Free-time suddenly got a lot more expensive

It was announced yesterday that the Scottish government had awarded a £250,000 contract to First ScotRail to pilot a free Wi-Fi service on trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The hope is that the technology will eventually be available on trains across the country and will help stimulate economic recovery by lubricating the creaking wheels of commerce.

As someone who's spent a large proportion of the last year commuting (approx. 4.5hrs per day or 44 full days - not that I'm counting) the move promises a welcome technological luxury. More concerning, however, is that the scheme is vulnerable to corporate exploitation and is likely to further erode the thin line between 'work' and 'free-time'.

The initiative has unsurprisingly been welcomed by business leaders. According to Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce: 

Wi-fi connectivity is essential to doing business in the 21st Century and its introduction to our trains is vital to making public transport a productive business experience.

The question, therefore, is why do trains need to be a ‘productive business experience’? Will workers be paid for working during their commute? Will this be included as part of their normal working week and enshrined in their contract? Almost certainly not.

According to the TUC, workers gave bosses over 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime in 2011. That's roughly equivalent to one million full-time jobs and contributed £29.2bn to the economy. Staggeringly, if employees who regularly put in unpaid overtime worked all their hours at the start of the year, the first day they would get paid would be February 24.

Modern technology such as smart phones and Wi-Fi – rather than being liberating and empowering – have been hijacked by commercial interest. People are not obliged to work in their free-time – because if they were employers would be compelled to pay them – but they are expected to do so. This expectation – exacerbated by the fear of unemployment – creates a culture of anxiety and encourages people to sacrifice their free-time. It effectively means the wage you earn is worth less because you're working more hours and fits rather snugly with Marx's theory of alienation. The phenomena itself is part of an increasing capitalist monopolisation of free-time (on which I will return later).

One thing’s for certain. We now know why they call it ‘free’ time – because people end up working for nothing.

David Cameron - Master Magician

"For my next trick, I will make your pension disappear"

An expert magician is a master of deception and misdirection. As the virtuoso conjurer distracts your gaze – and blinds you with dazzling patter – his hands work feverishly out of sight before revealing his confounding trick.  The audience is left baffled and dumbfounded in a daze of shock and awe. The trick is left unexplained and irreversible.  The magician is sworn never to reveal his secret.

David Cameron – with Andrew Lansley as his glamorous assistant – is a maestro of political misdirection and ideological sleight-of-hand, but the left cannot let itself fall victim to the coalition’s relentless trickery. 

The proposed restructuring of the NHS has understandably caused widespread outrage. Over 100,000 people have signed an ePetition calling on the government to abandon the Health and Social Care Bill, it has met with opposition from health professionals, activists and trade unionists, and derision has come from unlikely ideologues such as Stan Collymore and Rio Ferdinand.

The mobilisation of opposition to the Health Bill is inspirational, but it is important not to see the struggle as independent or isolated from government policy elsewhere. Cameron’s retention of Andrew Lansley – whilst numerous commentators have suggested his position is untenable – represents a willingness to court controversy. Lansley could have been purged as a scapegoat in an attempt to detoxify the Health Bill, but instead he has been retained as a villainous stooge to attract vitriol and detract attention from other unsavoury policy.

The Health Bill is the apex of a creeping barrage of stealthy privatisation which seeks to auction off profitable elements of the public sector in an effort to kick-start economic recovery. The tactic is short-termist, irrevocable and will create gapping inequity.

The Conservatives cannot be allowed to use the NHS hubbub to mask the systematic dismantling of the welfare state: from the constriction of the benefit system to the rise of free schools and city academies. The education sector in the UK is worth an estimated £2bn and – since the coalition came to power – the number of academies operating outside local government control has increased by nearly 800% to 1,529. With focus trained on the NHS reforms, this has gone almost completely unnoticed. Furthermore – and unlike the Health Bill – these developments have received no opposition from the Tories’ yellow-bellied Lib Dem bed fellows. 

Whether it’s concerned parents worrying about schools being taken over by big business; students agonising over the withdrawal of EMA; or cancer patients stressing over work-ready assessments – activists and campaigners will usually be interested in single issues. It therefore falls on the Labour Party to cut-through the impenetrable mystification, unite the struggles and be at the forefront of each of these conflicts. These are not independent policy decisions and the Labour Party must ensure that the synapses of struggle are connected so people can understand the ideological assault on public services.

Ed Miliband has been at his strongest when acting as a respectable insurgent fighting entrenched power – particularly against News International and bankers’ bonuses. Now is the time to intensify and unite the struggle. Miliband has the not just the opportunity, but the moral obligation, to define and shape the debate. It’s time for him to break the magician’s code and let us in on the trick.

 

This article was originally written for Labour List

“In no way do these changes represent a change in our goal of building socialism”

We first heard about Cuba’s economic changes in September 2010. Headlines declared that 1 million state jobs would be cut and David Cameron exulted that “even communist Cuba has got with the programme that we need to cut the budget deficit and get spending under control”. Meanwhile the media revelled in accusations that the economic changes represented an abandonment of socialism. Continuing the theme of half a century, neo-liberal vultures circled Cuba waiting for the inevitable collapse of socialism. 

The Cuban economy has suffered as a result of global financial crisis and a number of devastating hurricanes, but media analysis has instead portrayed the changes as a response to structural flaws in the Cuban model. I met Carlos Camps, Political Counsellor at the Cuban Embassy, to examine some of the most prominent new policies and find out the truth behind the media headlines.

Although areas of the Cuban economy remain unproductive – and the socialist principle of distribution has been challenged by unearned remittances – Carlos points out that the Cuban economy grew 2.7% last year whilst capitalist countries struggled to recover from recession. As Carlos observes: 

We see the American model everywhere, but this is not the model for us because it is in a very profound and very deep crisis … The international press is always looking to discredit Cuba and the socialist character of our revolution, but in no way do these changes represent a change in our goal of building socialism.