Blogs and Essays

ESSAY/BLOG ONE : The LSC explores the side-effects of careerism and examines why it is so damaging in our political arena.
This is the age of the expert. The complexity of science and technology and the near-total dependence of modern society on its professional intermediaries mean that it could hardly be otherwise. As societies grow more complex this is an inevitable, and probably necessary, development.

Alongside this, however, are two parallel features which are not quite so welcome: an increasing amount of bureaucracy and a growth in careerism per se. In an ideal world careerism within a free-market economy should not present a barrier to efficiency. The successful are promoted, the more pedestrian get stuck in the slow lane. Everyone who has worked in commerce will probably tell you that there is far more to a fast-track career than the profit-line, but, to a greater or lesser degree, if a firm is to survive in a competitive environment these principles must prevail.

Unfortunately, the occasional road blocks and inward-looking cliques which are sometimes encountered within the commercial world shrink to insignificance when compared to the equivalent tendencies within that large chunk of the economy known as the public sector, or within those sectors allowed in some way to restrict their supply. I’m thinking of the legal and medical professions, and, more topically, banking.

Careerism follows a well-defined pattern. The predominant mode of the careerist is always primarily self-protective, followed by empire-building. The defence of self-protection frequently uses complexity as a shield, both against ambitious colleagues (rivals) and the general public. The careerist also tends to exclude enquiry from the public by the prolific use of jargon. Empire-building can involve constructing Machiavellian alliances, delicately balancing rivals against one another while holding the centre ground. The actual function of the office-holder vis-à-vis service to the public is often a poor third.

Since the millennium nothing better illustrates the deleterious effect of careerism on public affairs than the growth of the ‘target culture’ and the way individuals within organisations have been able to manipulate statistics to their own advantage. Politicians are slowly dawning to the truth that excessive testing within the education system is counter-productive; but within the police and the health service suspicion remains that targets and acceptable standards are being achieved on paper only. Again, the cart is coming before the horse.

As regards the sector currently enjoying flavour-of-the-month status – banking – the charge-sheet for the present woes would do well to itemise career-structure and training for a thorough overhaul. Here was a profession top-heavy with young talent, trainee ‘masters of the universe’, replete, no doubt, with thousands of MBA honours degrees. Are we to believe that no-one among these various hierarchies experienced the slightest doubt about their modus operandi? Of course they did. It’s just that they valued their careers too much to start whistle-blowing or asking awkward questions. Let’s make the – perhaps over generous – assumption that no criminality was involved. Let’s also assume, perhaps equally generously, that the profession is not riddled with incompetence. That really leaves only the deadly combination of crowd psychology and careerism in the dock. The nail sticking up gets knocked down. While the good times rolled and a large portion of our GNP filled the pockets of the top executives it would have taken an enormous act of courage to spoil the party. Sadly, the citizens of the UK will now have to pay a high price for this ‘oversight’. Yet, even now, have the lessons been truly learned by our politicians, most of whom were only too happy to receive the plaudits when the City of London seemed like an unstoppable powerhouse? In the first half of 2007 the City was being described as a hive of ‘ingenuity’ and ‘creativity’; a demonstration of the ‘victory of capitalism, privatisation and liberalisation.’ Now that rather less flattering adjectives are flying around one might have hoped that our politicians would adopt a slightly more humble demeanour; but no such luck. It seems that words like ‘apology’ and ‘resignation’ no longer have any place in modern politics.

Decades ago, the failure to oversee a banking catastrophe on a scale involving the mass injection of £500billion of public money would have automatically triggered mass resignations both within the banking sector and among those politicians charged with its supervision. Such people would not have played, nor would they have expected to play, any part in public life again. What has changed? Why are things so different now? Part of the answer must surely be in the toxic impact careerism has had in UK politics, especially when combined with that other bane of modern life, celebrity culture.

It isn’t all that long ago that a career in politics was something that an individual would only contemplate after a fairly extensive apprenticeship in the ‘real world’. Typically, for politicians from the Left, that would mean a career within manufacturing industry or local government, often as a trade-unionist; for the Right, it would mean something in the City, or an executive of some distinction. Today’s politicians, however, usually treat their first career as a mere aperitif, a warm-up act for the real thing. Egged on by the lure of celebrity culture – ‘showbiz for ugly people’ – many of them cannot wait to step into the media-spotlight.

Is this being unfair? Doesn’t the kind of attention politicians attract come as an inevitable by-product of the media age? Hasn’t political life always been driven (almost exclusively) by male ego? Well, possibly. But I remain convinced that an atmosphere which encourages an individual to stake everything on a personal career is also detrimental to the best interests of the country. As an example, let’s look at the biggest political decision in recent years: the decision by the UK government to go to war in Iraq in 2003. Given that the USA was already pressing for war, how much real liberty did this country have to refuse? How would such a refusal have really been regarded in Washington? And – most crucially – what would have been the impact on the careers of those who refused?

That is perhaps an extreme example. But let us not forget the more routine spending, tax-cutting and election-shifting decisions which are now made to orbit the political career, rather than the other way round. Let us not forget that the electorate should be voting on the merits of a policy, not on whether or not it will extend a politician’s career. However, it is the impact of careerism on the democratic process itself which is surely most devastating. The awkward truth is that the political careerist has a vested interest in overseeing apathy and ignorance about public affairs among the electorate, and in making sure that things pretty much stay that way. Of course, no-one is likely to admit to such a damning charge. You will hear plenty protests to the contrary, citing, for instance, New Labour’s encouragement of ‘talking shops’ and ‘focus groups’ to invigorate local affairs. The problem is, to paraphrase a famous lyric, “everyone’s talking but nobody’s listening”, rendering such exercises about as meaningful as blogging.

In a country where a decision to evict some nonentity from TV’s Big Brother can attract more votes than a General Election, it should be readily appreciated that democracy within the UK is in urgent need of a repair-kit. However, as this is a state of affairs which suits our careerist-politicians down to the ground, don’t expect them to rush in with a fix for this problem anytime soon. A quick comparison of our democratic process with that of the USA also provides further evidence about the downside of political careerism. The US system has many faults, and I’m not suggesting that careerism isn’t one of them; however, the Americans have developed a system of democracy which helps to contain and neutralise its worst effects. As an example, look at the invigorating role of the local caucus whereby potential candidates are invited to address (and be questioned by) their audience in the convivial and intimate setting of someone’s parlour. In such settings you get real talking and real listening. You can see the results. In 2008 US citizens lined the blocks and waited up to four and a half hours just to cast their vote; in the UK you’d be lucky to find anyone willing to wait four and a half minutes.

What am I arguing for? Do I want to return to the world of ‘gentlemen and players’? Well, hardly. We’ve come too far for that. But it strikes me that, uniquely, a bit more amateurism in the political process wouldn’t go amiss. One of the most absurd moments in politics is surely the ‘cabinet reshuffle’ when, for example, we are invited to believe that a former minister for transport has suddenly become an expert on the nation’s health, or that a junior minister in the department of education has overnight become a wiz at foreign affairs. They haven’t. The real work during their settling-in period, and probably beyond, continues to be done by a hierarchy of faceless civil service bureaucrats. They need political direction; but they would happily function without a personality who regards the protection of his/her career as the top priority.

Perhaps what I’m really looking for is a call for greater honesty. In present circumstances that might seem over-idealistic and hopelessly optimistic. However, there is a glimmer of hope. If the current economic crisis continues to worsen there is every chance that those individuals who have defended the status quo will be ousted, and that a new cross-party consensus will emerge, possibly in the form of an emergency government. A new mood of sobriety would then delouse politics of its celebrity culture and place the emphasis back where it should be: defending the long-term interests of the nation, not the short-term interests of the political career.

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ESSAY/BLOG TWO: The LSC explores the issues behind the current economic crisis, and examines whether some of the measures being put forward as remedies are likely to work. What do you give to the man who has everything? Well, nothing in my book. But then, my book never sold as many as The Bible, whose esteemed pages will inform you that: ‘for he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.’ (Mark 4:25) ….which seems as good a description of the way capitalism works as any likely to be found in an economics text-book.

So good, in fact, that one group of leading economists prefer to repeat the formula in an attempt to release the UK from its current troubles. Fiscal and monetary policy, in the form of tax cuts and lower interest-rates are the only safe tools to use, they advise, if action needs to be taken to stimulate the economy away from recession. Classic Keynesianism – government spending its way out of recession – is dangerous, they believe, because it misallocates resources and restricts the scope of a private sector recovery.

The problem is that in the face of such a savage economic hurricane mere tax cuts and lower interest-rates appear about as effective as another urgent activity performed ill-advisedly against the wind. Such is the future uncertainty with regard to employment and property prices that a small amount of extra income is more likely to be saved than splashed around on consumer goods. This is probably true even of middle-to-lower income groups. As for the man-who-has-everything, he’s not very likely to notice the difference, let alone bother to spend it.

This brings us to the remaining group in our ‘society’; the men (and women) who have nothing. This is a much larger group than it should be and, in a perfect but damnable symmetry, doesn’t receive as much attention as it should do from our careerist-politicians. This is because so few of them actually bother to vote. What they have to do, however, is spend. They have to spend to survive, most of the money going on essentials like shelter, food, clothing, footwear and energy costs. If this group receive any extra money, then most, if not all of it, will be spent. As the majority of this lower group actually receive their income in the form of various benefits, it might be thought appropriate for a left-of-centre government which wishes to boost spending simply to bung some extra money in its direction in the sure knowledge that nearly all of it will have to be spent. Wrong. Paying people to be idle is frowned upon, supposedly because it removes the incentive for them to look for jobs (which tend to be non-existent during a recession) and leads to that well-known quagmire, ‘the benefit trap’. Thus, this most effective means of boosting economic activity is rarely, if ever, turned on.

Keynesianism has, until now, been out of fashion since the late 1970s. Those people old enough to have adult memories of the period will recall that its collapse in Britain was accompanied by the undignified spectacle of a Labour chancellor (Denis Healey) scuttling off to the IMF for an emergency loan. In fact, many analysts are fond of dating its demise to a much-quoted speech by the then Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, at the 1976 Labour party conference which informed his audience ‘in all candour’ that the option of spending a way out of recession did not exist. In so far as it had ever worked, Callaghan commented, it had also subjected the UK economy to successive waves of inflation.

So why should Keynesian spending prove to be any different if it is applied again? There is simply no answer to that which makes any kind of sense. That is, of course, if you’re looking at the problem from the perspective of a received ideology. In conventional terms, indeed, the UK might well be comparatively weaker, structurally speaking, for an influx of deficit-spending than it was during the 1970s. At that time the manufacturing sector of the economy was still quite large in terms of its employment requirements and the multiplier effects which this had on the domestic supply chain. The dominant sector of the UK economy in the 21^st century is – or was – the financial services sector. Unfortunately, thanks to two decades of lax supervision and the kind of negligent behaviour which in too many cases verged on criminality, this has now become a liability rather than an asset. The near £500billion bail-out of the banking sector is only one aspect of this debacle which is likely to have serious knock-on effects. The withdrawal of foreign investors from sterling and the deleveraging of hedge-funds will see the pound come under pressure at the same time that the government is planning to borrow heavily in its plans to boost the economy.

The optimistic scenario sees the fall in sterling as an opportunity to boost exports and therefore provide a productive route back into growth. The perhaps more realistic view is that this won’t happen because too many countries, including notably the USA, will come under intense pressure to protect their own economies by erecting import barriers. If the latter pattern emerges, beware the printing-press. Watch inflation go through the roof while sterling goes through the floor, taking your savings with it. But if the immediate short-term boost it will supply is enough to get career-politicians re-elected for another term, don’t rule it out.

It’s at times like this that an urgent, but calm overview of a nation’s political and economic direction is greatly required. Unfortunately, due to the frenzied need to do something – anything – to ‘fix things’, you can almost certainly guarantee that this won’t happen. The first question which should be asked is, if Keynesianism is so good, why did it have to be abandoned in the 1970s? The second is what, as a society, are we really trying to achieve?

Keynesianism was abandoned in the 1970s because inflation had got out of control. In the early 1970s the printing-press had been put to use by Edward Heath’s Tory government as it tried in vain to battle against a wave of strikes in key public-sector industries. But both Heath, and then Callaghan, failed in their attempts to placate heavily unionised workers over their pay claims in what became a vicious spiral of price-wage inflation. When many of those same working-class unionists opted for a taste of Margaret Thatcher’s S&M monetarist dungeon in the early 1980s the only surprise, so far as economists were concerned, was the surprised look on the faces of those who had lost their jobs as the (mainly manufacturing) industries collapsed around them. Monetarism is the polar opposite of Keynesianism. It regulates the money supply through strict control of taxation and interest-rates. In the first half of the 1980s it also involved severe cut-backs in government spending. By 1992 the Tory chancellor Norman Lamont was able to say that unemployment had been ‘a price worth paying’ for the control of inflation. Anyone who wonders why economics is more properly termed ‘political economy’ only has to study those words.

In the end, of course, Thatcherism and monetarism, like most ‘isms’, became a bit of a muddle. The rules about government spending were relaxed; and then from 1986 onwards, thanks to the ‘big bang’ deregulation of financial services, a new sort of Keynesianism began to creep back. But this was a highly selective Keynesianism and its beneficiaries were mainly City bankers, and those who serviced them. There are many ways to describe the activities of City bankers; but even those who prefer to use words like ‘courage’ and ‘innovative’ rather than cockney rhyming slang would have to admit that their core business involves the creation of debit-money. This is money simply created on a computer-screen, and there has been lots of it. For a long time it seemed as if these people had discovered a new elixir of wealth. Even politicians began to be seduced into believing that this loadsamoney culture had finally abolished the classic ‘boom and bust’ cycle. But now we know better. The bankers had certainly found their elixir, and they kept most of it for themselves.

So what lessons can we learn from all of this? The first is one that should be obvious to all of us: that the gap between rich and poor within the UK is increasing. Between 1961 and 1991, a period of time which included sizeable chunks of both Keynesianism and monetarist policy, the GNP of the UK grew by 97%; yet the number of those living in poverty more than doubled from 5.3 million to 11.4 million (1). The gap continues to grow: so much for the ‘trickle down’ effect or ‘all boats rising with the water’ type clichés. By and large, the rich kept most of the wealth to themselves. You won’t need to walk very far round the outskirts of most UK cities to understand that the man who spoke the words in Mark 4:25 certainly knew what he was talking about.

The second lesson is that any policy response will almost certainly prove inadequate. The severity of this crisis has been consistently underplayed. The gap between where we’d like to be, and where we’re actually heading, is growing by the day. If democracy in the UK was more vibrant, then at least those who helped to engineer this mess would be required to pay the price, and people with new ideas would be allowed to replace them. But none of this is likely to happen.

So where do we go from here? The old story about the Irish man asked for directions springs to mind; but I’ll try to be more practical. In the short term, at least, any Keynesian stimulus must try to address the gap between rich and poor. To have any impact this would have to be achieved through the benefit system. To avoid the ‘benefit trap’, however, I would introduce a new category for males under the age of thirty linked specifically to peaceful, law-abiding behaviour. We’re going to need a measure like this very soon, regardless of recession. The costs of introducing such a system need not be too prohibitive, certainly not when compared to the bankers’ bailout, and would help both to stimulate the economy and apply a soothing balm to the everyday public space. And while we’re at it, anyone who aspires to leadership in the international arena should be prepared to look again at the social costs of keeping ‘recreational’ drugs illegal and ask whether the current practice of subsidising gangsters and distorting Third World economies is really the best we can do?
(1) Statitistics quoted in James Goldsmith 'The Trap', MacMillan 1994

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ESSAY/BLOG THREE :The LSC examines how far can British politics be understood by a 'Cost and Benefit Analysis?’ Why are the rules of ‘cost and benefit’ sometimes deliberately ignored?
"Cost and Benefit Analysis" and "Opportunity Costs" are familiar tools of industrial and commercial life. They are the logic upon which any action is taken, the costs incurred and gains to be made from following any one particular strategy, and equally the costs and gains of favouring one course of action over another. They are such tried and tested rules that anyone entering a commercial venture without fully utilising them can confidently expect a trip down the Swanee without a paddle.

When we enter the mirky world of political economy, however, these tools are just as likely to be found tossed aside in the ditch of expediency as made welcome on board. The problem, of course, lies in the "political" part of the equation; for here we have a group of people whose future career prospects depend not so much in following a path dictated by logic and economics, as in garnering votes for populist causes. Straightforward questions like: " what is the cost and benefit to society of pursuing course A, rather than course B ?" become complicated by external factors such as "do the public really want to know the answer to this?" and, more relevantly, "what good will it do my career by telling them the truth?" There are many such instances which spring to mind, the controversies over BSE and the MMR vaccine both being classic examples. In all cases the line to be followed is the line of least resistance: the public do NOT want to hear about death and suffering, thank you very much, and, as often as not, they will not spare the messenger who brings them the truth.

In political terms this puts a premium on keeping shtoom. All junior interns who harbour ambitions of an exective position are expected to observe this unspoken etiquette, and anyone who breaches it will be excluded from promotion. What this means for the rest of us is that we have a stilted democracy. The only people permitted to freethink are those narrow personalities who make it to the top of the ladder. 'What's good for the country' can now be translated as 'what's good for my career'; 'spin' becomes a substitute for policy; and the only leadership quality demanded is the short-term ability to negotiate the next General Election.

How does this political myopia mesh into the real world of costs and benefits? Surprisingly, considering the potential damage which short-termism could inflict, we emerge relatively unscathed. To take the above examples: it was obviously beneficial that the BSE crisis be 'played down' for as long as possible. The temporary economic suffering which the agricultural sector had to endure would have been as nothing compared to the social unease following an 'over-the-top' red-alert. Of course, if and when BSE emerges as the second Black Death this assessment would obviously have to be revised. But, by then, those responsible for the initial negligence would have long since departed for their retirement villas. Likewise, the concern over MMR. The official position remains that Mass Vaccination is a vital tool because, on the whole, it helps to prevent epidemics and is therefore a net benefit to society. Even if a link to autism and bowel disease is confirmed, the occasional case of vaccine-damage is deemed to be a price worth paying.

A cost and benefit approach also applies even if we 'up the stakes'. In political terms, the motor car is the great 'untouchable', an essential 'got-to-have' of the modern day economy. But it comes with a cost - not just the environmental damage and encroaching gridlock, but the appalling total of deaths and injuries on our roads each and every day. A staggering 3,000+ coffins hit the ground each year, about an average size crowd at one of this country's lower division football matches. And our reaction is.............................? Sorry, I couldn't quite hear that.

Our silence in this area means only one thing: that this amount of carnage will be tolerated because it enables the rest of us to enjoy the comfort and convenience of the motor car. ("It'll never happen to me.") If this were not the case, social outrage would force our elected representatives to save lives by taking all cars off the road and investing in safer forms of public transport. But anyone who suggested this at the present time would be sent for psychiatric assessment.

In this way, we see how the rules of cost and benefit apply, how society is prepared to pay a huge price if the resulting benefits are also large. However, there is one area of policy today where these rules have been deliberately discarded, where we are paying a truly gargantuan price for very little tangible benefit. Indeed, the massive cost of our action, such as it is, is only making matters worse. Not surprisingly, it is an area of public life which all political parties would prefer to avoid. Yes, it's the continual embarrassment of illegal drugs.

Now, I don't know about you, but it doesn't really send me to sleep with a warm glow knowing that both the sink-estate yob and the city-slicker yuppie have been prevented from smoking/sniffing/injecting the drug of their choice. In fact, despite all the billions we invest in drug-deterrence, everyone knows that all it takes to sample any illegal drug is money, a bit of determination or a painful addiction. Equally, if a drug-addict is without resources, it shouldn't take rocket-science to work out that he/she will have to raise the price of the next fix by stealing, robbing, selling their bodies or mugging from the rest of us, etc. That's why 'drug-related' crime accounts for about 50% of all crime in this country. So, just to recap: here we have a policy - 'a war on drugs' - which costs billions to implement, which doesn't even work, whose only impact, if any, is to cause slight 'supply-side' difficulties, keeping the prices and profits high for those gangsters who control the trade; a policy, moreover, which, by branding the product 'illegal', prevents any regulation of its quality or accountability, and which merely serves to add a silly illicit glamour to an impressionable teenage market. Do we have a public debate about any of this? No. Do we have naughty sit-com jokes and silly sniggering by junior politicians? Yes.

Well, sorry, but I don't share their sense of humour. But then, perhaps I'm expected to fall for that old sucker-punch: morality. Yes, perhaps I'm expected to feel good when our politicians declare that the legalisation of drugs would be 'sending out the wrong moral signals'. I have just one question for them: 'what is the price of your morality?' Because everything comes with a price. The cost of keeping drugs illegal is a country riven by violent crime, a festering sore which now infects virtually every corner of these islands. If, in exchange for the perpetuation of this sordid state, all I'm offered is a vacuous moral gesture, then please forgive me if I feel a little short-changed.

But let's cut the crap. There IS a benefit in keeping drugs illegal, but it's not one you'll hear any careerist-politician boast about. Illegality guarantees continuous profits for some of the most vile and violent elements of society and, until relatively recently, has concentrated 'drugs-related crime' into the poorer quarters of our towns and cities. By so doing it has brought a remarkable degree of social stability at a time of mass male unemployment/low-wage employment. Legalising drugs would wreck this corrupt balance and force these criminal elements to seek new targets: middle-class targets. Sooner or later perhaps someone will have the guts to tell the truth, that what the government's 'drugs policy' really amounts to is the social dumping of crime. But in the meantime holding your breath is definitely not advised.

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ESSAY/BLOG FOUR :The current ‘credit-crunch’ crisis is prompting many people to re-examine the Capitalist System. But even if the financial problems are sorted, the LSC considers if it really does possess an "Achilles' heel"?
Sometime during the 1980s, after Margaret Thatcher had recalibrated the pulse of the British economy, we were invited to think the unthinkable. Since then, so far has the ground shifted to the Right, so enthusiastically has New Labour embraced political transvestism, that what was once the unthinkable has now become rather mundane. Coal and steel, telecommunications, water and the power utilities have all entered the private sector. Even the railway system, justifiably regarded by Thatcher herself as a privatisation too far, has been hastily carved up into its present inefficient format. None of this is reversible. All of these privatisations - with the conspicuous exception of the latter - have been deemed a popular and commercial success.

Indeed, the dodgy record of the railways during the last decade is perhaps the best illustration of the underlying strength of privatisation. For here we have a ragbag arrangement, geared to shareholder interest, with the public requirements of safety, punctuality and co-ordination coming a poor second. Common sense dictates that a national transport system should be unified and centralized; but if common sense alone can persuade any member of the current cabinet to nail his/her career to the mast of renationalisation, then I'm the next Mayor of Kazakhstan.

Privatisation rides with the tide of history, and anyone who swims against the tide risks being washed up and beached. Capitalism is the engine of history, the wave-making machine which provides movement and thrust. We may not always like the direction in which this sea pulls us, but at least we can understand the motion. We can dissect the motives. One of the greatest mistakes of the Modern Age is the assumption that we are all somehow on a journey to The Great Civilisation. (If only we could find a cure for disease X, if only we could get rid of dictator Y, if only we could feed continent Z etc) We're not, and we never have been.

This illusion is understandable. The route from feudalism to mercantilism to mass consumerism looks like a yellow-brick road of scientific and humanitarian progress. The Modern Age is defined - in most parts of the globe - by a greater degree of human rights and tolerance. Perhaps this is where confusion arises. Just because individual rights are essential to an egalitarian society, it does not mean that they are, in isolation, sufficient to bring about such a transformation. Far from it. Indeed, many commentators now recognise that the growth of human rights in the Modern Age is the price which capitalism must necessarily pay for its unchallenged position as Ideology Number One. Capitalism requires free consumers and a free labour market. That's why feudalism, mercantilism, communism and socialism all had to go. That's why New Labour diverted its energies away from building an egalitarian society and invested in political correctness: the protection of section rights for women, gays, ethnic minorities, the disabled and so forth. Looked at in this way, you could almost say that political correctness is the scrap of food which capitalism tosses under the table - to keep the beasts of equality at bay.

In Britain the Industrial Revolution started a process which led to the extension of the franchise and the emancipation of women. In less than two centuries it has raised the living standards of the population to unimaginable levels. Yet even at the best - or worst - of times there would never be any serious threat from a socialist alternative. The confused history of the twentieth century makes it appear that this was something of a close call, but that brief period of rebound after World War 2 fizzled out in little more than a generation. The war played hoop-la with the class system, yet despite the reforms in health, education and welfare, by the late 1970s inequality had returned as the predominant trend.

Margaret Thatcher gave that trend a massive boost. Her administration slid smoothly on the grain of human greed. She coaxed away the inhibitions of certain key players until, finally, greed became good. The public sector was despised as inefficient; the private sector was hailed as a great virtue. Shareholding almost became a test of character. Her expressed sentiment that any man over thirty still using public transport can consider himself a failure accounts for a generation of underinvestment in the above-mentioned railway infrastructure. Thatcher's rhetoric recommended a return to Victorian Values and, true to her word, the gap between rich and poor widened to nineteenth century dimensions. Post-Thatcher, the gap continues to widen. Between 1979 and 1998 the number of people in the UK with less than half the average income almost trebled.

If any more proof is needed, look at the experience of Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism. The Breadline Europe survey, using an arbitrary definition, found that the numbers of those living in poverty had increased sevenfold since 1989. A more precise survey found that a third of all Russian households had income below subsistence level.

It should be recalled that, soon after the Berlin Wall was demolished, Eastern Europe was visited by a plague of economic gurus and advisers, all salivating at the prospect of a Great Free-Market liposuction. Perhaps, now, two decades later, those same self-styled experts would care to tell us whether they consider their contributions to have been a success? On one point they will undoubtedly agree: the most efficient brand of capitalism is unfettered capitalism. It's just that those damn requirements of educating and policing the population, not to mention looking after their health will insist on getting in the way.

It was significant that, during his period as Chancellor, Gordon Brown's presbyterian policy of gentle redistribution could only be achieved by the most convoluted sleight-of-hand. On the same day as his "pre-election budget" of March 2001, the Stock Exchange fell, and continued to fall for some time afterwards. A few days previously, a local referendum in Bristol had asked voters whether they preferred better public services or no increase in council tax. They plumped for the latter.

So whither now? It seems clear that western capitalism is tending to produce a series of 'plutonomies', a term coined by Ajay Kapur to describe economies dominated and shaped by a comparatively small number of super-rich. In the USA, for example, the top 1% of households account for 23.5% of income - more than the combined earnings of the bottom 60% of Americans. Recovery from the banking debacle will depend heavily on the spending of these people. This will be even more important after the inflationary consequences of quantitative easing. It is entirely possible, of course, that this tendency will be even more apparent in the UK where the underclass is already entrenched. Economies like this will in theory be able to function. In the middle ages, for example, there was a similar set-up. But there are two crucial differences between then and now. The middle ages did not have an omnipresent media allowing people to compare their positions. What it had instead, and what is missing now, was a strong religious ideology which kept the lower orders in check.

So let's get down to the 'unthinkable' again. Such an economy could easily let its public sector shrivel. An economy, after all, does not need sick people, and, as for education, a self-perpetuating elite will buy all they need. That leaves two candidates for the award of Golden Achilles' Heel: transport and crime. The aforementioned problems on the railway system emphasise how over-dependent this economy is on road haulage and the private car, a problem which, if fuel-tax protests are anything to go by, governments will continue to appease. Gridlock beckons. However, it is the growth of violent crime which threatens to undo everything. Crime is a subject which no government particularly relishes because it is an index of failure. There is only a limited degree to which crime can be designed out by technology; and, similarly, the route down which we are now travelling - rich individuals protecting homes and businesses by high-level security - is a cul-de-sac for society as a whole. One thing is absolutely certain: a consumerist society which parades its fat cats and success stories like a piece of meat before a starving lion will continue to experience a growth in violence. There is also something about modern society and its culture which produces a large number of damaged individuals. So, with all politicians reluctant to acknowledge the scale of the problem, let alone the need for policing and prison resources, prospects do not look rosy. However, as there is a limit to which even the most resourceful police force is able to 'keep the lid on things', perhaps the time has now come to look for alternatives? Could the same capitalism which has induced all these problems also provide a solution? I happen to think so.

It seems clear that any measure imposed from the top of society downwards will not work. This is because the criminal element will always find ways of circumventing even the most stringent defence-systems. What we have to do is impose market pressure from the base of society upwards. Space does not permit me to elaborate here on the type of system I have in mind; however, a major component of any such solution must involve the legalisation of ALL drugs. Making some 'recreational' drugs illegal has probably been one of the most absurd own goals in the history of modern civilisation. It has funded criminal empires and has been easily the most important factor in the huge increase in street crime. This nonsense should be ended as soon as possible. It is incompatible both with the requirements of a modern free-market democracy and with basic human rights. Indeed, you could say, a blatant piece of political incorrectness.

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ESSAY/BLOG FIVE: THE LSC WONDERS WHY WE TRY TO STOP PEOPLE TAKING 'ILLEGAL DRUGS'?Do we genuinely care? - or have we just got into a 'lazy mindset'?
Why do we want to stop people taking "recreational drugs"? Why do we bother? Is it because we think that drugs are a health-hazard and that in some vague way people who take drugs are a menace both to themselves and to the wider society? Are we really that altruistic? Or do we not really care much either way? Do we simply want the government, acting on our behalf, to keep on sending out the message - a bit like that moronic, dalek-voiced character in the cartoon South Park - that "drugs are bad" so that we can all go back to sleep and not think about it very much any more? In fact, have we thought about any of this very much at all?

Perhaps we don't like to condone drug-taking because we somehow regard it as "morally lax". Are we a nation of "kill-joys"? Perhaps we feel that people have no right to pleasure unless they’ve earned it? Surprisingly, there are quite a large number of right-wing journalists, free-marketeers in every other respect, who support this viewpoint. It's a remnant of the old Protestant work-ethic, which might have served a useful purpose in labour-intensive times when mill-workers would still "doff their caps" after a 70 plus hour working-week; it has little relevance to the yuppie who snorts cocaine from a bank-note after a few lucky hits on the Stock Exchange.

Drugs are bad, yes. But, if the mood catches you, try taking out a clipboard and standing around in a city-centre, asking equally stupid questions. Taxes are bad, yes. Divorce is bad, yes. Homosexuality is bad, yes. Rainfall is bad, yes. And, if you're especially unlucky, and the hen-brains are out in force, try the $64,000 question: "do you wish the moon was made out of sweetcorn pancakes?”!

The question we should be asking, of course, is not whether or not we think that taking drugs is bad, but rather: can we actually prevent anybody taking drugs? And the answer to that, as any policeman/woman will tell you (though perhaps in a candid moment when they're not hankering after promotion) is a resounding "NO!" The logic behind this is so clear-cut that it deserves to be number one on Basil Fawlty's list of the top ten all-time 'bleeding obvious'. You might just as well have a law against the tide coming in (the well-known "King Canute Tendency"), or, indeed, a law against masturbation. And believe me, if our careerist-politicians seriously thought there were any votes to be had in either of these propositions, then you'd already find them drafting out the appropriate legislation.

The prohibition on such intimate matters of personal behaviour (i.e. eating, smoking, injecting) is really a hangover from another era, and in today's consumerist free-market democracies the cracks are finally beginning to show. After all, when you really think about it, is it really credible for a politician such as Margaret Thatcher to proclaim that "in a free society everyone has the right to choose", and then to be part of a government which fervently, and at great expense, tries to prevent its citizens from placing what they want inside their own mouths. It makes no sense whatsoever. Rather, the continuing prohibition on illegal drugs should be seen as the end of a spectrum which has brought us such staggering ideological achievements as feudalism and slavery, plus laws against divorce, homosexuality and prostitution. Has any of that little lot advanced the cause of human happiness, or even public safety, by one tiny jot? I very much doubt it.

However, now that we've just about got the law out of the bedroom (though in the UK we still need to grow up a bit and legalise brothels), it's high time we got it out of the kitchen as well. We have finally to declare that, barring any metaphysical or extraterrestrial interventions, the human body is legal and, in this world at least, is indubitably the property of its owner. This means that - with one very important constraint - the owner is free to treat, indulge, dispose of his/her body as he/she sees fit. The very important constraint is that any such action by an individual body-owner should not directly endanger other body-owners. So, suicide with pills is OK; jumping off a motorway bridge or lying down on a railway line, definitely not.

This concept of body-ownership and body-freedom seems extremely clear, so it is surprising that quite a lot of people seem to have difficulty over it. I'm thinking particularly of our friends in the deep south of the USA. In that part of the world we are led to believe that a majority favour having the right to take out a gun and shoot somebody, yet seem to have a problem with what other people want to smoke, ingest or inject. The sole purpose of a gun is to fire a projectile which, when it hits human flesh, can seriously injure or kill. It seems correct, therefore, that a civilised society should try to restrict gun ownership to as few people as possible (i.e. farmers, target-shooters) because having a gun fired at you will seriously interfere with your liberty and well-being. On the other hand, I have yet to hear of anybody being stopped on the street, or on their own doorstep, and being forced to smoke, eat or inject a drug of any sort. But if you know otherwise, please let me know.

Prohibition, if it ever was a very sociable project, belongs to another time and another place. It belongs to an era when notions of 'community' and 'socialism' still had some mileage left to run. It belongs to a time when your neighbour was somebody who actually had a face, when "thinking about the good of the community" was something which came naturally, not as some onerous duty which had to be encouraged by taxation or 'New Deal' schemes, or the province of 'sad people' with nothing better to do with their lives. Under those conditions it seemed appropriate to enquire about the health of your neighbour and to support legislation which, however misguidedly, tried to circumscribe what he or she wished to place in his/her mouth or veins. But that world has gone. And it has gone for good. What was appropriate for the various socialisms of Attlee, Stalin and Brezhnev should not survive the free-market enablers of Thatcher and Reagan, Blair and Bush.

It is this inherent free-market contradiction which is the root cause of today's so-called 'drugs problem'. For the truth of the matter is that we do not have a 'drugs problem'. If the use of this term implies that, as a society, we are so worried by the self-induced deaths of around 300 people per year that we have to wage a costly and ineffective 'war on drugs' campaign, then hey, why not wage a war on the private motor-car which claims TEN TIMES that number of very UNWILLING victims? Why not ban long-haul flights because a few people will die of deep-vein thrombosis? Why not ban football and boxing? The list grows ever more ludicrous. What we should be saying, rather, is that the essence of living in a 'free-market democracy' is the freedom to make a consumer-choice and to take responsibility for one's own actions. If we do not like this idea then we should try to rebuild a socialist society in which freedom of individual choice can be subsumed by the notion of the 'greater good'. We should not be trying to 'have it both ways'.

It is, rather, this very ambiguity which is the cause of all the trouble. For it is not a 'drugs problem' which plagues us, but a crime problem. And it exists because, at various points in our recent history, certain inspired individuals thought it would be a spiffing idea to hand over the market in recreational drugs to a bunch of criminals. You see, that's what happens in free-market democracies when you try to outlaw a product for which there exists great demand. Instead of a legitimate product whose quality can be guaranteed by having somebody to sue, you get dangerous rip-off adulteration; instead of gaining taxable revenues you suffer the double-whammy of not only losing out to the black economy, but of then having to mop up all the violence of gang warfare. Nice work.

Worse than any of this, perhaps, is that the very notion of law and order itself is being brought into disrepute. For people cannot have respect for bad, unenforceable law: laws which are mocked daily on TV sitcoms, laws which are flouted by every strata of society from roadsweepers to MPs, from heroin-addled pop stars to royalty hangers-on who, nudge nudge wink wink, might have done drugs in the past just to prove that they are 'one of the lads/girls', but who, of course, would never dream of revisiting the habit in their present high office.

So, what do we get? When repeated market-research finds a majority in favour of legalising cannabis, we get a vague promise to set up a commission (some time or other) and to look again (for about the 315th time) at the medical benefits of the drug. When an occasional flurry of drugs-related incidents seems to require an official response, we get a retired Drugs Czar wheeled out again to sidetrack us one more time with measures which concentrate on the treatment of addiction etc. (which is a bit like repairing damage to the municipal flower-beds after the Hiroshima bomb.) And when the careerists are finally cornered, and a straight yes/no answer is required, we get a blunt dismissal of legalisation because........well............."drugs are bad!"

So banal is this logic, so effectively has the 'drugs debate' been closed down, that one must now seriously question whether another agenda is at work. For there is no doubt that keeping recreational drugs illegal has facilitated two key political projects. In the first place it has provided a major source of income for some of the most vile and violent elements of society. Secondly, it has tended to concentrate the crime associated with drug-use into the poorer areas of our towns and cities (i.e. it has kept crime away from middle-class voters). During the last thirty years, when capitalist economies have been characterised by high unemployment/low-wage employment, the illegal drugs trade - whether we like it or not - has therefore played a crucial role in maintaining this corrupt form of social stability.

All careerist-politicians know that they wreck this corrupt equilibrium at their peril. The next time you hear one of them issue a Pravda-like denial of legalisation, just ask yourself why - on this one issue alone - they are so keen to buck the market and to act like the socialists and communists they so clearly despise.                                              E N D