GENEROUS SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH

While the Poor are told to play the Free Market Game Those of us further to the left always had some difficulties with the notion, but George W. Bush's administration (and perhaps some of his acolytes nearer home) appear to have found a new approach: socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. In building a left polity without a basis in common ownership, a generation of Fabians and social democratic thinkers constructed a polity where the less well-off in society would be provided with a safety net - and indeed equality would be promoted, particularly through comprehensive education - while the richest could enjoy relatively laissez-faire pro-capitalist politics, their only cost being progressive taxation to fund the 'socialism' of the poor. Compared with much of the philosophy of the New Labour era, it was quite progressive, and it certainly isn't the purpose of the current article to criticise it. I was always sceptical that a single polity - the sum of the policies for rich, middling and poor - could really serve the interests of all three. At best it could serve the interests of two out of the three, and two contiguous groups. As such, I've always seen it as my business to try and design policies that serve the interests of those on moderate and low incomes, even if those policies run contrary to the interests (the immediate, material interests, at any rate) of the rich. But of course, all manner of states have intervened in all manner of economies, and just because we are used to the notion of state intervention as being part of the politics of the left, we must not ignore the potential of the state to intervene in the interests of the wealthy, even where the intervention may run contrary to the interests of those on moderate and low incomes. Of course, it may be the case that - in the interests of people of all manner of incomes, and across the world not just in the US - $700 billion (or more) will have to go to bail-out the gambling debts of the super-wealthy. It may be that that's what we have to do, because actually capitalism - even if you try and just reserve it for the rich - is inherently flawed, and is all-consuming. Our interests have - like it or not - become bound up with those of Wall Street and the City of London; and because governments in many countries have allowed the gamblers to have their fun (never bailing out those who truly lost when the losses consisted of the savings or pensions of people on moderate or low incomes) we have arrived at moment of emergency intervention. But this is also the moment of the test. Do we throw billions of dollars and pounds and euros at this tainted industry just to allow it to start again? For pinstriped gamblers to pocket billions in future boom years, and the rest of us to bail them out again when the next bust comes along? Can we afford that little bit of 'socialism' to keep the rich in business; the super-wealthy winning in boom and bust, while those on moderate and low incomes take the hit in both conditions too? After all, $700 billion dollars is an extraordinary amount of money; earlier debates about money in Congress this year have been about just how big the cuts in Medicare provision should be. John McCain - proud to have played his part in securing $700 billion dollars for bankers - has a set of policies that involve cutting Medicare further, getting rid of tax incentives for employer-paid health insurance... After all - ordinary people should be subject to the whims of the market. In the UK, we have closed down Remploy factories, while reducing the number of people eligible to claim a decent Disability Living Allowance amongst other 'welfare reforms' where we look after the pennies, while the pounds pour into the wealthiest people's back pockets and keep funding city bonuses. If it wasn't for the human cost of the nascent crisis, one could almost laugh that George W. Bush - that great ideologue of capitalism - should be presiding over such a great crisis of capital that he has had to occasionally take up the old cry of 'nationalise the banks!' But the important thing for us is to ensure - in the UK at least, where we have potential power over such decisions - that the interests of those on moderate and low incomes are kept at the forefront of all our decision-making, regulation and intervention. Underwriting the poison with tax money and public debt, while selling off the gold to another set of gamblers does not come under that heading. We also need to ensure that we rethink the stuctures of high finance - fundamentally and entirely - in the interests of those same members of society - even if that should run counter to the interests of the wealthiest. That is the lesson of the crisis, and it's a lesson we need to learn quickly and well.