You
are in the company of
Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
|
|
You
are in the company of
Roger Warren Evans |
|
| Part of www.LivePolitics.net < Back to Home Page |
|
|
item0017 13 October 2002The Love, the Dan Dan and the Peanut The Japanese economy is in dire straits. Things have got much worse since I last raised the subject with you last March. The problem is that the Japanese leaders are not grasping the cause of reform – because they are themselves the problem. My view is that the Japanese electorate is so worried about the incompetence of their “State” that they are refusing to spend, saving as much as they can for even rainier days. Japan is clearly an anxious society. The whole panoply of the Japanese State has become sclerotic and insensitive, and its authority is steadily withering away. Ordinary people are left on their own, to face the winds of economic change. The evidence for this view is compelling. Domestic consumer demand remains critically weak for the tenth year in succession, while the personal savings-ratio remains at an astronomical 20%+ of domestic income, for the most part precariously deposited with the Japanese Post Office Savings Bank. Savings are predominantly invested in Japanese industry, which is woefully over-capitalised and unprofitable: £1,000 invested in the US Stock Market in 1989 would now be worth eight times more than a comparable Tokyo shareholding. The State has to guarantee personal bank savings, and the Government was forced this week to extend that guarantee for a further two years, to prop up savers’ confidence. Deflation troubles the economy, with interest-rates barely exceeding zero. No advanced economy has operated on such a footing before, at least, not since the early 1930s.
Government and public life are dominated by a political (Liberal Democratic) hierarchy that is manifestly corrupt, having close links with the banks, the major trading corporations, and the LD Party in a stifling network of interlocking venality. Prime Minister Koizumi was welcomed last year as a breath of fresh air, with huge public support, and popularity-ratings of 80%+. But he came from one faction within the LD Party, and that popular support has since ebbed away, as he has trimmed and compromised and done internal Party deals. He has failed to tackle any of Japan’s structural problems, either in the private or public sectors. The banking system remains fragile, and there is talk of a Wall Street-type domino crash of institutions. There is no effective Japanese welfare state, no safety net, no reassuring public service investment. Ordinary people are left on their own, to face dramatic economic change. If there is a “hard landing” it will be very hard - for many millions of ordinary people. Yet there are no signs of effective political opposition, no effective Socialist Party, no radical LD thinkers. Nothing but large, corrupt institutions waiting for their final coup de grace, powerless to reform themselves. In short, consumers are right to be worried. Their “systems of State” are not working. At regional level, informal local currency and bartering systems are emerging, in an effort to bypass the mainstream institutions – nobody wants to hold resources in yen-denominated bank accounts, which might disappear. The Love, the Dan Dan, the Peanut, the Kama and the Bamboo are five of some 150 local currencies officially launched by Japanese local authorities over recent years. That is a sure sign of serious public disaffection and anxiety. Last Monday, the Nikkei Index (which peaked as long ago as 1989) touched its lowest point since Summer 1983, nearly twenty years ago. Japan’s problems, in an interconnected world, are our own. Sainsbury's and Tesco competed with Japanese money. If there is a “Wall Street” crash in Tokyo, the effect on consumer confidence would be devastating, well beyond Japanese borders. Japanese banks lent heavily in the UK and Western Europe, in the 1980s. Above all, Japan’s experience demonstrates that decent welfare state provision is a precondition of a successful modern market economy – that is one point at which “capitalists” and “socialists” sing from the same hymn-sheet. Public support is vital for the individual facing these huge systemic uncertainties. Pity the Japanese, caught in a system that is more Thatcherite than Thatcher, bereft of confidence-building communal assurances and support for the individual. And thank your lucky stars that our system is a little better, maintaining relatively high levels of consumer confidence in the face of severe external shocks. Ours is till still deficient, however, in two key respects, and we should not give way to smugness.
13 October 2002
Intellectual Property Concepts of private property have always lain close to the boundaries between Right and Left. “Property is theft”, declared Proudhon, wildly exaggerating. The assertion of private property rights has always been contentious in political terms. And the abuse of property power by the modern corporate sector endures as a key wrong, with which socialists must contend. This week has brought several reminders of the battle. On every front, the corporate Right is digging-in to protect its high-value intellectual property: Disney faces a powerful Supreme Court challenge over the extension of its copyright, under a contended US law which purports to extend US copyrights by twenty years. EU Regulations are set to strengthen proprietary copyright, exposing thousands of public officials to penalty for injudicious copying. The music industry continues its unremitting campaign to prevent the poor of the world enjoying its output, by ensuring that every note is paid for. The drugs companies resist the curtailment of their patent rights over proprietary medicines, desperate to defend their high profit-margins. The seed companies continue to dun poor Third-World peasants for the infringement of seed contracts. And simultaneously, this week’s new Nobel prize-winner Sir John Sulston, one of the leading brains behind the human Genome Project, proclaims the pivotal importance of the unrestricted exchange of research data, uninhibited by claims of copyright, confidentiality, patent. The encroachment of property concepts upon the free development of man’s intellect represents a serious threat to human society. The truth is that intellectual property is bad for the intellect, bad for man’s cultural development, bad for society. It is arguable that some “protection” is justifiable, but the machinery of protection has got out of hand. In recent years, at the insistence of the corporate lobby and with the supine compliance of Governments, intellectual property rights have been strengthened, just when the cultural explosion of mankind requires that they should be weakened. In every case – in music, video and film, genetic research, plant and seeds rights, pharmaceuticals – the argument is the same: corporate profits must be maximised, protected. This represents one of the key abuses of corporate power, with which socialists must contend. It is one dimension of the drive to tame corporate power – make sure you read < Back to Home Page
13 October 2002 Provinces, and Regions Dual Structure Needed The English “regionalisation” debate is in turmoil. That was evident from the babel of Blackpool. The blame lies partly with John Prescott, for having put into circulation in July 2002 a White Paper which is worthless, insubstantial, a democratic damp squib. The political cadres “in the regions” are justified in their disappointment and sense of rejection. But the problem is also an intellectual and political one. UK political thinkers have failed to generate any coherent scheme for devolution. I have heard this incoherence justified in absurd terms – “devolution may be asymmetrical”, “one size does not fit all”, “every region must makes its own choice”. But none of this sophistry is convincing. Key constitutional structures must possess a common coherence – that is, indeed, the distinguishing mark of common statehood. Those who contend for the retention of a unitary UK state (as I do) have a special duty to propound a coherent vision of its structure, upon which every one of its citizens is entitled to rely. My view remains that Blair’s willingness to contemplate quite different solutions for both Scotland and Northern Ireland. And devolution needs a coherent single vision of legislative provinces, embracing administrative regions. This duality will prove vital in other parts of the country: NorthWest England should be a province, but Manchester and Liverpool will certainly need their own regions. The Northeast would be a convincing province, but Teesside and Tyneside should be given their own designation as regions within that province. There is a powerful call this week from Cornish interest groups, arguing for a “Cornish Regional Assembly”, for its 480,000 people. For my part, I want to see a “Southwest Wales Regional Assembly” for my home-region of 650,000 people. But SW Wales should administer its region as an enhanced local authority, working within the province of Wales, and without legislative powers. Cornwall should operate within the West of England province. In Wales, we already have these regions established, as Committees of the National Assembly - that is a beginning. They should be strengthened and developed, and they should be expanded to replace the representative structures of the present balkanised and unsatisfactory District Council system. In England, they would replace both County and District Councils, subordinating their staff to the political direction and accountability of a Regional Assembly. Cornwall would certainly be one. < Back to Home Page
13 October 2002 Brown Victorious The much heralded spat between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, over the funding of a new generation of foundation hospitals ended with a victory for Brown, not Milburn, and certainly not Blair. This, in spite of the Press headlines calling it a victory for the other two.Let me explain what happened. You will recall that Milburn/Blair wanted to give “borrowing freedom” to the major hospitals, over and above the sums allocated to them under the NHS budget. Brown objected, arguing that because such borrowing would have to be serviced out of NHS grant-income, it would have to be treated as public borrowing. The compromise is that, if such hospitals do borrow, Gordon Brown reserves the right to reduce the NHS grant accordingly, so that overall expenditure remains within Treasury limits. This is a very unsatisfactory compromise, for two reasons.
So Gordon rules OK, and the Milburn plan remains fraught with difficulty. My advice to Alan Milburn is “Try democracy, Alan! Have the courage of your convictions, and give elected health authorities or hospital boards the right to raise funds by way of local taxation!” The Guardian report carries a tantalising note, which gives me encouragement –
13 October 2002 Virtual Democracy, Why on earth is the Labour Government complicit in rigging the City of London voting system to favour artificial persons, over real persons, actual residents? The Corporation of London is a standing affront to our democratic Constitution, and the Government has already reneged on an earlier Labour promise to abolish it (when the Greater London Authority was being planned). A Corporation private Bill is now proceeding through Parliament to increase the voting-power of companies - artificial, virtual persons, and to diminish the votes of the real people who live there. Only 4 out of 25 wards have any significant residential population at all, the remainder are dominated by companies and partnerships. An inveterate campaigner against City of London corruption, Michael Matson, says “This Bill is meant to get rid of abuses within the City. It is not doing so. It still leaves it as a rotten borough”. I have heard Michael Matson speak on this subject, and his insights are compelling. Yet Tony Blair is reported to have promised the City the rapid passage of this Bill. Where is his mandate for that? Can one doubt that, if the Labour Party were consulted, members would vote overwhelmingly for the outright abolition of this appalling mediaeval relic? Blair’s judgment in this matter is flawed. It is unacceptable for a Labour Government to be favouring the business sector like this. Blair should be bold: the rotten Corporation of the City of London should simply be abolished, and the Square Mile incorporated into the City of Westminster, or shared out with Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington. The Corporation could be allowed to continue and retain its Mayoralty, as do many other old English towns, by forming a town (i.e. parish) Council. What do you think? Drop me a line < Back to Home Page
13 October 2002 Where Government gets its money
In the pursuit of knowledge, I am always on the look out for good "framework statistics", which help to keep ones bearings in general political debate. And this is one such table, taken from the BBC Politics website. In the last year, they report, the UK "tax burden" (the BBC should use such a politically-loaded term...) has risen by a further 2.4%. But this is only half the picture. The more important figure is arguably the percentage relationship of total government expenditure to GDP - which is 42%, in the UK. The different is represented by Government borrowings, which are relatively limited compared with Germany and France. The BBC takes the UK Government to task for allowing its tax-take to rise above Germany's - but Germany's overall expenditure is higher (c 45%), and its high borrowings are threatening to "crowd out" private-sector investment. The UK is following the more prudent course, by maximising the use of non-inflationary tax income. And in any event, I do not trust the German statistics - because they commonly fail to take full account of the expenditure of provincial and municipal governments. Not many people know that. < Back to Home Page
Schools wrongfully coerce This weekend is dominated by the exclusion of the death-threat teenagers from Ewell/Surrey and their reinstatement - and you will expect me respond. I am not surprised that crises of this kind regularly occur. We must dig deep, to find a solution. The reason is systemic. We are using legal coercion against 15- and 16-year-olds who should not be forced to attend school at all. The use of imprisonment against the parents of truanting children is a gross abuse of human dignity, and "human rights". My view is that compulsory schooling should terminate at the end of the fourteenth year. My ideal (I confess) would be to remove compulsion from secondary school altogether - but that would be too radical, and arouses deep concern among many colleagues whose views I respect. I believe that Hebrew culture has "got it right", by treating adulthood as supervening at the age of 12, with Barmitzvah. My preference would be treat all teenagers on the footing of their adulthood. I believe that teenagers who are coerced against their will into school attendance are likely to be disruptive to the school, and to be ineffective learners. Teachers should be given the challenge of attracting pupils into school. My compromise is the reversal of RoSLA - the raising of the school-leaving age to 16. Every child, coerced by the State up to the end of its fourteenth year, would know that, after that date, school attendance would be a matter of choice. That would relieve many tensions in the classroom, and avoid any imperative to force 15-year-olds back into school at all, as in this case. At the Glyn Technology College in Ewell, the death-threat teenagers were aged 15 - they should in my view be charged and brought before the juvenile courts. They should certainly should not be forced back into school. Because we are making wrongful use of coercion against our children (some of whom answer force with force) we are creating hundreds upon hundreds of problems which we need not have triggered in the first place. Those wishing to leave school at end of their fourteenth year should be offered places at a new form of employment centre, introducing them to the world of employment and self-employment, and they should qualify for any attendance allowances made available to secondary-school pupils. But they should not be coerced. What do you think? Drop me a line < Back to Home Page
|
|
|
|
Created by GMID Design & Communication
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
|
New