Ukip are using the oldest trick in the book: the scapegoating of 'other'

One of the tricks of the neoliberal 'free market' right has been to try and convince the millions who have no stake in the system - 'free market' capitalism - that they have something to gain from it. We were told in the 1980s that cutting taxes for the rich would result in a 'trickle down' of wealth to everyone in society, that their gain would be our gain. What they didn't say is that neoliberalism - then known as Reaganomics - is really about transferring wealth from the 99% to the 1% - its a one-way process. As the 1% gain from tax cuts, and lower wages for workers, social spending on health, education and housing is slashed to the detriment of the majority, and people have to go into debt to maintain a half decent standard of living. So they take away our wealth and then still make us pay by forcing us into debt-slavery. In the UK and USA one of the most potent examples of debt-slavery is student loans.

So far so good, for them, but what happens when the wheels come off the neoliberal casino capitalist bonanza, and the crash comes, as it did in 2008, and people can see their living standards falling before their very eyes? Who to blame for the crisis? Not the real culprits obviously - not the super-rich, the bankers and their tame politicians. Step forward the perennial scapegoat, someone who is 'other' and can easily be recognised as 'not one of us'. This is a trick which has long been used to great effect by the political right. In Nazi Germany it was the Jews who were singled out, and in today in 'Ukip Britain' its 'immigrants'. And for Farage and Ukip, the beauty of blaming immigrants is not just about deflecting attention from the people who are really responsible for unemployment, low pay and poor housing but also Europe bashing, because of the influx of EU citizens into the UK.

The natural supporters of Ukip are those who have been 'left behind', those whose pay has fallen or stagnated and who are trapped in poor housing and can't see much of a future for themselves. They are people with a grievance, often members of the white working class who once would have been natural working class Tories or Labour supporters. I've commented in this blog before about how New Labour have much to answer for in the rise of the far right in Britain. A few years ago it was the BNP who benefited from a protest vote by largely white working class people resulting in Nick Griffin being elected as an MEP. With the implosion of the BNP, Ukip have moved to fill that political space, promoted by the corporate media. Of course Farage's latest outburst, about the scrapping of equality legislation, and talk of Ukip being 'colour blind' is just another racist appeal to shore up Ukip support ahead of the election. What's wrong with employers giving jobs to 'English people' instead of 'foreigners'? Quite a lot actually - its called racial discrimination - that's why we have the legislation.

The solution? End austerity; allow councils to build social housing; make corporations and the rich pay their taxes; scrap student loans; bring in a living wage; use green QE to create meaningful jobs, get people back to work, and tackle climate change in the process. All pretty obvious stuff but apparently a step too for for the Labour Party. That's why Labour are failing in Scotland and aren't going to win the next election. Only one mainstream party has those values and policies and that is the Green Party. That's why they are now the third biggest Party in England and Wales.

The fevered fantasies of the 'free' market fundamentalists

Yesterday the Greek people were betrayed by their political class, who put the bailing out of bond-holders and French and German banks above the needs of the Greek people. The madness of austerity continues and condemns the Greek people to years of pain and misery with a debt which can never be repaid. The Greek economy has contracted by 15% and unemployment has now reached 20%, homelessness is growing, and people are struggling to get access to healthcare. Undoubtedly, much of the pain which is being caused to delay the inevitable Greek default, is happening to enable the banks to get into a better state, and as we now know, banks are more important than people in neoliberal Europe.

But how did we get here? We have had 30 years of neoliberal economic failure. That is the real cause of this tragedy - a failed economic policy based on the triumphalism of the 'free' market, and a class war waged on the relatively  prosperous citizens of the west, as capitalism tries to maintain its failing profitability by taking away the healthcare, pensions, and livelihoods of western citizens. The origins of this neoliberal assault lie in the 1970's, in the Chicago School of economics and the Washington Consensus, implemented initially through Reaganomics in the USA and Thatcherism in the UK.

Despite the growing crisis caused by this ideology, and the recognition by many economists that neoliberalism doesn't work, the 'free' market right are telling the people of the west that the only cure is "more of the same". The prescription is killing the patient, but like mad scientists, the neoliberalists insist that yet harsher treatment is needed. Why is it that these 'free' market acolytes are so confident that their failed and discredited policies are the only way out of the crisis we are in? The answer is simple; these people are fanatics. Their 'economic' policy for rule by the market is not so much economic policy, nor even an ideology but much more a system of belief.

The supremacy of the 'free' market has become a fundamentalist cult, and its adherents represent a far greater threat to the safety and well-being of the global population than Al Qaeda or the Taliban. The origins of this fundamentalism were explained in All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, a documentary by Adam Curtis originally shown on BBC. The 'guru' of the 'free' market cult, who occupies a similar position in relation to the 'free' market fundamentalists, as L Ron Hubbard does to the Scientologists, is Ayn Rand. Rand espoused a philosophy of extreme selfishness, and was responsible for writing a best selling book which is the 'free' market bible, Atlas Shrugged. In this novel, which bears about as much relation to reality as Lord of the Rings, the 'most productive' members of society, who are entrepreneurs, naturally, decide to go on strike (on strike??) because they are being oppressed by high taxes, and regulations. The message is clear: society depends upon a small group of wealth creators, and without them we would all still be living in caves. Because of their obvious superiority such people ought to be treated differently to the rest of us and afforded the special privilege of great wealth and low taxes - does that sound familiar? Of course this fantasy is manna from heaven for the rich, and the apparatchicks of the Tea Party, which is why Atlas Shrugged is still a bestseller in the USA. But don't laugh, because Rand has been, and still is, very influential. One of her followers was Alan Greenspan, who was chairman of the US Federal Reserve in the lead up to the 2008 crash. So, the next time you see one of the peddlers of 'free' market fundamentalism on Question Time, you need to understand that they represent a very real threat to your well-being and prosperity.