The Economy
Every time Labour have been in power they’ve left the economy worse off
How’s it going to be paid for?
Most arguments supporting Labour policy focus on the humanitarian aspects — a fairer society, lifting children out of poverty, for the many not the few — and they are good arguments.
The last time we had a ‘Labour’ government was the Blair/NewLabour thing a decade ago. They weren’t exactly socialists, and their time in office was topped off with the mother of all banking crashes. And prior to that it was 1979! So we can’t really judge.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if you are right.
Let me explain…
A gearbox attached to an engine will consume fuel for no benefit — it is not a car. Similarly, having one or two socialist policies will almost certainly cost money, but it won’t yield socialism and the benefits that come with it. Socialism requires several components to be in place before it works.
Recent experiments with the Basic Income have found that it improves the overall well-being of recipients, but it doesn’t lead to a greater uptake in employment. Well, of course it doesn’t. Without access to education and training free at the point of use, there is no opportunity for people to improve their employability. Similarly, if you provide the education and training but you don’t ensure that people have a safe secure home and enough to live on, then they are too busy surviving from day to day, working long hours in the minimum wage job, and simply being scared, to take up the apparent opportunity. It’s like the tray of food and water placed just out of reach of the shackled prisoner.
Probably due to the fear of upsetting too many people, past Labour governments have only implemented a handful of socialist policies. The Labour party today — with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm and its ranks swelled by socialists — is a Labour party determined to implement socialism properly and completely. Which will not only benefit individuals and families, but will hugely benefit the economy.
The UK is a people-based economy. It is truly strong when its people — all of its people — have the opportunity to engage and contribute. Much of the recent increase in employment has come from minimum-wage zero-hours work, which keeps people as close to economically inactive as possible. People who have a safe, secure and decent home, and an income to pay the bills and feed their family, can then take up the opportunity of education and training for life. This way not only do people get a better job but businesses get the skilled staff they are always asking for. Businesses can therefore expand, and the economy grows. In the short term we pay for it out of borrowing and taxation, in the medium term out of increased productivity, and in the long-term we’re quids in.
Contrast this with the Conservative Capitalist approach euphemistically called ‘inward investment‘. A process by which the economy is supposed to grow through the selling off of valuable assets — sometimes to the lowest bidder — and by which jobs are provided by foreign companies, enticed to the UK by tax breaks, who then syphon off the profit to their mother companies abroad so that we lose both the profit and the tax income. It is only an investment from the point of view of the foreign businesses. It is comparable to when the UK was a colonial power ‘investing’ in countries like India — £1 in, £5 out. From the UK’s point of view it should be called ‘outward profit‘.
We should at this point note that over 9 years of austerity the Conservatives have more than doubled the national debt from £ 3/4 trillion to £ 1 3/4 trillion. See https://twitter.com/rq4c/status/1193551458727317506. And we have an economy bumping along the ground — +0.3%, -0.3%, … — and 4.1 million children living in poverty (and growing; that figure is from 2017).
Comparison with a business
You’re running a business. There is work that you would bid for, if only you had the equipment to do it and the skilled staff to operate it. So, you borrow, you purchase, and you upskill your staff. In the short-term you are in debt. In the medium term you pay down the debt with money made from the extra work you can now do. And in the long term you have a much more profitable business. Who wouldn’t do this?
This tweet puts it better than I ever could
“(short thread): When people talk about Labour “hurting the economy” I’ve found the most effective & simple response is to first shed light on the abysmal failure a decade of Tory-led austerity has been on the economy & then chat about Labour’s solutions:” The best stuff is in the comments…
Public Ownership
We can’t afford not to.
The top 5 arguments for public ownership you need on the doorstep
- It’s more expensive for the private sector to borrow to invest — government can borrow more cheaply.
- We’re creating markets where they don’t belong which creates inefficiency and fragmentation.
- We’re wasting £13bn every year on privatization — that’s £250 million every week. It’s given to shareholders and wasted on high private sector interest rates.
That’s money that could be invested in tackling the climate crisis, and creating a farer society and a stronger economy.
Ending the internal market in the NHS will save at least £4.5 billion per year — enough to pay for 72,000 more nurses and 20,000 more doctors.
The market system was introduced purely to facilitate the piece-meal privatization of the NHS.
As has often been said, putting public services into private hands is simply privatization of the profit and socialization of the debt — when it goes wrong the private company is bailed out by the public purse (our taxes).
A living wage of £10 an hour
Thanks to Richard Irvine for this one
“I have a friend who runs a small business(7 employees) who has said that the Labour minimum wage will mean he has to lay people off. He isn’t even taking a wage atm. I’m looking for a retort which proves small business will flourish under Labour. Any help greatly appreciated“
I’ll let the twitter replies answer this one:
Alex- Fold Up Toy Designer@PaperFolderMan·3h
Replying to @smokingblue and @SkyeCity_
Surely that’s just a symptom of the problem though? Like if the higher minimum wage was the standard since before the business was started that cost would have either been taken into account, or the business not started until it could have been.
(1/2) Alex- Fold Up Toy Designer@PaperFolderMan·3h Now there’s a business on the rocks AND under paid staff. If the business can’t afford to pay more than minimum wage without going under, that’s not the higher wages fault, that’s a business already one bad day away from collapse.
Luke Latham@LukeLatham15·2h
Replying to @smokingblue and @SkyeCity_
Raising the minimum wage means workers are paid more > more disposable income > more purchases > more revenue > more business-to-business purchases. Capitalism lacks an incentive to raise the minimum wage for workers, bc it distorts the market.
Richard Quinn@rq4c·3h
Replying to @smokingblue and @SkyeCity_
See the banking pledges: https://labourlist.org/2019/11/the-complete-guide-to-labours-2019-manifesto/
(and search “land value tax”)
Good workers are an investment in a business with a good business model. Just as it makes sense for a nation to borrow to invest in it’s people.
National Education Service will provide more skilled staff
Richard Quinn@rq4c·1h
Also investigate:
Paying employees in shares, commodities, other non-cash pay https://gov.uk/guidance/non-cash-pay-shares-commodities-you-provide-to-your-employees
Employee Share Schemes inc Share Incentive Plans https://gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes/share-incentive-plans-sips
And there’s also the option to turn employees into directors: small salary then dividends at End of Yr
Free fibre broadband
Is anyone seriously suggesting privatising the roads?
We need a free-to-use information super-highway in the same way as we need free-to-use roads. And it will pay for itself in hugely increased productivity and educational opportunities.
Fears about security are pure red herrings. The recent laws in the so called snoopers charter, and similar legislation, apply to all organisations whether they are public or private. And why would anyone trust a publicly owned organisation less that a private company that owes allegiance to no-one but it’s shareholders and sees its customers as mere cash-cows?
See: https://weownit.org.uk/our-public-services/broadband
“Since BT was privatised, £54 billion has been wasted on shareholder dividends – enough to deliver full fibre broadband across the country twice over. Before privatisation, the UK was world leading in broadband development, but now just 8% of households have full-fibre connections.” — The top 5 arguments for public ownership you need on the doorstep
4 day (32 hour) working week
In a nutshell, it improves productivity.
“The Monday to Friday working week we inhabit today is, of course, a social and historical construct. While it might appear as a “natural” configuration of time, the reality is that our 37-hour working week, and the weekend, are the result of labour movements of the 19th and 20th centuries demanding limits to the toil that industrialism had imposed upon them. American unions famously won the weekend, Australian unions won the eight-hour day and working class pressure here in Britain resulted in the two-day weekend being firmly normalised after the second world war…” — A four-day working week is common sense – but the state must make it happen
“In New Zealand, a manager of wills and estates called Perpetual Guardian let its 230 employees take Friday off for six weeks last year…the experiment made employees 20% more productive, although revenue and profits remain unchanged. An independent analysis from Auckland University of Technology found that Perpetual Guardian employees were more engaged with tasks during their work days.” — Microsoft tried a 4-day work week — and productivity soared
“Aside from Sweden and Germany, there are two other countries that paradoxically excel in both prosperity and leisure time: the Netherlands, which comes fifth for competitiveness and yet third for the shortest working hours in the world, and Switzerland, which has been crowned the most competitive country in the world.” — Which countries work the shortest hours – yet still prosper?
World’s shortest work weeks
- Netherlands: Average hours per week 29; Average annual wages $47,000
- Denmark: Average hours per week 33; Average annual wages $46,000
- Norway: Average hours per week 33; Average annual wages $44,000
Brexit
Second Referendum
“Why should we have a second referendum? We already voted”
When you ask your doctor for treatment for your disease, the doctors and surgeons will discuss your case, look at the options, and choose what they think is best for you. But they then come back to you and offer you the choice. And this includes the option to say, “thanks but no thanks, I think the treatment is worse than the disease, I’ll stay as I am”. Nobody forces a choice on you; nobody says that giving you a choice on the detail is unethical — as some have called a second vote undemocratic or even anti-democratic; nobody straps you down and forces the treatment on you, citing your original request for treatment.
Similarly, when you go into a carpet shop and say you want to buy a carpet, you don’t get forced to have the one chosen for you by the salesman — Boris sold Brexit to the nation and now he’s forcing his choice upon us.
“You don’t have to vote twice in a general election”
OK, in that case, if we get a Labour government in 2019 then, at the next election in 2024, you will be saying, “I don’t want another election, we had one in 2019, and we chose Labour.”
Even amongst those in favour of Brexit, there is no consensus on what ‘Brexit’ means. Hard Brexit or Soft Brexit? And if Soft Brexit, what does that entail? And just scrapping Brexit as the Lib Dems want (or wanted) will divide the country further by seriously upsetting (to put it mildly) millions of Brexiteers.
- First, vote on the general principle;
- Parliament, the government, and the EU come up with a plan;
- Second, vote on the plan.
Immigration
Extract from Britain doesn’t need to ‘take back control’ of immigration. We already have it
“There is a perception that immigrants are mostly taking unskilled jobs and lowering wages for the domestic population, but the evidence points firmly in the other direction. At Russell Group universities, up to 39% of academic staff are foreign; over 26% of our NHS doctors are non-British;…
But the biggest deception is this: we could easily have taken back control of our borders already under European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC, which allows EU member states to repatriate EU nationals after three months if they have not found a job or do not have the means to support themselves. In this month’s debate on the House of Lords EU subcommittee report on EU migration, I challenged the government on why we were not availing ourselves of this directive – and I got no response.
Other countries, such as Belgium, regularly repatriate thousands of individuals based on this directive. If the public knew we had this ability, perhaps the fear that exists would dissipate. Why is the government not using it, and why is the British public not aware of it?“
Extract from We can control EU migration – we just haven’t done it
“…since 2006, the Free Movement Directive (to give it its formal title, EU Directive 2004/38/EC) has given us exactly the control over immigration that voters demanded.
I finally received an acknowledgement of the directive in writing from a government whip in November last year, after bringing this up in Parliament several times. He confirmed:
“Where admission is permitted, an EU citizen may remain in the UK for up to three months from the date of entry, provided they do not become a burden on the social assistance system of the UK.
If an EU citizen does not meet one of the requirements for residence set out in the Directive [employed, self-employed, self-sufficient, student] then they will not have a right to reside in the UK and may be removed.”
The UK is free to implement this policy as it sees fit, and yet it does not, while other countries – including Belgium and Italy – use this legislation to repatriate thousands of EU migrants each year.
If the British public knew this one fact – that we do have control of our borders even inside the single market – the fear of uncontrolled EU immigration would be dispelled. The fact is that EU migration is not unrestricted, and EU migrants are not permitted to burden the state by claiming their Treaty rights.
Each EU migrant, on average, contributes £2,300 more to the exchequer than the average British-born adult, supporting not just themselves but others who rely on the NHS and the UK welfare system.“
Antisemitism
In the 1990s, having been out of power for a decade and a half, the Labour party was getting desperate. Long-story-short, along comes a man named Blair and offers power in exchange for their souls: ‘give up socialism and the nation is yours.’ Sadly, many took the deal. Floating Tories saw a dynamic team offering capitalism with rounded edges, and Labour voters still put their cross against the red rose. Thus, in 2019, we have had 40 years of never-ending Tory government.
In recent years the party recovered from what was in effect a period of mental ill-health. Jeremy Corbyn became leader, large numbers of socialists joined the party, and the bad thoughts began to leave — either through de-selection or of their own volition.
Whether they have remained in the party or have left, the Blairites are very angry. And when people with no moral compass get that angry, there are seemingly no depths to which they will not sink. And this includes the use of the witch-hunt tactic of making false allegations. Of course, the blatantly right-wing press and surreptitiously right-wing mainstream media have jumped on the lies and promoted them.
But this is not just about smearing, libelling and slandering someone who is demonstrably the very antithesis of antisemitic. To use the fears of Jewish people — who are quite understandably hyper-vigilant — for political ends is appalling beyond belief. Rules about antisemitism and other forms of racism are there as a defensive weapon against those who have no place in a socialist party or, indeed, a civilized society. They are not there to be used as bludgeons against one’s political opponents.
See Jewish historian recalls when Jeremy Corbyn saved a Jewish cemetery… from Margaret Hodge’s council
Take a look at the hash tag #Jews4Labour on Twitter.
Extract from Jeremy Corbyn’s record:
“Jeremy Corbyn has been MP for Islington North since 1983 – a constituency with a significant Jewish population. Given that he has regularly polled over 60% of the vote (73% in 2017) it seems likely that a sizeable number of Jewish constituents voted for him. As a constituency MP he regularly visited synagogues and has appeared at many Jewish religious and cultural events. He is close friends with the leaders of the Jewish Socialist Group, from whom he has gained a rich knowledge of the history of the Jewish Labour Bund, and he has named the defeat of Mosley’s Fascists at the Battle of Cable as a key historical moment for him. His 2017 Holocaust Memorial Day statement talked about Shmuel Zygielboym, the Polish Bund leader exiled to London who committed suicide in an attempt to awaken the world to the Nazi genocide. How many British politicians have that level of knowledge of modern Jewish history?
There’s more. Jeremy Corbyn is one of the leading anti-racists in parliament – I would go so far to say that he is one of the least racist MPs we have. So naturally Corbyn signed numerous Early Day motions in Parliament condemning antisemitism, years before he became leader and backed the campaign to stop Neo-Nazis from meeting in Golders Green in 2015.
Because all racisms are interlinked it is worth examining Corbyn’s wider anti-racist record. Corbyn was being arrested for protesting against apartheid while the Thatcher government defended white majority rule and branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Corbyn was a strong supporter of Labour Black Sections – championing the right of Black and Asian people to organise independently in the Labour party while the Press demonised them as extremists. He has long been one of the leaders of the campaign to allow the indigenous people of the Chagos Islands to return after they were forcibly evicted by Britain in the 1960s to make way for an American military base. Whenever there has been a protest against racism, the two people you can always guarantee will be there are Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Who do you put your trust in — the people who hate antisemitism because they hate all racism or the people (be they in the Conservative party or the press) who praise Jews whilst engaging in Islamophobia and anti-black racism? The right-wing proponents of the Labour antisemitism narrative seek to divide us into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ minorities — they do not have the well being of Jews at heart.
Let’s return the story to the facts. Antisemitism is always beyond the pale. Labour, now a party of over half a million members, has a small minority of antisemites in its ranks, and it suspends then whenever it discovers them. I expect nothing less from an anti-racist party and an anti-racist leader. If the Conservatives took the same approach to racism they would have to suspend their own foreign secretary [now Prime Minister], who has described Africans as ‘Picanninies’ and described Barack Obama as ‘The part-Kenyan President [with an] ancestral dislike of the British Empire’. From the Monday club, linked to the National Front, to MP Aidan Burley dressing up a Nazi, to Lynton Crosby’s dogwhistle portrayl of Ed Miliband as a nasal North London intellectual, it is the Conservative Party that is deeply tainted by racism and antisemitism.“
Reopening Auschwitz – The Conspiracy To Stop Corbyn An interesting analysis and well worth the approx 15min reading time.
See: Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky just took apart the antisemitism smears against Corbyn
Miscellany
Random thoughts / stuff
Human beings are naturally competitive and selfish, consequently capitalism is easy — put a bunch of people together, advocate a dog-eat-dog attitude, light the blue touch paper and stand back. And it doesn’t need nurturing — like a nuclear meltdown, it’s self-perpetuating — and every bit as dirty and damaging.
Socialism takes some effort, at least until people fully understand that it is better, and it becomes second nature. Recognizing that co-operating is better than competing — for everybody. Working together is ultimately better for us all. Our tendency to be self-centred and short-termist is our basic animal nature. Overcoming it requires kind patient nurture.
rq4c 