I have reviewed this morning's news with concern. Everything about it suggests a good reason for that, even if I ignore the international instability that is a part of that cause for anxiety and instead concentrate solely on the domestic scene. There is little to offer encouragement about what is happening in the UK today.
Let me start with what many might think is the least obvious cause for concern, which is Manchester City winning the Premier League title for the fourth year in a row. Leave aside the football for a moment and just look at the political economy of this.
City have won because of the massive backing of those who rule an oil-rich state. I am not denying that the club have what might be the best talent. But that is not why they won. They won because the exploitation of that oil-based wealth permitted the aggregation of that power to create what now looks to be akin to virtual monopoly control of what is meant to be, but is clearly not a fair competition.
If you want a metaphor for all that is wrong with the modern economy this is it. The exploitation of a natural resource, coupled with oligopolistic control of its pricing, the concentration of resulting wealth in the hands of few people and the undermining of the level playing field on which competition is meant to take place is the result.
That the three clubs relegated from the Premier League happen to be the three promoted to it last year just reinforces this point. Market entry is nigh on impossible. As an Ipswich Town supporter, I do not look at the prospect of next season without some concern. All I can see is a rigged outcome, created by the inappropriate distribution of power.
Then I look at the reports in the Guardian that at least forty per cent of UK universities will end this academic year in the red, with many of them knowing that Sunak's plan to crack down on overseas student visas will make life harder for them. This is not by chance. It is entirely deliberate. The plan is to create a destructive environment that is much beloved by far-right think tanks, where the belief that there are ‘zombie' institutions and companies whose failure must happen to encourage innovation is widespread.
When suggesting this, they totally fail to count the cost to the cities that lose their universities, the people who lose their jobs and the students, both past and present, whose lives are tainted by association. And then you wonder why a creed that puts such a value on failure is so appealing to some when it is surely only success that we should be interested in?
And what I realise is that what all this is about is, of course, the concentration of power, yet again in the hands of a few. Let Oxbridge or the Russell Group rule is the message, not that some of the universities in that wider grouping are free from the risk of failure at present.
I then noted another Guardian article, this time on the work of Dr Chris van Tulleken, who is seeking to expose the control of the power hierarchy within the ultra-processed food industry over what we eat, with at least as disastrous potential consequences for health as the tobacco industry ever created. The obesity crisis did not happen by chance. It was manufactured in the labs of ultra-processed food companies seeking to persuade us to overconsume products approximating foodstuffs that are deeply destructive of our well-being but which are immensely profitable.
What do all these situations have in common? Firstly, there is deeply embedded power.
Second, there is the concentration of wealth.
Third, there is indifference to the consequences of the action.
Fourth, a totally false economic narrative exists to support the outcome, which will always claim these are free market outcomes from beneficial competition when the exact opposite is the truth.
Fifth, there is the massive cost to society resulting from these failures, whether it be the undermining of truly competitive sport, to the destruction of the physical well-being that even makes that sport possible, to the denial of hope to those not already in an elite that the apparently unstoppable destruction of universities will result in.
Sixth, there is the absence of any political will to respond as if all of this is somehow beyond the state, deliberately crippled as it is by a totally false narrative that wealth creation (or destruction, as is being witnessed here) is a matter it cannot be concerned about, as that is a matter solely to be determined by markets, however rigged they might be.
And so we get to Labour, sitting on the sidelines, claiming it can do nothing to address any issue because it must not upset the power relationships in society that are totally predicated on the inequalities in wealth that it says it will not address by taxing wealth more.
As the world collapses around Labour, as it already is, and as will become increasingly apparent when it is in office, its answer will always be to berate public sector workers, to deny the possibility of funding and to wring its hands of responsibility.
And you wonder why I am angry with them? What else should anyone be in the face of their acquiescent acceptance of the status quo that they are claiming is the virtue of what they are offering to the electorate with their crass slogan that 'stability is change'? This appears to be nothing more than the manifestation of their own desperate personal lust for power and fortune so that they might become as apart from everyone else as are those whose company they now so obviously prefer to keep. Of course, I am angry with them. Shouldn't everyone who cares about the well-being of people and the state of our world be so?
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There’s an interesting article in the Guardian today that tangentially hits upon the issues you raise in your post. The article doesn’t really get to the source of the problem which is that some people lack the natural human instinct to have full “connectedness” with others simply because they were not raised to have it. This is especially true of the super-rich.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/20/family-events-why-i-quit-step-children-accept-me
I’ve pointed this out indirectly before with a link to a paper explaining what human instincts lie behind why we seek to have democratic institutions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3471369/pdf/nihms401950.pdf
What the paper fails to do is point out that there is always an issue of lack of “connectedness” in some people and our democracies very much need further improvement to strengthen them against individuals without a fully developed sense of connectedness to others.
I don’t think there is any doubt that the capitalist Industrial Revolution created that disconnectedness by forcing the monetising of as many relationships as possible, despite whatever working class unity there was existing.
Capitalism requires that homo economicus to top all other arrangements by the very lowest forms of transactionalism.
It is no accident that Polanyi used the words ’reciprocity’ and ‘redistribution’ to describe societal obligations, or that Smith’s ‘moral sentiments’ were supposed to underpin society.
This was no ‘News from Nowhere” Utopia, though, but often brutally Hobbesian.
Feudalism was often ‘strong and stable’. Has Starmer deliberately taken on Theresa May’s mantra ?
Most likely so
Then there is this report out from the University of Greenwich (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4478wnjdpo) which suggests that investors in England and Wales water companies have withdrawn £85.2bn since they were privatised more than 30 years ago, meanwhile money invested by the shareholders actually shrunk.
My research shows they have withdrawn almost every penny made in profit in the last 20 years
If it comes to cowardice and ignorance in a political party John McDonnell typifies it. Here he is proposing a big question but refusing to put forward any concrete proposals and in particular how they can be funded!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/20/keir-starmer-first-steps-downing-street-britain-labour
That he can get away with such nonsense amongst Labour voters reveals the low level of analytical thinking skills amongst them and their reliance on fantasy dreaming. It also tells you that the Guardian and Observer are of the same fantasy mindset to accept such a minimal content and nebulous article for publication. But then if your hidden agenda is to do the bidding of the super-rich then it makes perfect sense!
John knows what he has to say
But he has never had the courage, based on my experience and we talked for a decade
That is a deeply revealing comment ref MacDonell & it reflects on him very very badly.
Working on the basis that he is not a bad person (given you talked to him for a decade he must be OK) – it leads one to speculate as to the pressure on him (from which quarters?) to conform.
Considerable, from Labour HQ and right wing MPs. I will not name names.
Bill Mitchell has an article out this week on the cowardice of John McDonnell and the Labour Party over the years:-
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61760
Mr Schofield, thanks for the Bill Mitchel article. Most revealing. Last night I had dinner with a… German economist who describes himself as ordliberal. We talked about the UK and I outlined to him a nationalisation route for the power industry. His counter was “what about pension funds” – I pointed out that most of the industry is foreign owned and splitting the operations and asset owenrship would have minimal impact. I argued that moving revenues back to something based on costs – not on synthetic asset values was realisitc – it was amusing to see him twist & turn at this point – eventually claiming that this was confiscation. I also pointed out to him that most pension funds would mostly hold bonds (which he acknowledged) & thus any impacts on the ability of a given fund to pay pensions would be minimal. Although I am not an economist – I was able to out argue him on most points – thanks to this august organ and its contributors. Touchingly, he thinks that China will crash & burn (there was a short discussion on the role of the Chinese Central Bank – & the non-role of the ECB).
What became clear was his rigid thinking, applying generalities that fell to pieces when a specific situation was discussed (we could have been talking about water). He is a market-fundamentalist and was simply unable to understand that markets don’t do engineering (usual waffle about “the right signals”). Guessing: McDonnell and his team failed to take astep back and INFORM themselves – instead they decided to CONFORM. But even this hypothesis is weak, given Richards 10 year attempt at education. As for the finance rabble – they are in the words of “After The Great Compalsense” a bunch of “bricoleurs” they make stuff up as they go along, tease out opportunities and exploit them.
I mention all this becuase it is a diff view point – but coupled to the Bill Mitchell article – which leads one to believe that Corbyn-Labour would, economically – have been little different from the LINO crew we see now.
The conclusion is correct
There was profound rejection of MMT at the hearty of that – still seen in the so-called Progressive Economy Forum run by the person who got the job as chief economics adviser to McDonnell which I declined. I was expelled from this body for wanting to cite Stephanie Kelton in an artcile for it.
“If we want everything to stay as it is, everything has to change.”
“Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è bisogna che tutto cambi.”
The words of the rich and powerful in Lampedusa’s “The Leopard”.
We will have a change of government, but everything will stay as it is.
Yes Richard everyone should be angry with them .
Its almost worse than you say. Labour is a product of the dysfunctional constitutional /political setup – which enables moneyed interests to buy up the politics and promote a factional takeover of a party. The financial sponsor can happily get rid of paying grass roots members – and we end up with Streeting – apparently sponsored by private healthcare.
But even under the monopoly capitalism we now have, some European countries still manage to have better outcomes than UK – on inequality, public services, economic growth etc.
We can but hope that when the crisis hits after the election, Labour just won’t be able to get away with ‘berating public sector workers ‘. Public sector workers have shown they have a will to resist , but it is indeed difficult to see Labour suddently open to exploring whether there might after all ‘be money’ available as per Taxing Wealth report .
But given the advance of the far right across Europe , US, India etc – and as you say , the strangle hold the oil states have, over much of our economic and cultural life – its difficult to look on the bright side.
. Politicial parties –
In a nutshell FPTP helps to embed immorality in political parties in that it makes it easier for the greedy super-rich to buy politicians. Is this the true reason Starmer stands in opposition to the 80% 0f Labour Party members wanting PR?
You are right to be angry.
I have long thought the Premier League an analogy for the British economy.
English based teams do well abroad but the national team (men anyway) do not win international competitions.
‘Open for business’ meant foreigners bought up assets and the profits often went overseas.
Foreigners were brought in to manage ( even the Bank of England) and local talent found it hard to get the top jobs.
Very high salaries were paid to the few while the lower leagues struggle or depend on handouts from TV companies.
I read the UK has the lowest levels of investment in the G7. And the OECD forecast low growth. They are related. You identify the problems and suggest viable solutions. You keep on going, Richard, hoping some point the message will get through.
Like Pandora’s box we are left with hope.
Thanks
Manchester City, not only content with being the richest club in the country, excepting Newcastle Utd, they still didn’t think that was enough of an advantage, so are facing 115 charges of breaching financial fair play and sustainability rules. As a Manchester Utd supporter, I may be a little less objective than some, but it’s still a scandal.
I support neither club, having during Ipswich’s absence from the Premier League developed an attachment to another club who play in red a bit to the west of Manchester, but I still think it a scandal.
There’s an interesting data point to the did slavery cause Britain to get wealthy there.
The city that is on the Mersey saw a lot of slave trade.
The one further inland on the Irwell only boomed after the railway and the Manchester Shipc Anal was built, both after abolition.
Which city grew richest?
@Luke Chambers: the TRADE in slaves was abolished early in the 19th century; and then slavery itself was abolished (in law) in the 1830s… but the effective enslavement of former slaves and their descendants continued, due to economic conditions and employment practices, in the British colonies. (And of course the USA was another case entirely; but the UK had some benefit from US raw materials.) I think Afro-Caribbeans hardly began to see much ‘freedom’ until the 20th century.
In the 19th century, the shift of economic power moved away from trade, the merchants and shipping, and towards manufacturers: but they still gained from the grossly unequal power relations already established in the colonies; and the manufacturers also gained from similar unequal relations between owners and workers in the factories and mines in the UK itself.
I read your piece as an angry howl of despair, in the disbelief that anyone rational and humane could allow such circumstance to continue. As a misanthrope, I am never surprised at the miserable moral state of large swathes of the human race, especially those with any power, be it billionaires, governments, wife beaters or Sunak/Starmer.
Might football competitions be made more sporting and more accurate if a handicap system related to club financing as well as wins, draws and losses were introduced?
Excellent idea
I’ve been an NFL fan for many years and find it fascinating that in one of the most hyper capitalist / competition based societies on earth the whole premise of the league is to create a level playing field which actively works against any one team becoming dominant over a long period of time.
Whilst there are many pecularities to the NFL that don’t translate (no global competition, no buying and selling of players (though they do “trade”), the college draft system) there is one element that would totally change the power relations in football. The salary cap.
The salary cap sets the total amount any one franchise can spend on player salaries each year and is the same for every team. It means teams are constantly balancing hanging on to star players who are at the end of their contract with staying below the cap. It places the emphasis on team building and coaching rather than just buying up all the talent and ensures power dynamics across the league are constantly shifting making things far more interesting than the usual suspects of the premier league
Such a good idea
There was a maximum wage for players in English football until 1961 – £20/week at the time – but the PFA, whose chairman was the late Jimmy Hill threatened a strike and the FA caved in. And now young men can earn £20 million, or so, a year in the PL for kicking a pig’s bladder around a field.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hill
But it’s not all rags to riches, for some young boys it’s rags to rags as most never make it.
https://news.sky.com/story/youth-football-what-happens-to-those-who-dont-make-it-12226577
I think you’re a bit out of date on balls….
Picking up on a comment above from John Griffin, I certainly feel despair, ie intellectual despair, not emotional/personal despair though I know my wife sometimes feels depressed by the current politics where deliberate cruelty seems to be defining characteristics of both parties, more so with the Tories who have the actual power to be cruel to the least advantaged in society.
I despair because I cannot honestly see how anything is going to change and move the country towards democracy. The minimum necessary condition would be PR. Tories will never do it and the LINO leadership won’t do it either so we are stuck with FPTP for at least another 4-5 years and more probably another 4-5 years if Starmer wins another term and definitely if the Tories are resurrected.
Only some major shock might change things, such as NI voting to join the ROÍ, Scottish Independence or a mass civil protest movement. But I wonder if people care enough about an abstruse issue like PR when they face more urgent day-to-day issues like paying bills, putting food on the table.
I think countries threatening to leave is the crisis point
Thanks Richard – your “As the world collapses around Labour, as it already is, and as will become increasingly apparent when it is in office, its answer will always be to berate public sector workers, to deny the possibility of funding and to wring its hands of responsibility”
somehow reminded me of this, from the late Tony Benn (whom I now deeply regret paying insufficient attention and respect towards in his lifetime):
“If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media – having tasted blood – would demand next that it expelled all its Socialists (…) to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and then when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public.
Thus British Capitalism, it is argued, will be made safe forever, and socialism would be squeezed off the national agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed… it would in fact profoundly endanger British society. For it would open up the danger of a swing to the far-right…”
So true