From Brian Gould, former Labour MP, writing in The Guardian about the current global economic crisis:
The last couple of weeks have seen the unwilling slaughter of sacred cows to which we have been solemnly assured for nearly three decades “there is no alternative”:
• Governments must be kept well away from the main levers of economic policy? No. As even George Bush agrees, government action is essential.
• Monetary policy is all that matters? No. Fiscal policy now takes its proper place in the armoury.
• Only bankers are to be entrusted with the important decisions in our economy? No. As is apparent to everyone, banks worldwide have been irresponsible, foolish and greedy and their deficiencies mean that they must in many cases be taken into public ownership.
• “Free” markets must be left unregulated and will always produce the best results? No. The market has failed and created a catastrophe.
• All that matters is the bottom line? No. The goals of economic activity are wider than profit for a few.
The truth is, in other words, that if we are to survive the crisis in reasonable shape and look to a better future, we must now abandon the nostrums that have ruled our affairs and have proved so destructive. We need governments to acknowledge their responsibilities, to take a major role in first rescuing and then regulating our economy, to use a much wider range of policy instruments, and to treat markets as hugely valuable servants but dangerous masters. John Maynard Keynes, take a bow! […]
The lesson of this crisis is that unregulated markets certainly lead to economic disaster; but, even more importantly, they are incompatible with democracy. If markets are always right and must not be challenged, the result is not only economic meltdown but government by a handful of greedy oligarchs rather than by elected representatives. If democratic governments do not, will not or cannot exercise that power to protect their electorates, the course is then set inevitably not only for the crisis we now face but also for the abuses and failures that disfigured our economies in the years preceding the crisis.
We are at a turning point once again, when the invisible hand of the market runs up against its inherent limitations, as demonstrated by history. For the past 30 years we have been running an experiment in which the promoters of unfettered capitalism have had their way more often than not. Like the the era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which led to the Great Depression, ideological faith in the power of the markets to generate the greatest good for the greatest number has been proven wrong.
What unfettered capitalism releases is unfettered greed, rampant speculation and one economic bubble after another until that last, largest bubble breaks and the entire edifice of lassiz-faire economic theory and policies premised on the belief that the least government intervention is best for all concerned is exposed as nothing more than a dangerous fantasy.
Economics is not a hard science governed by known, irrefutable mathematical laws, no matter how much Milton Friedman and his acolytes like Alan Greenspan wish it were so. And the end result of our experiment in Friedmanomics and de-regulation of the markets can now be seen by anyone willing to look at the cold hard facts. It – simply – doesn’t – work. Not only that, it creates conditions which lead to economic political, societal, and, at its core, moral calamities. Once again we have a great disparity in wealth between the richest people and the largest corporations and everyone else. We have bank failures, yes, and the looming threat of millions of businesses going bankrupt worldwide, but even more importantly we have created untold misery for the vast majority of the people of the world.
In developing countries these economic theories and the policies implemented by conservative politicians, particularly in the United States, have led to economic predation by multinational corporations, rule by tyrants and gangsters, wars, famines and death. In America these policies have led to the worst health care system for any developed country in the world, one which heartlessly allows millions of its people to go without adequate healthcare. They have also led to an increase in poverty and homelessness, higher infant mortality rates and lowered life expectancies.
Yet, perhaps the greatest failure of the “revolution” begun with Reaganomics has been the increase in amorality in our society, an emphasis on materialism and consumerism, and its concomitant reduction of compassion and respect for others which has been engendered in our populace. Disaster capitalism is the phrase coined by Naomi Klein for what the policies of our government’s enabling of greed and avarice have accomplished, but I tell you today that capitalism which is unchecked by governmental regulation and intervention, invariably results in a disaster. Corporations, by the very nature of the laws which create them, are established and operated for one purpose: profit at all costs. When there are laws which restrict the manner in which corporations and wealthy individuals may lawfully pursue that goal without costs being imposed, democratic societies can thrive because not all the wealth and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few.
And when democracies thrive, people thrive. Because governments are not bound to rule for the benefit of the most powerful or those who have the most economic clout. Democracies should have other goals merely than the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. They should be focused on the general welfare of all of their citizens. Sadly for us, we have been governed by politicians over the last three decades who ruled for the benefit of those at the top of the economic pyramid, and falsely assured us that such counter-intuitive ideas as promoting the greed of the wealthiest and most powerful among us would lead to rewards for all.
They lied and we should have known they were lying. Indeed, anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that the ridiculous “trickle down” economy we created was a lie. If history has shown us anything, it is that concentrations of wealth and power do not lead to less poverty, but more. They do not bolster the middle class, they tear it down. They do not lead to greater happiness, but greater misery for all but those who pull the strings of government. They do not lead to more liberty, more equality and more freedom, but less of each of these for most people. They lead inevitably to societies where the wealthy are free to do as they please, and the rest are slaves in all but name.
A great change is coming. It was long overdue. Sadly many will suffer because the wisdom of the past was ignored. Greed, my friends, is not good. And it is especially bad indeed when it is not countered by the moral values of community and compassion and fairness. You know, the real values of our Judeo-Christian heritage that conservatives love to pontificate about but so rarely put into practice. For the good is served not when the individual can get away with anything, not when individualism is considered the only value worth promoting, but when we respect and value everyone and work together for the benefit of all people.
And that is why I am a liberal. Hopefully, the day is at hand when more people will welcome a return to the values that I and so many of us here espouse. We’ve had enough of “conservative values” to last a generation.
