Skip to main content

Nick Clegg and Distributism?

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 11:  Deputy Prime Minist...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
So says the BBC. No, I don't think he really is calling for a form of Distributism, merely offering up sound bites that seem to be rounding the edges from our current form of rampaging Capitalism. There's lots of talk in political circles at the moment of a more 'friendly capitalism' and I think he sees this as an opportune moment to claim some media time.

Nick Clegg talks of cutting red tape and reforming the tax system, both of which may have merits but go no way to reigning in the current monster. He also seems to parallel a quote of GK Chesterton's but misses the point entirely:
"We don't believe our problem is too much capitalism - we think it's that too few people have capital.
It's worth quoting the great GK Chesterton here:
"Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists."
Clegg's call is not for a more responsible capitalism, or a kinder face of capitalism but the continued rampage of neo-liberal economic thinking with a nod to worker participation as a way of heading off the unions. After all, if you have shares in a company then the last thing you'll be doing is calling for industrial action? This is worker participation, but just enough participation to nullify the unions but not enough to pass any power to the workers or to make any difference to current practices whatever.

True worker involvement would mean the reduction in the ratio of high and low earnings within a company, worker participation in strategy and planning together with workers sharing equitably in the success of the endeavour. I would also like to think that it would involve a healthy does of Catholic Social Teaching to give the whole system a moral basis by which everyone would be catered for and not be left behind.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sound familiar?

Watching the BBC interview of Adele by Graham Norton tonight and Adele sang one of the new tracks off her forthcoming album. The track was called A Million Years Ago. Listening to it reminded me of a different song by someone else. You know where you almost recognise a tune but get lost with the words, yet it's the words which are the key! Eventually it came to me, El Shaddai by Michael Card, famously sung by Amy Grant. It's a song that I occasionally play during worship. Have a listen. What do you think?

The Upper Rooms

We often think of the 'upper room' as being the place where Jesus and the Disciples held the Last Supper but the Bible has many more 'upper rooms'.

The Archbishop and Wonga

Image via CrunchBase Have to say I was initially chuffed to see the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby laying down a challenge to Wonga and others of their ilk. The AoC communicated that he wanted to see the payday loan industry driven out of business by promoting the use of credit unions. The payday loan industry is involved in outright usury which is condemned by many faiths such as Islam and Christianity and others. Usury we can look upon as the lending of money at exorbitant rates of interest. But then I thought what was the AoC actually saying? He wanted to replace excessive usury with not so excessive usury. Is that what we should be aiming for? Plus the architects of our current austerity are backing the AoC! I would love to see all of the credit industry driven out of business but it will only be done by paying workers a decent wage, sharing in the profit of their labour and making capitalism history. At the end of the day this sort of initiative is just a...