I have had a chance to have several quite long conversations with people with some experience of the political economy over the last couple of days. The subject has been the state of despondency amongst many on this blog.
Some have been of fairly linear opinion. The left is in a trough. These things happen they say. Give it a decade or so and some time in the 2030s the tide of opinion will turn. It's a plausible opinion, of course. Remember just how unelectable the Tories seemed to be around the turn of the century? That's where the left is now is the argument: bide your time.
Others, quite appropriately, fear plutocracy, or fascism or a variation on that theme. And why not? The risk is very obvious. I've always accepted the possibility. And we should worry about it.
But there is another view that I am much more inclined to subscribe to. This is vastly more optimistic. This is what might be called the post-Gramscian view. Gramsci famously said:
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
We may be morbid (to use Gramsci's language) but Gramsci did not think this period would last: it was inevitable that the new would be born. It's what I would call a post-Gramscian view to presume that this might happen soon.
Suppose that instead of heralding an age of populist extremism the current swing to the right represents a death throw of capitalism as we know it?
What if we presume that the tax narrative that the Tax Justice Network, I and others have put forward is right?
What if tax havens are, as we predict, the cancer in neoliberalism that kills it by destroying entrepreneurialism from the inside?
What if, as Trump already suggests likely, that right wing populists drain the swamp by seeking to drown all those who live around it?
What if, in that case, tolerance of the capitalism that has been really expires and the demand for real change becomes so compelling that it become necessary?
What if, in other words, there is a tipping point?
Tipping points are not created by majorities. They are the consequence of vocal, persuasive, persistent minorities creating compelling narratives. The first narrative suggests that what has been is no longer sufficient. The second makes clear that the insufficiency has lasted for long enough. The third suggests that the risk of the alternative is worth taking. What is, in the post-Gramscian view stage one is already complete, stage two is well under way and stage three is not far off?
Is is, perhaps, paradoxical that this last process of change inevitably requires an unusual degree of entrepreneurial risk. I stress, that does not necessarily mean the capital invested is merely financial, although some might be. Rather, this is entrepreneurial capitalism that requires a combination of social, intellectual, emotional and financial capital.
The investment will be in three things. The first will be new prosperity, which is the inverse of the current perceptions of relative poverty created by growing inequality.
The second will be in empowerment. This is the inverse of powerlessness.
Last there will be hope, which is a simple belief in the future that so few now have.
I do not however think there will be a revolution as such to achieve this change. Indeed I hope that is not the case: revolutions are messy, result in too many casualties and take too long to recover from to be useful. Saying that, I am not for a minute saying the change that is needed will happen without some social disruption: I think that inevitable. Nor do I rule out some protest on the way. That may be necessary. When I am saying is that what we will end up with will not be revolutionary, by which I mean that we will recognise that large parts of the new are adaptations of what we have now.
So, for example, we will still have nation states. And we will have democracy. But it will be more representative than at present. And we will have worked out how best to devolve power and taxing rights downwards within a stable macroeconomic and socially cohesive framework of support in ways that we simply do not understand now. This also means we will still have politics with a range of political parties with which we are not wholly unfamiliar, except they will coalesce around a new consensus that will not look like either the post war settlement or the neoliberal era.
We will also still have a mixed economy meaning that companies large and small will co-exist alongside the new more accountable government. Names we know now will still exist: the existing world order will not be swept away but will morph. In the process it will, however, change considerably. Mark Carney has made clear thus week that existing capital markets are hopelessly unable to meet the demands of climate change because they are not supplied with the data to make appropriate decisions on the allocation if capital. I could have (and have) said exactly the same thing of all those issues, such as geo-political risk, where country-by-country data is required to hold global capital to account locally so that appropriate capital allocation decisions are to be made. To out it another way, I think accounting may well be an engine of the change to come in society
The new information that MNCs are going to have to supply over the next decade, whether they like it or not, is going to change them, enormously. When you measure things differently you change what you measure and what its priorities are: the fight for accounting reform in MNCs is in this context a struggle to control just what the corporation will be.
Which is why arguing that it is accountable to its stakeholders is vital because that restores their power in the enterprise.
And this is why workers on boards matters.
And why environmental as well as country based measures are vital.
The issues we are engaged in are about negotiating the new licence to operate for capital in the future. No wonder the stresses are high.
And under the terms of that new licence people, whether employees or communities of interest, are going to have a greater say. This does not mean a return to old style trade unionism which was as embedded in protecting the particular rights of some vested interests as much as capital has ever been. It will instead be about negotiating those rights in a new space. Might this be called the commons as George Monbiot has suggested? Or is there a better term? I cannot be sure as yet, but I am convinced that this will happen.
In this space the enclosure of wealth will be broken down. Not all disparity will disappear; I offer no pretence of that. But the disempowering and economically disabling concentrations of wealth will be broken. Transparency will see to that, shattering the veil of secrecy that has permitted such dangerous accumulation. Wealth tax will be a mechanism to assist this process. But so too will changes to access to land, including the need to ensure communities have the space in which to live that only social engagement and ownership will supply.
How will society change? This is a critical question and I can only guess at answers but I suspect some quite notable trends will emerge. Local will be more important. An emphasis on quality of life may succeed a focus on material accumulation. The lure of technology will recede: the era of vinyl is returning for a reason. The engagement of people in the process of making their own entertainment (beginning with turning the record over) will grow because this process, mutually undertaken, will be a source of pride, and so hope.
And communities with hope are more tolerant.
They are also more forward looking, by definition, which is why sustainability will grow in significance.
And as a result I think extended families will probably have a greater role than at present for many. This will not just be because of a growing sense of place. It will be because place and social well being will become synonymous for many. The result will be very different social relations.
Is this hopelessly naive? Of course it could be. I go back to my start point: we may just muddle along, as before. Plutocracy may instead take hold. But in the current Gramscian moment, and even in the apparent movements to the right, there is change taking place that might suggest that the relationships between many people and power and wealth are changing.
Hierarchies of power based on existing wealth structures, many implicit in the pyramidical structure of the corporation, are waning as it sheds tiers of management from those MNCs who underpinned hope in that system. That hierarchy has not been replaced with anything more than anger and disquiet as yet. But the demands for accountability, if met, will refocus that whole relationship into something quite different: the focus if power will shift if the corporation is accountable to people and not just faceless owners.
And the narrative of tax transparency is already becoming deeply disruptive for wealth and is not going away: this issue is being won.
Whilst Green QE liberates the state from the curse of balanced budgets and lets it work instead for social stability and long term wellbeing that can deliver across generations.
Changing land taxes could liberate reform in that area too.
All of this is, of course, consistent with my thesis in The Joy of Tax that tax shapes society more than any other mechanism. It's also consistent with the thesis of my new book, Dirty Secrets, that tax havens are destroying capitalism from within and that to survive capitalism has no choice but change. I could also argue, very strongly that it is consistent with the Courageous State, because that is what we will end up with.
It's a vision though, not a prediction.
And it's a hope, not a plan.
And it's definitely not a justification for past thinking: I happen to think much of what the tax justice movement has been doing does provide the mechanisms to redefine the relationships between the state, capital, wealth, people, places and generations, but I don't claim we knew that would be the case.
What it does do though is say let's not look for miracles. I am saying that what we need to achieve what we want may already be around us. What we have to do us recognise it, use it, build on it and create that tipping point.
And based on experience I think that is possible.
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Nothing lasts forever, that’s true. And it’s good to be positive. Gramsci also said about the future that he had: “Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.” And I think that’s where I’m at. The realistic problem facing ‘agents of change’ is that the majority of First World inhabitants still feel relatively comfortable. And, in material terms, they are irrespective of the debt mountain upon which they (we) sit.
The prevailing neo-liberal agenda is still providing enough people with material well-being and those currently in charge are continually reinforcing that via their puppets in the MSM (and now Murdoch / Skye). The right has stolen the dialectical clothes of the left whereby we see a Republican President successfully claiming to be the champion of th working class, as will UKIP at the next GE. Overton’s Window continues to shift yet further to the right in most western democracies.
It won’t be until enough people are really suffering & struggling that peaceful change will occur. Yes, the tide is rising (both metaphorically and environmentally) but it’s still not causing sufficient discomfort. The tragedy is that progress is all too often achieved on the backs of those who can least defend themselves. The ‘golden’ baby-boomer decades we have been privileged to live through were only possible because 60 million people died in WW2.
Obtaining freedoms of any kind has always been a struggle for the oppressed. It has always been a bottom-up dynamic. In the 21st century, combatting relative poverty when people are dying in violent struggles just a few hours’ flight away seems almost immoral, but unless stability can be brought to our world, then we’re not in a position to help others less fortunate, are we? But I fear there’s a way yet to go before the Neo-liberal mafia loses control.
Sorry not to be more optimistic, especially at this tim of the year.
https://www.facebook.com/popperphilosopher/photos/a.433643336648650.108064.131272180219102/1393036300709344/?type=3&theater
” Overton’s Window continues to shift yet further to the right in most western democracies”
It wouldn’t be too pedantic to note that, as a term, “the right” is less than adequate in this case.
The Trump/UKIP phenomenon is quite distinctly different to the “prevailing neo-liberal agenda” both are regarded as being something from the Right but the success of the nationalists relies on the failure of neo-liberalism and “globalisation”.
I suspect that the new national socialists (lite) do represent “a death throe of capitalism as we know it” because their solutions are inadequate for the economic problems they are addressing.
Restricting immigration, greater protectionism, infrastructure building and boosting the armament industry won’t be enough. Despite some parallels this isn’t the 1930’s, total war is not an option and for the most part they don’t even try to address the issue of asset markets and financial crisis.
They won’t resolve that by telling everyone that its all due to a Jewish, Saudi or Chinese conspiracy.
In some ways it may be a blessing that they are being given the opportunity to fail. They are only good at opposition. Given enough rope they will probably hang themselves.
Richard, thanks for this. First rate. For me the great “wonder” was that the 2008 Great Financial Crash didn’t bring about the change you are asking for and outlining in the above.
I confidently (and now, I see, naively) expected the whole world to get the message about the criminal uselessness – no, outright destructiveness – of the then current (and STILL current) crony and casino capital model of the global economy, to wake up and proceed to punish – by fines, and imprisonment, if necessary, as in Iceland – the authors of the world’s misery, the scales having fallen from the eyes of the global public.
But I hadn’t reckoned on the sheer devious genius of the forces of illicit capital accumulation – their ability to argue that black is white, night is day, and that “justice and fairness” demand we treat the crooks not just gently, but generously (shades of Tory “black” propaganda about bringing “fairness” into the welfare system, by punishing the poor and disabled for being disabled and poor).
There’s much (justified) reference to Gramsci, but I bring to the table a name I have quoted before on this topic, that of the great German novelist, Thomas Mann, whose short story “Mario and the Magician” is a parable about how Mussolini beguiled the Italians into accepting Fascism.
Mario clearly sees what the magician is doing, but the audience do not. In precisely the same way, the global casino that is the global financialised market was clearly shown, in the Great Financial Crash, to be marking the cards, having spies to oversee what cards the players had, fixing the roulette wheel, short-changing people on the chips they had won, and indeed, probably also spiking the drinks, but above all, they were shown to be contributing NOTHING to the common good, indeed, to be actively detracting from it.
Surely, I thought, everyone can see what’s happening? But as I said above, I hadn’t reckoned on the sheer devious genius of the forces of illicit capital accumulation, and before very long it was back to “business as usual”, and even pleas of “it’s time to stop bashing the bankers”.
May it be that you are right, and that the tipping point will soon be reached, because things simply cannot go on as they have been for very much longer, before truly irreparable damage is done to the world.
However, I share JohnD’s optimism/pessimism mix (though the version of Gramsci’s quote I heard was “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”), and fear that those forces of “business as usual” are capable of slipping out of any trap set for them, until the whole eco-sphere goes up in flames, and no one wins.
Andrew
I wholly understand all that
I guess I am just preparing myself for another decade of the fight to effect what seems like impossible change, but which i think can be delivered
I amy be wrong of course
But I have to believe otherwise. That is the paradox of dreaming of a better world
Richard
Andrew – thanks for the correction. You’re probably closer to the original Italian (which I can’t find). It’s most often translatd as “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” The sentimnt remains the same!
There may be parallels with 1989. The speed of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe caught everyone by surprise at the time, even if it seems inevitable with the benefit of hindsight.
I agree
The 1989 collapse of Communism is precisely why I thought the same was going to happen to neo-liberalism in 2008, as the echo on 1989 against the Fascist Left would come back, in one of those deep, subterranean movements of history, as a crumbling of the Fascist Right.
Alas, no such hope, as the Fascist Right proved to be SO much more adept at manipulation of the truth (think Murdoch and a BSkyB and Sky merger).
“Pessimism of the intellect” indeed, or simple unvarnished pessimism. It’s hard to share Richard’s noble optimism, but he’s right: “optimism of the will” is indispensable.
If I did not have my optimism there would be no point doing my work
I may as well sell my sole to the tax avoiders
Richard
Your analysis is fascinating but I fear it depends too much on reason and the good sense of people in general. We have an increasing problem in that the powerful control not only the financial system but also the means for communication. It is too easy to manipulate these things. People are only able to manage a fairly limited number of messages and concepts at one time. The Leave campaign got that right by focusing on virtually one phrase “Project Fear”. The other side didn’t have the capacity or skill to deal with that.
What I think is missing from your analysis is just how critical it is to have a charismatic individual, and effective communicator (think Tony Blair before his misjudgments came to light, or think Nelson Mandela and what he did for South Africa. Nigel Farage is an infinitely better communicator than anyone in the Labour Party. Unfortunately his view of the world is pretty incompatible with mine).
If a country is unlucky you have someone like Erdogan, who realised power was slipping away from him in 2014. So he restarted the war with the Kurds who responded as expected. Bombs went off in Ankara and Istanbul. This required a tightening of security. This was accelerated following a pretty incompetent attempt at a coup. We now have a country which just 30 months ago was heading towards being a genuine liberal, secular democracy turned into a dictatorship.
In the UK there is the extraordinary consensus involving the government, civil servants, the police, the military, business and the city, as well as the media. Owen Jones wrote about in his book “The Establishment”. What you are asking for is a revolution in almost every aspect of the way the country is run. I do think that your economic analysis is very sound and, with 2 million blog hits within one year, these messages are being watched and hopefully considered seriously. Things can be done particularly when there is so much wrong with what is happening at present. However there must be a clear message that can be passed to that impoverished majority left behind by 21st-century capitalism. It needs a superb communicator. Sadly the Opposition seems to be pretty free of charisma, and I simply cannot believe that the relaunch of Jeremy Corbyn in the New Year will make a blind bit of difference. The message is fine but the messenger sadly lacking. Progress will not be made without that messenger.
I think progress may happen outside political parties for a while yet
I see politicians as baggage train followers, not drivers
“baggage train followers, not drivers” – what a superb, and succinct, description.
The political equivalent of the Duke of Plaza-Toro:
“In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind
(He found it less exciting).
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O-
That celebrated,
Cultivated,
Underrated
Noble man,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
(Full text at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-duke-of-plaza-toro/ – with credit to W.S. Gilbert)
I agree Richard, we are at a tipping point. Global political and economic elites are becoming ever more divided. The political divisions are apparent to us all but the economic ones are just as revealing – watch the fascinating ongoing disagreement between the IMF and the Eurogroup over the terms of Greece’s latest package. If even the IMF is saying ease up on the neoliberal medicine you can be sure a realignment is on the horizon.
Totally agree with this and my own thoughts chime with it.
In a response to one of your previous blogs I felt that UKIP and Trump share something in common in that if you take away the rhetoric and the ‘single issue’ like presentation you are left with just another very Right wing political organisation rooting for power – the same sort of crappy politics that gets us into these situations in the first place.
This to me is the seed that will lead to the eventual downfall of these political movements as people will eventually see things get worse or at least not improve and then people get angry again.
However, the epiphany takes time to come. Also, it can be delayed as Andrew points out above by spoiler tactics.
The Right are very clever – they are able to adapt and change and infect new movements, give a voice to anger etc., in a way that the Left has failed to really because they are willing to work with the darker side of human nature perhaps than the Left? The Left hates to be seen as ‘revolutionary’ but look at the hate spewed out by UKIP and Trump. The Right everywhere are noted for their tendency towards violence (think Jo Cox and even the awful events in Chile).
Is this beause the Left looks down on the people it wishes to help when instead it needs to stand in the gutter with them and encourage them/us to look up at the stars together?
Taking a very broad biological and ecological perspective the endless struggle can be described as being between those entities (microscopic and upwards) that “identify” with entities different from themselves and those that don’t. So, for example, there are many viruses in the oceans that destroy other entities because they don’t “identify” but those dead entities contribute in turn as a cycle (autocatalytic) to the survival needs of other entities. Human beings too have food webs whereby they kill animals for food but as an organism we are nevertheless the most advanced in our abilities to “identify” with other entities, our fellow human beings and pets, etc. The trick is to find the right balance between policies that need to “identify” with other entities (especially our fellow human beings) and those that don’t. There is optimism in recognising that we desperately need to do this.
Part of the success of the Brexit campaign was build on the soundbite Taking back control. This applies equally well to the tension between democracy and capitalism.
Now that we have apparently collectively agreed to Take back control I am not against supporting this idea, putting democratic control on the agenda. This means acting against the forces that erode democracy like tax havens, corporate and union funding of political parties, politicians that are not held accountable for misleading the public, limiting some freedoms in order to maximise freedom.
We need to act cooperatively but this seems to be our biggest obstacle. Taking back control is greatly facilitated if we agree that the state should reflect the collective will of the people (not of any particular vested interest) and that everyone realises that the state can be our greatest asset.
I voted Leave to take less control, and the last few months have been marvellous with no-one in government seeming to have any control at all, and we can all crack on with doing what we like doing. Long term the Norway option seems to offer no control to the UK, and very little control to the EU either, and this would be a most satisfactory outcome. We could even add a tweak that we fund shared social, environmental and infrastructure programmes, but we will not fund programmes that promote immigration such as farm owner hand outs and convergence funding.
If ever a government emerges in the world that we can all agree is the right sort of governmental system, then less collective will, less control, less centralisation is the route to follow. Imv, of course.
Oh dear: I see a misguided hand at work
But surely can you not see that we have been living in that world already and this is what for example caused the 2008 crash?
When the State pulls away from the poor, the working poor and ordinary working people you get hardship and poverty.
When the State pulls away from the rich and the powerful you get corruption, wild speculation and a cycles of financial melt down and instability – even war.
Are you saying that this is what you want?
@PSR – I want the State to pull away from the rich and the powerful – that’s why I mentioned getting rid of convergence funding and hand outs incident on people who own farm land.
Shareholders in banks who lent irresponsibly should not be bailed out, and the deposit protection limit should be reduced from £65k to £16k which is the limit for means-tested benefit claims. Bungs to the rich and powerful should indeed be culled, and this would open the door wider for more entrepreneurialism from the young with a bit of moxy.
As for wild speculation – there was sustained attack on the Danish Krone in 2015. The speculators lost. I will not be crying. Sometimes speculators win big, such as the ERM fiasco in the early 90’s, and that was the guiding hand of government selling at below market prices that
@Richard: It’s not a ‘misguided hand’ philosophy, it’s a hand that is not guided, a subtle difference. And a tolerable administration of justice, imv of course.
Kenneth
All this feels deeply two faced to me
You want to limit wealth but not bail out banks – at cost to not very wealthy people
And in effect you are saying you want an unguided hand. All this is market fundamentalism, of course
And we know – Adam Smith knew – this was a recipe for abuse
As for your tolerable justice – we all know that is a metaphor for protecting wealth alone and nothing else
Please stop wasting my time with this nonsense that is just about abuse of people by unlimited financial power
Richard
You seem to believe that all EU migrants work on farms.
Most do not.
Most of them work in skilled industries, a surprisingly large amount in building, and also engineering.
Most are also graduates of universities….
You seem to think farms need cheap labour…but it is only the small farms that need cheap labour. The large ones have mechanised crop harvesting. The small farms will go under, the large farms will not, and prices will rise.
The building industry, which needs skilled workers, will not employ unskilled. Contractually, and legally, they have to use trained and skilled workers. And they don’t train their own in anything other than safety training (which they contract out)
Sadly, you consider migrant workers a liability. I consider them an asset. Employers do too. Their home country has educated them, and trained them, and their host country (UK) harvests the benefit of same.
When we depart the EU (if) we will have to continue to import workers anyway, because employers do not put any investment into training the workforce.
Food for optimists…
Maybe your next book should be titled “The Tipping Point”, and can I suggest a strap line “Trim-tabbing for a sustainable future”.
If you want to turn a supertanker, it is necessary to trim-tab, to make a small change that will eventually turn the boat onto its new course. And more importantly, this is the only option available, turning the rudder hard right or hard left would likely tear off the steerage works and leave the ship permanently on its present course, until its fuel runs out! Sound familiar?
I believe it was Buckminster Fuller who first coined the phrase “Trim-tab”. He apparently, is quoted as saying:
“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary–the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.
It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim-tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.”
You are not short on ideas Richard, and you have the forum to enrich the process. So my question to you is: what small actions can we take now to shift human activity into a sustainable, inclusive, caring future?
If your discourse on these issues stays in this most excellent blog, that would be unfortunate. If there is to be a change of direction, I guess it is important to head towards a new point on the map. Where is this?
Common ownership of resources for the benefit of all and sustainable care of our planet would be good starting points, but how do we get there?
Stick your foot out Richard. You have my support. No idea how I can help, but isn’t that part of the process?
Bob
I may have to be a bit if a consumer today
But I will muse on what you have said
Richard
Bob – just belatedly caught up with your post. Thanks for bringing ‘Trim-tabbing’ to my attention. I’d not come across it before. I think ‘Bucky’ deserves more attention than he generally gets.
Richard, I would endorse Bob’s suggestion. It’s a modest yet positive and practical way of empowering onself to be part of the solution. All too often we (especially oldies like me) feel helpless in the face of seemingly intractable socio-economic problems. Talking about them is the easy bit.
‘Trim-tabbing’ is complementary to ‘The Kaizen Way’ … the art of making great and lasting change through small, steady steps.
Here’s an article I found that might interest others: http://thoughtmedicine.com/2010/07/the-power-of-trim-tabs-how-small-changes-create-big-results.
I’m already feeling more optimistic and it’s not yet midday. Happy Sunday!
If Richard will indulge me a little with a larger post than I normally submit then I’d be grateful. Below are appended a couple of small sections from a presentation done by Equality North West as part of the People’s Plan events in Manchester over the last month. They directly answer the issues people raise here and commend them to you.
“What to do.
… it acts as an engine to reduce inequality. Like GMCR [slide 14]; a local energy co-operative which launched a public share offer for £186,000 to build solar panel arrays on school roofs. You invest a £1, get an annual dividend and then at the end of 20 years get your £1 back. All profits are reinvested back into the local community as donations to social projects.
Like Greenslate Farm which operates a working farm with animals, crops and allotments on council-owned land. They have fully-qualified care professionals who offer a wonderful, safe and stimulating environment for day care to adults and children. They water the chickens, feed the goats, collect the tomatoes from the poly tunnels for the farm shop and feel great about what they are doing. The people who work there are part of the management and get treated as human beings on good terms and conditions. All profits are reinvested for the members benefit, it’s a co-operative.
Bookcycle take over libraries the council thinks are uneconomic, offer free lending of books with donations of them and periodically send cargo containers of books to Africa which have helped establish more than 300 libraries. It’s a charity.
The Kindling Trust not only runs a set of organic farms around Manchester which fuel a veg box scheme that is growing in popularity but coach other start-up farms and organic co-operatives in what to do and what mistakes to avoid making. A co-operative which is run by the members and for the members.
Timpsons is a firm in every town and city of the UK. They treat their employees with a weekly share of shop profits, their birthday off and a generous pension scheme. In addition they have a long-standing programme of offender rehabilitation back to work across the country. It’s a noble business that helps our society for the better.
And the largest retail mutual business is John Lewis. Owned by the employees who share the profits and enjoy terms and conditions of work that are enviable. Been in existence since 1925; who says you have to be cutthroat and exploitative to win?
All of these are mentioned not because they are the best, not because they are the ‘only’ examples of engines that reduce inequality in our society but because they were the first ones that came to my mind in this local area in these various spheres of interest. There are thousands more, all over the place. 22,000 co-operatives just in the north west of England, for example.
These aren’t the only or the best just the tip of a huge iceberg. And they act as engines to reduce inequality every minute of every day by employing people well, allowing them to contribute to the direction and management of the organisation, by being responsive to their local community and by paying the taxes they owe in the local and national accounts.
Every chance you get to support them, help them grow, volunteer an hour with them and recommend someone else to get involved by buying their stuff or helping like you do, makes them that much more effective and reduces inequality in our society. Every single time. And you can do it every single day not just when you are Prime Minister or leader of your local council. Everyone can, every day.
I’m not suggesting you go out of your way to do this, just build into your life what you can manage. ”
And;
“How to win.
If you like those motivational posters then this one is ‘The tide has turned’. Because it has. It’s not flowing too strongly in our direction yet but it is going that way. We noticed it in our talks and in our research at least 18 months ago; the tide turned in what people think about what is going on in this country.
If you prefer data points and graphs here’s where the stock market and other indicators are right now. The markets know things CAN’T go on like this. We are in changing and tumultuous times.
The public, like us, don’t like where we are and will not put up with it any more. That’s what the Brexit and Trump votes mean; those results show the gaping chasm between the bubble our wealthy leaders live in and our own lives. Every media channel and most political leaders and all business leaders and the wealthy establishment said ‘Vote Remain’, ‘Vote Hillary’ and they lost. The public said ‘No more of this.’
They were staggering results; every element of the wealthy and established said ‘Go this way’ and the public said ‘No’. It’s a turning point and most people are starting to realise it now. But what’s missing is the sense of purpose and confidence for what should be the new normal.
But it shouldn’t be missing, it’s quite simple really. It’s about the only thing that can beat established wealth and power; it’s about remembering the only thing that has been successful in the past at removing slavery and apartheid, about delivering emancipation and chartism, about making progress for all; numbers. People [slide 25].
There are far more of us than there are of them. Far, far more. We don’t need to storm the Bastille or march on Washington or carry placards down the streets against the Iraq War; that’s damaging or ineffective.
We just need to tell them ‘No, we’re doing it this way. From the bottom upwards not top down. Not in your interests alone but in everyones.’ Because here’s something we have forgotten as well; politics follows the public mood, it is allowed by the zeitgeist. And we control the zeitgeist if we want to. We create the zeitgeist with what we watch, what we buy and how we spend our time. We ARE the zeitgeist.
It’s only about Up v Down. Not anything else. Not Left v Right nor Black v White nor even Dumb v Bright, just Us v Them. That’s all it’s about. And we have the only thing that is needed to win against entrenched power and wealth, numbers.
Because it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Thank you
Richard being in the position we’re in is the best position we could hope for! because all that you write becomes a possibility.
Indeed without having a revolution it is the natural order of change,but the truth is every empire for the same reasons have always failed & always will until we get it right! but power often is the last to change & history also shows that it often gets bloody if only humanity could learn its lessons.
You have some great ideas! but again history shows that great ideas often lose out to power & control!
I voted out to help push on this process to force the pace of change & to stop our government the right to blame others for the failure of change,you see for change to happen we will suffer but if you are going to suffer better suffer with the hope that change will be a good change & one you can influence peacefully to change & that means accountability which our government will be solely to us soon?
Empires failed because of the loss of trust that they were acting in the interest of any particular areas/region & they broke away & the cost of trying to maintain or keep the empire together when it was economically stagnant or depressed,we see worldwide how the US weak economy is having to plough more & more resources into keeping it reign/rules over others ,this just destroys the economy,trade falls output falls & the means to pay for it out ways the benefit from doing it!
Yet if instead of the vested interest being protected it was done with good will then the cost is a positive one ,were economies can compete fairly & all areas can flourish not die has we witness worldwide happening.I said that Bush & Blair illegal invasion of Iraq would lead us to this point were trust has gone & the cost of preserving power is too costly to sustain.
I do not fear in fact welcome that the right is on the rise because it is only on the rise because of the propaganda,my friends on the right it is time for you to actually deliver what you say you can! ( & i know you can’t because of your flat earth economics) because if you do not change is coming ,then i say god help you!i do hope for yours & humanity sake though that am proved wrong!
An interesting post. A couple of points that may be worth mentioning:
The climate change issue that Richard has mentioned is one of decisive historical importance. So too is the end of full employment as we know it.
Automation (via AI) is moving into service industries. It won’t ever be able to fully replace people in that sector (as it has almost done in manufacturing) but it will replace more jobs (or work hours) than it creates, especially so considering that the link between productivity and wage growth has been broken.
The growth of the service industries in recent decades has also seen a disproportionate increase in the size and wealth of the finance sector. That represents a drag on productivity as the finance sector generally produces nothing. More significantly it means that many workers have come to a rely on a bubble sector, a house of cards that will eventually collapse.
An overall loss of work hours will reinforce inequality and further undermine demand. Increased leisure time is implicit (as it should be). But work hours and income will need to be allocated broadly and evenly (more or less) to maintain social justice as well as consumer demand. A market system can’t do that.
Recogniton of this is ultra-slow although it has become apparent in some developments such as the first attempts at introducing Universal Basic Income. In demand terms, however, UBI is no substitute for a fully paid, full-time workforce.
The implications of all this are revolutionary, not in the ideological sense as much as in the way that it represents the end of the industrial revolution as we know it. The mechanisation that created mass prosperity now undermines it. Although it shouldn’t. Excess capacity is now permanent but having a permanent abundance of labour and capital needn’t be a problem if we find an intelligent way to allocate it (“the old is dying and the new cannot be born”).
Also worth noting are the emergence of sustainable power and water supplies that are fully ‘off the grid’ and things like 3D printers that can produce 100 components at the same per-unit—cost as a factory producing them in runs of 1 million or more. Mass centralisation and economies of scale are slowly becoming obsolete in quite a few areas. Which may be just as well as the assumption of infinite economic growth on a finite planet isn’t (and never was) sustainable.
I would imagine that there are a quite few “tipping points” among those considerations and they are probably well worth considering.
Might I summarise?
We need to redefine wealth
And employment
And work
And the relationships of power around them
I think that is possible
Absurdly; but then we have no choice
Agreed.