PEOPLE’S BANK BONUS. (DON’T FORGET TO TELL SID!)

The Tories have come up with a plan to pay back the public for the investment in failing banks. The idea is to sell shares at discount prices to the public, with extra discounts for those on low-incomes and the young.

How will this help? With shares at hundreds or even thousands of pounds what kind of discount will they offer? If it is a large discount, selling shares at a few pounds then the banks will be disadvantaged and we will find a similar situation that the public investment was designed to ease. If it is a small discount, once again it will not be the less well off, but the Tories rich mates that will benefit.

Even if we ignore this and the obvious publicity stunt this is to catch a few votes, and accept it is a good thing and will help, we will see the shares bought up at slightly inflated prices that the small shareholders will see as attractive and a quick profit by the biggest and richest players and we shall be back to square one with the banks owned and run by a few rich individuals who care only about quick profit, whatever the cost.

Mainly, however we should look at the shares fiasco of the 1980's. It is obvious that the Tory Party has not learned anything, that it has not changed and is dogmatically following the tenets of Thatcherite monetarism. If that's what you want, vote for them. I want something different. Something none of the three major parties are offering. A return to the manufacturing base that made Britain great and paid high wages to ordinary people. A return to a system that put people before profits, not the utopian ideal that the benefits of capitalism and profit will inevitably trickle down to the less fortunate.

BBC Poll Says Free Market Flawed

According to a poll commissioned by the British Broadcasting Company most people believe the free market economy is flawed. There are also stark contrasts as to whether the fall of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall were good things.

Of course, there is no explanation of why people now believe these things might not be such a good thing. It could be that they feel a diametrically opposed political, social and economic system (somewhere else in the world) struck a balance. A balance that prevented financial institutions and the capitalist system from running amuck and bringing down banks, pension schemes and mortgages.

But I think it is not this that has brought about a differing opinion around the world. I think it is the same thing that has seen a hundred years of alternate Labour and Tory governments in Britain. It is the same thing that is the great flaw in democracy. A flaw exploited by the rich and powerful. That the majority of people change their opinions according to circumstances.

When the Soviet Union was a powerful counter-balance to capitalism it was seen as evil and counter-productive. Now it is gone, we have seen capitalism and the free market economy run wild and threaten the financial system of the world. While communism and socialism was a powerful threat, capitalists could not take the risks we have seen taken in recent times because there was an effective alternate system to fill the void. Without this alternate system, the risks could be taken and if they failed, as they did, the only option was to rebuild capitalism.

Much like the rampant capitalism that filled the void in communist Russia, socialism could and possibly would have filled the void left by a failed world economy. That is what the poll is reflecting. That is what the ('democratic') capitalists are afraid of.