Time for some real changes

We live in diminished and threatening times. The original source of much of the damage to our economy, the public well-being and our national standing was of course the greed and reckless incompetence of the banks – still largely unreformed – and that is how they are likely to remain given the totally undue influence that the financial sector continues to have both in terms of national policy and contribution to party political funds.

This has been and will continue to be compounded by the 'austerity for some' policies of this government and those of our economic and geographical neighbours. Then there is glorious globalisation (if I hear the word 'embrace' once more in this context I'll explode) driven either by the public spirited and 'all in it together' captains of industry or by the avarice of individuals high up the corporate ladders and in hedge funds operating in a patriotism-free zone allied to their political placemen – I'll leave you to guess which.

There is a perverse competitive force at work here that belongs more to Catastrophe Theory than the ‘dismal science’ - an old nickname for economics that's more apt than ever in these benighted days – and the self-serving and lemming-like mentality of large scale businesses: "the others have made a killing out of 'shutdown-and-offshore' so we deserve to have this extra lucre too".
Thus it was that our real industry, especially manufacturing and engineering, was eviscerated along with other productive sectors such as mining - and agriculture has had its standing much reduced. We sometimes hear convenient rationalisation about a ‘post industrial society’. But you cannot have a post-industrial economy with a fair and decent standard of living in a country much larger than the Cayman Islands, Bermuda or other disreputable havens for tax-dodging, disloyal, avaricious and morality-free capitalists.
I have said for many years that when the United States Government came to see that the 'globalisation' (often meaning little more than 'send the workers' jobs to China and points east') trumpeted by self interested executives and stockholders was not working for the country they would stop singing along with the shrill brass. There is evidence that this is now the case in Democratic circles – but not of course in those associated with the likes of the Tea Party and Bain Capital. It remains to see what becomes of this however, given the weight of money and influence.
‘Free trade’ is a hypothetical, bookish concept that is never realised in practice. In theory it might work to the mutual benefit of some sections of societies when practiced by responsible agents between countries with similar values. But here in contrast I am refering to the real world and fundamental moral concerns such as pre-Victorian working conditions, lethal factory buildings, child labour, befouled environments and corporations that knew full well for years what has been going on.
‘Free trade’ - is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Its merit depends on the conditions and principles under which it operates. A bit like America’s constitutional right to bear arms - one thing in the birth of a nation phase, quite another today. What can produce benefit of sorts in one set of conditions can be malignant in another.
And trade is not the only thing that should be assessed as to its ‘freedom’. The people producing the goods to be traded should be free too. Unless they are, we do not know that the export / import imbalance in their societies is what the people would choose to have. And national currencies should have their relative levels set in comparable and consistent fashions. These conditions do not exist for many major participants in global trade. Fair trade amongst free peoples should be the goal. What we have now is far from fair and there has been too much cheating for many years.
There is another critical factor - the distribution of power and choice in overseas countries and regions used - I choose this term deliberately - by globalised corporations to make their vast profits. Used and abused with fatal consequences and then ignored in the ruthless quest for ever greater ‘shareholder value’ and executive bonuses.
The domestic consequence here has been the demise of great swathes of the Midlands and the North of England and also the Midwest of the United States. The production of industrial wastelands and ruined, demoralised communities at home is as corrosive a by-product of global profiteering as is the effluent recklessly discharged in countries to which jobs and production have been sent.
An essential context for free trade to work fairly and in the interests of the common good is morality and social conscience. We’ve seen the lack of principle (which resulted in the lack of principal) in the banking sector and the disregard for the fate of communities shown by those entrusted with the power to manufacture.
Executives should not be able to act regardless of scruple (nor should they want to - a change essential for a long run solution) any more than they should be free to ignore safety or chemical pollution. Corporations should be trusts, not in the sense of being monopolies (although they are often effectively these anyway) but in the sense of holding the livelihoods of individuals, the life of communities and the self respect of nations in their hands. We need to see due diligence here rather than just in takeover bids.
The timescale required for such changes could be a generation – the spots run deep. We’ve seen the resistance to social pressure to reform disgusting bonus cultures and the continuation of contempt for people seen as ‘punters’ and profit fodder in banks and other ‘services’. There needs to be a comprehensive re-education of our corporate and political leadership. They should stop moaning about the education of youth and concentrate on their own re-education. And to get the policy right, the funding of political parties desperately needs to be freed up from the unseemly and unseen influence of all big donors – we should see more than just tribal attacks from one party on another. In fact we need our own cultural revolution.
Nicknames apart, the original name for economics was ‘political economy’. What is needed now is a ‘virtuous economy’ where concern for the human consequences of decisions is embedded in the mindset of corporate bosses and national leaders - as should be a sense of responsibility to the society that gave big business the opportunities that they so frequently now abuse.
Some genuine competition in the provision of goods and services might not be a bad idea too, rather than the spurious competition (such as in banking, communications, power and fuel supply and a good chunk of retailing) that is little more than informal cartelisation designed to exploit consumers and produce huge and unwarranted profits.

Included too should be the politicians who have so often seen their primary role as the reinforcers of, and apologisers for, this dire mis-managerial capitalism. Democracy is not a free good – we pay for it one way or another – so much better to have public funding than costly biased policies.
International economic discussions should have an infusion of social, moral and environmental responsibility and develop a global taxation framework – what is good enough for the workers jobs should be good enough for the owners' profits too. If profits are reaped abroad so should be taxation.
Failure to get a grip on the greed and disloyalty of a 'jobs only' globalisation, the culture of cheating, deceiving and tax dodging, the disregard for people's lives as well as livelihoods, sustainable limits to growth and the lack of morality that produced these and other undesirables will show us what a post-industrial society in the Western world would really be like. Trust me, we do not want to see this!