Economics – Page 2 – humanconditioned

Would You Like A Side of Locusts With That Deportation?

July 31, 2016August 1, 2016RobertLeave a comment

Britain doesn’t strike me as a very happy place at the moment. For example, you might not have read that burger chain Byron regularly employs staff who do not have the correct documentation with regards their migrant status and then recently ran a fake training event at which the same staff were met by immigration officers and deported. It seems Byron is more than happy to have its burger and eat it when it comes to exploiting a cheap and vulnerable workforce and then getting rid of them should the government decide to ‘crack down’. However, what you may have read is that following the deportations a group of activists protested outside Bryon in London and threw cockroaches, locusts and crickets into the restaurant. They apologised for any “irritation” caused but said “we had to act as forced deportations such as this and others are unacceptable, we must defend these people and their families from such dehumanised treatment.”

It’s a funny world when deportations only get news coverage once swarms of locusts are involved but then it’s also a world where we prioritise cheap burgers over human rights. Of course, it’s not actually funny, it’s tragic. The political-economic system we live under, namely consumer capitalism, encourages us to be self-interested and self-absorbed and to spend more time consuming stuff rather than building meaningful relationships. Now, I’m not judging anyone for doing this, I do it all the time and, until recently, was a fan of Byron’s burgers. But what also annoys me is when people try to justify this lifestyle. For example, I’m often told that the system is like this because human nature is inherently selfish. Oh! So suddenly everyone is an expert in psychology and knows the fundamental motivations of the human being? Actually no, human nature is not merely one thing but a diversity of drives, motivations, conditions, genes, hormones etc, many of which we know nothing or little about. I’d say if anything were inherently selfish it’s capitalism – I mean, Diet Coke or Coke Zero is presented as a dilemma whilst trampling on someone’s human rights isn’t.

https://i0.wp.com/www.thelondoner.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/byronroquefortburger-3-sPCgW2zSC6zTQkHm7kAkh5.jpg — It doesn’t even look that good.

So, yeah, of course it’s annoying to have a whole bunch of crickets hopping over your chips but what’s worse is how we treat each other so the food can get on the table in the first place (and even if Bryon are being honest, which I doubt, when they say the relevant members of staff used forged documentation, they are still very much part of the exploitative system). Our everyday world of consumerism is completely untenable – it is built on historic and present legacies of exploitation and abuse, and it’s undermining the future. It is unjustifiable however we try to rationalise it. But I’m not writing this to try to make you feel guilty. I regularly consume but one thing I don’t do is pretend I can justify it. Of course, in an ideal world, I’d be a vegan human rights activist and I hope one day I get there but in the meantime I would urge us to reprioritise. I dare you to forego that burger and go join that protest instead. I dare you to step outside of your usual social groups and make some new friends. I dare you to get beyond the repressive and limited conditioning of our society and explore more of your human nature. And you can do that tonight at 6.30pm outside the Byron at Holborn. Facebook event details here!

Does Theresa May Have A Cunning Plan?

July 17, 2016RobertLeave a comment

While some might be reeling at Theresa May’s choice of cabinet maybe, just maybe, our new Prime Minister actually has a very cunning plan up her sleeve. And I reckon the long and short of it will be the UK remaining in the EU. May was/is a Remainer after all and maybe all that “Brexit is Brexit” is just a cunning smokescreen to distract us from the real politics at work.

So, what am I talking about? Well, she hasn’t let the Brexiteers get away with it. She’s put Andrea Leadsom in charge of some tokenistic environmental department and within days she’s managed to offend all male nannies by calling them would-be paedophiles. Leadsom hasn’t even met the farmers yet and they aren’t supposed to do very well out of Brexit. Meanwhile, Borish Johnson as Foreign Secretary is already the laughing-stock of the world as German news reporters suppress laughter and the French wish us ‘bon chance’. The other Brexiteers in the cabinet (inc. David Davis and Liam Fox) all have differing views on what Brexit should look like – some want open borders and remaining in the free market (aka, being in the EU), some want to remain in the free market without open borders (aka, having your cake and eating it) and some want a land of milk, honey and Queen Victoria’s resurrection. This cabinet is a recipe for disaster (and satire). Oh, and Michael Gove didn’t get a look in because he’s a traitor.

But where’s the cunning plan, I hear you ask in increasingly despairing voices. Well, I think it’s this: May, being a Remainer at heart, doesn’t want Brexit to happen. She’s effectively put a whole load of muppets in power to prove to her party (because they’re the ones that need convincing) that Brexit was always a bad idea – it would provide years of uncertainty for the British economy followed by years of negotiations we do not have the bureaucratic expertise nor personpower for (more on this here). Once Johnson, Fox et al have proven to us all that the only thing they’re capable of is making a fuss about something rather than actually sorting things out even the most staunch of Brexiteers will relent. May needs to buy time and allow Lord Sprigley-Bottom and Viscount Twitface to quietly change their minds. A few years later they’ll profess to the EU being a brilliant idea (heaven forfend a Tory actually apologise or lose face) and it will be like the whole thing never happened. Fingers crossed.

Is It Time The Labour Party Got A Divorce?

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016RobertLeave a comment

It seems one thing British political parties need to do right now is act and act quick. The Tories are already rallying around Margaret Thatcher Mark 2 who is prepping to eject the UK from the EU and send us into outer space. Meanwhile, John McDonnell of the Labour Party is calling many in his party “fucking useless” whilst Angela Eagle isn’t offering much in the way of new policies and Jeremy Corbyn keeps missing opportunities to stick it to the Tories. It’s also becoming violent as Eagle recently had a brick thrown through her window. This is highly distressing and the question I’m asking is if Labour, under Corbyn or Eagle, can keep it together?

At the moment it seems like it can’t. I don’t buy all of the hype around the conspiratorial nature of the ‘coup’ and think Corbyn is somewhat deluded to think everyone is out to get him but you don’t have to be a Blairite to be disappointed with some of his actions – I mean, the man took a holiday during the referendum, the single biggest thing to happen in politics since Cameron was accused of putting his willy in a pig’s head. And watching the short VICE documentary on Corbyn’s team ‘doing’ politics is like watching a slow episode of The Thick of It – I thought that programme was supposed to be fictional. But at the same time Corbyn’s is the loudest anti-austerity voice in mainstream politics and it’s clear he’s riled the establishment somewhat given that the media is going all out to render him ‘unelectable’. And the Party putting the membership fee up from £3 to £25 is a nasty joke that reaffirms how out of touch they are with their support base. But it seems many in the Party are falling out irrevocably and don’t want to try and form a unified front, especially if Corbyn is re-elected.

So, maybe that split needs to happen pronto. For those who oppose Corbyn but still advocate neoliberal, capitalist economics maybe they could join the Lib Dems or make a new party with some vague euphemism for a title and continue presenting themselves as the lighter shade of blue option, which Blair began many years ago. I’m not trying to be glib in my analysis of their economics and, boy, do we need a functioning alternative to the Tories, but whilst I think the ‘centre’ ground of politics has just torn itself apart there are plenty of people who still wish to inhabit it (not that neoliberal capitalism can ever really be the ‘centre’ because money will always promote inequality unless suitably contained). Let them have their ‘soft left’ cakes and eat ’em whilst they carry on failing to beat the Tories at their own game. Anyway, Tariq Ali said all this before me in his book The Extreme Centre: A Warning. Meanwhile, the Corbynistas can either keep the Labour Party title or just call themselves Momentum or something. Although I do hope they stop being so violent and hostile toward alternative views because they’ll need to make a lot of new political allies. In fact, the reports of bullying in the Labour Party, stalking, and Corbyn’s refusal to support a secret ballot (so as to protect the identities of those who voted against him) suggest there are still many emotionally immature and unstable people in the Party.

One hundred and thirty-two years ago the Fabian Society was established as a precursor to the Labour Party. At its heart was representing the ‘working man’ and challenging the establishment but this was when there were flourishing working class communities centred around key industries like mining. Those industries no longer exist and work isn’t what it used to be (especially with the rise of automisation), so whilst the ideals of Corbyn’s Labour are still vital (we do need a welfare state and an end to austerity), yesterday’s solutions cannot answer all of today’s problems. We need a lot of big new ideas. But there aren’t any, I hear you cry. Wrong. I know someone’s whose got ’em and her name is Caroline Lucas – y’know, the woman who is always spot on in the things she says but gets basically 0 seconds of media time. Gotta love ’em Greens.

The Dildo Dilemma

July 12, 2016Robert1 Comment

My friend has a problem: her favourite vibrator broke. She absolutely loves that hunk of reverberating rubber and it has brought her great comfort for many years. Like a top teddy or a preferred mug, she’s very fond of her dildo – it’s more than just an object, more than just a piece of consumerism, it is something with which she is intimately acquainted. Naturally, my friend looked to get it repaired but soon discovered the cost of repair was more than buying a replacement. Thus, the dildo dilemma.

But is that really a dilemma, you might well ask. Why not just buy the new one and save some cash? Indeed, this does seem like the obvious option as Ann Summers has reduced the Rampant Rabbit in their summer sale and now it’s only £25.90. Meanwhile, after all the faff of finding someone who doesn’t discriminate on ‘small item’ repairs it turns out their starting cost is £30 per item. Quids in, right? Unfortunately, it’s not so simple because my friend is also an avid environmentalist. She likes nature, y’know, trees, rivers and the like. She also hates pollution and waste but our consumer culture tends to produce a lot of that. Things aren’t built to last anymore instead they’re designed with ‘built-in-obsolescence’ which basically means their shelf life is shorter. And the weird thing is that this actually makes business sense because you’re more likely to fork out more cash to buy more stuff so the economy can keep churning.

This premise, that the economy must keep growing, is right at the heart of our economic theory. It’s got a long history but the combindation of 19th century industrialisation, mass production and a couple of world wars ensured the US became an economic powerhouse. However, when the wars stopped and there was less money to be made from producing tanks and bombs the US switched to mass producing consumer goods like cars and ironing boards. Yet the premise of the economy was the same: produce, consume, produce, consume, ad infinitum. It’s a system riddled with paradoxes and my friend doesn’t want to add to the mess by throwing yet another dildo on the rubbish pile. Our seas are already full of plastic rubbish, our air teeming with pollution and our earth riddled with land-fill sites.

But we can’t put all the blame on my vibrator-loving friend. The environment is all of our responsibilities but whilst we shouldn’t waste stuff it would be great if our governments and corporations could actually initiate some planet-friendly economic policies that aren’t dependent on unsustainable levels of consumption. If my friend does end up buying a new dildo it won’t spell the end of the planet but what a better world we would live on if we perfected making things that lasted rather than churning out yet more unreliable iPods and bombs. And for those of you yet to get your hands on one of those Rampant Rabbits here’s a link to the Ann Summers sale.

Class Warriors

July 7, 2016July 7, 2016Robert2 Comments

They say England has only had one Civil War, from 1642 – 1651, when a bunch of Parliamentarians went to war with a bunch of Royalists over the nature of the English government. One King was executed, another was exiled and the monarchy was replaced with the Commonwealth of England and then a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell. After that failed the exiled monarch came back to carry on being King. However, I would suggest that England has always been at war and that this war is still being fought throughout Britain. It is a class war, a war of the rich and poor, and with the recent referendum result its truth has never been more stark.

It is not necessarily a war of guns and trenches but it is a war of status, money and shame. It is played out in political and economic policy, what with a welfare state being created to support all in Britain, especially those on lower-incomes, now being rolled back as the current government imposes austerity. Austerity that eviscerates local communities and takes money away from local libraries, social support and healthcare. As the social fabric frays it’s no wonder people turn their ire on one another as the media stirs conflict with inciting stereotypes and scapegoats. This civil war also drenches our culture as ‘chavs’ and ‘poor people’ are routinely demonised and mocked on television (see also, Owen Jones’ book Chavs: The Demonisations of the Working Class for more of this). Of course, the rich get mocked as well but they’ve got all the cash and can afford private healthcare. This war heated up in the 1980s when the Conservative establishment under Margaret Thatcher went head to head with the Unions and miners under Arthur Scargill. The left put in a good fight but the establishment won in the end and have been turning the screws ever since.

And now, after the referendum, our class war has worsened. Many are falling back on old stereotypes of ‘ignorant, racist working class’ people who voted for Brexit whilst others are blaming ‘self-serving, posh, toffs’ for doing the same. Meanwhile, ‘foreign scum’ are being vilified and abused. It seems the better angels of our nature have fled as we’re left with plenty of worser demons but anger will not rebuild broken Britain. Yet after a revolution a power vacuum is left. This is often filled by more of the same/ worse (Cromwell, Robspierre, Stalin, Franco) but there is still a chance to build something new, to stitch the social fabric back together. For Britain, this will take a heroic effort on behalf of all classes. We must transcend petty differences and intolerances, we must work together and share our resources (including our wealth…especially our wealth) and call on the government to follow our lead because, right now, we lack good leadership. We can end this class war now and transcend the violence and suffering that it perpetuates. We can rebuild Britain and keep it great, for all the right reasons. So let’s seize this moment of uncertainty and fill that power vacuum with love (it sounds cheesy but, my god, none of us will want to be here if hate wins the day).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c

The Referendum Wasn’t Real

June 24, 2016RobertLeave a comment

This is my 100th post and I’d planned the title to be “what’s the point of this blog?” and given the UK’s decision to leave the EU I think my comments on that might answer the question anyway. But, first things first, the Referendum wasn’t real, what’s that all about? OK. It was real, devastatingly so. It is already having vast emotional, social and economic ramifications. As Britain ‘goes it alone’ the pound has plummeted in value, the economy is wobbling and a shift to the right in mainstream politics is underway with the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove vying for power. Extremist right-wing parties like Ukip and their European counterparts are claiming this as a victory for xenophobia and hate. We’ve even recently witnessed one act of right-wing terrorism claim a life, that of Jo Cox. Uncertainty is rising as hope takes a blow to the chest. Yet, for all this, how can I claim the Referendum wasn’t real?

Because from the outset it was a farce. Firstly, democracy was boiled down to a single multiple choice question with only two answers, In or Out, that few people had actually wanted to be put to the public. This doesn’t respect the multi-faceted and multi-partied nature of our democracy it just promotes further divide and hostility as friends and families suddenly found themselves forced to pick a side. And asides for a select few bureaucrats in Brussels and maybe one or two British politicians no one, absolutely no one (myself very much included) could vote with a sufficient degree of knowledge – there are documents of tens of thousands of pages outlying all the treaties and clauses amassed over the decades Britain has been part of the EU and I certainly haven’t read them all. It’s funny that people were suddenly and arbitrarily forced to get knowledgeable and passionate about something they had not seemed to care that much about before.

Meanwhile, people who’ve lived in this country and contributed to its economy for longer than I’ve been alive weren’t allowed to vote. Teenagers weren’t allowed to vote even though they have more future to lose than the rest of us voters. Both campaigns used tactics of fear, hate and misinformation (aka lies) to cajole and manipulate. We’ve already seen Nigel Farage swiftly distance himself from the Leave pledge of £350 million to the NHS (but did we really think neoliberal parties would do an about turn on their views of the welfare state?). There were campaign posters that bore too much resemblance to ones used by Nazis and the media played on xenophobia, fear and outdated nationalistic sentiments to make people think that voting in the referendum was the equivalent to taking some sort of significant stand (it wasn’t, it just makes it easier for the rich to get richer whilst deepening austerity and rolling back the welfare state). Somehow the woes of neoliberal, consumer capitalism (see the rest of this blog for criticisms on that) were landed on the heads of some of the most powerless, namely refugees and immigrants, and a bunch of pro-establishment, old-Eatonians managed to dupe large chunks of the country into thinking voting Leave would lead us into a wonderful British revolution rather than entrenching inequality and recession. That being said, lots of utopic left wingers were somehow led to believe Brexit would yield a land of milk, honey and socialism (my fingers are still crossed). And let’s not forget why this referendum even happened in the first place: because David Cameron wanted to be Prime Minister and he needed the support of his more right-wing back benchers to get it, so he promised them a referendum to appease them rather than having the courage to say ‘no’ (he put it on our heads instead). That’s not democracy, that’s cynical party politics at the public’s expense.

So, yes, the referendum is real and it has happened and this is a rallying call for anyone of whatever political persuasion and however they voted in the referendum to choose peace and oppose the rise of extremism and the violence that goes with it. But, no, the origins of this referendum were neither hopeful nor fair nor democratic. So whatever people say, this was not a victory for the British and the public have not spoken because there was only 1% in it. Like austerity, the referendum is a story wrapped around an agenda. Many desperately believe in it, many just cynically use it to get more power, many misguidedly want it to become true in ways it never will but it is not ‘the truth and nothing but the truth’ it is just one story among many. Unfortunately, it is a very powerful story and its repercussions will prove fatal for many. But Britain has survived two world wars and I think we can survive this too. Now here’s Lady Gaga because why not 😉

Befriending Brexiters

June 20, 2016RobertLeave a comment

I walked out of Dalston Kingsland overground station on Saturday into a brief spell of sun. Blinking back the glare the first thing I saw was a friendly looking young white man with floppy brown hair offering me a big smile and a red pamphlet reading LEAVE. Yup, a Brexiter, one of those terribly charming and polite people who wants Britain to leave the EU and ‘go it alone’. Here was my moment, I thought, my chance to engage with the ‘enemy’ and convert him to the Remain cause.

We offered one another friendly hellos and I asked him how he was doing. It transpired he was doing well. I thought I’d meet his friendliness with the like and I said that I’d love to hear more about his argument. He told me that his main reason for supporting Leave was financial, he believed we would have a stronger trading position if we left. I nodded and then mentioned Ngaire Woods, the Founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at the University of Oxford, and what she had said about Britain’s trading position being weaker outside of the EU (see video). He said he hadn’t heard of her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFp3-qE_T8

We carried on in this amicable style for a while as he said one thing, I said something else, then he offered more, and so on and so on until I realised I didn’t stand much of a chance. Not only did I not have enough facts at hand it seemed that for every one I did he had a counter argument. I figured that the likelihood of me convincing him to change his view was low given my limited information and the fact that he was on the street on a Saturday afternoon handing out Leave leaflets – he must be quite committed to the cause.

Instead I told him that I feared leaving the EU would legitimise and worsen the rising levels of violence in the country, violence that stems from extreme, right-wing views about who does and does not deserve freedom from violence. I mentioned the tragic death of Jo Cox at the hands of a man who shouted ‘Britain First’ as he attacked her. I mentioned the rise of the neo-Nazis throughout Europe and how some pro-Brexit people I had spoken to expressed overtly racist views. He looked a little concerned and assured me he wasn’t racist. I believed him. Then his colleague came over carrying yet more LEAVE leaflets and he introduced me to her. We offered one another polite hellos. I told them I had to go, I had a conference to get to, but I said that whilst I would still vote to Remain, whatever the result, it was all of our responsibility to stand up to racism, discrimination and violence. We would have to put aside our political differences (he told me had previously voted for the Lib Dems and later the Tories) and work hard to ensure equality and peace were prioritisied in our country. They both nodded emphatically and as I walked away I heard him say to his colleague that I was “one of the better ones”.

So what had I achieved? Not a lot as I’m sure most of you would observe and you’re right, I hadn’t made them change their minds but maybe I had made them think twice. The task ahead for all of us – peace in our time and peace on earth – is something that transcends political persuasion and that we can all be a part of. And maybe in that brief conversation whilst I hadn’t got them to about turn I might have surprised them, if I was one of the ‘better ones’ I wonder what some of the other Remainers were life. The Referendum, like so much of party politics, is designed to fracture and split but we have to challenge this, we’re humans before we’re Tory, Green or Labour. And if dark times are ahead, which they certainly are, then we’re going to need to make a lot of new friends.

Why Are The Nazis Still Here?

May 6, 2016RobertLeave a comment

On 1st May in Borlänge, central Sweden, Tess Asplund walked out into the middle of the road with her fist raised. There were 300 men walking towards her. They were the Nordic Resistance Movement – a group of racist, anti-semitic neo-nazis. “It was an impulse,” Asplund said, “I was so angry, I just went out into the street. I was thinking: hell no, they can’t march here! I had this adrenaline. No Nazi is going to march here, it’s not okay.” The photograph of Asplund has gone viral and she has received a lot of praise for it as well as a lot of hate (full Guardian article here). I find what Asplund did hugely inspirational but it saddens me that she needed to. I just can’t understand why, in the year 2016, the Nazis still exist.

The last time we saw the Nazis rise to power was in 1930s Germany. The Wall Street Crash happened in 1929 and the Great Depression ensued. The Weimar Republic (in Germany) slipped from prosperity into poverty as inflation rose drastically and living conditions plummeted. So fertile ground was created for hostility, anger and rage. Hitler and his party used the worsening economic climate to fuel hatred. They scapegoated Jews and other groups, and blamed them for Germany’s woes. We know the rest of the story. It is violent and tragic. And the legacy lives on. There are still far too many Nazis (and other far-right groups) who feel they can gain identity and meaning through hatred and violence. Following the financial crash of 2008, the ensuing recession, imposed austerity, we see living conditions worsen and the social fabric start to fray. Again, the Nazis are using this as an excuse to scapegoat others whilst purposefully ignoring the wider economic problem.

Capitalism is predicated on growth and speculation. As a market grows (say the housing market) so it gets speculated upon and a bubble grows. During this ‘boom’ time governments can spend more on public services and people have more cash in their pockets. However, markets can’t grow forever and eventually bubbles burst. During the ensuing ‘bust’ period cuts are made, austerity imposed and people’s ready cash starts to vanish. The system is unsustainable and no resilient society can be expected to thrive in the long-term on such shakey foundations. However, politicians and various political groups cynically use these worsening conditions not to critique the larger economic system but to garner more political power. They play on people’s prejudices and pretend that a certain group is the problem. This group, they argue, needs to face hostility and violence and then our problems will go away.

But it’s not true and we all know it, even the neo-nazis. We all crave meaning and purpose and it’s a very mad world in which people find that meaning and purpose in violence. Yet these narratives of hate can be challenged. Not only do these narratives lack economic and political validity they also, clearly, lack compassion. Yet the action of Tess Asplund, whilst full of anger as she says, was also full of compassion and hope – hope for a better world that does not tolerate violence. Hope for a world where democracy does not mean pandering to groups who wish for murder and genocide but empowering groups who call for justice and love. Asplund had no idea the video of her protest would go viral. She acted purely in the spur of the moment and has been hugely surprised at what has happened since. She doesn’t claim to be a hero and wasn’t trying to be, she was just standing up for what she thinks is right. We can all do this. However big or small our actions count. Resisting hate is totally worth it.

https://i0.wp.com/media.lenearonsson.se/2015/02/tant-med-v%C3%A4ska.jpg — “The lady with the bag” taken by the photographer Hans Runesson in Sweden in 1985. She’s hitting a member of the neo-nazi Nordic Reich party.

I will leave you with an extended quote from the German economist Silvio Gessell. He wrote the below in 1918 after WW1 yet its relevance still applies. “In spite of the holy promise of people to banish war once and for all, in spite of the cry of millions “never again war” in spite of all the hopes for a better future I have this to say: If the present monetary system based on interest and compound interest remains in operation, I dare to predict today that it will take less than twenty-five years until we have a new and even worse war. I can foresee the coming development clearly. The present degree of technological advancement will quickly result in a record performance of industry. The build up of capital will be fast in spite of the enormous losses during the war, and through the oversupply [of money] the interest rate will be lowered [until the money speculators refuse to lower their rates any further]. Money will then be hoarded [causing predictable deflation], economic activities will diminish, and increasing numbers of unemployed persons will roam the streets…within these discontented masses, wild, revolutionary ideas will arise and with it also the poisonous plant called “Super Nationalism” will proliferate. No country will understand the other, and the end can only be war again.”

It’s All About The Money

May 1, 2016Robert1 Comment

Debt and money, two mainstays of human economies for many hundreds of years. Even without money people can still get in debt: with debt creating a two (or more) way relationship between a debtor and creditor, between the person owing something and the person who leant it. Without cash people might end up paying off their debt by giving hours of their labour, their property or their body. Money just facilitates this process, whether it’s cash in hand or digits on a screen. Because money and debt have been instrumental in human societies for so long it’s hardly surprising that their impacts have stretched far beyond the economic realm. They are also interwoven in our language and relationships.

Take the word ‘should’ for instance. “I really should go to the gym today,” “You really should be nicer to people,” etc. It’s used to indicate obligation, duty or correctness, often in moral situations which concern how we treat other people but also in more mundane situations like getting fit and eating less junk food. Etymologically speaking it relates to the Old English scyld which means ‘guilt’, the German schuld which means ‘guilt‘ and ‘debt’, and the Lithuanian skeleit ‘to be guilty’ and skilti ‘to get into debt’. Thus, a simple word such as should has origins in both finance and morality, in both debt and guilt. Similarly for the verb to owe which we use both financially (“you owe me £5”) and personally (“you owe me a favour”), its history can be found in the Sanskirt ise ‘he owns’ and isah ‘owner, lord, ruler’, and the Old English phrase agan to geldanne ‘to own to yield’ (or ‘to have to repay’). These are two instances of the fusion of the financial and personal. It seems money and relationships go hand in hand.

In a previous post I commented on the book Debt by David Graeber – he highlights the history of debt and also the violence that goes with it. In many instances debt is a threat because those who don’t pay their debts are threatened with so much, e.g. a jail sentence, physical violence, being shunned. Graeber also traces the history to some of the ultimate debtor/creditor relationships, namely masters and slaves, in which the latter owed everything to the former – namely, their lives. This is hardly a happy history and certainly not a peaceful one, and it continues today. Slavery might be abolished (yet still practiced widely) but we still have to give up our time to get money from people with much more of it than us so we can afford life’s necessities. Worse still, because wages can be so bad we often have to take out loans and get in debt to banks to actually be able to buy these things. And when the system stumbles (as it does at every economic crash) the bailiffs come knocking and the reckoning is upon us – we have to pay off our debts one way or another or face the consequences. Jessie J knows all about this as is evidenced in her song Price Tag

“Seems like everyone’s got a price” she sings, in a world where “the sale comes first and the truth comes second.” And isn’t that a shame, that even in non-economic spheres of life, such as friendships, relationships, socialising etc, the ‘logic’ and discourse of money are still so powerful, even though one hopes that these spheres shouldn’t be predicated on the implied threat of violence. Jessie J hopes for something different, a world that’s “not all about the money.” She thinks it’s high time money and economics were put back in their place – an ambitious stance given we have a lot of reconceputalising to do, what with the money discourse being everywhere. But she knows we can do it and she knows that our relationships will be better off for it. “Forget about the price tags,” she sings: “We’ll pay ’em with love tonight.” And I wonder what an economy of love would look like…tbc.

The European Dream

April 15, 2016Robert1 Comment

The United States of America has one, a dream, “the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved.” It’s basically the Cinderella fairy tale made available to all Americans. By ‘all’ Americans I mean white, straight men born into wealth but sometimes a woman slips through the net and occasionally a person of colour does as well. That the dream is founded on huge levels of debt, totally unsustainable levels of consumption and dog-eat-dog capitalist politics is by-the-by, the point is America has a dream, a big one, and apparently it’s for everyone. But what does Europe have?

Europe also has huge levels of debt, totally unsustainable levels of consumption and dog-eat-dog capitalist politics but I’m not so sure Europe can simply adopt the American dream. For starters, Europe didn’t begin as one country (or at least one colonialist attempt to make a country), it started as many, often belligerent nation states vying for power with each other. A history of Europe is often a history of war until the end of WW2 when people had had enough. Successive generations of the same families had gone to war twice in the 20th century and people knew this couldn’t last. So, as I described in a previous blog, the beginnings of the European Union were formed to ensure Europe did not go to war again.

However, European societies are going through yet more social, political and economic upheaval following the 2008 financial crisis and ongoing policies of austerity. Similarly to after the Great Depression of 1929 countries are becoming increasingly isolationist and extremist parties are on the rise. Now, more than ever, does Europe need a dream because it’s clear we cannot leave things in the hands of Brussels based bureaucrats and technocrats. Sure, they get to swan around the corridors of the European Commission and Parliament looking all self-important but how many of them have tried to run a sheep farm, worked in a hair salon or held any number of ‘real’ jobs that people across Europe may have?

For those of us who care about Europe who, despite how disappointed they may be at the EU itself, believe it’s important to get on well with one’s neighbours and to form transnational organisations to combat transnational issues such as climate change, terrorism and corporatism, and to champion transnational solutions such as human and environmental rights, coming up with the European Dream is our responsibility. It will be different for all of us (and maybe that’s part of its strength) but, boy, do we need to start articulating positive and exciting messages about what it means to be European. So, I’ll take a stab but I reckon you should too.

The European Dream: a continent where people are happy to make fun of one another’s accents and national cuisines knowing that underneath the banter there’s grim accord that the world is a dark place but if we work together we can make it lighter. We might often do things differently (e.g. how we do or don’t worship; how we eat our steak; how we do or don’t protest) and whilst we will talk about these things (eventually) we also know there’s nothing worse than tyranny, oppression and war. Europe has to be a family – a queer, straight, Muslim, of colour, trans, white, polyamorous, Atheist, monamorous, hippy, business family – and even if the siblings don’t always get on we’ll still stick it out for the sake of our brood. Perhaps, at its simplest the European Dream is to ensure a stable and prosperous continent upon which the inhabitants can freely and peacefully eat different dishes and make fun of each other for doing so. I mean, snails, gross.

Now, what’s your European Dream? You can write it in the comments below but because not that many people read this blog why not share it on your facebook, blog or twitter – get it out to your networks and see what else people come up with. Especially useful for us cynical Brits who talk of ‘continental Europe’ as if tiny island Britain is still its own Great Kingdom (c’mon, we can British and European at the same time!)