Margaret Thatcher was recently asked what she regarded as
her legacy. She replied with a smile, “Tony Blair”.
As world capitalism lurches into a deepening economic crisis
and world stock markets tumble, members of the Brown government, the continuers
of Blairism and New Labour, are more eager than ever to extol the virtues of millionaire
capitalism.
All talk of “socialism” has long gone out of the window. The
New Labour hierarchy has embraced the market economy with the utmost relish. It
has become a religious fixation. They all now worship at the shrine of Rent,
Interest and Profit. Their new god is capitalism.
As part of their crusading mission, the government is to
establish a new national academy to encourage budding teenage capitalists. This
is part of New Labour’s commitment to the big business system. Its aim we are
told is to “boost the business skills of young people.”
The academy is the brain-child of millionaire capitalist
Peter Jones from the infamous television programme Dragon’s Den, where desperate contestants prostrate themselves
before a panel of capitalists. In these academies of capitalism, market values
will be taught to students aged 16 to 19, with the expressed wish to turn them
into successful capitalists.
According to Whitehall insiders, Peter Jones, who built a
£160m telecommunications empire, has agreed to a multi-million pound
sponsorship of the new academy. Apparently Jones suggested this idea to Gordon
Brown, who fell over himself in praising the new initiative. As we know,
ministers are keen to lick the shoes of millionaires. The launch of this
capitalist initiative is going to attract such heavy-weights as the chancellor Alistair
Darling, and John Hutton, business secretary, as well as of course, the prime
minister.
John Hutton has set the tone for the initiative with a
defence of “huge salaries” in corporate Britain. Of course, this is nothing new
for New Labour ministers. It was enthusiastically promoted during the Blair
years. That is why the gap between rich and poor has reached record levels. While
eleven million people languish in poverty under a “Labour” government, the rich
have never had it so good. According to the latest Sunday Times Rich List:
"Wealthy people in Britain have never had it so good…
The combined wealth of the top 1,000 has soared by £59 billion in one year to
just under £360 billion. This near 20% rise over 2006 is one of the highest
annual increases in wealth we have recorded since our first list was published
in 1989.
"The past decade of Labour government under Tony Blair
has proven a golden age for the rich, rarely seen in modern British history.
When the Blair administration came to power in 1997, the wealth of Britain’s
richest 1,000 stood at £98.99 billion. The £261 billion rise in the wealth of
today’s top 1,000 represents a 263% jump over the past 10 years."
In a speech to Progress, the Labour think-tank, the
ex-socialist Hutton stated: “Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are
morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously
successful in this country.” What a grotesque spectacle of a so-called LABOUR
minister praising the super-rich and their dog-eat-dog culture! It reflects the
utter political and moral degeneration of these representatives of Labour, who
have become in outlook little different from their Tory counterparts.
Hutton appeared on television unashamedly welcoming the
creation of more millionaires as being “good for Britain”. The more
millionaires the better for all of us! Maybe Hutton supports the “trickle-down”
theory where the wealth at the top gradually trickles down to us all. Such
economic bunkum has been refuted on numerous occasions. This idea represents a
form of social Darwinism, where society is supposed to benefit from the
ruthless pursuit of self-interest. This represents the morality of modern
capitalism where success is measured by the accumulation of wealth at one end
of the social scale, and failure by the accumulation of hardship and misery at
the other.
According to the UNDP report: “A baby boy from a family in
the top 5 per cent of US income distribution will enjoy a lifespan 25 per cent
longer than a baby boy from the bottom 5 per cent.”
But for John Hutton, our business secretary, we must get
away from our prejudice against social class and money-making. Given this pro-super
rich message, instead of a shirt and tie, it would have been more appropriate
for him to have worn a T-shirt “I love capitalism”, “Get Rich Quick” or “Rich
bastards Rule”.
Hutton defended aspiration and ambition as “natural human
emotions” to justify his pro-big business stance. However, millions of young
people have natural ambitions and “emotions” to develop their talents, but are
prevented by capitalism.
Capitalism is a dog-eat-dog society. It is a class-based society,
where a tiny handful of multi-millionaires own and run society in their own
interests. This capitalist class lives at the expense of the labour of ordinary
working people. They squeeze surplus value from the unpaid labour of the
working class in the form of rent, interest and profit. That is the way in
which they can become rich – at our expense.
As the Financial
Times, the organ of finance capital explained: “If profits are gaining
their share of GDP, some other sector must be losing. And it is labour that has
suffered.” The capitalists are able to do this by their ownership of (and
monopoly over) the means of production, distribution and exchange. They own the
industries, banks and finance houses that dominate our lives. Capitalism, as
with all class systems of society, can only develop on the basis of the
exploitation of the mass of the population. The morality of present-day society,
through the education system, the mass media, the churches, etc., serves to
justify this dog-eat-dog existence. Greed is an essential component of
capitalist enterprise, which the government is endeavoring to promote.
Rather than satisfying the aspirations of young people, capitalism
acts as a colossal barrier to the latent talents of youth and others. The
capitalist market allocates resources not on the basis of human need, but on
the basis of profit. As a result of this, the system generates inequalities and
scarcities in areas of social need. The motto is: if it isn’t profitable, then
forget it! If we can make money out of it, privatize it!
The schools minister, Jim Knight, said the investment in “enterprise”
will "help young people to be creative and innovative, to take and manage
risks and to do so with determination and drive".
The problem is only a tiny handful can become capitalists
and live off the proceeds of unpaid labour. The majority of us have to work for
a living. We have no choice.
The New Labour hierarchy has bought into this rotten market
place ideology. It grovels before the representatives of capitalism. It fawns
on the super-rich. It wants to be like them, to emulate them. This, at the very
time, when privatization and capitalism have become deeply unpopular.
“Competition [namely capitalism] is changing business in
ways that are straining public confidence … High profits and the extremes of
wealth they usually imply can be extremely unpopular”, states the Financial Times. “The bogeyman that is
the Ugly Capitalist, with his cigar, top hat and astrakhan collar, is reviving
in popular perceptions, having slumbered peacefully since the fat cat pay row
of the mid-1990s.”
“Hostility to business and profit is endemic in the English
psyche,” says Ruth Lea of the Centre for Policy Studies.
At the same time as setting up Business Academies, the
government has promised that it will invest an extra £30m into the expansion of
its enterprise education programme,
already running in secondary schools, into primary schools and further
education colleges. Now they want to indoctrinate children as young as five to
believe in so-called enterprise!
And why stop there? Another central theme of this latest
government attempt to foster capitalism will be to counter the relatively low proportion
of women-run firms. Initiatives to address this will include more funding for
start-ups by women and an advertising campaign aimed at encouraging female capitalists!
Part of this is the government’s championing of the idea of “women’s business
centres”, akin to those in the United States, where Britain could achieve the
same level of female entrepreneurship as exists in America.
Ironically, at the very time when the Brown government sets
out the champion the cause of capitalism, the system is heading for its deepest
slump since the 1970s. This year, bankruptcies and home repossessions will
reach record levels, living standards will be pushed down, unemployment will
rise and dissatisfaction with capitalism will reach new heights.
Even before the current crisis, the Financial Times noted that “it is easy to assume that the
liberalizing processes of the past 20 years are irreversible. But such reforms
have little bedrock support… the globalised economy that has helped companies
increase their profits is a fragile structure.” This structure is now beginning
to come apart at the seams.
In the coming period, as the capitalist crisis
deepens, the arguments for socialism will find a ready audience. The morality
of capitalism will be exposed as a sham. Thatcher’s legacy and all it
represents will turn to dust.
