Christmas and New year are times when you meet people who you don’t expect to meet again for some time, if ever, again. The result is that they are times for candid conversation with guards let down.
I had one such conversation over Christmas that seemed to summarise many similar snippets I’m hearing from a wide variety of sources. The person I was talking to (who will remain nameless) was referring to the attitude of senior management in the organisation for which she worked. As the person was, I established, very senior in that organisation, the observations were informed by an insider’s perception.
My conversational partner was disturbed. A mood of perverse bullishness had taken over the management of the organisation. This was not based on any market perception. Far from it. Nothing suggested that things were going very well out there in the real world. She was worried about this. But her colleagues were not. They were on acting as if on a high.
Their talk is, apparently, continually about how the staff now have to be grateful to them for having a job. They talk continually of making people redundant. Selected people are already being weeded out — new mothers seem to be the latest target. Two maternities and you’re out seems to be the rule. And despite the business remaining more than acceptably profitable the Christmas party was cancelled — as were bonuses. Except for the directors that was. They dined and bonused away — which they staff, inevitably knew because like it or not accounts departments and PAs. The resulting resentment is widespread.
But no one can say anything. The inner coterie (all male) of bosses have complete power now: argue and you’re out is the message they are giving to all.
The person with whom I was talking was in despair. She can see good people planning to leave — quite understandably. And even in this job market the best can always leave. It’s the weaker candidates who can’t. The business is heading for massive problems.
But she too can say nothing. Her own attempts at challenging the situation — arguing that people matter — have given rise to fairly direct comments that everyone, senior managers included, are expendable.
Well, of course that is true. And I only heard one side of the story. But I’m hearing it time and again — that some businesses are using fear as a weapon to a much greater degree because of the recession. This is management at its very worst. It’s privilege seeking to abuse. It is the example of the bankers transferred out into the wider boardroom. It is a belief that no one is as important as the person in charge.
It explains why the FT has reported that corporate optimism is at its highest level for six years but most people don’t share that view — the FT also noting the British as a whole are only beaten by the French for pessimism right now.
If the recession is to be an excuse to make the privilege gap bigger, the wealth gap bigger and the quality of life poorer then we’re heading for troubled times. And as my conversational partner gloomily concluded, this is the inevitable consequence of Thatcher — because she set out to destroy community, and did.
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This is the Guernsey political dynamic:
“Do not question the finance industry because we are lucky they have ‘chosen’ Guernsey and they feed, clothe and nurture us.”
Couple Guernsey’s natural social insularity with the finance industry’s tightly organised PR defence-mechanism and you get a perfect storm of social scientific ignorance, and those that do question this ignorance are ‘insulting’ and ‘insane’ and ‘want us scavenging on the beaches’.
“the inevitable consequence of Thatcher — because she set out to destroy community, and did.”
You claim she had a deliberate policy to destroy community. Can you please direct me to evidence of this — perhaps a speech, writings from herself.
Many thanks in anticipation.
Juliet
Thank you for your kind invitation to debate
I don’t accept it:
a) Because this is an acknowledged truth
b) This is what neoliberalism has sought to do – and Thatcher was a neoliberal
c) Your style already indicates the pedantry of a neoliberal in which case nothing I can say will satisfy you
d) I have better things to do than fight all fights with you
So I won’t waste my time and suggest you don’t either
Richard
Problem is Richard, similar changes occurred in countries where Mrs Thatcher was not Prime Minister eg NZ (Rogernomics?) and Australia (Hawke/Keating, both Labour, at least Keating was far more in agreement with Mrs Thatcher than Fraser).
And indeed, the behaviour you suggest were caused by Mrs Thatcher did not start in 1979 – has probably continued in some shape or form for thousands of years.
You say it is an acknowledged truth, yet can’t provide any evidence.
@Juliet
No one said Thatcher did it alone. Neoliberalism was not her sole creation.
To argue though that it has continued for thousands of years is just wrong
Humans would not have survived if that were true. we survived through cooperation, empathy, generosity, care, team work
Greed destroys
Thatcher and neoliberalism promote greed
That is the antithesis of the true nature of Darwinianism – which has ensured our cooperative ability has survived and flourished
Maybe this explains why so many US Republicans deny evolution
Richard
The behaviour your post described (people in positions of power abusing those without, for reasons or greed and the like) has indeed being going on for thousands of years, across continents. From Ancient Egypt to the Aztecs. Sorry, too much evidence to accept I am wrong.
I agree that greed destroys. But greed exists whether we have a free and voluntary model of society that I suggest, or whether we have a statist model that you advocate. No state has ever eradicated it — just shifted it from one part of town to another. The church has probably had the best go at the problem, and even it has been bedevilled enough by it.
The benefit of a free and voluntary model of society is that it gives at least some chance of acting as a fire break on greed. Disperse power (which is what I am really about) and the consequences of the greed of individuals can only go so far. Concentrate power in the state and that greed creates a bigger problem from which there is nowhere to hide. Sorry, mother and grandparents lived under both Stalin and Hitler — their tales from those days are just too horrific.
The thing I just don’t get about your argument: you argue for more power for the state, then complain when those you don’t like get power. Hoist by your own petard, one might say. Surely the amount of power you want to give the state should not be judged by that power being held by your friends — that’s easy. It is how much you can tolerate being held by your enemies who will inevitably get it. Those you hate and (worse still) those who hate you. That is the fundamental point for us classical liberals (I dislike the ‘neo’ tag — it isn’t something I identify with, so can you please stop using it).
It seems a good chance David Cameron and George Osborne may be running the show this time next year (and yes, you and I will both have a negligible impact on whether or not this occurs). Are you happy for more state powers — in their hands?
@Juliet
Get over it: believing the state is essential to counter the abuse of the market does not make me a communist, fascist or extremist
It makes me a democrat
It makes me believe in accountability
It makes me believe in local as well as national government
It makes me believe in international cooperation to curtail abusive states and support human rights
I don’t ask for more power for states – but I do demand they use it well to stop abuse of people – by people like the Tories who intend to use the state to advance the interests of a minority
I hate the idea they will do that
But it means I’m a democrat trying to stop them – not a believer in the abuse of the state
And I accept free election results – even if I’ll work hard to make sure they’re not repeated
Richard
Juliet
Do you really believe
“The benefit of a free and voluntary model of society is that it gives at least some chance of acting as a fire break on greed. Disperse power (which is what I am really about) and the consequences of the greed of individuals can only go so far. ”
is an ideology that has successfully prevailed throughout this last generation?
It has been painfully exhibited that relying on the advocates of ‘individualist’ policies has led to gross unethical practices in the name of their wealth and their ‘individuality’.
When calling the state, a ‘state’, it does not have to mean totalitarian non-indivualism. The word ‘state’ is being conveniently used against co-operative ideologies because of a complete lack of understanding about how the relationship between individual and state should operate.
Improving an ‘individual’ requires so much more than their financial ability to ‘choose’ their interactions within a society. Without a ‘state’ that creates a cohesive backdrop to individual aspiration, individuals are classed by purchasing power; bowing down to other, unaccountable individuals as if the lessons of history were non-transferable to our current situations.
It is sad that the co-operative relationship between individual and state has been hijacked by the very real fears of recent history, but to regress to effectively, if dressed up, ealier historical models makes no sense.
I do not understand how some (most, it would seem) folk cling on to the neo-lib. ideal, whilst denegrating our neo-lib. reality, and still manage to sound as if they are ideological opponents of those that advocate a two-way socio-political model.