There's widespread dissatisfaction at the low intellectual quality of the Tory leadership contest, with no candidate having any answer to our long-term productivity stagnation or cost of living crisis. As Phil says, they are "lightweights with no answers to the serious problems the country faces." The Tories themselves share this discontent, having cancelled the third leadership debate for fear of the party being further damaged by being seen to be so inadequate.

This acute lack of talent among leadership contenders is, however, no accident. It is not merely a problem of inadequate personnel. Instead, it has its roots in material facts about politics and capitalism.

One is that the mechanisms that select for MPs have changed to reduce the calibre of politicians. Party membership has declined, meaning that cranks have more influence and that local parties are no longer so rooted in the interests of small businesses. And increased inequality means that even half-able people can earn good money outside politics with the result that the latter politics becomes dominated by people not good enough for careers in business or finance.

One of these selection mechanisms is our general culture. Nadine Dorries and Penny Mordaunt raised their profiles by
eating ostrich arse and belly-flopping in a swimming cozzie, whereas Jesse Norman's fine books on Burke and Smith did nothing for his appeal. That tells us that there has been a general dumbing-down which selects against people of ability.

The media is of course part (but perhaps only part) of the problem here. There mere fact that it devotes time to asking what is a woman at a time when the planet is on fire, the economy trapped in long-term stagnation and real wages are collapsing shows that it is the enemy of intellect and seriousness.

But there's more than this. Even if Tories had the ability to find economic ideas, they don't have the incentive. Voters don't want economic growth: they voted against it in 2015, 2016, 2017 and in 2019. And why should they want it? Economic growth entails creative destruction which undermines communities and generates uncertainty. It means higher real interest rates, which would cut house prices and reverse the financialization from which Tory donors have greatly benefited. And, as Ben Friedman has shown, growth increases liberalism and tolerance which would diminish the Tories' ability to fight atavistic culture wars.

We can put this another way. There's a big difference between Thatcher and her epigones. Thatcher had clearly defined enemies ("the enemy within") which she saw as barriers to economic growth: trades unions and nationalized industries. But who are today's enemies? They are those the Tories cannot identify as such: monopolists, financiers and rent-extractors. Yes, Suella Braverman did try to portray benefit recipients as the enemy, but this was not so much economic analysis as soiling herself in public.

But the Tories have another problem. The last three Tory approaches to the economy were all one-off, time-limited. On a kind reading (there are others!) Thatcherite reforms raised potential GDP but output has long since converged to that higher potential, meaning that other growth-enhancing policies are needed. But what? Tory/Lib Dem austerity has left the NHS, local government and the criminal justice system semi-derelict, meaning that spending cuts are just impossible. And the thing about "Get Brexit Done" is that you can only do it once unless you look like a charlatan.

The Tories therefore need something new. Which brings us to the fact that the current conjuncture of capitalism makes it very difficult to come up with something. There are three inter-related problems here:

- How much legitimation does the system need, and what form should it take? Historically, one role of the Tory party has been to either suppress discontent (such as the Six Acts or Thatcher's attacks on unions) or to buy it off (eg Disraeli's electoral reform or the post-war accommodation to the welfare state and mixed economy). But which should today's Tories do? Yes, they've introduced a windfall tax to ameliorate the most egregious unfairness of the cost of living crisis. But how much further should they go? Would increases in public sector pay and benefits be sufficient vote-winners to outweigh their costs in terms of higher inflation and interest rates? Or could it just garner support by continuing the culture wars?

- Are we in a wage-led or profit-led regime (pdf), to use Marglin and Bhaduri's framework? Thatcher thought we were in a profit-led regime, wherein attacks on workers would restore profit margins and business confidence and so kick-start economic growth. But this might not be the case today. In curbing consumer demand, weak real wages depress profits and hence motives to invest. Instead, we might now be in a wage-led regime (pdf), wherein wage rises, full employment and stronger worker rights would lead to sustained growth not just by boosting consumer spending but also by encouraging companies to invest in labour-saving productivity-enhancing new techniques. Unless you have an answer to this conundrum, you've no hope of having a coherent economic strategy.

- Which sections of capital should the Tories serve? Falling real wages aren't just bad for workers. They are also bad for those sections of capital dependent upon consumer spending. From this perspective, capital and labour would both win from policies that ameliorate the cost of living crisis. Such policies, however, are potentially inflationary to the extent that they would raise aggregate demand. Given the Bank's current remit, that would mean higher interest rates and hence lower asset prices. That's bad for rentier capital. Which is what Sunak means when he says he wants to "get a grip of inflation": he doesn't want to hurt rentiers with unnecessarily higher rates.

These three dilemmas are perhaps more acute now than they were under Thatcher. Which means that the task of developing a sensible economic policy would be daunting even for people of much greater ability than the current candidates.

Many people are complaining that these - especially Truss - are cosplaying at being Thatcher, with cargo cult talk of tax cuts and (unspecified) deregulation.

True, these are no answer to our problems. The 2008 financial crisis should have taught us that economic growth cannot be achieved merely by the state backing off.

But it's human nature to retreat into one's comfort zone when faced with uncertainty. And cleaving to old ideas in the face of contrary evidence is normal. The Labour right does it: it still struggles to face the fact that its no longer the 1990s. And the left - certainly in the 80s and 90s and perhaps beyond - has also failed to fully adapt to new times. There's a name for this: Bayesian conservatism. And it's not confined to politicos: one reason why there is momentum in asset prices is that equity investors cling too much (pdf) to their prior beliefs.

We mustn't therefore blame the Tory candidates for clinging to Thatcherism.

In fact, talk of their personal weaknesses - obvious as they are - misses they key point. The fact is that our political structures, incentives and the nature of current capitalism all militate against adequate Tory responses to our crises.