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Last autumn, Boris Johnson brought the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities into being. Naming a ministry after a catchphrase seems to suit our age of rhetoric as policy. How long before we see a Department for Getting on Your Bike, or a Department for Unleashing the British Entrepreneurial Spirit?

The levelling up initiative was born out of the Conservatives 2019 election victory, in which many former Labour constituencies in the north and Midlands the so called red wall changed sides. The thinking was that these acquisitions, the fruits of the war over Brexit, could not be kept once Brexit was done unless their needs were addressed. The idea of levelling up finding policies to reverse regional gaps in income, health, education and jobs was part of a wider narrative of a realignment, moving left on economics, right on questions of social policy. It was a way to consolidate the coalition brought together by Brexit so that it would have a life beyond Brexit itself.

The problem is, levelling up is running into difficulties and looks as if it is getting nowhere. For a start, the government has been distracted by both Partygate and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While these distractions may be temporary, other obstacles will remain. The small-state, libertarian faction of the Tory party, which wants low taxes and a government that stays out of the economy, is no fan. Neither are those in the blue wall: MPs from traditional Tory constituencies that dont want to lose funding to more deprived areas. Internal opposition aside, the pressure to keep taxes as low as possible, and the other calls on the government purse, greatly limit the cash available to make levelling up a reality.

But if the policy fails, we should not mourn its passing. Why? Its not likely to work, and there are initiatives more deserving of money that probably will.

Its hard to diagnose the dysfunctions that create regional disparities. They can be rooted in the people of a particular place, or caused by an accident of history. There may be as many causes as there are people or firms in a particular place. Accidents of history also play a role. Things like fancy amenities or infrastructure may well be part of the reason for a towns success, or they could be the fruits of it (or both). This difficulty in diagnosing root causes is part of the reason why regional inequality is so entrenched. Its also why income gaps between nations across the world are so hard to close.

If you dont know with any certainty why one place is succeeding and another isnt, then you are likely to waste money by building bridges or transport links that will be underused, or producing housing or industrial estates that are unwanted.

In my view, there is no ethical defence of the disparities in incomes and life chances that market forces help to generate. In an ideal world, they would not exist. But the pure socialist systems that try to prevent them have such bad side effects corroding incentives and personal liberties, and being vulnerable to exploitation by powerful members of the party hierarchy that we have no choice but to tolerate a certain level of disparity. What applies to people also applies to towns, cities and regions. Part of the problem is that people are drawn to a place to do business because of who else is going to be there; yet who else is going to be there is determined by what they think others will do, creating a chicken and egg situation. Governments can help convince people that a place is viable by providing good attractions, amenities, or a university or a transport node. But a citys viability can unravel quickly and unpredictably, as seen in Detroit, which, from a high of about 1.85 million people in 1950, lost almost two-thirds of its population.

Levelling-up enthusiasts see regional devolution as a way to help crack these problems of diagnosis and prescription. But devolution carries it own risks. Devolving tax and spending limits the possibility of redistribution from richer areas to poorer ones; it unravels the fiscal union, setting the scene for the kinds of difficulties the euro area experienced after the financial crash. In addition, local politics is more vulnerable to corruption. Local politicians wont have national interests at heart, so may engage in unproductive fights simply to move economic activity from one place to another.

None of this is to say that every levelling up initiative is a bad idea. But right now, there are a lot of other things governments could do that would be better value for money. We need to tackle the cost of living crisis by moving money from those who can pay to those who are experiencing hardship. We have got to address the Covid legacy of long NHS waiting lists, and put the service on a more resilient footing to deal with future pandemics and other challenges. Government has to deal with the crisis in social care. The gap between real funding per head in state and private schools is widening. And we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, something made all the more urgent by the imperative of weaning ourselves off Russian fossil fuels. There is other post-Covid work to do in broadening access to high-speed internet and making food and other distribution networks more resilient.

This is a long list of policies that are expensive but essential, and will stretch government capacity and the electorates tolerance of taxation to its limits. Many of them, if they work, will also help with the broad set of objectives put in the bucket marked levelling up. For instance, better funding for the NHS and social care will help close one of the worst aspects of inequality, the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.

Even at the best of times, we need to recognise the limits of a generous and muscular state. Offering everyone the chance to do the job of their choice at the same wage wherever they live is well beyond those limits. Providing decent education, health and social care and green energy is not and we should focus on those things instead.

Tony Yates is a former professor of economics and head of monetary policy strategy at the Bank of England.

Inequality, what can be done? by Anthony B Atkinson (Harvard, 16.95)

Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics by Rob Ford and Maria Sobolewska (Cambridge, 15.99)

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (Penguin, 9.99)

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The big idea: why we shouldnt be levelling up - The Guardian

WAUSAU Open state Senate seats will dominate local elections in the Marathon County area this fall.

Decisions by Republican state Senate incumbents Kathy Bernierand Jerry Petrowskito not seek reelection will set up primary elections on Aug. 9.

Three Republicans will compete to replace Bernier in the 23rd Senate District. The winner of the primary will also win the seat in November because no Democrat filed to run for the seat.

Meanwhile, the winner of a three-way Republican primary to replacePetrowski in the 29th Senate District will face Democrat Robert Look.

Here are the races for the Marathon County area.An (*) indicates a race that will require a primary; (i) denotes the incumbent.

Incumbent Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brian Westrate, Fall Creek; Sandra Scholz, Chippewa Falls; Jesse James, Altoona

Challengers: None

Incumbent Jerry Petrowski, R-Stettin, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brent Jacobson, Mosinee; Jon Kaiser, Ladysmith; Cory Tomczyk, Mosinee

Democratic: Robert Look, Rothschild

Republican: Calvin Callahan (i), Tomahawk

Independent:Todd Frederick, Merrill

Republican: Donna M. Rozar (i), Marshfield

Democratic:Lisa Boero, Marshfield

Republican: Pat Snyder (i), Schofield

Democratic: Kristin Conway, Schofield

Republican: John Spiros (i), Marshfield

Challengers: None

Republicans: James W. Edming (i), Glen Flora; Michael Bub, Medford

Democratic:Elizabeth Riley, Hayward

Libertarian: Wade A. Mueller, Athens, still pending state approval

Independent, Libertarian: Tom Rasmussen, Medford, still pending state approval

Republicans*: Kelly Schremp (i), Benjamin Seidlerand Pam Van Ooyen.

Incumbent Sheriff Scott Parks is not seeking reelection. Parks endorsed his chief deputy, Chad Billeb, in announcing his decision last summer.

Republican: Chad Billeb

Challengers: None

MORE NEWS: New plans for the Wausau Center mall site include apartments, restaurants and small retail

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Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com.Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.

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Wausau election roundup: 23rd and 29th state Senate seats up for grabs this fall - Wausau Daily Herald

Gary Gerstles newThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Eraedifyingly recounts the ascent and dominance in American thought and public policy of neoliberalism, which downgraded the role of government and allowed a greater role for private market forces for almost 50 years before having to reckon with a newly ascendant populism on the right and progressivism on the left. Philanthropy plays a part in his account, or at least part of his account.

Gerstle is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Sidney Sussex College. Grossly oversimplifying, his book generally and well-describes Presidents Ronald Reagan as laying the post-New Deal and -Great Society neoliberal orders foundations and Bill Clinton as consolidating its gains.

Conservative grantmaking foundations helped along the way, by Gerstles telling. While he doesnt promise anything more, almost all of his specific examples have also been noted byothersin the past, prominently including researchers and activists who wanted liberal and progressive grantmakers to mimic the conservatives successful giving strategies and tactics.

Powell, Olin, Coors, and the Kochs

As have othersand, arguably,similarlytoo tidily and convenientlyGerstle also specifically relies on thePowell memofor his narrative. Written in 1971 by soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, the memo advised the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to undertake activities to better and more staunchly defend capitalism and the free-enterprise system against the then-increasing number and severity of attacks on it.

[T]he public release of the Powell memo was a gift to the neoliberal movement, according to Gerstle inThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, for it served as a rallying point the for many businesspeople, intellectuals, and would-be policymakers who wanted to restore free enterprise and free markets to the center of American life.

Gerstle quotes successful businessman and John M. Olin Foundation founder John M. Olin as writing The Powell memorandum gives reason for a well organized effort to reestablish the validity and importance of the American free enterprise system, and the book says brewer Joseph Coors, Jr., was also inspired by the Powell memo in helping finance creation in 1973 of The Heritage Foundationwhich quickly established a reputation as the most politically aggressive think tank in the neoliberal firmament.

Gerstle continues by citing the wealthy Koch familys funding, beginning in 1974, of what became the Cato Institute, which [n]o think tank would outdo in terms of its hostility to the New Deal order and the fierceness of its belief in libertarian principles. Created in 1977, moreover, the Manhattan Institute supported George GildersWealth and Poverty, which became one of the bibles of the Reagan administration and the emerging neoliberal order on its publication in 1981.

Slow to Recognize

Liberals and leftists were slow to recognize the size and coordinated nature of this counter-offensive, Gerstle writes,

in part because it was taking shape outside the districts in which they lived and worked. These districts included universities (and the college towns surrounding them), Georgetown salons, labor unions, institutions such as Brookings and the Ford and Carnegie foundations, newspapers such as theNew York Timesand the three television networksABC, CBS, and NBCthat dominated national broadcast media. They constituted a kind of New Deal order establishment, now pushed to the left by radical student movements.

Gerstle goes on to note the Powell memos call to arms was to build what the journalist Sydney Blumenthal long identified as a counter establishment of conservative and market-oriented think tanks, newspapers, other forms of media, and vehicles of political mobilization.

Olin, Coors, the Kochs, and others viewed their businesses as having been built with family blood, sweat, and tears, according toThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order. They interpreted their economic success as a reflection of their gumption, talent, and forbearance, on the one hand, and of Americas commitment to free enterprise, on the other. The notion that great reward awaited those taking great risk was central to their understanding of the American dream.

These courageous risk-takers, Gerstle correctly writes, saw unfair regulation-enforcing

government officials as the leading edge of communist tyranny or, in Lewis Powells words, of state socialism.

The anger among these proprietary capitalists at government and the New Deal order gave the Reagan revolution its radical edge. Its members never ceased being inspired by Barry Goldwaters declaration in his 1964 acceptance speech that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. No expense was to be spared in mounting this defense, which is why the Kochs, the Coorses, and their ilk were investing large sums from their personal fortunes into foundations, PACs, and candidates that, in their eyes, might save their enterprises and the American system of freedom that had made them possible.

Adoption, and Elitism

Gerstle later, also correctly, observes: That a new generation of Democrats had begun adopting neoliberal principles as their own for and in the post-Reagan period was a sure sign of this ideologys ascent. In a first contrastto that which the pre- and actual Reagan-era conservative and libertarian givers didhowever, the book does not really devote as much space to that which liberal givers, including the large establishment philanthropic ones, did to promote the rise of neoliberalism leading up to and during either the Clinton or Obama eras.

Gerstle does passingly hint at the nature and degree of some of this support when referencing harsh critiques of Hillary Clinton by fellow 2016 Democratic presidential-primary candidate Bernie Sanders. Clinton

did not understand why the internationalist credentials she had acquired as a hard-working and world-traveling secretary of state were now seen by many as a liability. She did not seem to comprehend the conflict between the close relations she had developed with world leaders, on the one hand, and the donations these leaders were making to her familys Clinton Foundation, on the other.

It was hard for her to understand how thoroughly she had come to be seen as encased in the world of a privileged and globe-trotting elite.

Beginning in 2017, seeking a strengthened progressivism, Gerstle goes on, some left-leaning donors with ample reserves began to encourage and coordinate the kind of fundraising efforts that every movement in America aspiring to become a political order requires.

Slow to Recognize (II)

In a second contrasthere, to that which GerstlesThe Rise and Fall of Neoliberalismdevotes to conservative givers promoting the rise of government-skeptical, market-minded neoliberalismhe does not devote much space to what they may have done to contribute to its fall. Such would have been difficult, of course; theres actually not much to document or summarize.

Conservative philanthropyflat-footedlymissed that which gave rise to the political, and cultural, ascendance of Donald Trump and Trumpism, whatever that might now end up meaning and becoming. It wasnt doing, or even recognizing, anything different. Like the liberals and progressives of yesteryear, it sure seems to have been slow to recognize a serious counter-offensive. Unlike in the 1960s and 70s, it didnt seem, pre-2016, to be too forward-looking; in fact, it sure seems to have become too insular, too removed, too elite in and of itself.

For the most part, in further fact, its still trying to catch up, and either engage or just somehow deal with the creation and growth of whats an aggressive new conservative counter-establishment of sorts. For future researchers and activists, there must be a conceptual, infrastructure-shaping equivalent to the Powell memo out there, if even only to again overhype. One senses both conservative counter-establishments could currently use a good one.

This articleoriginally appeared in theGiving Reviewon May 19, 2022.

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Philanthropy in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order - Capital Research Center

Attorney Ben Crump meets with a client in the Netflix documentary Civil: Ben Crump, which premieres on Netflix on Sunday, June 19. Photo: Netflix

He seems to be everywhere whenever a Black person is killed during a police shooting, hes there to help. Attorney Ben Crumps nickname is Americas Black attorney general, and in a new Netflix documentary, we get to know a little about him.

For Civil: Ben Crump, filmmaker Nadia Hallgren (director of the Michelle Obama documentary Becoming) followed Crump for a year of busy traveling the man is constantly on the road as he pursued a record settlement in the wrongful death of George Floyd. Crump was the Floyd familys first call after Floyds death while in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers.

But the Floyd case is not the sole focus of Hallgrens film. Crumps law firm, Ben Crump Law, based in Tallahassee, Fla., fields around 500 phone calls a day. The quest for social justice comes in many forms, from Black farmers who may have been poisoned by Monsanto fertilizers to banking while Black cases his firm has collected some $200 million for banking victims.

Theres no ambiguity about it, Crump says in the film. I know who I am, and whose I am. I have been given influence for a reason. And shame on me if I dont use that influence. We are stronger than they ever perceived us to be.

Crump, now 52, was also a dashing young man. He went to Florida State University, earning his law degree in the mid-1990s. Theres great footage from his wedding to Genae, whom he met in law school (she also has a law degree), and she and their daughter, Brooklyn, are the light in Crumps life.

Most of the general public first became aware of Crump when he represented the family of Trayvon Martin, who was killed in 2012 by George Zimmerman, a member of a community watch in his neighborhood in Sanford, Fla. Since then, he has taken high-profile case after high-profile case, gaining millions of dollars in compensation for families in civil cases.

Crump contends that since the United States is the ultimate capitalist society, one road to equality is through the pocketbook, and that has brought some heat. During a 2021 interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Ted Koppel said Crump thrives on media attention and asked him, its made you a lot of money, hasnt it?

One wonders if Koppel might ask the same question to other non-Black high-profile lawyers fighting for social justice, such as womens rights advocate Gloria Allred.

Also shown in the film is, of course, Fox News, whose indignant anchors accuse him of playing the race card.

But thats the whole point in a discrimination case, isnt it?

Civil compensation often has to stand in for legal justice. Yet its clear that to Crump, nothing can substitute for a criminal conviction. He got Floyds family a record $27 million, but when Hallgrens camera catches Crump in real time listening to the verdict read in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin the man convicted of killing Floyd his unburdened emotion shows whats truly important.

MCivil: Ben Crump: Documentary. Directed by Nadia Halgren. (PG-13. 101 minutes.) Available to stream Sunday, June 19, on Netflix

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Review: Netflixs Civil follows a momentous year in the life of Americas Black attorney general - SF Chronicle Datebook

Al Sharpton arrives for an event where President Biden will sign a historic Executive Order to advance effective, accountable policing and strengthen public safety during an event held in the East Room of The White House in Washington, DC on May 25, 2022.Photo: Sipa USA (AP)

On June 11, legendary civil rights leader, reverend and NAN (National Action Network) founder Al Sharpton announced that he has tested positive for Covid-19. The statement came a day after he had officially received his results.

On Friday, I tested positive for COVID-19 but have not displayed any symptoms at this time. On my doctors advice, I am quarantining over the next several days to keep those around me safe, Sharpton stated. I will continue to do my radio and TV shows remotely over that time. Please continue to get vaccinated and boosted if you havent already.

Last month, Sharpton visited the families of victims lost in the racist Buffalo shooting at Top Supermarket. We need to hold all that have aided and abetted the hate in this country accountable, Sharpton expressed during a news conference outside Buffalos Antioch Baptist Church.

It has also been confirmed that on June 18, Loudmouth, a documentary about Sharptons life will close out this years Tribeca Film Festival. According to Tribecas website:

Josh Alexanders Loudmouth documents the winding road that is Al Sharptons life story as an iconic activist and spiritual leader. Viewers peek under the fold and witness the unrestricted details of Sharptons development from an 8-year-old preacher to a (sometimes painted as controversial) civil rights figure. Along with his history in the public eye, the good and the bad, the film offers behind the scenes insight into Sharptons experience as a presidential candidate advisor and racial justice advocate during the volatile climate of 2020.

My pursuit of activism has always been tied to unwavering faith, and it is my firm belief that art and drama can be a powerful form of protest, Sharpton previously stated.

Im so proud to share the story of my life through Loudmouth at Tribeca. The Festivals commitment to social justice storytelling and the Black experience in America, is full of hope, perseverance, and joy.

A conversation with Al Sharpton, Spike Lee and Loudmouths executive producer John Legend Former was originally scheduled to immediately follow the screening.

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Rev. Al Sharpton Releases Statement On Testing Positive For Covid - The Root