As the Guardian has reported this morning:
David Cameron has conceded that there is insufficient social mobility in British society and said it was the job of the government to raise the aspirations of people from poor backgrounds to get top jobs in public life.
But this admission came from the same man who earlier this week argued that we need to "build a leaner, more efficient state".
These two objectives are utterly inconsistent. Social mobility is utterly dependent upon access to capital; social, physical, emotional and financial. That is either provided by the state or privately. If the state declines the power of private capital is relatively, and even absolutely, increased.
That is the path Cameron is choosing to follow. But he cannot do so and then say he is concerned about social mobility; that is a tautological impossibility.
Of course we can have social mobility. But it needs investment in health, education, housing and jobs. Not one of them, but all of them. The yield would be high. But the investment has to be made.
A lean state will not make that investment. It could be paid for. We could start by increasing taxes on capital and wealth. We could tax capital gain as if they are income (which they are). We could increase taxes on higher value houses. We could have an effective gifts and wealth tax in place of inheritance tax. We could have land value taxation. We could do all this to level the playing field. And we could deliver as a result.
But that takes political courage.
And a state willing to intervene.
And to act.
A state that is courageous.
And politicians with vision driven by a desire for social justice.
And we don't have them.
Right now we have Cameron and Clegg. And they show no willing to commit to almost any of those things.
And so social immobility will continue. And Cameron's words will mean nothing.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
The Tories are a party of false hope. Aspiration alone will do nothing, feed no-one, house no families, educate no children, build no rails and roads. Opportunity for all is fine, but the reality is success only ever comes to a few. We can’t all be millionaire CEOs of FTSE 100 companies; there aren’t the roles available, nor is there the space in our employment landscape to accommodate everyone at the top. We need low skilled jobs as much as high skilled jobs, and the rich tapestry of jobs in between – and as you rightly point out and have said for many years, this needs capital investment.
It is infuriating and disturbing to have our leaders preach this fundamentally childish economic view so avidly, and for it to be lapped up so readily.
Keep up the good, and fundamentally important work!
There is one growth area…..that of food banks and payday lenders!
This typical Tory view is expressed in the phase “raise the aspirations” yet again blaming the victims and of course weaselling out of any blame or having to do any thing practical about it.
Hmmmm.
I noted earlier:
https://www.citizen.org/documents/TPPonepagerfinalnovember2013.pdf
And then….
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-11-13/leaked-treaty-worse-sopa-and-acta
Frightening, John.
Wonder why UKIP and the other nationalists aren’t talking about this?
We are systematically diverted from real issues.
Richard
David Cameron talks about Equal Opportunities, well maybe we should abandon that and move onto
Equality of Situation instead, if we want a fairer society.
Why don’t you work out what all these changes would cost you personally and would have cost you in the past and then courageously donate that amount to charity (and not claim any tax relief on the donation)?
Because I want society to change
It’s my democratic right to say so
“Because I want society to change
It’s my democratic right to say so”
At the moment.
Nothing is forever though.
As long as it benefits government, and those who pay government (and I do not mean taxpayers), it will continue.
Democracy, as we have it practiced here, is a sham. Every five years you vote for the lies that benefit you, and forget come next election those lies, because they are covered up by other lies.
Meanwhile, politicians get rich[er] on those lies and via “crony” capitalism (which should really be better described as “corrupt” capitalism)
cameron is a ghastly liar and hypocrite -he talks of a ‘lean state’ but it is far from ‘lean’ when it comes to bank bailouts, supporting a failed housing market and sell offs of public assets. If he wants a lean state he should advocate stopping the QE for more hedge fund gambling, money for Ponzi scheme housing bubbles and cheap lending to banks. The hypocrisy of the man is gut wrenching. (If this is the calibre of intellect produced by Eton, the place should be put in special measures).
Obviously time for Cameron to move on and take some of his old Etonian and Oxford cronies/friends with him to make room for the rest of us. Pity it’s taken a speech by John Major to make him think of it.