In this Institute of Economic Affairs briefing, Dr Kristian Niemietz is joined by IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Dr Christopher Snowdon to examine a question with no easy answer: what kind of economy does Britain actually have? Neither neoliberal nor socialist, Chris makes the case that the UK has drifted into what he calls a “capitalist command economy” — one where industries remain largely in private hands but are increasingly directed, targeted, and fined by the state.
Chris and Kristian work through the evidence: boiler companies fined for not selling enough heat pumps, car manufacturers penalised for selling too many petrol vehicles, supermarkets being required to track and reduce the calories their customers buy, Gatwick Airport granted a new runway only on condition it controls how its passengers travel. They trace the roots of this model through price controls, rent regulation, minimum wage creep, and the Government’s habit of outsourcing its policy goals to business while escaping the blame when things go wrong.
The conversation closes with the question of whether this model is stable. Drawing on Mises’s concept of interventionism as an inherently unstable system, Kristian asks whether the capitalist command economy simply creates the conditions for a more conventional socialist government — or something else entirely. Chris argues the real problem is that Britain lacks even a word for what it has become, and that naming it is the first step to challenging it.
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