of the observed asset price
booms are bubbles? Do we need to know?”
Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the ECB, 8 June 2005, Singapore
*BIS – Bank for International Settlements

25. “I would argue that, yes, bubbles do exist, but that it is very
hard to identify them with certainty and almost impossible
to reach a consensus about whether a particular asset price
boom period should be considered a bubble or not…
Jean-Claude Trichet, 8 June 2005, Singapore

26. “I would argue that, yes, bubbles do exist, but that it is very
hard to identify them with certainty and almost impossible
to reach a consensus about whether a particular asset price
boom period should be considered a bubble or not…
Empirical evidence confirms the link between money and
credit developments and asset price booms. Thus, a
comprehensive monetary analysis will detect those risks to
medium and long-run price stability. …the ECB’s monetary
policy strategy has this property
Jean-Claude Trichet, 8 June 2005, Singapore

27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP-pR8boaxQ

35. Over the past thirty years, despite
their being essential to human life,
neoliberal restructuring across the
world has privatised, eroded and
demolished our shared resources,
and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings
(Dec 2011), p.73.

36. The term social reproduction encompasses
all the means by which society reproduces
its families, citizens and workers. It includes
all the labour that is necessary for a society
to reproduce itself: the biological
production of people and workers, and all
the social practices that sustain the
population – bearing children, raising
children, performing emotional work,
providing clothing and food, and cooking
and cleaning.

37. The term social reproduction encompasses
all the means by which society reproduces
its families, citizens and workers. It includes
all the labour that is necessary for a society
to reproduce itself: the biological
production of people and workers, and all
the social practices that sustain the
population – bearing children, raising
children, performing emotional work,
providing clothing and food, and cooking
and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been
key to feminist social theory, because it
challenges the usual distinctions that are
made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour
market and the home.

38. The term social reproduction encompasses
all the means by which society reproduces
its families, citizens and workers. It includes
all the labour that is necessary for a society
to reproduce itself: the biological
production of people and workers, and all
the social practices that sustain the
population – bearing children, raising
children, performing emotional work,
providing clothing and food, and cooking
and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been
key to feminist social theory, because it
challenges the usual distinctions that are
made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour
market and the home.
Labour in this sphere is often devalued
and privatised, and is typically
performed by women in their ‘double
day’ or ‘second shift’, alongside paid
wage labour. But reproductive labour
of this kind is just as central to
capitalist accumulation as are other
forms of labour, which means that
struggles over its structure and
distribution are fundamental to any
understanding of issues of power and
the relationships between labour and
capital, as well as the potential for
their transformation.

39. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social
relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied
widely and that variation has been central to the organization of
gender relations and gender inequality.
From this point of view, societal reproduction includes not only the
organization of production but the organization of social
reproduction, and the perpetuation of gender as well as class
relations.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqYnOWoyC5M