This week the UK exploded in rioting. It started over the shooting by police of a man in London, but it is now much more than that.
The UK government, handmaiden to British and international capitalism, is determined to force ‘austerity’ down the throats of the British people — more cuts in health, education and social welfare, not for them, of course, but for ‘ordinary people.’ Such measures, combined with job cuts and reduced accessibility to housing — and in the wake of over 30 years of Thatcherite ‘shock-and-awe’ economic policy that ground them down — have pushed these ‘ordinary people,’ the British proletariat, to the brink.
Added to the disgust that the ‘ordinary people’ are feeling while multi-millionaire businesspeople are making laws to ‘disappear’ the last remnants of the safety net that has kept their heads above water since the end of WWII, and billionaire bankers and CEOs are raking in the cash while they starve, is the disrespect for ‘British society’ inculcated by the knowledge that politicians, bureaucrats and police have been “in the pocket of” (“taking money from”) a rogue, right-wing paper-boy called Rupert Murdoch
Every capitalist politician — Conservative, Labour and Liberal and their analogues around the world — as well as bourgeois social scientists, media commentators and ‘comfortable’ members of the middle class (some of whom blame the ‘welfare state’ for “making people lazy”) have lined up to condemn the rioters as ‘unemployed thugs,’ lacking in ‘discipline’ and ‘respect,’ the result of ‘bad parenting’ and ‘the rise of gang psychology’ and motivated by “the politics of envy.”
Yes, there might be an element of this, but there is also a sound instinct that British society (and ours) is fundamentally insane in the patterns of wealth and ownership that it allows.
But the “politics of envy” argument (“*I* resent someone who is smarter than I and more energetic than I having more than I do.”) is how Adam Smith's concept of individualistic self-interest derails any movement for social change under capitalism.
By this same logic, anyone who says “I am shocked at the inequitable distribution of power and income in our society — I am going to form/join an organization to redress the balance,” has to be a cynical manipulator aiming for ‘power,’ or a gullible fool.
The capitalist ideologue is happy to embrace change, but only when it comes in the shape of gradual reform, and more importantly in a way that does not challenge the concept of private ownership of the means of production — capitalists will give away “a piece of the pie” (better social conditions) only when forced to by the fear that they will lose the lot.
British PM, David Cameron, waited for three days before returning from holiday to address the situation. He is now threatening to ‘punish’ the rioters (How? By denying them the right to take holidays in Tuscany?). Meanwhile, one commentator is telling the rioters that they should “learn their place in civil society”!
Hey, at least the Brits are honest about this! In the US (and to a lesser extent here) they still brainwash their citizens with the myth of ‘social mobility’[1]. Mind you, US capitalists have turned Smith’s argument into a religious axiom — wealth is a sign of divine favour, the result of the primary ‘Virtues’ of hard work and thrift, and those who are wealthy ‘deserve’ their wealth, while conversely the poor are not only responsible for their own plight but in breach of divine commandments.[2]
Meanwhile, back on the streets, the violence continues. Unless the rioters develop the grievances into a comprehensive critique of the capitalist system that is responsible for their plight, there is a real danger that fascist groups will rise to the leadership, splitting the rioters along racial and class lines.
PennyRed has posted an eyewitness report from London, http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html
[1] “The Pursuit of Happyness” lulls USans (and the rest of us) into optimistic feel-good mode in spite of the fact that ‘social mobility’ has declined markedly in ‘capitalist democracies’ for at least the past 30 years.
[2] The British under good queen Vicky believed this too, but the ‘ordinary’ people had never been as immersed in the myth as their US counterparts. Luckily, the more enlightened sections of the British bourgeoisie recognized this and pressed for the dispossessed to receive at least some crumbs from the tables of the rich.
No comments:
Post a Comment