Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 April 2007 14:21:42
I dwelt on the downsides of democracy.
It seems to me that, as a country having had "universal" suffrage (excluding only the young, those whose views are too wacky, those who have been caught misbehaving...) for almost a century, we've got through the teething troubles that this brings and can start to see some of the long term effects. Only some, for I'm with the guy who, when asked whether the French revolution was a good thing or a bad thing, said it was too early to comment.
One of the effects I see is the belief that we, the people, run the country. Tee hee. If only. An Eric Hobsbawm book I started reading the other week put it well, although I don't remember the exact wording. In it he said essentially that the powers-that-be only allowed universal suffrage once they had realized that it wouldn't change a thing. Of course, to be precise, we do run the country, but we run it along the lines that we are told to. Like a worker bee acting completely autonomously yet doing precisely what the queen wants him to do.
A funny example of this came to me recently. Like many others who just about remember the seventies and were at an unfortunately impressionable age in the eighties, I assimilated the mantra that inflation is bad. And I also accepted for a while the corollary that unemployment is necessary as a way of keeping inflation under control. I actually think unemployment is evil. Yes, it's not bad, not unfortunate, not dangerous but evil. Let's call a spade a spade and say that it is a diabolic tool. What it does psychologically to a person who wants to work but is unable to, and who is rejected whenever they try, has all the hallmarks of evil to me. So I keep chewing over different ways of getting round the problem of unemployment. But I always hit upon the problem that unemployment is our main tool in the fight against inflation so it seems to be a necessary evil.
Until, that is, it finally dawned on me that inflation isn't actually a problem. Now, let's be clear, I'm not talking about the hyperinflation that has been seen from time to time in history - that certainly is a problem but, fortunately, a rare one. No, I'm talking about double-figure inflation of the sort prevalent in the seventies. So, let's see, what exactly is the problem with inflation? Well, it means that my salary that is just enough to live on one year will, suddenly, become not enough to live on next year. Right? Wrong. The reason unemployment is a tool against inflation is that when there is unemployment people who have jobs are reluctant to ask for a rise because they know they could be replaced by the many unemployed people waiting to step into their shoes. Take away unemployment and people will demand salary increases which will cause inflation. In other words, the sort of inflation we're worried about is caused by salary increases. So the problem is definitely not that salaries will not keep up with prices, since the link between salaries and prices tends to work in the other direction.
So what is the problem? Well, my savings will vanish - one day I have a year's salary worth of savings (I wish!) and then next year inflation'll shrink that to only a few months' worth. Right, so if I have savings then inflation's a problem. But - the amount inflation erodes my savings will be directly proportional to the amount of savings I have in the first place. Given that most people do not have much in the way of savings, it's clear that this effect is not significant for a lot of people. In fact there is another very significant effect counterbalancing this one. For as inflation reduces savings, so it reduces debts. And Britons owe an awful lot of money. So inflation is surely a good thing as it will reduce this debt? Yes, inflation is good for people with debts. And it's kind of neutral for people without much in the way of savings, but very bad for people with lots of money in savings. In other words, in a nutshell, inflation is good for the poor and bad for the rich. Hmmm. Let's just say that again so we don't forget it.
Inflation is good for the poor and bad for the rich.
So why do we all think inflation is so bad? Who was it that was telling us how evil inflation was? The easy and tempting answer is to say that it was the Conservatives who, after all, have always been the party of those who have lots and don't want to share it. But that is to be a little too naive about who's running the country. That is to suggest that party politics might actually be deciding what's going on. No, the answer is more direct: we are hearing this message about inflation from the rich, through the media that they, almost exclusively, control. Either the newspapers (who ever heard of a poor newspaper baron?) or the television channels which are either owned by the rich, or controlled by the rich (who ultimately is running the BBC, and who decides who runs the BBC?)
On the one hand this realization was good - it takes away one of the barriers to solving the unemployment problem. But more significantly it reveals how this country is being run. Namely those with loads of money are actually controlling how we think. Put like that it sounds like something science-fictiony but it's not - it's straightforward reality. And it's not really new either - Robert Tressell certainly recognized this a hundred years ago, which is what makes The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists a particularly depressing read. But I fear it's a fact too little known. But then, it would be, wouldn't it. It wouldn't suit the people who actually run this country for us all to be aware of it.