U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron will urge corporate leaders to defend business and the free markets from “dangerous rhetoric,” less than a month after his government stripped banker Fred Goodwin of his knighthood.
In a speech in London to charity Business In The Community, Cameron will attack the idea “that wealth creation is somehow anti-social,” arguing that “business is not just about making money, as vital as that is; it's also the most powerful force for social progress the world has ever known.”
Cameron's on dodgy ground here. First, he's flip-flopping, which is amusing to see when Labour has opened a clear lead on this issue. But more important, he's completely missing the plot.
The problems that those of us who campaign against business abuse have are that there aren't free markets and as such wealth creation is not taking place but has been replaced by corporate abuse and that is not socially progressive and has instead proved to be massively socially destructive.
Let me explain. When Cameron refers to business leaders he's invariably talking about the leaders of big business. All, just about without exception are monopolists or oligopolists. They exploit markets to make excessive profits at cost to consumers. They use those excessive profits to pay themselves vastly inflated sums. That's not wealth creation - that's rent seeking behaviour that is straightforwardly abusive. In fact, it's just an act of redistribution, but from the 99% to the 1%. We object to that. We demand information so we can appraise what's going on so it can be stopped. That's one of the reasons for demanding country-by-country reporting - which Cameron and the Tories have been cool about. Cameron has shown himself to be on the side of abuse as a result.
And those big business leaders exploit their position to avoid tax using tax havens. Cameron and the Tories are actually encouraging that. That's not business innovation: that's just capturing the income of the state paid by other people for the personal gain of the leaders of big business. Country-by-country reporting would address that too. But he opposes that disclosure, and it can only be interpreted as anti-business to do so. To break monopoly power and rent seeking behaviour by exposing it would support wealth creation rather than wealth abuse, but Cameron isn't taking the steps to support that wealth creation, he prefers the continuing abuse.
And there are also aren't free markets because government won't provide the regulation to make sure all businesses comply with regulation or pay their taxes, as I've shown. So there's an unlevel playing field. That's a profoundly anti-business policy on the part of the Tories.
The result is that Cameron's policies encourage shifting of profits to the greedy, the monopolist, the abuser of the consumer, those who ignore regulation and those who are fraudulent. That's not socially progressive. That's socially harmful.
That's why we object to his policies. And whatever the story the less, while he does not walk the talk those campaigners - like the Tax Justice Network - who believe that being pro-business means being bro-transparency and accountability, being pro-everyone paying their tax and being anti-market abuse measures like tax havens and opacity will continue to pursue their arguments. Because they're the real pro-wealth creators and real pro-free marketeers, when free means people have the information the need to make proper decisions freely available to them - which is the pre-condition of free markets as anyone who has done some training in economics knows.
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In my time as a member of my local Hendon Constituency Labour Party, and also as a member of the National Executive of the Christian Socialist Movement, I consistently argued that the Left had missed a trick here in failing to characterise the “free market” as a Socialist concept, or at least a concept coming from the Left, given the honourable history of Gladstonian Liberalism. This is because it is the Left that seeks to break and tame monopoly power (Gladstone “All over the world, wherever they may be, I will back the masses against the classes.”) to produce true “equallity of arms” or “equality of baragaining power”.
By contrast, the Right is not interested in that, but in re-inforcing monopoly power, something Adam Smith – regularly wheeled out as a defender of the Right’s view of the “free market” – knew well, as per his observation “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
In the end, so entrenched was the view of “the free market” held by my Labour Party and CSM comrades, that I had to change my description to “the FAIR market”, but in my view a “fair” market – with equality of bargaining power – is the only truly “free” market, since only there will everybody have a fair and free chance to participate.
And in addition, it is likely that such a “fair market” will more closely approximate to the socially useful mechanism that conventional economists hold their phantasmagorical “free market” to be.
Agreed!
“but in my view a “fair” market — with equality of bargaining power — is the only truly “free” market, ”
It’s an interesting analysis but of course it is destroyed by the fact that one can never achieve equality of bargaining power. There are always going to be differences of intelligence, motivation etc which make equality of bargaining power impossible.
Heavens above, I know that
But when there are low hanging fruit that can deliver real gains for low cost lets have them
Or do you prefer the abuse?
“When Cameron refers to business leaders he’s invariably talking about the leaders of big business. All, just about without exception are monopolists or oligopolists. They exploit markets to make excessive profits at cost to consumers. They use those excessive profits to pay themselves vastly inflated sums” And no group does that more than the banks with their effective monopoly on the creation of money. This is Cameron the scion of bankers talking, protecting the fraud-based privilege which has put him where he is. Without it, he’s nothing special at all, but sadly the same could be said for the Millibands and many others in politics. They’re hardly likely to instigate change, are they, or true social mobility? Create a level playing field and they’d be putting themselves out of business.
“This is Cameron the scion of bankers talking, protecting the fraud-based privilege which has put him where he is. Without it, he’s nothing special at all, but sadly the same could be said for the Millibands and many others in politics.” Yes, I agree Bill.
What we are talking about here essentially is an age-old struggle that’s gone on for thousands of years. The rich patrician minority vs the majority of the population. And throughout human history that minority has been able to manipulate what ever political system is in place to maintain their control over Society’s resources. So regardless of who we vote for, the result for the patricians is almost always the same. Our media, education and institutions have been turned against us by and large.
And whenever there has been a revolution, the same ‘gang’ seems to end up getting on top. So I ask myself why are we the majority unable to wrest control over our society? Are we locked into an endless class struggle?
We are in a class struggle; I think that is obvious
The boundaries of class have been re-drawn, as have the boundaries of privilege
Will it ever change? Depends whether you’re a Marxist or not I suppose, to some degree. I think it will. There again, I definitely don’t see a ‘Marxist’ revolutionary solution either
I see real democracy
It’s for others to decide if that is realistic or possible
We certainly need to democratise money. It’s ridiculous that we can only get it from private concerns who create it from nothing then charge interest. Effectively it means the harder we work the richer they get. That’s the first thing that has to go.
Just thought this report ‘Big Society: How the UK Government is Dismantling the State and what it means for Australia
( http://cpd.org.au/2012/02/big-society-how-the-uk-government-is-dismantling-the-state-and-what-it-means-for-australia/ ) might interest you folks. It was produced by the Centre for Policy Development in Australia. Many of us are keeping a close eye on what David Cameron is doing, as we suspect Tony Abbott (the conservative coalition leader in Australia) is ‘clone’. Our elections are due next year.
The download’s out of date 🙂 It doesn’t list how the companies signed up to Workfare are hastily abandoning it now it’s got some unfavourable publicity. Some providers apparently have issues with Grayling and IDS who seem to have assured them that all participants are voluntary when clearly they’re really under threat of life-threatening sanctions if they refuse. You might not know either, and you may care to advise your fellow Australians, that in the Welfare Reform Bill is provision for the sick and disabled in the WRAG (Work Related Activities Group) to be forc ved into Workfare permanently under threat of what are, for them, even more life-threatening sanctions, the cutting off of the state benefits they depend on to live. People in the WRAG group are, by definition, only there because they’re too ill to work (it includes people sick in bed in hospital). I suspect this will be a complete non-starter with the business community as none of them will want to be the employer of any of the obvious and inevitable fatalities that will arisie from this. This absurd and malevolent policy clearly illustrates the incoherence of the government’s position, on the one hand declaring people too ill to work and on the other forcing them to work through sanctions, cutting off their benefit that as payers of National Insurance many people have already paid for. The government appear to be blindly lashing out at any vulnerable target. It speaks ill of them and invites contempt. It’s hardly an advert for the Big society concept.