Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor

Political events this week have again illustrated the stark divide between the affluent few at the top and the majority of the population who struggle to remain above water. Whilst the government seeks to create a finite universal benefit, the pay of financial executives – often underpinned by the public purse – continues to soar.

As George Monbiot said in a recent column arguing for the introduction of a maximum wage:

The income of corporate executives ... is a form of institutionalised theft, arranged by a kleptocratic class for the benefit of its members. The wealth which was once spread more evenly among the staff of a company, or distributed as lower prices or higher taxes, is now siphoned off by people who have neither earned nor generated it.

Over the past ten years, chief executives’ pay has risen nine times faster than that of the median earner. Some bosses (British Gas, Xstrata and Barclays for example) are now being paid over 1000 times the national median wage.

At the same time, companies such as Vodafone, Topshop and British Home Stores have had huge tax bills written off whilst banking chiefs have continued to pocket huge bonuses, despite many being heavily subsidised by tax payers’ money.  For instance, following the bailout of RBS, the UK government owns an 84% stake in the company. Yet in 2010, the RBS CEO Stephen Hester was paid a staggering £7.7m of which £2m was a ‘bonus’. I wonder how many people on Jobseekers’ Allowance or Employment Support Allowance received a state-sponsored ‘bonus’ for Christmas.

Vince Cable’s attempt to harness executive pay – through increasing transparency and shareholder influence – represent nothing more than impotent posturing. As Monbiot notes, pay transparency could “create the perverse result that executives discover how much their rivals are getting, and use the information to demand more”.

This highlights a structural paradox between how we conceptualise the public and private sectors. Executive pay in the private sector always seeks to level-up pay and benefits to ensure that companies remain competitive and can attract the best talent. Conversely – as demonstrated by the public sector pensions dispute – the debate around the lower end of the labour force always focuses on eroding public sector pay and conditions in line with the private sector. Both arguments – consistently forwarded by business, media and politicians – are mutually exclusive.  

It is frightening that political and media rhetoric – which habitually demonises benefit claimants as feckless scroungers – can be so weak when challenging the power and influence of big business.  The media is all too eager to attack ‘parasitic’ benefit claimants, but is less vehement in its pursuit of private sector leeches gorging on the public purse.

One of the key reasons for the rising benefit bill – neglected by most mainstream media – has been the cost of subsidising private landlords through housing benefit. It’s time to stop bankrolling private sector sponges – from landlords to banking executives – and use the money to build affordable social housing and create real employment opportunities. 

To paraphrase Slavoj Zizek, John Pilger and Noam Chomsky, it’s socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

Christmas is the time for giving

I’ve been commuting to London from Brighton since just before last Christmas. At this time of year – as coldness descends and darkness swallows every waking hour – delays, cancellations and unforeseen train mishaps become ever more frequent. Trains break down, frost freezes tracks and – as the festive season looms on the horizon – suicides increase. The whole unfortunate rigmarole becomes tedious, repetitive and tiring.

As Christmas approaches, strange creatures dressed in bright floppy hats garnished with shiny bells encroach from the dark and begin to occupy stations up and down the country. From first thing in the morning to last thing at night, flocks of carol singers ensconce themselves by ticket barriers or by platform edge. Their tuneful wails cut through the crisp air as they huddle together for warmth. Outriders patrol the perimeter of the pack shaking giant buckets adorned with images of their charitable master: Help For Heroes, the Salvation Army, or some local church.

Carol singers can smell a fiver – hidden deep in a leathery wallet – at fifty paces. Commuters are their prey and coinage is their bounty. You pull your scarf tight round your neck as a scout lurches over wearing a fake white beard and grasping his bucket tightly – like a festive harbinger from Middle Earth. “Spare any change sir? Christmas is the time for giving”.

Ignoring the increasing commercialisation of Christmas which suggests that if Christmas is “the time for giving” it’s actually for giving money to corporations and businesses, it’s wrong to suggest there is just one time for being generous. People should be generous all year, not just when they’re made to feel guilty.

But it also ignores a more serious point, that the need for charity is a symptom of a broken system. If people are sleeping rough, it’s because the government has failed to provide for its citizens. If people are dying of starvation in the developing world, it’s because international organisations and supranational bodies have not done enough to create a fair and redistributive system of trade. It is our global system of capitalism which creates inequality and poverty, and as long as this system survives, the problems will continue – no matter how much charity there is or how Big David Cameron’s Society becomes.

Whether guilt, empathy or sympathy drives people to donate, charity can only bring temporary solutions to problems which are universal and inherent. In addition, charity – because it works within a broken system – acts to reinforce systems of control and exploitation because it creates the illusion of dealing with a problem.

This animated video of a lecture by renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek helps illustrate the argument:

The question of charity is a sensitive issue because it represents a potent mix of emotive power relations. We will only negate the need for charity when there are fundamental changes to our system, but there can’t be fundamental change whilst systems of control – including (arguably) charity – reinforce the system of oppression. As long as this continues there will be pain and suffering.

Understandably, most people would rather give to charity and help alleviate a small amount of suffering than let the horrors continue unabated. As Zizek says, “I’m not against charity in an abstract sense because it’s better than nothing – but let’s be aware that there is an element of hypocrisy”.  It’s a deeply depressing paradox – and a horrible moral dilemma – which testifies to capitalism’s incredible ability to survive. Capitalism – the cockroach of political systems.

Or maybe I need to lighten-up, stop being so curmudgeonly and get into the Christmas spirit. I eagerly await the nocturnal visitation of three spirits to show me the light...