PLUTO IN SAG, PLUTO IN CAP: FREE TRADE VS PROTECTIONISM

In his speech today about the post B economy (he wouldn't say the word because, he says, it is history!) Boris Johnson flew the flag for free trade, claiming it has benefitted the world economy enormously. For some, it undoubtedly has. For others, not so. 

In his very readable book '23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism' by Cambridge Economics Professor Ha-Joon Chang, the author favours evidence over ideology, and shows how harmful free trade often is to developing economies. How do you start your own industries if your country is flooded with cheap goods from abroad? This is often the price countries have to pay for help from the IMF. Which of course is run by America.

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America was protectionist in its early days, it had to be. And now it is being protectionist in its attempts to sort the huge trade imbalance with China. This is Trump putting common sense before ideology. So Johnson is only presenting half the picture, and maybe as a politician that is necessary, up to a point.

But as we enter a new era of Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn, more protectionism seems almost inevitable. Saturn and Capricorn both like to set boundaries and curb excess. Pluto in Sag was globalisation and free trade (which of course is only ever partly free). Now we are having a corrective to its excesses. 

Words sometimes become value judgements, so globalisation, which often merely means shutting down your factories at home and using cheap labour abroad, is 'good'. And protectionism, which can mean fostering your home-grown industries and resisting a flood of cheaply made imports, is 'bad'. This is just ideology, it is not thinking. 

Cheap Labour in China (it will be the Philippines next) means that our goods become throwaway. I read that the average garment is now worn just 4 times. So with protectionism will come more expensive goods that we do not throw away so easily. This will be another manifestation of Saturn in Capricorn.

So I say bring on a bit more protectionism, and let us be more connected to what we buy by having more of those goods made at home. This, of course, is not astrology, just my opinion, but I think the astrology is on my side.

And here is maybe my biggest wish for Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn: that an age dawns where limits to economic growth are set, that quality and efficiency and sufficiency become the unthinking value judgements (given that we seem to have no other way of functioning collectively.) The transformative power (Pluto) of common sense (Saturn in Capricorn). The current era of endless economic growth is not sane in a very basic way. Collectives, of whatever political persuasion, are rarely sane. But maybe we will have a bit of sanity, at least for a bit.