By John Pickard, Brentwood and Ongar CLP, personal capacity
Hardly a day goes by without some new survey or data about the obscene concentration of wealth in capitalist society. The latest comes from a report on global wealth from the bank, Credit Suisse, according to which the world’s richest 1% owns half the total wealth, or a staggering $140tn. Their share has gone up since the financial crash of 2008 from 42.5% to 50.1% in 2017. (Guardian 15 November)
There are now 36 million dollar-millionaires, accounting for a tiny 0.7% of the world’s population. At the other end of the scale, 70% of the world’s working-age population account for only 2.7% of the wealth.
In the UK, according to Oxfam, the richest 1% of the population have seen their share of the national wealth increase to nearly a quarter of the total.
Meanwhile, in Britain, according to the Resolution Foundation, wages “have seen the biggest squeeze since the end of the Napoleonic Wars” and are already extending into a second decade. By 2022 wages are on course to be £24.50 a week lower, allowing for inflation, than they were in 2007. (Guardian 14 November)
There is no hiding the data, which seems to be coming out over and over again in the press. In short, capitalism means that while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Over a hundred and seventy years ago, in their description of capitalism, Marx and Engels referred to the concentration of wealth in the Communist Manifesto. Capitalism, they explained, inevitably means “the concentration of wealth in the hands of an ever-diminishing number of property owners”. That has been demonstrated to be true today, undeniably and for anyone to see.
What we have to understand is that the blame does not lie just with the Tories, although they are the party par-excellence of the rich, the super-rich and ‘Tax-dodgers Incorporated’. But the problem lies fundamentally with the system they represent. Capitalism and the private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange inevitably results in an ever-increasing concentration of wealth and income.
A tiny handful of the population – in reality, a vanishingly small proportion – own and control the means by which the wheels of the economy turn, that is if the wheels turn at all. These oligarchs, living on stolen or inherited wealth for the most part, buying and manipulating politicians, dodging taxes left, right and centre, twisting government aid and public contracts to further guarantee their income, have long ago forfeited their right to run society.
Capitalism and the mis-named ‘free-market’ is a system well past its sell-by date.
Labour must highlight all the information about wealth concentration over and over again in its election and campaigning material. But the Party needs to emphasise that its policies are not a threat to those middle-class and professional workers whose living standards may be above the average. That is the mantra that the Tory gutter press will trot out day-in and day-out.
The very rich and super-rich – those who are responsible for industrial-scale tax-dodging and skewing the entire political and economic system in their favour are not the doctors and lawyers you meet in the High Street, but a tiny proportion of the population, less than 1%, who have never and will never support Labour.
The Labour Party must not just fight to get rid of the May Government. It must resolve itself to bring into being a system that really works for the many and not the few. If that means confiscation of the wealth of less than 1% of the population, so the economy can be run and managed for the benefit of the more than 99%, then so be it.
When Labour comes into office – and the sooner the better – it will become clear that there is no possibility of ‘managing capitalism’ better than the capitalists themselves. Labour must make a firm commitment to bold socialist policies, to the public ownership of the main levers of the economy, so they can be planned and organised in a rational and democratic way. It is only by that means that Labour can guarantee the provision of housing, health, education and investment policies that are based on the needs of the many not the profit of the tiny few.
November 16 2017
