In order to update and include some new suggestions to my previous post, I offer the following. An economic crisis or slump on the horizon is today even more difficult to predict. We have even changed the way we determine how we are in recession. Brexit and the rise of the new right complicates matters even more than usual. But the lack of growth in our economy should surely conclude that we are in recession now. I feel sure that the late John Maynard Keynes would have agreed.
As for austerity, the simple answer is that if we can create fictitious capital for banks and bonds, we can do it for infrastructure projects to boost the economy. If we can print money for the banking sector, we can print it for our essential services and end austerity. I will return to this in the future, but for now a little about inequality.
Difficult as it is to comprehend, the fact is that the six richest people on Earth now own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population, Further, the top 1% now have more money than the bottom 99%. Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their capital, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than one pound a day and horrifyingly, some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoe and malaria.
At the same time, all over the world corrupt elites, oligarchs and monarchies spend billions on the most absurd extravagance. In the Middle East, which boasts five of the world’s 10 richest monarchs, young royals wiss around the globe while the region suffers from the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, and at least 29 million children are living in poverty without access to decent housing, safe water or nutritious food. Moreover, while hundreds of millions of people live in abysmal conditions, the arms merchants of the world grow increasingly rich. Our support for the Palestinian people and our humanity- support should be increased. We should promote peaceful solutions.
Not only that, but at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, people all over the world are losing their faith in democracy. They increasingly recognise that the global economy has been rigged to reward those at the top at the expense of everyone else, and they are becoming more and more angry.
Millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they did 40 years ago. They look on, feeling helpless in the face of a powerful few who try to buy elections, and a political and economic elite that grows wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows more bleak. The Labour and Trade Union movement should be more proactive. We should consider a citizens wage to achieve a more equal society.
In the midst of all of this economic disparity, the world is witnessing an alarming rise in authoritarianism and rightwing extremism, which feeds off, exploits and amplifies the resentments of those left behind, and amplifies the flames of ethnic and racial hostility. Time for a new anti nazi and anti racist organisation.
New and international progressive movements must commit to tackling structural inequality both between and within nations. Such movements must overcome the so called cult of money and the survival of the fittest mentalities that so many have warned against. Thatherism and the Tories austerity programme must be rejected. We surely must support national and international policies aimed at raising standards of living for poor and working-class people to achieve from full employment and a living wage to a universal higher education, healthcare and fair trade agreements. In addition, we must rein in corporate power, tax dodging and abuse and prevent the environmental destruction of our planet as a result of climate change.
We can bring about a new economic system for the many and not just the few. The Labour Party in the UK is making so much progress in this direction and we now have hope for a new anti austerity Party in Government. We can achieve this even if we are enduring a economic crisis, as we have done in the past. We should be prepared for the establishment and media bias.
Together we can achieve so much. We should campaign together now for a future with a difference for all and offer our policies for all to see in the campaign material. A new political and economic model is so essential. The task is so very urgent. September 2018
Ivor Timson 