DBWI: Mick Jagger had not dropped from the London School of Economics

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Mick Jagger had considered dropping out of school and going into music. What do you think? Do you think he could have made it? What impact would that have had on the British?
 
Jagger was (and still is) obsessed with electric blues music, particularly the stuff put out by Chess in Chicago. I like the music myself, but I can't see anyone in Britain having a worthwhile career from doing covers of Willie Dixon songs. There was something of a Blues Boom in early '60s England, particularly around London, but it was very much a niche thing, centred around a couple of clubs with a small hard core of adherents.

Most of the successful bands of the time, after starting out doing covers of US rock'n'roll & r'n'b numbers, developed a particularly English style - the Beatles most obviously, but also the Who and the Kinks. Don't know if Jagger could have gone down that route to success.
 
If he'd squandered his considerable administrative talent on being a musician, some less capable Chancellor gets the job. Perhaps instead of the "Glorious Summer" economy of the late 1970s, Britain gets a "Winter of Discontent".
 
American here - not familiar with Jagger but he's got a pretty boss name. How much of an actual contribution has he made in economics?

I think in the US, he's mostly noted for giving an economics lecture somewhere in northern California, that resulted in a huge brawl in the audience, with one guy waving around a copy of Keynes' General Theory getting roughed up by some campus-security goons.

A rather comedic incident. The funniest part was Jagger trying to calm everyone down with lines like "Take it easy, people. If we're all scholars here etc etc".
 
Last edited:
. . . some less capable Chancellor gets the job. Perhaps instead of the "Glorious Summer" economy of the late 1970s, . . .
Okay, Britain has done better than my United States with de-industrialization, I’ll admit it.

But neither economy has really found a way out of the maze.

Both economies have seen a slow erosion of middle-income jobs, with it being about 50-50 between this erosion being replaced by higher income tech/professional jobs vs. lower income ‘service’ jobs. So, yeah, Jagger was an above average Chancellor, but let’s not praise the guy that much to the skies.

It’s still been about damage-controlling a declining middle class.
 
If he'd squandered his considerable administrative talent on being a musician, some less capable Chancellor gets the job. Perhaps instead of the "Glorious Summer" economy of the late 1970s, Britain gets a "Winter of Discontent".

Yeah, but his prescriptions were not universally applicable. Here in NZ, their success was taken as evidence that they could be taken from from the industrial north of Britain and applied to the agricultural south Pacific. We lost more than a decade of economic growth because of efforts to take the red ink on the balance sheet and paint it black, and the aftershocks are still rippling throughout the state services sector. There was a huge human cost when his ideas didn't fit local conditions - valium prescriptions skyrocketed (they were known as "mother's little helper", they were so common) and it wasn't rare for people to have multiple nervous breakdowns. I think one guy had 19! No-one knew which industries would survive, since changes were coming from every direction. My dad said it was like being caught in a crossfire hurricane, and this was a guy who sailed the Pacific during typhoon season. Even today it isn't all sweet tea and brown sugar.

There's still a lot of people who just don't seem able to get any satisfaction, even if the new economy does ensure they get what they need. I have a certain amount of sympathy for the devil - he seemed shocked when he visited in 88 and saw how his ideas had been applied, and to his credit he stayed (without pay!) to give advice on correcting some of the worst excesses. It was all over the news, how the chancellor had only said "gimme shelter" when asked what he would need, so he earned some goodwill that way. But, for most people from that generation, wild horses wouldn't make them say anything good about him.

So yes, a talented administrator, but with a tendency to focus on local conditions. Let's not eulogise him TOO much.
 
Haha! This is all really good stuff! Tony Blair and the Invaders....you couldn't make it up! Oh...you did. ..
There should be a comic history forum really....:)
 
I think in the US, he's mostly noted for giving an economics lecture somewhere in northern California, that resulted in a huge brawl in the audience, with one guy waving around a copy of Keynes' General Theory getting roughed up by some campus-security goons.

A rather comedic incident. The funniest part was Jagger trying to calm everyone down with lines like "Take it easy, people. If we're all scholars here etc etc".

I think I remember reading about that. They had really good security after the Altmont Free Concert when Jerry Garcia got stabbed onstage by a Hell's Angel. Bit of a messy story there, but Altamont Free is a whole lot of mess.
 
Top