How the UK can avoid a command economy

Is the Chancellor’s latest round of economic measures just another instalment of Keynesian emergency funding, necessary only until the crisis has passed? Or is the Government on the road to a command economy? Policy-makers are currently being pulled in two contradictory directions by these questions, as the Government’s response to the crisis is impaired by a war of ideas over the future of our economy.

Diehard globalists want to move towards a smaller state and prefer no limits on international trade. Their view is challenged by economic patriots who question the assumption made by free-trade fundamentalists that we should always accept the consequences of buying and selling at world prices. Patriots point out that world prices may not be market prices. They may be the result of the modern mercantilism being practised by the Chinese Communist regime. And if world prices are manipulated prices then the mutual benefits of trade do not materialise.