Posts Tagged ‘Capitlism’
The End of Capitalism?
“Together, the Treasury team have the collective authority of Edinburgh University Debating Society…”
Oh God, how they love it! The old 1970s socialists are having a fine old time. There’s my old mucker Larry Elliott of the Guardian heralding the end of the “Thatcher-Reagan-(Blair) era.” The perennially muddled Will Hutton of the Work Foundation (“We are dedicated to Good Work” – er, thanks) has been doing much the same on Newsnight, alongside some pinko Harvard professor.
What these people having in common is that they have been wrong about almost everything for the past 40 years or so. And guess what? They are still way out.
The current left-of-centre thesis is that the financial meltdown is a crisis of capitalism and proves that deregulation doesn’t work.
In fact, despite the freeing up of markets over the past couple of decades, we are in many ways far more regulated than ever – don’t confuse the opening of markets with deregulation, they are different things. Try opening a simple bank account and you’ll see what I mean. You’ve got to prove you have never worked with the Colombian cartels and your third maternal aunt is buried in the parish of St. Botolphs just to deposit your own cash.
True, financial markets have been massively freed up. But regulation was in place. It is overseen by the FSA, itself the result of a series of financial reforms undertaken by one Gordon Brown since 1997.The US also has tough regulations at state and federal level.
The problem has been the regulators failure properly to regulate, as was glaringly shown by Northern Rock where alarms were flashing long before the crash. The FSA is responsible to the Treasury, so ultimate blame lies with Gordon Brown and his ministers.
Could this have something to do with the Treasury team’s almost total lack of experience outside of politics? Yvette Cooper, Chief Sec. and number two, went from political research jobs straight into parliament. Kitty Ussher – political researcher then MP. Angela Eagle – political researcher, then MP. Jane Kennedy at least worked as a social worker before her election – a proper job, of sorts. That’s more than you can say for her boss, Alistair Darling who was a mid-level Scots lawyer (and supporter of the Trotskyist Fourth International) before his election.
Together, they have the collective authority of Edinburgh University Debating Society (no offence). Not forgetting, of course, the First Lord of the Treasury himself – a professional student, then political lecturer before his election in 1983.
No, it’s not the end of capitalism. In fact it was those capitalist running dogs, short sellers themselves, who first blew the whistle on Northern Rock while the FSA and the Treasury had their fingers up their butts.
It’s rather the failure of the politicians to oversee their own regulatory system. And their failure to set the Bank of England monetary targets which would have prevented the credit bubble.
Sorry Will, Larry and all – free-market capitalism will emerge triumphant once more. You see, it’s a rubbish system, full of flaws and injustice, but there just ain’t anything much better. Maybe the Work Foundation can come up with something?
Phillip Oppenheim
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