I have some shocking news; we are not alone ...
This may come as a surprise to many, who having lived in a nation that champions grasping self-centered individual success above pretty much all else, have little or no concept of the role of society in their lives. People are of course trivially aware that they live in a nation with some 60 million other people, but the dominant view is that the majority of their compatriots are little more than competitors for jobs, wealth, housing, fame, and so on. It's a popular and attractive idea, and it's easy to understand why - the potential rewards for clambering over everyone else are enormous. 'Success', in these terms, is measured only in pounds sterling.
The consequences of this view are profound, and colour much of our political and public conversation. The political right have always valued this philosophy, since it bolsters their position of individual privilege. Once you have money, it's untouchable, unexamined, the result of your own hard work and merit alone. This is one of the central views of the libertarian.
The other view has a name that has been poisoned by the libertarian bloc for decades, but is nothing more than a recognition of the reality of living in a society - that is, socialism. The poison is deep, and artfully delivered, and includes the repeated conflation of socialism with the horrors of Stalinism. Marx, however, never advocate the murderous suppression of the populace by a ruling elite - in fact, he argued for precisely the opposite, saying that for too much of history, this had been the reality. Unfortunately, the consensus is that all economic philosophies beyond free-market capitalism have been tested and have failed, often with horrifying results.
David Cameron in his 2013 Tory party conference speech, gave these themes another airing, much to the delight of his wealthy, ageing voter base. While attacking Labour's extremely moderate socialism, he vowed to build a "land of opportunity for all", by freeing businesses to make as much profit as possible.
The fundamental problem with this philosophy is that you might end up with opportunity for all, but success only ever comes to a few.
The Tangled Web we Weave
We can't all be CEOs of FTSE 100 companies, we can't all be consultants and lawyers; we need cleaners, secretaries, nurses, nursery staff, binmen, builders, engineers, and the rich tapestry of skills and jobs that are essential for our society to function. While we're encouraged every day to think as individuals, it's worth taking a moment to consider just how interdependent we are.
Think about your education. Beyond the teachers and support staff in the classroom, a team of builders, electricians and plumbers formed the building. The chairs and tables were made in their own factories, staffed by their own workers, using materials such as plastics that came from oil refineries, using oil drilled out in dangerous seas or harsh deserts. All of the workers, goods and materials that built and ran the school got there using roads laid by another set of workers, to designs by civil engineers, and funded by money collected from taxes and assigned by civil servants. Everyone was kept healthy by doctors and nurses, and fed by food grown in farmers' fields collected by labourers, and sold by grocers.
Death and Taxes
And so we all benefit from the roads, rail, schools, sewers, power stations, healthcare and emergency services paid for with taxpayer's money. Tax isn't an evil threat to liberty - it's the investment we make that gives us the return of a prosperous society. After all, a safe, healthy, educated workforce is going to be far more productive than a sickly, unskilled one. Indeed, Nordic nations which have high taxes and much more generous welfare states than our own consistently have better health and lower crime rates, but they certainly don't have a crippled business sector - IKEA anyone?
Income inequality is growing - the richest 1% now have a staggering 40% of our nation's wealth. To more evenly distribute the wealth we ALL help create, we could wait for the wealthiest to become noble philanthropists like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but we'll wait a long time. Alternatively, we can actively redistribute wealth using taxation - after all, the wealthiest have benefited the most from society, and owe it a greater debt.
When the wealthiest in our society block any attempts at more progressive taxation, they're 'forgetting' that they could not have become as wealthy as they are without the help of the rest of society. Could Centrica's boss, Sam Laidlaw have hoped to make his £10m income in 2011 without the combined effort of thousands of other workers of this and other countries? Could his company have functioned without transport links, a national grid to power their offices, and workers educated in our schools? Of course not! Tax-averse billionaires are having their cake and eating it, and we're hungrily watching them get fatter by the day.
Socialism for a Society
Beyond the every-man-for-himself view of the free-market liberal, what other views are there?
Socialism recognises our humanity first and foremost, and champions the basic, shared needs of every person that lives in a society. It recognises certain realities of societies: the reality that if you allow people to become as wealthy as possible at the expense of others, they'll do just that; the reality of our society that some will be weaker than others through no fault of their own; the reality that we can all contribute something to the prosperity of our nation.
Don't be fooled by the wealthy champions of austerity - there is room and money enough for every one of us to have a dignified existence; in fact, it's absolutely essential we all do.
