Why do commentators, thinkers and bloggers exist?

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This is just an idea.

I keep saying that neoliberal economics is broken.

I keep explaining why it is broken.

But suppose everyone already knows?

They can see the evidence before them.

The incomes that are flatlining.

The inequality that is rising.

The pubic services that are failing.

The hope that is disappearing.

The planet that is burning.

The despair that is rising.

What people don't need is to be told this is happening. They know it.

What they know is that this is happening.

What they want is an alternative.

What they are being told is that there is no alternative.

And what they know is that this must be wrong.

There has to be an alternative.

And what they hate are politicians who say that no such thing exists.

And that no such thing is even possible.

As a result, they look to anyone who offers change, even if they're a charlatan.

That's how desperate things are.

Our political choice has been reduced to despair versus the unpalatable.

So what do we need?

Talk of the alternative requires that every assumption be challenged.

Markets are not all-powerful.

We don't necessarily want choice.

We just want things that work.

We don't want to be told by the wealthy that we can't be like them.

We aren't even sure what value the wealthy add.

Or what gives them the right to preach to us.

Or to hold us to ransom.

Or to tell us that the books must be balanced, at cost to all the people who suffer as a result.

But not them, of course.

Because, instead we see all around us people who want to work.

Who want to deliver.

Who want to innovate.

Who are capable of doing all those things, but who are denied the chance to do so.

Who are denied by those 'balanced budgets'.

Who are denied by top-down thinking that thinks it alone knows best.

Wh0 are left with shit jobs because markets value productivity more than people.

And which then condemns people for not working.

And wants to sanction them for not trying hard enough.

That does not understand that many give all they can, and are still told that is no good.

But who are never given the chance to find out what might be better.

Because all we want is the chance to be.

To be in our own space.

With our own friends and families.

Each with enough to survive, and a bit more, so we can have some fun.

We don't want to maximise.

We don't think money is everything, although it helps.

We just want the right to exist in peace and harmony.

And would very much rather we were't screwed in the process of trying doing so.

So, unsurprisingly, we resent exploitation by banks, landlords, energy companies and others.

We just want a system that works.

That's all people are asking for, when they know that what we have does not function now.

Is that too much to ask for?

And isn't it my job, and the job of all thinkers on the left, to explain how that might happen?

Otherwise, why do we, as commentators, as thinkers, as bloggers, exist?

Why, indeed?


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