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I am nonplussed that an allegedly capitalism-inclined government thinks that taking money out people’s pockets is somehow good for the economy. What’s the virtue in capitalists owning factories and shops if the public don’t have money to spend?
That was Henry Ford’s thinking, and he was no lefty liberal. Anything but.
if its the same quote that you are thinking of, that if his employees did not have enough money to buy his cars, he did not have a business, its one Ive always liked.
Completely forgotten by so many of todays organisations, just thinking in the shortest possible terms of profit maximisation
It’s a bit of a myth, that one. Ford increased wages to maintain workforce stability not so they could buy cars.
He had a chronic turnover of staff (380% p.a.!) as the work was dull and repetitive so the wages were increased to attract and keep workers.
It worked. But it wasn’t done so Ford could increase sales by enabling his staff to buy cars. Indeed the wage rise cost more than the profit he would make even if every single worker bought a car a year.
And it came with provisos. Ford had a committee which could visit workers houses to ensure that they were living ‘properly’ and the additional bonuses which bought the pay up to $5 weren’t paid to single women.
Ford himself made the claim about why he had raised wages in a self-promoting autobiography.
The ‘living properly’ referred to was concerned with whether they were growing their own food or not. If they were that was considered living properly as Ford wanted workers he could train and then lay off and rehire at will not people who, unemployed, would be abandoning their homesteads and going elsewhere in search of food. Unpleasant but pragmatic.
A well made point Dr Brown; but I doubt if Neoliberal Conservative politicians have much interest in how the public acquire their money. They are much more interested in making sure sovereign power is used to transfer large quantities of money from the public sector (the Government that underwrites the central bank), to the private sector of vested interests, through an exclusive sub-set of very special interests, whether through QE, for example (those investors with special, privileged access to the central banking/dealer/commercial banking nexus), or more crudely through taxation favouring Conseravtive-supporting vested interests, or opportunistically in a crisis, PPE contracts to fast-track private sector networks (when they hope nobody notices in the chaos they encourage). Party politics is factional by definition.
Anything goes, in Neoliberal Conservatism; for there is always a way for government to by-pass fair, equitable public access or accountability. We should really re-name this characteristic Neoliberalism to reflect its real nature: Neo-iliberal Conservatism.
Culling the poor and much of the middle class would leave a fortunate few living in a spacious land rich with resources. Does depriving much of the population of the necessities of life make sense now?
Some times it comes across to me that the Johnsonian Tory Utopia is a country with fewer people in it (because we’ve all been nudged into not having kids by an indifferent State) and where wealth rules, serviced by local cap doffing rump of what is left of society (no non-English please) with very little industry because the wealthy have invested in it elsewhere to live here, totally self supporting and of course enabled by the State who will not want to tax them.
I can see shopping centres and car-parks being re-greened as well as what is left of our industry. England will become a green and unpleasant land again with an Edwardian bent I think with its rigid social strata and the rest of the population with its short and brutish life will be seen as an investment opportunity with its poor health and low life expectancy. It will be a country of rules for those who rule.
Good and well done.
Apparently the Conservative MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson believes that people who use foodbanks have problems “cooking”, or “budgeting”. He thinks forrdbank users should attend a budgeting course, which we may think is perhaps optimistic; but more relevant, it misunderstands the problem. In any case, allow me to deploy an argument that any Conservative of this persuasion should find difficult to reject. Let us suppose Mr Anderson is right; allow that an unknown proportion of foodbank users do not budget well (an arrogant and prejudicial judgement, but let it pass so I may explore the bizarre nature of Conservative thinking in action; neither ‘joined-up-thinking’, nor wise judgement).
If you believe people are incapable of budgeting, then they are – by definition – a poor personal loan risk. Why then does the Chancellor intend not only to lend people in such a predicament, with budgeting problems the sum of £200 for their energy needs in the months to come? Not only making the loan, but making the loan compulsory (whether sought or not), an extraordinary exercise in arbitrary power; and then over the following years demand repyament according to a fixed schedule (whether or not it fits the needs of the ‘recipient’)? What do they expect will happen in such a scenario? The poor budgeter is not likely to manage resources of this kind well over an extended period, thus we must assume they will default. What then? Prosecute them? Fine them? Send them to jail?
Will this programme of pursuing poor budgeters for repayment be managed well? For example, better than the Post Office, the Courts and the Government; none of whom noticed that over 700 innocent, highly respectable ordinary people, over an extended period were being prosecuted, typically found guilty, and many sent to jail for the failure of the Post Office. The worst extended miscarriage of justice in British history? This is how the administration of justice or executive power is actually carried out in Britain; by the insoucient incompetent. Forget the proven mismanagement risk of a bungling Government (Test and Trace; PPE; Covid loan fraud; the examples are endless).
If you think the risks to poor budgeters through, this amounts to the Government entrapping its own people. To what purpose? It is no better than Government loan-sharking.
Another triumph for Neoliberalism.
Agreed
Where do they get these people from?
“What then? Prosecute them? Fine them? Send them to jail?”
Sadly that is exactly the plan. Prisons and prison slavery are big, very lucrative businesses and they need a constant supply of ‘criminals’. Obviously not the real criminals, like the ones in the millionaire Cabinet robbing us blind of rights and freedoms as well as Our NHS, social housing, public services, etc.
Priti Patel, in readiness for the law changes she was and is pushing through – the PCSC and NABB laws, etc., has spent £2.5 Billion, of public funds on building Super Prisons to house the newly criminalised: from doctors and scientists and other climate activists, to those they impoverish and make homeless and all those whom they strip of citizenship and detain indefinitely.
It doesn’t matter how much it all costs as it isn’t them but us who must foot the bill.
‘Originally planned to be one of the cheapest Category C jails to run in England and Wales, housing 2,100 men at £14,000 per year per place, HMP Berwyn is currently one of the most expensive, standing 40% empty and costing £36,000 per prisoner each year.’
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/02/epic-jail-inside-super-prison-warehouses-architecture
Apparently the got Lee Anderson from the Labour Party!
Food banks. An interesting name suggesting a formal setting where deposits can be made to be withdrawn later. Should we call them what they are – Food Charities or anti-starvation resources?
Tories: those people are not our sort – we owe them nothing!
Tory business mates: there’s money in those pockets – get it out of there and into ours no matter what! Our products or services might be sh*te but that money should be ours!
Only have to think of gambling or the cost of online services to know there’s only that attitude prevailing. Our money should be in their accounts, so what if we’re vulnerable and don’t have enough – ‘we’ shouldn’t fall for their high pressure tactics. I’ve seen too many people around me fall for that and overcommit on tiny incomes. Be it insanely low pay or benefit level incomes. We’re ‘prey’, nothing more. I’ve had to retreat from being a ‘lender of last resort’ for a neighbour, there’s just no way i can continue. I learned decades ago to avoid the inducements, watching a ‘trainer’ at work. It just felt so ugly and unethical. There should be more ways for people whose incomes collapse to get out of more of these contracts, as well as more help.
I think it is a grave mistake to regard the Tories as old style Conservatives. The parliamentary party is being run by neoliberals who have taken over and are running it in their own interests. Much as I disagree with traditional conservatism there was some belief in trickle down, noblesse oblige and a patriarchal responsibility for the population. Since the introduction if monetarism and the thinking that came out of the Chicago school the departure from old style Conservative thinking has accelerated. The dismantling of worker’s protection/rights has ensured that the likes of Rees Mogg and Sunak can milk the system for their own ends.
You are right