Once more unto the Common Good

Our society has been denuded of the respectful and proven values on which it was based. As a result the powerful, along with similar elements in other countries have squandered our industrial inheritance and our nation has lost its way in both economic and societal terms – to the material betterment of the few and the detriment of the many. Also diminished are national self-sufficiency and self-respect, the contentment of citizens and the expectations of people for the future – for themselves and their children. This is the state that domestic and foreign corporate ‘culture’, the self-serving economic policies of the rich and powerful and fellow travelling governments have brought upon us. And it is where we'll remain so long as the moral foundations of individual and corporate behaviour are not rebuilt because the state of the economy and society is as much an ethical problem as an economic one. Without decent values, the financial crisis will be revisited following the mild and unequal recovery and ordinary people will continue to be exploited and treated harshly and with contempt. These values once internalised by organisations as well as individuals, were taken for granted, largely unspoken and made operational in the public sector, much of the private sector and in economic and social policy.

Much has been said of the adverse consequences of financial de-regulation and rightly so – they are severe and continuing. But even more important is the ‘moral de-regulation’ that has spread through commerce like a virus. Modern day business   exploits the individual and lacks a sense of service, loyalty, integrity and perception of the public interest. The burdens of protracted austerity are unequally distributed and fall heavily on those who gained least before the crisis and who were not responsible for it. And those who through their avaricious actions brought the crisis about suffer least and benefit most – unreformed as they are. This infantile behaviour – self centred, demanding and dependent on responsible authority for rescue will not abate of its own accord. Furtherance of the common good also requires the empowerment of citizens to enable them to contribute to the full. It will not be achieved through the exhausting wage slavery of the many.

There's been an obsession with economic growth - or rather the numbers that purport to measure it - regardless of how these are calculated and heedless of the distribution of well-being. Further increases in economic scale without equity and sustainability may not be in the interests of society. If further economic expansion is to be sought, it must relate to the common good and what the costs are for present and future generations. Not all growth is desirable, particularly if the fruits are maldistributed, and not everyone would agree as to what, if any, of the growth is sustainable.

The relentless corporate drive for more profit and less financial cost (at almost any cost to welfare) has replaced a deeper, more considerate and responsible side of human nature. The burden is reflected in the stresses on the environment, individuals, families and communities and the losses sustained by them. In all of this the people have been rendered compliant through corporate, media and political propaganda and as a result have become prey to the slippery wealth of a rootless, asocial plutocracy. Rampant materialism ravages the natural environment, breaks down social bonds, divides the country and stultifies the human spirit. Confidence is eroded between individuals, between people and firms and between the state and the people from which it draws its legitimacy. The push for high statistical measures of economic growth can be inimical to the quality of people's lives and vital social structures such as the family. So it is not a case of ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ so much as ‘It’s the stupid economy’ that we have now inherited.

There is a vain quest amongst deluded individuals for emotional well-being gained through extravagant, even dissipated consumption. As Lord Sacks so vividly put it ‘The consumer society is the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.’ ‘Consumption’ is a word that was once used to describe a state of serious ‘ill-being’, a wasting illness, ironically still appropriate in a different context today. Consumerism is a social disease that leads inevitably to a state of disappointment. As long as the sales promotion tide generates wants we didn't know we had, people will be tempted to borrow more and waste more.

Prosperity is by no means an ignoble goal, but it is a condition rather than a value and is not an end to be achieved at all costs. We have become richer in worldly goods at the price of being self-centred, self interested and self absorbed. We've also become increasingly dependent on countries with less than desirable governments who have little regard for the conditions of their own people and environment.

Casino capitalism and rampant and permissive globalisation rot the links within communities. Some large companies and household names instead of being sources of national and local pride as they once were have, in the hands of feckless and often incompetent management become profit monsters and creatures of globalisation.

No sectors have suffered more from this avaricious and extractive attitude than manufacturing and engineering. The lamentable decline from a position of historical strength reveals an appalling lack of responsibility, grasp and vision, for not only is there no more creative activity than making things, manufacturing is an important cultural activity. Manufacturing reveals whether or not the nation can 'cut it as a country' and the long decline is a sign of cultural as well as economic malaise. It is telling that corporate types bent on the extraction of quick profit not only don’t take on - but appear no longer to want – the responsibility of making things. But there are signs that this negligence is at last being recognised, but there is no short term fix and effective policies, rather than exhortations, will be radical.

When manufacture stops, tools are often sent overseas and loyal employees, soon to be redundant, are even obliged to train the foreign staff who will be taking their jobs. In allowing these things, we lose national self-respect as well as self-reliance and a sustaining part of our national culture. All these things have been sacrificed on the altar of ever more profit for the private owners of social assets. These are social aliens be they domestic or foreign in so far as they can be identified at all.

The trust that is so much needed in society today is undermined by selfishness in this and other forms. We need fairness, service before self, loyalty to friends and family of course, but also to colleagues, compatriots and country. Not only do we as a society now lack a common code of core values, there are no longer universal standards for honesty and decency - nor are there norms of respect.

In the leery eyes of much of the privately owned press with its partisan agenda, government, both national and local is often equated with incompetence and even vice and, we are told, there should be less government, no doubt allowing even freer reign for extractive capitalism. In fact good government is essential to further the common good, aiding and abetting the achievement of society’s goals and having the commitment to involve itself actively in this process.

The economy is not a series of balance sheets or projections of quarterly returns on which you should, in that awful phrase, ‘do the math’. It works only as a joint endeavour. It is workpeople more than executives, communities more than shareholders and the state providing support, security and development more than the multinational beneficiaries. The profit extractors, asset strippers and bonus builders need to be tackled via effective taxation, a revitalised public sector and by other means, for example a reconstituted 'National Service' which should start at the top.

Economic organisation in this country at best represents an amoral economy and, as evidence suggests, in many respects a downright immoral one. In contrast, a 'virtuous economy' would, by design, operate in the general interest and is an essential factor in ensuring the achievement of the common good. It would consist of an economic system and philosophy in which individuals, private companies, the public sector, voluntary organisations, charitable and religious institutions and government have a shared vision of the welfare of the nation and its citizens. Accordingly, in their public, business and private lives they operate in that interest.

This need not be to the exclusion of other compatible interests of which there would be a wide range - including purely personal benefit. No particular form of economic organisation is implied although a social market mixed economy would be a good place to start. The key requirements are a ‘citizenry of good intent’ and a means by which these good intentions are imbued in society, particularly amongst those with economic or political power, and the achievements sustained for future generations.

There would be mechanisms to ensure that the 'external effects' (collateral damage) of major corporate decisions (such as factory closures, off-shoreing and sending abroad  jobs and machine tools) are minimised or avoided altogether. The extensive damage we've seen in communities in the last few decades is totally unacceptable, cannot continue to be ignored and must be reversed.

The virtuous economy also operates on a basis of greater self-sufficiency. The current account deficits we run are not sustainable and will be another burden for future generations unless we do something about this globalisation-related dependency. The accountants' 'bottom line' and the common good will rarely be in full accord. Indeed they will be jarring opposites much of the time.

There has been a struggle between social and moral values and a rampant, advertising driven market where commercial sales, frequently promoting useless financial ‘products’ or yet more imports and the extraction of more and more profit rule all. We are a debt laden and wasteful society, and we are unhappy as a result. Adverts are designed to create in people a mood of restless dissatisfaction with the goods and services that we, or our children, already have. We need a different vision of ‘the good life’ where values rather than commodities are at the heart.

The concept of never-ending geometric economic growth cannot be sustained indefinitely - as we should have known. We are not above the natural order of things in which exponential growth can be halted by catastrophe. And it should be understood that the ‘market’ is not part of the natural order, it is a human conception.

The virtuous economy is one where individuals and organisations (for example private companies, public bodies, voluntary organisations or charities) act in manners such that satisfactory responses are given to the following questions in commercial life, the life of individuals and families and the provision of public services:

What is the effect of actions and policies on individuals as people and not as exploitable economic or political units? What are the possible effects of economic conduct on the natural environment? What will be the benefit for or impact on policies and decisions for future generations? What are the effects, positive and negative, on communities and the country? What are the effects on the quality of life of ordinary people and the common good?

Agents in a virtuous economy do not engage in excessive risk taking or usurious conduct. Rather, the emphasis is on fairness, moderation and balance, taking the longer and broader view and seeking self-reliance both in terms of individual people and important productive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.

A virtuous economy will have relatively flat pay structures and an absence of privileged payment schemes. Equality of opportunity amongst citizens cannot be achieved where there are, as at present, extremely large differences between the resources available to individuals. For example, all employees of a company should be paid according to the same scheme including profit sharing, pensions, severance payments etc. differing only in the scale of remuneration. In all of this, the value of co-operatives (run on proper co-operative values rather than infected by commercial greed) and not-for-profit enterprises is underlined.

This economy operates in a manner consistent with the twenty four dispositions of moral conduct rather than the 'twenty four / seven' lifestyle of often pointless or even damaging work - for example the sales of useless and unwanted financial ‘services’ and sometimes dissolute leisure. There is a pervasive economic morality. Respect is afforded to small firms and to individuals not just within organisations but also to those who interact from outside as customers and traders, particularly those with little market power. Values rather than greed are the overwhelming drivers. Self-interest is a much wider concept than the possession of objects and embraces the benefits of living within the realm of the common good.

It is one where there is concern for the long term national interest, self-reliance and security of supply and which ensures industrial survival and that worthwhile jobs are available at all levels and for all ages. This, and not sending abroad jobs, machinery and equipment for increased profit. True employment levels not boosted by the partly employed, the self employed and those on zero hours contracts rather than statistical GDP are targeted, for example by ensuring that infrastructure work is intensive in labour rather than machinery.

National economic policy would reflect these objectives and government would take the initiative internationally to ensure that competitor countries such as China observe comparable rules and standards. This would also apply to globalised corporations using the free reign that has been allowed to China and other countries to increase their private profits. For example there would be the requirements that exchange rates are set on the same basis as for western countries, the implementation of comparable anti-pollution requirements, similar work safety regulations, respect for intellectual property and the withdrawal of export subsidies.

There is a case for supporting a genuine free and fair trade system – a balanced and reciprocal free trade that is – something distinct from laissez-faire globalisation with its exploitation, profiteering and couldn’t-care-less working conditions. The virtuous economy would not be bound to 'free trade fundamentalism'. Being doctrinally holier than the rest serves neither the interests of the country nor the common good.

The 'market' should be a social market and it should be understood that while benign capitalism can serve a country well, it will only do so if, as Keynes pointed out, it is governed by 'gentlemanly codes of behaviour'. This in contrast to the extractive and predatory system which in recent times has served the people ill. The pursuit of wealth should not be an end in itself. The end, as Keynes expressed it, being to live 'wisely, agreeably and well' - qualities which, if not wholly describing it, are  consistent with the common good.

While it is taken for granted that 'the market' must be bowed down to, in fact market forces are not sovereign unless, by creating permissive legislation and standing aside we choose to make them so. And much of what are passed off as 'market forces' - for example in justifying grossly excessive executive pay and bonuses - are nothing of the kind. These are contexts that are not truly competitive and which can bear more resemblance to a private club than an economic bazaar.

The banks provide a dreadful example of a defective 'market'. Competition between banks exists to the extent of how much they can extract from ordinary customers and gullible governments. These do-nothing administrations have no recourse but to use one or other such profit grabbing bank in what is at best an oligopolistic structure or more realistically an informal cartel. These ‘cartels by convention’ are devoid of morality but self-righteous nonetheless with an arrogant sense of entitlement.

Regulation on its own will not change this behaviour be it by banks or drug companies. The immoral, secretive and disrespectful conduct has become too deeply ingrained as scandals and lax supervision repeatedly show. One possibility that would bring genuine and valuable change and offer real choice to ordinary people would be to create 'exemplar institutions' with public service values. One example would be the re-establishment of municipal banks. In Birmingham there were branches of the Municipal Bank in every ward and a culture of thrift, beginning at school level was encouraged. Mottoes such as: 'Thrift radiates happiness' and 'Saving is the mother of riches' expressed its ethos  - so distant from that of commercial banks today - and its overall watchwords were 'Security with Interest' - in which we note the ordering.

Present social metrics have serious limitations and are open to misinterpretation, manipulation and changes that further political objectives or make comparisons difficult. The problem is fundamental, as Robert Kennedy observed over four decades ago, economic statistics measure everything except what makes life worthwhile. Any measure of the level of achievement or the ‘satisfaction’ of the population should have a multiplicative character, the central point being that if any one individual or group in the society has a very low well-being score, that will result in low value overall for the measure and should indicate a change of policy direction. Today's gross inequalities would thus be avoided. Taking such action is an essential factor in the operation of a virtuous economy and in the achievement of the common good.

The Common Good in a society is the overall well-being of all its citizens. This is related to the concept of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number set out by Jeremy Bentham in 1839. The common good includes social, psychological and moral components as well as material goods and services, the environment and expectations about the future. In its material aspects it includes what ought to belong to everyone by virtue of their common humanity.

But the common good goes beyond questions of ownership narrowly defined and, for example, includes non-possessive attachments such as those which were felt by people for the Royal Mail or a historic firm such as Cadbury's with long engagement with its workers and the community. The common good therefore has as important elements of both local and national pride and so relates to both individual and social fulfilment. It good includes together people and the environment, the present and future generations, their temporal, cultural and emotional needs, the legacy that one will leave for the other and the well-being of the body, mind and planet.

An action unambiguously enhances the common good when at least one of the above elements, as decided by judgement rather than numerical targets, is improved with none being diminished. The common good is unambiguously degraded when one person is diminished with none being improved. Partisan monetary gains made at the expense of other citizens may degrade the common good, with the outcome being dependent on whether the redistribution is from poor to rich or vice versa.

Our political system should be at the service of the common good but what we have at present is far away from this. Also serving the common good should be businesses and other major social institutions such as voluntary and cultural organisations and the faith communities. Some, of course, do just this and all are valuable and honourable professions or vocations if operated with all of society in mind - making their decisions in 'the reasonableness of the common good'.

Attempts to enforce decent behaviour on profit driven companies, particularly globalised ones, through compliance with external rules is doomed to failure – as we repeatedly see with the banks. It is impossible to supervise everything, let alone what goes on in people’s heads. In place of cunning, there has to be the cultivation of moral character throughout economic activity, a character that willingly adopts internal values and lives by them. A profound cultural renewal is essential to achieve this in a western world that needs to rediscover basic, acceptable values.

This can be done. People are alienated by a ruthlessly selfish society. They want to belong to a world in which people respect and care for one another and so are cared for themselves. Instinctive habits of behaviour need to be developed that reflect real respect for others and a desire to enhance the common good - behaving virtuously should become second nature.

A 'good society' has a vision shared by all citizens that is founded on social and moral values endorsed individually and collectively. It operates through a virtuous economy, enhancing the common good for all citizens, present and future. And in their turn, each generation considers anew and acts on the question: “What is required of us to promote the common good?” The good city in a virtuous economy is a city with restored values that enable it to enhance the common good and the harmonious common and sustainable life - and where there is a citizenry of good intent.

The good society is cohesive and where there is a spirit of mutual respect and openness between individuals and organisations. People work together for understanding, respect, justice and peace, for a clean environment and sustainable communities. It values people, their innermost aspects and their relationships one with another. The good society is one where it is realised that 'no man is an island', it being understood that people are mutually interdependent - all are responsible for all.

The good society is one where each individual can make a difference, in the present or in the future, through their own abilities and personality and is encouraged and enabled to do so. Everyone, can make a difference every day by the way they live, recognising personal responsibility and the ability to affect beneficial change through their personal interactions, their conduct as consumers, through lifestyle changes, and by being active and engaged in their communities and in society as a whole.

A spirit of good citizenship, imbued and accepted on the foundation of common values, will bring forward the offers of time, energy and resources that will make these differences possible. Clear roles exist for the family, cultural, educational and religious institutions in this process.

People may be deterred from acting because they think that what they can do as individuals is but a drop in the vast ocean of need. But in terms of this demotivating metaphor, it should be remembered that without the drops there would be no ocean. We underestimate the importance of what we are engaged in every day. Small service is true service and what matters most in enhancing the common good is what individual people do in their communities and in their daily lives. There's too much talk of ‘changing the world forever’. It falls to few of us to do this – fortunately.

An action is virtuous if it unambiguously enhances the common good. There are many virtuous characteristics, but in this context they include the following: Living with integrity and being honest and truthful in private and public conduct; sharing and being generous; seeking harmony and consensus, striving to unite rather than divide; being loyal and respecting loyalty in both everyday life and business; showing understanding and respect for all individuals and communities; being regardful of suffering and working to bring healing; acting, where possible, to give meaning and purposefulness to people's lives.

The good society is concerned wherever possible with the conservation - or indeed the generation of - natural resources rather than the current focus on their exploitation for immediate profit and their depletion regardless of the human or environmental cost. In this it is important to recognise that the earth and its bounty does not belong to humanity – least of all to a particular generation. It is hardly likely that globalised corporations will voluntarily accept this precept.

For their part, the major religions should interpret their traditions to create an ‘autonomous space’ for the common values of our society. Secularists (the benign variant of secularism rather than aggressive atheists) for their part should appreciate that religious sensibilities can give moral depth to enterprises and direct them away from perilous private adventures and towards communities and the common good.

Good government at national, regional and local levels is a necessary virtue, aiding and abetting the achievement of the goals of society and involving itself proactively in this process. It aids the replenishment of social capital, but this also requires the relearning of personal responsibility, the principle of service before self and a multi-generational perspective.

We hear a great deal of talk about ‘leadership’ (usually from privileged and self-interested individuals who see themselves as uniquely qualified to fulfil such a role) and its claimed merits. We hear very little about its many risks and demerits (and the adverse consequences of the willingness to be led) although history, some of it very recent, is laden with examples.

A new model of leadership is needed, one that does not lose sight of the fact that leadership assumes its authority from other people and which seeks to develop, change, or preserve things on their behalf. These should be the goals rather than seeking the leaders’ own aggrandisement, the enrichment of their donors or the enhancement of the self importance of their advisers.

But given the regrettable experiences of recent decades in business and government, it is clear that when it comes to the common good, the concept of stewardship brings out a more important quality than ‘leadership’. Prudent stewardship is essential for the common good and is something every member of a society can engage in every day, for example by taking care of our local environment, looking out for each other, safeguarding what is left of our industry and the values which have served our society so well. Stewardship is one of the many ways in which individuals at all levels can not only be a part of the common good but can, to echo a thought, contribute towards it according to their abilities and receive from it according to their needs.

To achieve the highest level of the common good, future governments will need to have the well-being of the whole population, rather than the favoured few, at the centre of their attentions. This requires transformative change rather than marginal adjustments and dubious promises. The key social values and arrangements that foster the optimum common good should be the focus of all the people, the public authorities and private and foreign institutions operating here.

All individuals can contribute to the common good and have a responsibility to do so. What is needed is a changed social architecture and a transformed national psyche. Existing power and influence relationships, often hidden, need to be broken down. It will involve prioritising individual social morality, equality, fairness and ways of living and working where respect replaces contempt and exploitation and where trust, integrity and loyalty to individual people, community and nation are re-embedded.

Similarly, creating an economic system fit to advance the common good rather than increasing inequality requires new objectives. This is so not only for governments but also for large enterprises (public or private) and those who own them, run them and take profit from them. There will need to be changed approaches to economic management and new concepts of national well-being. Achieving all this requires sustained radical action over a generational timescale.

We must begin this change here at home and there needs to be a re-evaluation of how we conduct ourselves in society and where the country stands in the world. There should be less foreign adventurism and more attention to domestic and local concerns as repeatedly voiced by the people. There needs to be more leadership by example and careful stewardship of good institutions and qualities in society and its lasting values while conserving the natural environment and husbanding scarce resources. There must be ethical and exemplary conduct by national leaders, both political and in business, whether in private or public ownership. Programmes should be set up to achieve this re-education, particularly in finance and big business. ‘Human nature’ is not an excuse, it is what we make it and how we ourselves choose to behave.

I envisage a kind of National Service applying to everyone but particularly to holders of wealth, power and influence, for example corporate executives government ministers and senior civil servants. Trainees would, outside moral re-education classes, perform simple tasks such as cleaning, preparing and serving food, providing personal care, taking night shifts at random intervals and working on a zero hours basis. Food and accommodation would be as affordable on the national minimum wage. University courses and research into business ethics should be scaled up rather than down and in schools citizenship and religious education should be re-cast to increase the ethical dimension. All this would make our own Cultural Revolution.

There also needs to be a widespread change of perception and re-education on what constitute desirable occupations for young people to aspire to and on the respect in which work at all levels should be held. There would be enhanced status for careers in engineering and manufacturing and, in a remodelled economy, the real and lasting jobs to go with them, and an end to the siphoning off of valuable young talent into the banking and finance morass.

Voluntary organisations with the common good at heart need encouragement and restored levels of funding with net increases following years of cutbacks, discouragement and distraction from their proper objectives. Political parties should be less tribalistic and confident in presenting bold and constructive alternatives, including furtherance of the common good, to the electorate.

A government for the common good also requires a fit-for-purpose democratic system that is less easily manipulated by the political establishment. It should not be  slanted towards rich and powerful vested interests that require their bidding to be done. This would contrast sharply with the dysfunctional, unrepresentative and biased model we have put up with for so long and which is so deeply indebted to party donors and the policies that the paymasters require for their continuing advantage.

Young people, who are yet to be shorn of their ideals and who are much less ingrained in their ways could take the lead in much of this, taking full advantage of modern technology with its freedoms and demonstrated possibilities for organisation. Citizenship programmes should be expanded and recast in terms of enhancing the common good – again with a major input from young people. All this and more should be sustained for many years.

Alongside the societal changes there is a great deal that needs to be done in terms of re-casting the economy. A much longer view needs to be taken that is not constrained to the typical three years or less now usual in western businesses or five years or less in government. I have criticised China and other countries but you cannot fault them for long term vision and setting national goals for the future.

There has been talk of economic rebalancing, but nowhere near enough action or long term planning to this end. Just as it took decades to destroy manufacturing industry and throw away the country’s engineering heritage, so it will take a similar time to restore this sector of central importance to optimise the common good. But this restoration and much else that's required could be achieved if the will and commitment were there, if fashionable and convenient theories were set aside and a stop was put to the kow-towing to plutocratic, media and lobby interests.

What the country has now is a dire version of extractive capitalism and the ethical vacuum, greed, exploitation and deceit integral to it. This dysfunctional economy bore its most poisoned fruit in the banking catastrophe and the subsequent punishment of austerity meted out with callous unfairness by a government of similar persuasion. People have a lower sense of well-being and for all but the very rich, less wealth. This is partly because of a GDP made worse by austerity but also because of higher population since it is real GDP per capita that is the true measure of material prosperity. So what should future (hypothetical) governments of principle do to move towards a system that will further the common good?

Government must undertake a proactive, comprehensive and long-range economic policy to regenerate manufacturing industry, engineering and the industrial sector more widely. In the restoration of manufacturing the focus should not simply be on final assembly but on rebuilding the all-important supply chain too. This emphasis would not only to benefit the economy as a whole, but also create satisfying full time jobs for forsaken young people throughout the country, particularly in the formerly industrial Midlands and the shattered North. London and the South East should not be so favoured nor allowed to continue drawing off so much investment and hoovering up most of the job opportunities going. As part of the policy, there must also be increased and sustained investment in scientific, engineering and medical research.

The foundations of this economic policy should be pro-actively Keynesian. This means that major infrastructure and energy projects would be established, and often delivered, by government. It should also involve setting up public sector ‘exemplar institutions’ with a public service rather than a profiteering ethos. There is no better example than municipal banks, to introduce some real competition in the interest of ordinary citizens and to force recalcitrant elements in the private sector to reform their ways to the benefit of the common good. Movement of enterprises between the public and private sectors should be two-way traffic rather than the doctrinaire one way system we have suffered from in recent decades.

And future governments must escape from the thrall of so-called ‘markets’ which are so often nothing of the kind, being at one extreme clubish, at the other herd-like and at either end uncompetitive and rarely operating in the public interest. The exemplary public service institutions should be set up wherever needed – such as in finance, rail transport and energy supply as steps towards the option of renationalisation.

Corporate governance should be reformed root and branch to deal once and for all with the grotesque executive excesses and bonus culture and bring in flatter pay structures. As part of the reforms there should be increased worker and community share ownership and mandatory employee representation on company boards and ethical training for directors.

In reducing the fiscal deficit, both objectives and timescale should be revised as the benefits of sustainable and balanced economic growth are realised. This will allow productive investment and active economic management. This done, the present cuts dominated timescale could be improved on and harsh and unequal austerity ditched. Increased emphasis should be placed on taxation and less on cutting expenditure, leaving room for industrial investment. There are several reasons for this.

Reducing public expenditure on projects reduces employment, income tax, National Insurance, VAT and other tax receipts. It also increases government expenditure under different heads of account - such as unemployment benefit – which are not always considered. In Keynesian terms the cuts will also produce a reverse multiplier effect - the knock on negative consequences of people having less to spend.

The bulk of the burden of present government policies is born by young people and the less well off either seeking work, in work of some sort, 'employing' themselves or, through no fault of their own, unable to work. This is wrong both morally and in economic terms. There should be a mandatory living wage that isn't also a maximum wage. A living wage would also have a positive multiplier. Zero hours contracts should be abolished - except possibly in the boardroom. Why do companies need a CEO on hand all the time? Just bring them in for an hour or two to make a couple of decisions when needed.

The loopholes deliberately left in the tax system encourage tax dodging and should be closed. Tax ‘havens’ both close to home and further afield should be shut down. Those who can afford to pay more in direct taxation should do so. Socially responsible rich individuals here and abroad have already declared their willingness to pay more. This contrasts with the partisan picture of a mass executive exodus and a decline in entrepreneurial activity. These are just self-interested cries of 'wolf!' We can scrape along with fewer corporate executives and institutional leaders on bloated salaries, bonuses, golden hellos and padded out retirement packages.

We should encourage public-spirited attitudes in corporations and begin a return to loyalty to country and community. There is little or no historic correlation between entrepreneurial activity and taxation of income at higher levels. Perceptions are dependent on the direction of travel and fade over time. For example, there was unrestrained joy amongst the rich when the top income tax rate was reduced from 83% to 60% in the 1980s. In any case, most top rate payers are internal promotions in large firms and not entrepreneurs, whose motivation is not driven solely by money.

A government seeking the common good should work towards an internationally operated financial transactions tax rather than working against it to favour the City and its locust financial institutions and frustrating the efforts of other countries. A government for the common good should also take the lead on a revised international approach to the foundations of trade, working at first with like-minded countries in a co-operative grouping of nations. Globalisation is not free trade, far from it, rather, it is a license to exploit, extract, print money, export employment and destroy communities and the future of the younger generation.

There should be an inter-governmental push to shut down the tax havens, open up secret banking, particularly in Switzerland, and expose the vast ill-gotten gains harboured there. It should rein in the globalised corporations and their tax dodging, grasping and unprincipled owners. There should be less willingness to accept excuses from these self-serving individuals and companies or from countries with unsavoury economic and social practices and tax regimes where vast profits can be parked.

Taxation, and policy on interest rates and money supply should foster sustainable and balanced demand. Wider policies should involve major capital projects implemented by domestic sources and where full time and proper employment and on-the-job training of younger people is to the fore. An example would be the construction of a Severn barrage that has again been allowed to fall through because government will not invest or become directly involved but which would satisfy 7% of the nation’s electricity demand. This, and other estuarial schemes along with a nationwide and a properly resourced drive on domestic insulation should have received government support long ago - in place of useless tax cuts or loan schemes.

In the unlikely event that further cutting is needed there are prime areas where this can be done without diminishing the common good. For example, slashing the widespread government use of private sector consultants at outrageous cost, not engaging in ill-considered government IT schemes, putting an end to colossally expensive and incompetent outsourcing, purchasing and PFI-like contracts, reducing the number of nuclear-armed submarines and cutting the number of senior civil servants and political officers.

The Keynesian concept of the ‘balanced budget multiplier’ should also be used. This means that if the taxation of richer people is increased and there is a corresponding reduction in taxes of less well off people, then overall demand increases because people on lower incomes spend a higher proportion of any additional income. This results in an economic stimulus and an improvement in tax revenues as the knock-on consequences of the extra spend work through.

As we know, the ‘quantitative easing’ (printing money) so beloved of the Bank of England and the Chancellor and Treasury (because it does not require them to be direct involved in industry) is of little use in getting funds to the productive sectors of the economy. Mostly soaked up by the wretched banks, it is nowhere near as effective as major capital projects on a regional or national scale would be.

Governments have become doctrinally opposed to direct engagement in infrastructure investment and management. High speed rail (and its exaggerated business benefits) may be a partial exception, but there are more productive ways to invest the colossal sum involved to the benefit of the economy, the reduction of regional inequality and the betterment of the common good, either within the transport sector, particularly in the Midlands and North, or the industrial sector beyond it.

The benefits to manufacturing and engineering investment of low official interest rates are exaggerated. They are modest in scale and damped and lagged at best. This is because demand and profitability are what matters most to businesses, although lower interest rates should result in some increase in investment if the conditions of lending are right. But as smaller firms know only too well, this is not the case. And lower rates mean less income for savers, thus lowering demand.

To this can be added appropriate overall levels and forms of taxation and public spending. I use the term ‘appropriate’ rather than ‘low’. For example in the case of deductions from income, the present irrational structure of National Insurance contributions should be replaced with a flat rate covering all income levels (but starting at a higher level than at present) with no exceptions for the rich. This would mean a top rate of overall deductions from income of around 56% once the 50% income tax rate is restored, so it would still be below the euphorically greeted 60%  and would also have a positive balanced budget multiplier effect. Greater use should be made of windfall taxes, particularly in respect of finance and fuel. Taxation of advertising (aside from the printed press) would improve the look of our cities and reduce junk mail.

A pro-active and properly resourced environmental policy far from hobbling industry could provide economic stimulation as, for example, with determined drives on insulation and flood protection and support for firms making environmental products. It is false economy to cut environmental protection as the inundation of the Somerset Levels and extensive flood and coastal damage clearly demonstrates. Environmental standards achieved in advance of other countries but which are likely to be followed, would also give domestic suppliers a competitive edge.

Government should help make industrial winners and widen its support in productive areas where we still have an edge. I resist the term 'comparative advantage', a dubious concept that has been abused to justify retreat from manufacturing. The view that the relatively few and often small scale industrial ‘winners’ that we happen to be left with at some point should determine the future prospects of the country is passive and flawed and has worsened economic imbalance.

Comparative advantage was once defined in terms of national physical endowments such as land and natural resources, but this convenient concept has also been linked to intangibles such as commitment to long term investment (an advantage we could also secure), managed exchange rates, absence of regulation, labour force ‘work ethic’, dire working conditions, lax environmental policies and even time zones.

Trade in manufactures is far from free, a fact that benefits our commercial rivals. Our leaders are the only ones still spouting discredited economic theories while other countries with more sense tilt the trading ‘playing field’ in their own favour. This is not 'protectionism' but safeguarding. ‘Free trade’ also benefits tax dodging globalised corporations and their political friends at home and abroad. There is a fundamental distinction between globalisation and its many ills and the daydream of 'free' trade.

Governance to optimise the common good also means active and properly resourced Local Government. Local government financing has been dominated by formulae that at best are fudged and at worst driven by partisan spite and regional bias. No wonder things don’t always work. The core cities have extensive local knowledge and should be allowed to compete and provide services to the public (such as simple and non-exploitative banking) and to not-for-profit and voluntary enterprises.

Local Government should be allowed to introduce two extra tiers of Council Tax. The government should make one-off payments to cover the costs of the equal pay legislation that it introduced. There is enormous scope for more local authority house building and government constraints on this should be lifted. Local Government could also facilitate self-build on small plots of land that it would not otherwise use. Private developers should be required to use genuine brownfield land (instead of the more profitable greenfield) and made to stop hoarding land to increase their profits. The larger towns and cities could direct their purchasing power more locally (with a multiplier of four) and be resourced for action to complement existing initiatives.

It is also as well to be aware of strategies that won't work. For example, over reliance on the services sector and the policy of trying to shift the economy towards “higher value added” activities, as if these were somehow inaccessible to the countries that have been gifted so much of the rest of our industry. If we continue as we are, we can be sure that these supposedly superior activities will go the same way as their lower value added predecessors. To imagine otherwise is at best wishful thinking or at worst smacks of an ignorant and false superiority.

The proponents of this approach of trying to keep one step ahead of those countries who've taken so much of our industry by moving up a hypothetical line assume that this is an ever-rising straight line. But what is actually involved is a rising curve but of declining slope - and it is also one of limited length. So the adverse consequences of this attempt to “move up the curve”, in other words more retreat, are all too clear.

Steps need to be taken nationally and internationally to retrieve industry already lost. It is not enough for government passively to welcome the odd bit of self-interested company ‘re-shoring’ of production. The country's manufacturing and engineering sectors must be comprehensively rebuilt. This industry, along with agriculture, fisheries and mining, represents the productive base of our economy. In the austerity-induced struggles of the Euro, it is notable that those countries that do well, continue to manufacture. Those countries that now make little, continue to suffer.

In economic policy the simple truths must be realised that in the absence of demand, there will not be production and in the absence of production there won’t be the creation of worthwhile jobs. It should also be realised that the meaning of the word 'economise' is not ‘to make minimum use of a resource’ but to make the best use of it.

The advancement of the common good requires the provision of good public services. It also requires the provision of simple and trustworthy other services that have been given over to, and monopolised by, the private sector, the worst of many instances being banking with energy supply not far behind. Services such as these could be provided by the public sector, as many once were, or by not-for-profit organisations operating with public service values.

Economic actions on a robust and active Keynesian basis should bring good early results and will help enormously in the enhancement of the common good. The much needed ethical changes will take a lot longer to bring about and embed but they are equally important if we are not to revisit, time after time, the recent near catastrophes.

Is all of this an impractical dream? I maintain that it's the least that's needed. It is only a dream if you take the view that a country should not operate on the basis of ideals. It is just very different from what we have been told we must put up with and to which, we are also told ‘there is no alternative’. Well, there most definitely is. It is rather like the current situation with climate change where there is an abundance of evidence but where there some influential and self-interested right wing deniers.

Some of these measures (and many more besides) will take considerable time, possibly generations, to have their full effect but it is none the less urgent to start to enact the changes soon because the consequences of never taking such actions will be protracted and severe. If the country is to have the hope of a more secure and protected future, these or equivalent measures must assuredly be put in place.

The country is faced with choices that cannot indefinitely be postponed. Those in authority may not wish to make them but, to deploy their own slogan, they should ‘embrace’ these changes. If, in the longer term, we wish to put an end to austerity, exploitation, grotesque inequality of wealth, health and opportunity, corporate greed and megalomania and restore our national, community and personal self-esteem, then this is the path we must set out upon.

Such is the road to the realisation of the common good - and to true freedom from globalised economic despotism and extractive capitalism, the tyranny of financial markets, relentless, driven and useless consumerism and cycle after cycle of partisan political manipulation. It is undoubtedly true that the going will be hard, but I for one believe that we as a nation are up to it. In the words of the Jean-Paul Sartre inspired song ‘La route est dure, mais je suis forte.’