John McDonnell’s Finally Making Sense – For A Marxist

John McDonnell tells us that he’s going to make every household in the country £6,700 a year better off by getting rid of those horrible monopoly profits. £6,700 a year is roughly and around and about all profits in the economy after we’ve accounted for depreciation.

This does actually make sense. As long as you’re a Marxist:

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will claim that a Labour government would save families an average of £6,700 a year by “putting a stop to rip-off Britain” as the party narrows its focus to bread-and-butter issues.

With just over a week to go before polling day, McDonnell will on Wednesday say that Labour’s policy of tackling “profiteering monopolies” and “bad bosses” would benefit voters’ budgets.

“As Chancellor I want to ensure government has sound finances, but I want more than that. I want every family, every household in Britain to have sound finances,” he will say.

“That means putting a stop to rip-off Britain and making real change so that people are not powerless in the face of profiteering monopolies, bad bosses at work and cast aside by a government that just stands by.”

In a dossier to be published alongside the speech, McDonnell will claim that Labour policies including nationalising utilities and reducing the cost of rail season tickets would put £6,700 in the coffers of the average household.

25 million households, £6,700 a year each, around £170 billion. The capital share of the economy is some 20% or so, 20% of £2 trillion is £400 billion. Half of that capital share is depreciation – rebuilding the stuff that’s wearing out – leaving around £200 billion as what the capitalists get net. That includes all our pensions and everything, obviously.

So, McDonnell is essentially pledging to abolish profit. Which makes sense, as he’s a Marxist. He really does believe that profit is the amount unfairly and untimely ripped from the labour of the individual.

Of course, economies without profits don’t work very well as they find it very difficult to find anyone willing to delay consumption in order to invest. But this does actually make sense, given the pre-beliefs. Which is interesting, isn’t it? John McDonnell is making sense for once….