Is it too soon for an election campaign retrospective? I don't think so. In that case this is my first.
This campaign has been dominated by dismal discussions on tax and who might, or might not, charge less of it and on what.
I describe the debate as dismal for three reasons.
First, almost all of this discussion has been negatively framed. Tax has been treated as something that the listener to the politician would, if they followed the politician's logic, believe was charged by governments as if for fun. The possibility that tax might be necessary to cancel the inflationary impact of government suspending, or as a component in fiscal policy, or to address either inequality or market failure, or both, would seem to be entirely unknown to those politicians. I would like to think that is not the case, but this dismal campaign has persuaded me that almost no politician does understand tax.
Second, even though the issues of government spending and tax are only indirectly related, you would have believed there was no relationship at all based on what has been said. There has been an almost total refusal to discuss anything about public services during this campaign, precisely because most (not all) parties have been so determined not to mention the possibility of any additional tax charge that enhanced public services might both require and also fund, because that's the way these things work.
Third, the possibility that tax might deliver the social justice people in this country so obviously crave was ignored by almost all politicians and commentators.
The net result is that the most powerful instrument available to any government to shape the society we live in, apart from money creation itself, was ignored in debate except to the extent that this power should be limited to the greatest possible degree so that as little change as possible might be effected for the benefit of people in the UK.
I do not believe that is the debate that the people of this country wanted.
I think that was the debate the neoliberal media and its chosen politicians desired.
Can we change that by next time? It's got to be worth a try. We have to do better than this dismal performance.
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I would argue that the missing incentive to properly understand money is the failure to understand that life is pre-programmed for bi-caring not uni-caring. By the former I mean balancing the needs of self against those of others rather than just self. Since much caring takes place using money it’s very important we understand who can create it and how, and who must have prime responsibility for regulating it.
It’s only really been the twin discoveries of DNA and computers that has led to the development of rapid gene sequencing which in turn has led to the confirmation this century of the discovery of hologenomics which reveals that all natural animals and plants are holobionts. Holobionts are symbiotic relationships and therefore a form of bi-caring.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363370/
From this knowledge it can be said that the rich who dominate the ideological beliefs pushed at us especially in regard to market fundamentalism and money creation and regulation are predominantly uni-carers, rarely balanced at all in their outlook on life.
I like this
It was Pyotr Kropotkin’s scientific work in Siberia that laid the foundation for his debunking the Social Darwinists, in the early 1900s.
Kropotkin proposed that there was a balance between competition and cooperation in “Mutual Aid”, with regard to earlier observational studies of herbivores in Siberia, insects and intra-family relationships of top carnivores like big cats, as well as his political beliefs.
He was not only a political philosopher but a scientist of some considerable repute – you don’t get invited to take a Chair at Cambridge for nothing. (Geography and he turned it down)
The top carnivore “red in tooth and claw” based brigade of Huxley, Spencer and Malthus, where survival of the fittest equated to endurance and thriving of the most superior genetically, combined to push the idea of competition as the sole metric for evolutionary success.
This then also explained the differential status of individual humans,
The top carnivores were those with wealth and property.
This equated to superiority.
They owed nothing to the rest of humanity.
And this is precisely where we are at with the mindset of the current plutocratic clique.
Thus the jungle of market fundamentalism, with all its associated institutions and hegemony is the setting where this superiority is demonstrated.
Loading the dice is what superior people do to maintain position and power, and those managing financial structures and institutions collaborate.
As Petr Kropotkin, in his 1902 book “Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution” pointed out, socialabiliy is as much a law of nature as is mutual struggle. Or to quote the evolutionary biologist P.Z. Myers, “If emperor penguins were capitalists there would be no emperor penguins.”
I note, with approval, that ‘Wales could become world’s first country to criminalise politicians who lie.’ Such a law, UK-wide, could bring the integrity of our current tax system more firmly into the frame of discussion.
Within ‘an election campaign retrospective’ the topic is ‘tax’ so, Richard, delete what follows if you wish, but once I think about integrity, I question how many MPs from the last parliament have expressed shame or regret about supporting genocide – war on unarmed people by ‘defence’ forces, assisted by British weaponry, and, by British attacks on the Houtis, one of the poorest peoples on the planet? Granted some have already expressed their outrage and condemnation.
How many candidates for the next parliament explicitly, or in conformity with their party’s declared policy, are backing genocide?
How many are determined that the British version of democracy needs radical improvement?
What is the level of integrity that we, the public, live up to in our every-day dealings? What do we require of our politicians?
“social justice”…you mean what can I have for free?
You’re gishing
You just trolled here – “for free”. That wasn’t only fair, but beyond the requirements of justice – it was a gratuitously generous act by Richard, towards an ill-motivated scrounger.
I wanted to see your reaction, John
You did not let me down
Your comment reveals that not only are you a gisher Jayne you’re a uni-carer (only care about yourself).
I like uni-carer
@ Jayne
“social justice”…you mean what can I have for free?
Oh dear. Your implicit assumptions are down the line throwback Social Darwinism:
1. Goverment social expenditure is a ‘handout’;
2. Beneficiaries are automatically undeserving;
3. Recipients are freeloaders who have never contributed to the society in which they live’
4. Redistribution of any type is wrong;
5. The poor are inferior.
I bet you think the 1843 Poor Law was far too liberal.
Let them pick oakum.
@jayne 「“social justice”…you mean what can I have for free?」
Are you sure there isn’t a certain amount of projection going on here? In my experience people who say things like this are quite content to be paid cash-in-hand to escape paying tax, are quite OK with the idea of inheriting millions that they have done nothing to earn, and if they found several thousand pounds on the street would pocket it rather than hand it in to the police. They then project similar motives on those in receipt of welfare benefits or who are fed by food banks.
The actual situation is the opposite to this. It is often quite difficult to pursue people to claim benefits to which they are entitled because they feel ashamed of having to do so. Others will not approach the food bank until they absolutely have to, for similar reasons.
Perhaps what is needed is a little more of a feeling of entitlement among the poorest and most vulnerable and a little more of a feeling of shame among those whose lifestyle consists of enriching themselves at the expense of others.
Labour have also adopted the agenda of the Tufton street free market lobbyists regarding housing.
For an alternative approach:
https://www.cornwallecon.com/post/housing-bringing-it-all-together-why-prices-are-high-and-access-to-housing-is-unequal
and
https://www.cornwallecon.com/post/housing-what-are-the-options-available-for-a-more-sustainable-and-equitable-housing-system-an-out
You are right
To be fair the Greens and to a lesser extent the LibDems have tried to show who could and should pay more tax – upper income groups, banks, etc etc .
This could have been just as headline grabbing as the Farage milkshake/ racist meme – but BBC always try to either ignore – or hurry the interview/discussion on. After all – we dont want to know that there may after all be money for NHS etc – do we?
If BBC intervewers shook theri head sadly and threw their arms up in horror at these tax suggesitons – it might lead to some listeners/ viewers noticing that ‘we’ might not be as fiscally boxed in as everyone says we are. The overridiing narrative of the whole coverage – is that there is no money to do anything.
Probably 80% of people dont even know these tax proposals are out there as part of the Green / LibDem offer.
This is certainly not an ‘informed’ democracy.
Most people are feeling precarity, many are actually in poverty. This is an international phenomenon. A divided workforce in a globalised economy has no agency to achieve viable wage remuneration for work done. However, once every 5 years or so, agency momentarily exists at the ballot to secure a few pounds through tax-cuts, or to secure an undertaking of ‘no new taxes’, or to secure an undertaking that existing services won’t be spread thinner by population enlarged by immigration. No politician wants to open up the debate to the possibility of other options, because no politician (yet) wants agency to extend beyond the ballot-box.
The reality: margin on variable costs has apparently gone up from 10% to 58%. This is the result of a three-way mechanism created by neolib ideology over the last 45 years. The first part is the fall in the wages share of productivity creating a surplus of capital flowing into speculation. The second is stock prices being inflated by that speculation & expected to yield commensurately (say 8%) on the inflated price. The third part is the failure of taxation to limit speculation. Thus a feedback-loop of accelerating imbalance between worker-share and capital-share is created.
Deliberate obfuscation of interests has been introduced by a culture that anticipates speculative property-price gains, payouts from ISA / 401k / ‘Aus-Super’ / Kiwisaver, and top-ups to government coffers from Sovereign Wealth Funds, all of which militate against undivided attention to the core business of workers and parties of the left- to achieve the maximum remuneration for employed work.
The TV debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak (on iplayer) was particularly dismal. Sunak was landing punches repeatedly on the tax question. If only Starmer would just reply “Yep. We’ll put taxes up because that’s what we *need* to do.”.
According to this guardian piece: Twice as many Britons want tax rises, so maybe it would be more of a vote winner than they’re thinking.
Starmer is too timid to do that!