Where did it all go wrong?

There was a time, no, seriously, there was, when the future looked bright. The economy seemed to be more settled, interest rates would remain low, more people getting better jobs would fund the NHS and public services through acceptable tax rates. The world was calm, with a few hot spots, but the Cold War was over. Education was improving with 50% of young people going on to third level education, they would get those better jobs. The Blair Labour Party was a success domestically, building schools and hospitals, not just promising to.

But it has all turned to hell in a handcart.

The economy is bust, the NHS is failing badly pushing more people to take private health insurance, many of the choices for education are creating blockages, not openings. Russia and America are again at loggerheads over the superpower title, and China is now playing in Africa.

The Cold War was won. It did not just peter out. Capitalism won over communism. Hurrah! Or is it a moment for cheering? There were two philosophies involved, one which claimed to put people before capital, the other put capital before people, and it won.

The history of capitalism is way more complex than I will go into here, but here is an example.

A strike began in Chicago on May 1, 1937, when SWOC called for a strike against Republic Steel. The union was demanding higher wages, shorter hours, and union recognition. Republic Steel refused to negotiate with SWOC, and the strike quickly turned violent. On May 30, a group of strikers gathered at the Republic Steel plant to protest the company’s refusal to negotiate. The National Guard was called in to break up the protest, and they opened fire on the strikers, killing 10 and wounding dozens more.

The government took the side of capital over people. The National Guard was acting in the interests of the owners of Republic Steel, and against those of the workforce. The owners were ultra wealthy, the demands by the workers were well within their gift, yet to protect the wealth of the shareholders, men were killed.

The capitalism that won was not the simple business that keeps Northern Ireland running, where most businesses are small, and family owned. They make things, buy and resell products, provide services, but are not beholding to shareholders on a stock market who make demands based solely on the return on their investment.

Shareholders don’t know the people who work in the companies that attract their investments, they simply look at performance. They are about the capital, not the people. In Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis writes about his time in Salomon Brothers, being given money to learn with, and accidentally destroying a couple of small companies, but, hey, that was all right as his bank made money no matter what.

And that is what has gone wrong. The uncontrolled power of capitalism. In the UK it is now the power of the London Stock Market that dictates no matter which party is in government. The economy is driven by the choices of those in investment banks to buy or sell shares. If they buy all is well, apparently, if they sell, it is disastrous.

But is it, in reality?

Capitalist philosophy dictates that we need constant growth. You will hear the news readers using their catastrophe voices if the economy is not growing. Yet for ordinary people it makes little difference. Growth is predicated on you and I buying more. Ultimately, capitalism depends on consumers. Think about all the natural resources on Earth that we use. Us. Consumers. Mining in Africa for rare minerals. What for? Mobile phones. Mining all over the world for iron ore, to produce steel. What for? Cars, because we need a new car every three years, even if the one we have is still working. Strawberries are grown in Israel and flown, flown, no less, to the UK. Why? Because we want strawberries in December, and Tesco and Sainsburys want us to buy them so they can grow.

Growth is the capitalist mantra. Amazon wants us to buy more and more, and they are brilliant at enabling us to get whatever we want delivered. Tomorrow. But in Northern Ireland Amazon takes over £1 billion of turnover out of our economy. We buy things from elsewhere online, and what is growing the most? Jeff Bezos fortune, which is bigger than the NI economy.

The constant demand for growth creates more capitalism. The obesity crisis results from growth. Coca Cola wants more money, so we are encouraged to drink more sugary drinks. The obesity crisis puts more demands on the NHS, so people need private health insurance, which helps the insurance companies grow and their investors get more for their shares.

Finance companies love growth, so they create ways to encourage us to buy more. Look at the number of teenagers who don’t need to borrow their parent’s cars, they have their own. How? Low-cost finance can buy you a new car for £100 a month. More cars, more petrol, more traffic, more roads, more more more. Growth.

Apple is the most successful company in the world, but that success is not based on actual money earned, it is the share price. The share price rises and falls not on the actual profit, but on if the business has hit the profits as projected by the analysts on Wall Street. And their analysis revolves around growth. So Apple has to continuously develop new iPhones and market them to people that don’t need new phones. The improvements in first few iterations were substantial. Now the updated phones have minor improvements, some that are impossible to see, such as a ‘better’ camera, that makes no difference to the phone snapper.

in the US elections are won and lost not by the number of votes, but by the amount of money that is devoted to getting those votes for the parties. $millions are spent on elections in every state. Why? Because the power of marketing is central to the vote. The creation of almost unregulated super-pacs has let multi-national corporations spend their $ to get the candidates they want in to win. These elected people then lobby for their financial supporters. It was not democracy that won the Cold War, it was capitalism, and it is taking the spoils of victory by controlling government of the USA.

It used to be called the rat race. But let’s call it the growth race, with all of us contributing to the riches of the shareholders in multinational conglomerates, whose aim is money in itself, the accrual of wealth in such amounts that for some it is impossible to spend.

So perhaps we need to have a think about ourselves, what we buy, and where we buy it. Do we need to update our cars, eat winter strawberries, buy 2 litres of Coke, shop for everything on Amazon?

There are multiple documentaries about how the capitalist world we live in is designed to satisfy the people that are already wealthy enough to pay for tax avoidance advice, how the City of London facilitates non-dom tax facilities in British controlled island groups, how American companies have scammed their way to huge illegal profits, how the banks destroyed the world economy in 2008 with greed driven schemes, and many more.