Bevan was right - it is essential we maintain universal benefits

Why on earth should we pay a winter fuel allowance of £250 to wealthy pensioners? At a time when we can barely afford to pay for benefits, if you believe the Coalition government, it just doesn't make any sense. Well the Coalition has got it wrong because it really does make perfect sense for the following reasons; if we want to maintain a decent system of social security, it must apply to all; furthermore the fact that universal benefits apply to all strengthens social solidarity, something which it is essential to maintain; then there is the cost of means testing, which is not only an expensive waste of money, but also deters people, particularly elderly people, from claiming the benefits they are entitled to.

In his recent Guardian article John Harris made the case for universal benefits, and he is absolutely right. As he said;

"Once again, we have to wearily go back to first principles. As the child benefit fiasco proves, means-testing and selectivity cost huge amounts of money and governmental effort. In stigmatising help and demanding engagement with a labyrinthine machine, selective benefits often fail to reach the people they are meant for (which is why over 25% of kids entitled to free school meals don't get them, and the means-testing of winter fuel payment would be dangerous)."

Some benefits, such as unemployment benefit - now stigmatised as 'Jobseekers Allowance' - which deliberately makes it sound like a hand out - will only ever apply to certain members of society for obvious reasons. But others such as child benefit must remain universal if they are going to be maintained at reasonable levels.

Of course conservatives would love to see the end of universal benefits. This is because they know that it would be so much easier then to further reduce the levels of benefits for the poorest in our society to pay for more tax cuts for the better off. Aneurin Bevan, the great Labour Party socialist, undertsood this very well and said;

"If benefits are restricted to the poor, they will end up being poor benefits."

Aneurin Bevan

Finally, one of the commenters on Jon Harris's article also summed it it up beautifully;

"The welfare state is a national insurance. You don't exclude some because they're too rich. It goes against the principle. Just as you don't exclude rich car drivers from claiming on their car insurance "because, Sir, you don't need it".'

Why conservatives are the real enemies of freedom

Have you noticed how conservatives, both with a big and a small 'c', are always on about freedom and the importance of living in a 'free society'. Not only that but they are always sounding off about the enemies of freedom, and its not difficult to guess who those enemies are - socialists and trade unionists usually come top of the list. So it was with interest that I read Charles Moore's latest diatribe in the Telegraph. Tory cheerleader Moore has identified another one of the great enemies of freedom - equality! Not only is the promotion of equality for all a threat to 'freedom' but apparently the desire for more equality is a form of madness as this revealing quote shows:

"The doctrine of Equality is mad. Like extreme post-Reformation Protestantism, it perverts a good inclination and turns it into a lunatic theocracy." 

I'm sure that even on a good day Moore would be deeply perturbed by the idea of equality but what seems to have particularly upset him is David Cameron's attempt to bring in gay marriage. Apparently if gay people can get married that is a threat to the 'institution of marriage', which as every good person knows is a union between a man and a woman - only. But why so much angst? I could quote more from Moore's article including some pretty tortuous, cringe-worthy stuff about marriage being about procreation - something gays can't do! - but I'll spare you that.

Moore suffers from the same problem that all conservatives have - a morbid psychology in which it is essential to feel superior to other people at the expense of their freedom. In this case the freedom of all people to get married. That is why so many conservatives are racist, sexist, and homophobic, and that is why they loathe political correctness so much. For example, you see that white working class conservatives, even though they are shat upon by the likes of Moore and his class, can still feel good because they can sleep soundly at night knowing that, downtrodden as they are, they are still superior to gays, women and blacks. That is why the more extreme of them support the likes of the BNP. Take that away from them and what have they got - nothing! And that is also why so many 'middle class' conservative Americans hate Obama.

Equality is a terrifying concept for conservatives because they will no longer be better than others. No wonder Moore thinks the desire for equality is a form of madness. But there is one more important form of equality I need to mention. The one, that along with equality for people of all races, women, and gays, that socialists and trade unionists are fighting for - economic equality. This is the equality that conservatives fear most. That is why socialist and trade unionists are the enemy. Cameron and Osborne may be able to accept gay marriage, but economic equality, with workers obtaining the real value of the wealth they create, will never be acceptable to them. Economic equality would undermine the most important inequality in our class-ridden capitalist economy. That is the final frontier without which the ruling class would have nothing. They would then merely be the same as the rest of us.

The reality is that equality represents a huge threat to conservatives. Its something they really fear. It not only threatens their superiority to gays, but more fundamentally their self-serving class superiority. Its the grouse moors and London clubs, the yachts and apartments in Manhattan that are under threat from economic equality. That is what really scares them, the freedom that they have to inherit wealth and to be kept in the style to which they are accustomed, by the labours' of others. That is why they really mean when they talk about freedom, because its their freedom that counts, and they must hang on to that freedom at all costs, at the expense of freedom for the rest of us.

One thing the 'free' market is brilliant at - generating bullshit

One of the cornerstones of 'free' market capitalism is 'confidence'. 'Confidence' is of course a code word. What is really means is that capitalists need to know the governments will ensure that everything is stitched up in their favour. Another way of putting this is - privatising the profits and nationalising the losses - that whatever happens, they can't lose. This is because capitalists, contrary to 'free' market mythology are not really risk-takers at all. That myth is a good example of 'free' market bullshit. What capitalists really want is no-risk-at-all guaranteed profits of the kind they can get from the privatisation of the public sector.

But its really another kind of confidence I want to focus on. This is the key confidence of 'entrepreneurship'. This is the bullshit that is really at the heart of neoliberal 'free' market capitalism, and comes straight out of the 'free' market fantasises of Ayn Rand. The mythology goes like this; all wealth is created by dynamic, risk-taking individuals we call entrepreneurs. Becuase of the dynamism and creativity of these special individuals the Earth continues to orbit the Sun, and we should all be eternally grateful to these people. And, because they are so magical they deserve special treatment - like not paying taxes - and must enjoy great wealth and, of course, power.

Poeple like Bill Gates and Richard Branson are cited as examples of these thrusting god-like individuals. The problem is that the idols have feet of clay. Gates's Microsoft empire was built on MS-DoS, a piece of software he bought off someone else, and grew through the ruthless destruction of rival companies by establishing a monopoly position for his key products; Windows and Microsoft Office. Branson has done extremely well out of government handouts as shown by his risk-free 'enterprise' Virgin Rail. No risk when you run a private monopoly, just guaranteed profits from the taxpayer. Much to Branson's chagrin this was ruthlessly exposed  by Aditya Chakrabortty in this Guardian article. But the myth of the entrepreneur continues to be crucial to the belief-system that is neoliberal 'free' market capitalism. That is not to say that there aren't dynamic and innovative individuals, it just that very few of those people are capitalists, or even want to be. For those few capitalists that are there is a fatal problem - the wealth that 'they generate' is actually created by workers, not by them.

Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake". But the entrepreneurs of Davos want us only to have the cake crumbs.

This week my 'free' market bullshit detector has been pointing in the direction of that heart of darkness known as the World Economic Forum in Davos. This is the home of the really confident ones, the capitalists with their luxury yachts who ride on the crest of the wave of 'free' market bullshit. These grossly overpaid, overrated and over-confident individuals, their sycophantic hangers on, and tame politicians who serve them, are beginning to look more and more like the Marie Antoinettes of the modern world. You can tell this by the fact that even Will Hutton, who likes capitalism, is getting very pissed off with the Davos crowd. and wants them sorted out. But, for the time being, while the entrepreneurs of Davos feast on the fruits of our labours we will have to be satisfied with the crumbs of cake that fall from their table.

Neoliberal Labour fail the social justice test - again!

Neoliberal Labour are at it again. This time pandering to the Coalition's class-war driven attack on the unemployed with their own version of Workfare. Labour's new plan - or should that be New Labour's plan? - announced by Ed Balls, is that people who are unemployed for more than two years would be forced to work in some sort of government backed scheme for at least 6 months. And Labour have repeated the Tory mantra that work must pay more than benefits.

So what is wrong with this you may ask? Well there is plenty wrong with it. For a start, unemployment is a failure of Labour's beloved 'free' market to provide meaningful jobs for people. But this can't be admitted, so the unemployed must be blamed for their own predicament, including the 660,000 public sector workers who have lost their jobs under the Coalition. In 'free' market la la land you must always blame the victims never the culprits - i.e. the banks, the tax dodging corporations and the tame politicians who support them, the very people who created the economic crisis we are now all paying for. Secondly, if people on benefits get more money than those in work that tells us the simple truth that those in work are not earning enough. Under the previous New Labour government, Gordon Brown's tax credits for working families simply subsidised cheap labour for the tax dodging corporations. It was a form of corporate welfarism. Thirdly, the unemployed and low paid are exactly the sort of people who ought to expect and allegedly 'progressive' party like Labour to give them some support in difficult times. Instead of this reactionary nonsense, Labour should be committed to full employment, as it used to be, and guarantee every unemployed person a meaningful job. But Labour doesn't have the 'Balls' to do that.

What is the answer? At the last general election in its 2010 manifesto, the Green Party came up with policies to halve the deficit and create one million new jobs in the green sector - in areas like home insulation - to tackle the crisis in the economy and fight climate change. This carefully costed programme, paid for by shelving wasteful and unnecessary projects like Trident, and taxes on environmental pollution and the rich, would have put the UK in a much stronger position than it is now. There would not have been swinging cuts in the public sector and no privatisation of the NHS. There is a real alternative of hope to the despair and destruction that neoliberal austerity is wreaking on the people of Europe and the UK. We can bring about positive change if people vote for us. Do you want to be part of a positive future? Then come and join us.

People who want change must not allow themselves to be co-opted by the system

We live in a 'democracy'. A flawed democracy for sure, one with an anachronistic first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, and consequently a parliament which fails to reflect the will of the British people. And in the second decade of the 21st century we have an unelected 'second chamber', a thing that would be regarded as absurdly undemocratic in most other countries, and something which you won't find in nations which our politicians criticise - like Chavez's Venezuela. 

What's more, we don't have a written constitution which people can refer to, and rely upon. Our constitutional arrangements are shrouded in mystery, and the goalposts appear to be moved, almost at will, to suit the needs of those in power. There can be no doubt that this 'democratic' system continues to be maintained because it benefits the alliance of monarchy, politicians, media magnates, capitalists and other 'establishment' figures who make up the British 'ruling class'.

The electoral hurdles are there to make sure that radicals and small parties find it very hard to make a breakthrough and get a toe hold in local or national government, but the story doesn't end there, because once elected, councillors and MPs find there are 'rules' that they are supposed to follow, and naturally enough the 'rules' are intended to make sure that they conform. The idea is that if you manage to get yourself elected you must then be co-opted -  you must become part of the system.

But if Parties and individuals want to get elected and bring about radical change they must avoid being co-opted at all costs, and they must retain their radical edge. 'Rules' are there to be changed, and broken if necessary. Many of the 'rules' are about how people are expected to behave rather than actual written codes. Please note that I'm not suggesting that anyone should make a martyr of themselves and end up getting fined or thrown into gaol. What I mean is that the 'rules' should be actively resisted by any legal means possible, especially peaceful democratic protest and direct action involving party members, supporters and trade unionists. In other words 'kick up a stink' and ruthlessly expose the corruption and anti-democratic nature of the system and its supporters. Don't co-operate with it, challenge it!

For example, if you are elected on a platform to oppose the cuts - oppose them at every opportunity!  A cut is a cut is a cut. There are no 'good' cuts in the Coalition's austerity programme, so vote against them, and work with trade unions and local community groups to defend jobs and protect local services. Form alliances with your local community from which you will gain trust and future electoral support. Once you have been seen to conform with 'the system' you simply become 'like all the rest' and lose credibility, and support - you become just another politician closing libraries and hospitals. Here is a quote from Deborah Mattinson's illuminating New Statesman article, based on in-depth electoral research  - 'Tony, you're just like all the rest' - [link above and well worth reading]:

"A conventional wisdom has grown up around the electoral success of new Labour. It is that to win elections you have to stifle radicalism; that being in touch with those vital "Middle England" voters is at odds with the needs of the Labour core vote; and that anything that challenges top-down thinking is somehow old-fashioned, certainly old Labour. Yet floating voters, and women in particular, were voting for something radically different in 1997. They wanted to see real change - [my italics] "

Of course there are some that will argue that this isn't 'grown up politics', and that 'with power comes responsibility'. But that is just playing into the hands of the the very people whose interests are served by the system. The real responsibility of power is to be true to your ideals and the people who elected you. Change is possible, but only if you don't do as you are told. Change the system, don't let the system change you!

Fracking is a delusional scraping of the bottom of the fossil fuel energy barrel

The battle over fracking is the new front line in the battle against climate change and the madness of the 'free' market fundamentalists who are destroying our economy and wrecking our climate. The battle lines are clearly drawn, with 'free' market cheerleaders like Boris Johnson and George Osborne eulogising the 'benefits' of cheap energy from shale gas and the environmental movement warning about the potentially damaging consequences of the 'dash for gas' in the UK.

I've posted on here before about how 'free' market climate change deniers are determined to avoid the economic consequences of climate change - that we will have to move to a different kind of economy which is more local, greener and steady state - and want to protect their own selfish interests and preserve big 'business as usual' at all costs. That is because they recognise that the kind of green, 'low energy' economy that is essential to combat climate change will mean the end of capitalism as we know it. 

It has been claimed that fracking has produced a massive economic boost in the USA with cheap shale gas lowering energy prices and fueling growth in the economy. But the longer fracking continues in the USA, the more evidence accumulates that not only are there environmental risks with fracking, but also that it is uneconomic. Here is a quote from an article in Business Insider:

"The economics of fracking are horrid. All wells have decline rates where production drops over time. But instead of decades for traditional wells, decline rates in horizontal fracking are measured in weeks and months: production falls off a cliff from day one and continues for a year or so until it levels out at about 10% of initial production."

The Government's own advisers have shown that Osborne's dash for gas is likely to increase energy bills for UK consumers by £600 as opposed to £100 for renewable energy. As if all this wasn't bad enough there are serious concerns about the potential environmental impact of fracking including the pollution of groundwater by toxic chemicals. Like the exploitation of oil from tar sands, fracking is an act of desperation, a Canute like attempt to prevent the inevitable changes that will have to take place in the global economy if we are to survive the very real threat that climate change poses to the future of our species. Reject this neoliberal nonsense and join the Green Party's fight for a greener, cleaner and socially just economy. Our future depends upon it.

The European Union is becoming the enemy of the European people

The European Union is becoming the enemy of the European people - it gives me no pleasure to post this, but it is essential that I do so because it is the truth. Like many people of my generation I had high hopes for the EU. I voted for the UK to join in a referendum in 1974. I didn't buy the 'common market' guff I was being sold at the time by the corporate propaganda machine of the Tory press. I was voting for the 'ideal' and by that I mean a peaceful, war-avoiding Europe, united in a common and progressive purpose. 

In those days a progressive purpose was a realistic project, that a social Europe would be a prosperous, sharing society in which everyone would benefit from the kind of economic and social progress that still seemed inevitable at the time. How things have turned sour since then! Although most Europeans have held fast to that concept of progress, the politicians and capitalists had other ideas. By the 1970's profits were falling and as the EU expanded, so did the influence of the 'free' market neoliberals who were determined to ensure that the EU became a neoliberal corporate club, dedicated to the interests of the rich, at the expense of the rest of us.

And so now we find ourselves at the end of the European dream, living in a union dedicated to destroying the living standards of workers down to third world levels. The exemplar for this is the treatment of the Greeks, by the so-called Troika, who have been beggared  because of a crisis not of their own making. That the hypocrites who lead the EU such as Merkel (and of late Sarkozy) have claimed that this is "solidarity" only serves to emphasise the hypocrisy and mendacity of the Eurocracy . The Greeks have been betrayed and crushed by their own ruling class, with the co-operation of the Eurocratic/capitalist alliance which is a the heart of darkness of the EU.The bailout was only ever intended to protect European banks at the expense of the Greek people.

Munch's The Scream sums up the fate of the Greeks at the hands of the EU

The primary instrument of our betrayal is the the Lisbon Treaty, a neoliberal charter, which enshrines the supremacy of the 'free' market above the needs and democratic rights of the European people. Until this charter is consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs, there can be no solidarity, freedom or progress within the EU. We need to fight to overcome not only the democratic deficit in the EU but to free Europeans from the economic slavery of neoliberalism. 

Having said all that, its essential that we reject the anti-EU rhetoric churned out by the likes of UKIP, and the right of the Tory party. The only reason for their euroscepticism is because they want to destroy what remains of EU environmental and employment legislation so that they can can screw UK workers even harder than they are being screwed at the moment. Of course, its ironic that this kind of euroscepticism is popular, and that people's discontent in the UK with the EU has been manipulated by the capitalist media to benefit  the likes of UKIP who think that the neoliberalism of the EU doesn't go far enough. Don't be fooled! We don't need to leave the EU but we do need to change it for the benefit of the European people.

Osborne's cuts have nothing to do with the deficit

In my last post I blogged about how the 'free' market was working - for the banks, corporations and the capitalist media (if that seems contradictory to the title of the that post - you 'll have to read the post).  Now I have to follow that up with the simple fact that austerity is working. Its working for the 1%, for the George Osbornes of this world, that is why it is being imposed on the people of Europe and the USA. The real aim of austerity is not to solve the 'problem' of the deficit, or to revive our economy. The real aim is to destroy the welfare state, and to reduce the unemployed, and the working poor to third world levels of destitution, and to destroy collective provision.

The poorest and most vulnerable people in our society, the disabled, the unemployed, and the working poor, are the first targets of austerity, The middle classes come next. The aim of austerity is to return the UK to the nineteenth century, and to roll back all the gains in pensions, conditions of employment, living standards, and healthcare, which we have obtained through the trade unions and our democratic process in the past 100 years.

George Osborne - destroying the welfare state in the UK

Osborne is a bare-faced liar. He knows very well that his description of the UK economy as some sort of household budget is a complete fiction. Either that or he is stupid. National economies are not like household economies. National economies can live with high levels of debt for long periods. Governments can borrow far more cheaply than companies or families. They can also create money. Not one penny of Osborne's original £81 billion of cuts was necessary. The structural deficit is convenient cover for an ideologically driven Tory class war on the British people. Its something that they have dreamed of for years - destroy the welfare state and privatise the NHS and the public sector. Now, under the cover of an economic crisis their friends in the banks created they have the opportunity to inflict their 'free' market ideology on the UK. Don't believe me? The read this quote from Michael Burke in the Guardian today:

"The stated aim of "austerity" is not growth but fiscal balance. According to its supporters it is self-evident that, like any household, if you cut your spending you will have more money left at the end of each month. For governments, this is reflected in current spending not capital spending – any fool can cut needed investment on school buildings, rail and roads and claim that things are improving. In official projections, the deficit on the current budget was expected to be falling to £80bn in the current financial year, down £34bn in two years. Is this current deficit falling? [no]. If not, austerity is failing in its stated objective, and persisting with it implies there is actually a different policy objective of lowering wages and benefits, which is what has happened.

Don't be fooled by this Coalition government. Austerity is working very well indeed because the Chancellor's cuts programme is a direct attack on the living standards of you and your family. It is designed to make the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. If it succeeds your children will be poorer than you are and your grandchildren will be poorer than your children. You only have one option and that is to join together with people who are fighting the cuts and stop the greatest heist in history in its tracks.

The 'free' market has failed, now for the alternative

Unfortunately the title of this post is not really true, the first part anyway. The 'free' market has succeeded. It has succeded in transferring huge amounts of wealth from ordinary working people to the very richest people on the planet. And it has done this by reducing wages and destroying pensions, social healthcare and social security. Because that transfer of wealth always was the aim of 'free' market neoliberalism - making the 99% (workers) poorer and 1% (capitalists) richer. 

Of course, most people don't like to think in terms of 'capitalist and worker', that, after all, is old hat isn't it? Well, no its not, its just that in the 30 year period after the Second World War, with strong trade unions, social security and decent pensions, the ongoing struggle between worker and capitalist was offset by rising prosperity. With hindsight we can now see that period for what it was - an anomaly. We are now back to capitalism as usual, capitalism as it has been for most of its 200 year history, with sluggish growth and poor welfare provision for the victims of capitalism - the poor and the unemployed. The fact that it took an economic crash to return us to 'normality' should really be no surprise to anyone (though when it happens it always is). The history of capitalism is a succession of economic crises, of which this one is only the latest and possibly the greatest. The capitalist media has worked hard to persuade us that the distinction between capitalist and worker no longer has any relevance, that we are all in it together, but that has been exposed as a fiction by recent events.

The lesson we should learn from the latest crisis is that only the nation state can prevent complete economic chaos and disaster. Without state intervention in the economies of Europe and the USA the crisis would have been very much worse. Neoliberals like to label the state as the enemy of freedom, enterprise and innovation, but without it we would all probably be living in shanty towns and could possibly have slid into barbarism. The reality is that the democratic nation state can be our friend and it is the only existing institution which can turn things around in times of crisis. That is why we must not turn our back on state intervention in the economy, and nationalisation of the railways and the utilities. People of my generation look back on the nationalised utilities with affection. They weren't perfect but they weren't the preserve of foreign corporations with footloose 'investors' who care nothing about energy and water provision in the UK.

It doesn't have to be like this. There is a sound economic alternative, but there is a problem because if we continue to elect political parties which follow neoliberal policies the misery will continue. For example, as Larry Elliot in the Guardian showed today new jobs have been created in the UK during the crisis but the bad news is that these are low-paid part time jobs, replacing the better jobs which have been lost. Here is a telling quote:

"The UK is turning into an old-style third world country with low pay growth for most workers below managerial level, widening pay differentials and poor levels of capital investment"

Of the mainstream political parties in the UK all but one adhere to the tenets of 'free' market neoliberalism, despite the fact that it is clearly unpopular with the electorate, as the by-elections last Thursday showed. The Coalition parties got hammered with the Liberal Democrats polling only 415 votes in Rotherham and coming eighth. UKIP did well, but they are a single-issue party trading on the unpopularity of the EU. If people understood better UKIP's other policies they would soon be exposed. Labour, who most voters are looking to as an alternative to the Coalition are neoliberal-lite at best and are unlikely to reverse many of the damaging changes made by the Coalition. The only party which has an alternative economic policy is the Green Party, as we showed in our manifesto, which is still as relevant now as it was in 2010 .

'Free' market neoliberalism has failed those who it was meant to fail, the ordinary people of  Europe and the USA, the 99%. The alternative is now needed more urgently than ever. But you can only get that alternative by voting for a political party which has an alternative. If you want to find out more take a look at our vision. Never has voting for an alternative been more important. Come and join us in turning things around.

'Free' market myths no. 5: competition works

Competition is an essential part of  our economy. The fact that companies compete with each other to provide us with better goods and services means that the goods and services on offer constantly improve and we get better value for money. It means that companies that don't perform well go to the wall and the best run companies thrive, and it also means that individuals work harder to do better and achieve higher rewards right? Wrong!

The idea that much vaunted 'free' market competition does all these things and is essential to the well-being of our economy just happens to be nonsense. Of course this is hard for many people to accept because we have been told this is the case all our lives, and most of us believe it. But the idea of competition that most of us have is based on real competition of the kind that you find in the Olympics where individuals and teams do battle to win prizes. This kind of striving for ever greater excellence is not the same thing as competition in a capitalist economy. In fact its possible to make a case that in some sectors there is little or no competition at all. Mature markets are where particular markets are dominated by a few major players, all the smaller operators having been squeezed out, usually by acquisition rather than competition. An obvious example of this which has been making the headlines recently is the energy sector, which has been accused of making excessive profits at the expense of hard pressed bill payers. And we have witnessed the neoliberal Coalition government's feeble attempts to 'regulate' energy prices for consumers. As the Guardian editorial said:

"But all Mr Davey is proposing is a change in billing, not pricing. And he is certainly not proposing to change the mechanics that place 85% of the retail market in the hands of the big six suppliers, and which mean that when one raises prices the rest follow soon afterwards. If it looks like an oligopoly, and acts like an oligopoly, then it probably is an oligopoly"

It was accepted, until fairly recently, by economists, that such 'mature markets' were examples of monopoly capitalism, until neoliberal 'free' market dogma came to dominate in the 1980's, and monopoly capitalism was conveniently 'forgotten'. Its well worth reading this article by Bellamy Foster, McChesney and Jamil Jonna, which describes how monopoly - not oligopoly by the way - is increasing and competition is decreasing, on a global scale. here is a telling quote:

"The desirability of monopoly, from the perspective of a capitalist, is self-evident: it lowers risk and increases profits. No sane owner or business wishes more competition; the rational move is always to seek as much monopoly power as possible and carefully avoid the nightmare world of the powerless competitive firm of economics textbooks. Once a firm achieves economic concentration and monopoly power, it is maintained through barriers to entry that make it prohibitively costly and risky for would-be competitors successfully to invade an oligopolistic or monopolistic industry—though such barriers to entry remain relative rather than absolute. Creating and maintaining barriers to entry is essential work for any corporation."

The reality is that competition in the capitalist global economy is just another 'free' market myth, slavishly maintained and adhered to by the capitalist media we all know and love so well.

Tax dodgers are poverty creators

Let me make clear from the start that by 'tax dodgers' I mean tax avoiders and well as tax evaders. The former is not unlawful and the latter is. But the former ought to be, and this post is about why it ought to be. Recently, companies such as Amazon, Starbucks and Google have been taken to task for tax avoidance. All three companies were hauled up before the Public Accounts Committee, and their responses to questions about tax avoidance were woefully inadequate - see this excellent account of the proceedings by Richard Murphy in which he said:

"For Amazon things were much worse. Its rep could not justify how an order made in the UK for a product in a UK warehouse, shipped by UK staff through the UK post and with a bill enclosed printed in this country could somehow have anything to do with Luxembourg. Despite this he had the gall to claim tax must be paid where the economic substance of the deal was – even though Amazon does nothing of the sort."

Tax avoidance means that this country loses money which we badly need to pay for infrastructure, education, health - and, as you know, the list goes on. But by dodging tax, these companies are not only shrinking the UK tax base, and therefore dumping more of the tax burden onto individual taxpayers, they are also killing off British retailers which are based here and pay their full  taxes. This isn't creating jobs, its costing jobs and the profits made in the UK are siphoned off abroad. Corporate tax avoidance is nothing more than a race to the bottom where corporations swan around the globe looking for the cheapest tax rates and playing one country off against another in the process. Its not much more than a form of robbery and we are the ones who are being robbed.

Stupidly, politicians in different countries are playing the corporations' game as they compete with each other to get these tax dodgers based in their country. What they should be doing is deals with other countries to set a standard corporate tax rate so that the corporations cannot gain advantage. It looks at that that British industry is beginning to wake up to this scam and beginning to fight back. Polly Toynbee reported in the Guardian:

"John Lewis's managing director is calling on the Treasury to demand tax is paid in the country where profits are made: Amazon made £3.3bn in sales but paid zero UK corporation tax on any of the profits of that income. "They will out-invest and ultimately out-trade us," tax-paying John Lewis protests, unable to compete fairly with tax-shirkers."

Th reality of 21st century capitalism is that it is no longer productive. It doesn't create as much real wealth any more. Profits from companies like Amazon aren't re-invested in useful economic activity. They are spent by investors on, yachts, financial schemes and property booms. So huge has non-productive financial capitalism become globally that it completely dwarfs the productive economy. Far from being wealth creators, these companies will increase poverty in the countries they are shafting, like the UK, and we will be the losers. Our spineless politicians need to get a grip, and fast. It ought not the be beyond the wit of the EU countries to agree a corporate tax rate of £25% and to clear out the tax havens which are causing so much damage to our economy. Do it, and do it soon! Meantime, if you want to get involved join the UK Uncut demo on 8th December!

The BBC debacle is just part of a much wider malaise

Another week passes by and another debacle for the BBC to deal with. Now, the BBC Director General, George Entwistle, has resigned after Newsnight alleged that a 'top Tory' was involved in child abuse in a children's home in North Wales. The allegation, made on Newsnight by Steve Messham, who was abused whilst in care, wasn't properly researched, and it turned out that Messham hadn't even been shown a photo of the man he thought was his abuser. He was wrong, and he apologised. So far so bad, a sloppy piece of journalism which should never have been aired, and coming on top of the Saville affair it has rocked the BBC from top to bottom.

The BBC has an enduring and important role in our society - Plaque at Alexandra Palace

 
No doubt the enemies of the BBC, including Rupert Murdoch. will be rubbing their hands at the pickle the BBC is in. There are plenty of people who would like to see the end of public broadcasting in the UK. These people are essentially asset-strippers, who seek the privatisation of public services such as the NHS, so that private sector vultures can grab hold of public sector infrastructure and assets, and make easy money from delivering services on long term contracts without any competition - see here. The end of the BBC would mean a bonanza for private sector broadcasters like Rupert Murdoch's Sky.

What has happened at the BBC looks like part of a much wider malaise which includes the Parliamentary expenses scandal, the Libor banking scandal, widespread tax avoidance and tax evasion, and the economic crisis we are in itself. In all these cases people in positions of power, either by virtue of high position or wealth have either failed to maintain expected standards or abused the system for their own benefit. What this indicates is a widespread failure in the system brought about by a toxic mixture of incompetence, corruption, and sheer criminality. What is the cause of this? Well, there will always be people who try to get their fingers in the till, but I believe the main cause is the corrosive and malign influence of neoliberal 'free' market capitalism. This is a get rich quick, devil take the hindmost, beggar my neighbour ideology, which puts profit before people and seeks to destroy collective provision for private gain. We had a wonderful example of this recently when it transpired that a group of GPs had made millions by hiving off NHS services to the private sector. 

If you are wondering what this ideology has to do with institutions that are still wholly in the public domain I can assure you that marketisation and 'free' market ideology is all pervasive in the public sector, thanks to the 'influence' of New Labour and the Coalition. But we need our BBC, and  for all its faults and failures, it still provides far better value for money than its private sector rivals, and acts as a bulwark against the rabid and poisonous propaganda pumped out by private 'news'  stations like Fox - its well worth watching this attack on Owen Jones.  What we need to to do is understand the dangers of this insidious 'free' market political project and work to protect our public services. We also need to re-discover that old fashioned and oft forgotten concept of public service, which some of us still remember, and value.

Footnote: the day after I posted this, an interesting article by Simon Caulkin appeared in the Observer. What Caulkin, who is an award winning commentator on management issues, is arguing is that management has been taken over by 'free' market ideology - worth a read.

The' living wage' is nowhere near enough

Its been an eventful weekend, with the final stages of the battle for the American Presidency, between Obama and Romney, and yet another child abuse scandal and 'cover-up' erupting in North Wales. What caught my interest though was Ed and Dave Milliband's plan to deliver the living wage in the UK. When you hear that the Labour Party plans to do something for working class these days you take it with a hefty dose of salt. In fact, its fair to say that Labour has been responsible, in recent times, for kicking the working class just as hard as the Tories, which is why, electorally, some of those people have defected to the BNP, as a protest vote. The infamous 'squeezed middle' may be a priority for Labour, but the working class, low paid, and unemployed have dropped completely off the radar, abandoned to the cheap labour market of neoliberal globalisation.

But if you read the Guardian article by Dave Milliband and Dave Prentis it gets much, much worse. Firstly, we get: 

"But progress depends on keeping up the pressure and keeping up the campaigning. And it means finding incentives to persuade reluctant employers that it's in their interests as well."

 Er......so its only a campaign you are talking about then? I thought for a second a you meant a Labour government was going to legislate. Next:

"Public tendering is one area where this could work, particularly with growing privatisation. For example, could government reward local authorities that get employers to sign up to the living wage, with some of the savings from tax credits to go into a local skills fund, controlled by those authorities?"

Right, so first, we fully accept the asset stripping of privatisation, then local authorities have to beg employers to sign up? Huh? So we ask the corporations nicely to cough up - please. Its enough to make any self respecting trade unionist choke on his/her beer - if they can still afford any these days.

What I would expect any self-respecting politician who believes in social justice to do is to make employers pay a living wage through legislation. For years now the capitalists and corporations have had an orgy of excess, grabbing an ever greater slice of the economic cake at the direct expense of the rest of us. They have brought about the biggest economic crash in world history, causing economic chaos and misery to millions. Does it matter to them? -  no, not a bit. They have been completley insuated from the crisis they created. Now it is time for democratic governments to make them pay for their excesses and bring them to account. We need to reverse the neoliberal 'heist' that has been going on for the last 30 years. 

The best way to revive the global economy is to put money into pockets of the workers and the poor, and that means more than the 'living wage', because its not just enough.They will spend that money and they will create new jobs. They are the real wealth creators and job creators. For far too long we have put up with self-serving 'free' market bullshit about tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and labour market flexibility. What we need is democratic control of the economy and asset redistribution to build a fairer, more equal, and more effective economy which can fight climate change and provide prosperity for all.