A small group of idealists, pitched up at a famous London landmark, arguing for radical change. Surrounded by hostile press trying to catch them out and making outlandish (or just plain false) accusations, they stay, grimly determined to make their voices heard by the public, the press and the powerful.
Yes, it’s Occupy London, but I could also be talking about the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats.
Maybe I’m naïve, but I see that we have more in common with Occupy than meets the eye. Let’s look at how our actions and beliefs match up with Occupy’s initial statement:
1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
I don’t imagine much argument with that in the party at the moment.
2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
The major party most committed to minorities’ rights, I think we have this covered.
3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
Mansion tax, Vickers report, bank levy – check.
4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
Maybe some differing on the harsh economic reality of the cuts, but we are working hard to prioritise progressive taxation and are the only major party not in the pockets of big interests.
5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
Check.
6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
Still committed to free higher education, moderating excessive Tory cuts, while promoting fiscal common sense, calming foreign policy.
7. We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
Committed to UK’s aid budget reaching UN target of 0.7% of GNI by 2013 and enshrining that target in law.
8. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
Textbook liberalism.
9. This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
Now, I certainly am not going to argue that all of that is a perfect parallel to our policies, but we do have similarities. Occupy are not, however they are presented, some form of anarcho-syndicalist collective, but mostly ordinary people who have had enough — just like many of our supporters.
It is not capitalism that has failed, simply the current interpretation of it, and if I recall, Vince Cable has been saying that for quite a while, as well as more recently.
Whatever the policy situation, I think it is time we began thinking a bit more like the protesters.
We are not really happy partners in Coalition. Let’s not pretend… we are staging a sit-in of our very own, one much longer running and more successful than any campsite in any capital in the world. And both Labour and the Tories would love nothing more than to evict us and go back to their same old unrepresentative Punch and Judy Show.
Perhaps it’s time we heated up the rhetoric and made some demands through a megaphone. #OccupyTheGovernment!
* Sam Barnett is a party member in Leeds North East, and an officer of the London School of Economics Liberal Democrats Interim Executive.
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39 Comments
The Youngs Liberals I joined in the 1980s would have been right in there.
As far as capitalism is concerned, there are many different types. At this moment in time the most successful of which can be found in India and China, whilst the anglo-US and the EU model are failing. I wouldn’t suggest we would want to emulate the Chinese model.
However there is probably no one model that will always work. I am doubtful we have any effective way of organising our society in order to cope with global warming and that will be the biggest challange from now on.
Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, most of the Occupy people probably see us as the enemy, but if we can change that we should.
@geoffrey payne
I’m not sure copying China’s economic model would be possible or desirable.
I disagree. Now I hope a look at some of what I’ve posted in these columns in the past will be enough to make clear I am not a great fan of the finance industry as it works now and the way our country has been going as a result of that. So the fact that I don’t have a great deal of sympathy with the “Occupy” protesters does not mean I’m a “worshipper of mammon” etc. However, one of the things I’ve found offputting is the way in some circles, e.g. Guardian newspaper, it seems criticism of the Occupy movement is banned, and anyone who does not agree 100% with them and their tactics is denounced in quite an ugly and abusive way, as if they are uncritical supporters of the worst of current “capitalism”. Sorry, but this hypocrisy and mob mentality is just why though my views on many political issues, particularly the economic ones, are very much to the left, I’ve never been happy with most left-wing political movements.
I started feeling they were ok but silly and naive, but never mind I have no problem with a bit of street theatre. However, I went against then as soon as they refused to move from St Pauls. I felt this was quite nasty, seeing as they had only settled there because the staff at St Paul’s let them instead of bringing in the police to block them from doing it. St Paul’s helped these people out, then they effectively spat in the face of those who had helped them. I don’t like people who act like that – I regard them as nasty and arrogant, no matter what they say they stand for. If someone helps you out, you do not respond to that by causing huge problems to them by taking more and more from them beyond what you were given and refusing to listen to their pleas that you are now causing them problems.
I regard outlets like the Guardian newspaper who used this as an excuse to run a week of more of church-bashing copy once St Paul’s indicated they weren’t happy with an indefinite occupation as extreme hypocrites. St Paul’s are not greedy guzzlers of wealth, they have a large historical building which costs a lot of money to run, and it is a big problem if they lose income due to being surrounded by protestors. They were placed in a dilemma with no easy options, since it was predictable the “you’re siding with the evil capitalists” line would be thrown as soon as they started talking about legal action to move the protestors on. However, letting them stay in indefinitely means they can’t balance their budget. The direct equivalent is as if protestors turned up at the doors of the Guardian, asked them to give over their advertising space to let the protestors say what they wanted, and if the Guardian was kind enough to do so then saying they expected the Guardian to continue giving this space to them for as long as they liked.
I could say more, but no time now. I actually think the “Occupy” movement is illustrative of why the left in UK politics has failed so badly in the past three decades. If I find time later, I’ll say why.
“6. We support the strike on the 30th November”
I’m don’t think we support that, Sam, but more pertinently, I am not sure why “Occupy London” support it either.
Surely support for the less well off rather than the better off in society is one of the main tenets of “Occupy London”.
Some of the decision taking methods are really interesting – though they will only be representative of those people who are there. They seem to allow individuals to block proposals but this should only be used “if you think that the proposal fundamentally goes against what this camp is trying to achieve” (which opens up a huge section of debate!)
I don’t like the “we are the 99% – this is democracy” type theme though. Democracy isn’t about getting consensus views from 99% of the people – its about a way in which you allow decisions to be made without consensus. Indeed think about that for a moment the 99% includes Combat 18 and Muslims against crusades!
“We stand in solidarity with….”
Is solidarity a particularly liberal concept. I’ve never thought so when I’ve heard people argue that we should stand in solidarity with whoever. It usually seems to to involve suspending any criticism of those people you are supporting for fear of undermining “the cause”.
If we had an imaginative leadership then Nick or Vince woudl rock up to St Pauls square for a chat!
There has always been some distance between Lib Dem activists and the Lib Dem leadership, with the former generally more attracted to exciting radical ideas and the latter generally keener to pursue the moderate centrist voters. However, the distance is now a yawning gap.
“Maybe some differing on the harsh economic reality of the cuts”. Well, it’s only two letters of differing, I guess. Occupy oppose the cuts, Clegg and Co impose the cuts!
@David Allen
“There has always been some distance between Lib Dem activists and the Lib Dem leadership, with the former generally more attracted to exciting radical ideas and the latter generally keener to pursue the moderate centrist voters.”
I’m not quite clear if you are an Lib Dem activist, David, and if so where (possibly Newbury??), but that certainly doesn’t tie in with my own experience. Most Lib Dem activists I know are delighted to “pursue” and represent moderate, centrist voters. If we didn’t do it, then who else would?
@ Simon Shaw
Well actually, loads of politicians pursue centrist voters. Tony Blair was a successful example. We always used to say that Blair was operating under false pretences, had drifted way off centre, and was a long way to Charles Kennedy’s right. Nowadays I imagine Clegg would castigate Blair for being far to the left of the NuLibDems.
Geoffrey Payne is on the money when he observes that there are many different types of capitalism.
For me there is only one version that works for liberals, the one where the Rule of Law applies – that is the notion that great and small are equal under the law and that the law is NOT merely the instrument by which the powerful exert control to suit themselves.
The problem we have is that the type of capitalism we think we have is less and less what we actually have. Little by little it’s been subverted but because the process is so slow we, like the proverbial frogs, risk being boiled before we notice the change happening all around. Mercifully, the rot is not nearly as advanced here as in the US where the New Deal version of regulated capitalism has collapsed into lawless and unregulated financial oligarchy. Peaceful Occupy protesters face aggressive police while no banker has yet gone to gaol even when clearly guilty of billion $ fraud.
For a long time it was possible to hope that Lib Dems would get to grips with this but, like most of the St Paul’s clergy, the establishment has opted to say, in effect, “Trust us, we’ll do something.” and indeed they are doing something – for instance increasing personal allowances. This is certainly useful, but it’s pitifully inadequate; the financial sector remains thoroughly out of control – which is to say above the law – and the Coalition’s financial strategy looks more like unravellling (as I predicted at the outset) with every passing day.
So yes, I support the primal scream that is Occupy even if their tactics are not always what I might have wished. And per the post, their initial statment has much to like but I suspect the Westminster Village is so well insulated that the commotion outside doesn’t penetrate.
@David Allen
I rather thought Labour had got rid of Blair. If you think that, post-Blair, they have moved to the Centre then I would have to disagree with you.
When you say “we” always used to say that Charles Kennedy was well to the left of Blair, who is “we”, and in what part of the country was that said? Also was Charles keen to pursue the moderate centrist voters, or was he an exception to your general rule?
Have you been taking some kind of hallucinogenic drug?
“1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
I don’t imagine much argument with that in the party at the moment.”
Can we expect you to be affiliating to the Communist International any day now?
2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
The major party most committed to minorities’ rights, I think we have this covered.”
How many BME MPs do you have again? What significant legislation to help minorities have you passed in the last century? Believe me, you don’t have this covered.
“3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
Mansion tax, Vickers report, bank levy – check.”
Passing it on to students, the unemployed, single parents – check
“4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
Maybe some differing on the harsh economic reality of the cuts, but we are working hard to prioritise progressive taxation and are the only major party not in the pockets of big interests.”
You wholeheartedly accept them as both.
“6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.”
You are trying to avoid the strike and you are voting through destructive changes to the health service, welfare, education and employment.
“8. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
Textbook liberalism.”
You realise you are in government, yeah? There’s no question of ‘calling’ for things to be done, you do things.
“9. This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!”
A miniature fraction of the population in tents in a square is not ‘democracy’.
I strongly agree with the article, well said!
@Matthew Huntbach:
“It seems criticism of the Occupy movement is banned, and anyone who does not agree 100% with them and their tactics is denounced in quite an ugly and abusive way, as if they are uncritical supporters of the worst of current “capitalism”.”
I’m sorry you feel that way, but I have to say that does not chime with my experience at all. I have been involved in a number of in-depth online debates about this topic since the Occupy thing kicked off, and I have been most enthused by the high quality and objectivity of the issues discussed and the points raised. Excepting the usual suspects, such as the DM website etc, where the same frothing headbangers with presumably failed lives gnash their teeth at anyone who isn’t Enoch Powell on any given topic, I have found the treatment in the blogosphere and the professional commentariat to assess the validity and significance of Occupy fairly and reasonably, whether for or against. There has been a large amount of criticism, most of it polite, and I also disagree with the claims by supporters that the media is in some way ignoring it. It reminds me very much of an experiment they did with pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists, whereby they were both shown the same documentary, yet both were convinced that the film was deathly biased in favour of the other side. Maybe sometimes you have to accept that there’s nothing to get aggrieved about.
It’s a very strong piece, and exactly the notion I took from the Occupy Protests. Their motives reflect those of the Liberal Democrats. However, on visiting the camp during my lunch break, fully intending to join in as and when I could, I came across much of the mentality that @Matthew Huntbach describes. There is a dogmatic notion that if you are not 100% willing or able to give up your job, home and life to join the protest, you are unworthy of talking to. I find that saddening.
I’d broadly agree with the sentiment, although the main problem with the Occupy movement is that it’s basically just an angry rant from people who are more interested in smashing things than in solving problems – they suffer from a lot of “if we wreck the largest employers in the capital then everything will be okay”, and not a lot of “who’s going to pay the welfare bill for all the people whose jobs and pensions we just destroyed, after we lose a few billion in tax revenue from the bankers?” in their thinking.
Whenever people try to seriously solve the problems with the financial industry, it turns out that there are no solutions which involve bankers being kicked in the crotch by a line of unemployed on their way to new jobs, so those people get decried as “capitalists” and ejected from the conversation.
(I don’t want them to stop or go away, I just want them to think things through carefully and come up with some realistic proposals)
I do take issue with this one, however. The Lib Dem position is that ID cards needed to be scrapped. That is a cut. Hence, at least one cut was necessary. And this principle extends to a whole bunch of other stuff – a substantial minority of the cuts were getting rid of Labour projects that were actively harmful and needed to be stopped. If you tweak the meaning a little to be “We do not accept that all of the cuts are either necessary or inevitable” then you would have something a lot more agreeable.
I disagree with much of this. Looking at the 9 points:
1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
The current system has brought billions of people out of poverty. In the UK it enables us to have an NHS free for all and to support millions of people who are unable to support themselves. Certainly there are problems – mainly caused by governments and individuals borrowing too much money. Nor is it ‘undemocratic’ (certainly not in the UK). We have elections which decide the Government.
2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
This may be true , I have no idea. But stupidity supported by people from different groups is still stupidity.
3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
Some of the crisis caused by the banks – much caused by governments. and we have (as the author says) have taken action on banks.
4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
Our government like many in Europe and the US depend on borrowing money. If the people lending the money lose confidence we will either pay much more or not be able to borrow at all. If we stopped the cuts we would run out of money.
5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
I agree.
6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
See answer on cuts.
Most Lib Dems supported the war (effectively ) with gaddafi.
Fine to stop arms dealing – but then you have a few hundred thousands more unemployed and lower taxes which means more cuts.
7. We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
Meaningless. the biggest increase in use of resources has nothing to do with the ‘rich’ but because through benefits of free markets India and China are lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty.
8. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
How does our government cause oppression? Do the authors think we have the right to interfere in other countries as we wish? They presumable supported the Iraq war then?
9. This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
In fact Occupy are profoundly undemocratic. If they were they would not reject so strongly the results of elections.
I think that Occupy stands directly against representative democracy. Even if Occupy is in favour of a lot of liberal causes, the means by which it persues its ends are in my opinion at odds. In fact, I’ve written a blog about it: http://cerebralliberal.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-occupy-is-threat-to-liberalism.html
Thank you all for your interest and comments. Several of the comments talk about their being an undemocratic or mean spirited exclusionist streak to the protests. As someone who has to deal with the Socialist Workers and anti-cuts/tuition fees campaigns on campus, I know exactly what is mean about the mob culture that can surround these demonstrations. However, I think if moderates don’t participate and stand up to the extremists and bullies, we risk losing even more young voters who otherwise would have been progressive liberals. If we just turn away from all this, we cement the idea that only the none of the major parties care.
On the Church, Matthew, I was present on the day of the first march and I assure you they only settled at St Pauls after being denied access to Paternoster Square then kettled on the cathedral steps. There was always going to be an occupation, and as City financiers didn’t want it on their property, the Church is suffering. To both Simons- it is natural that there is division on the extent to which Lib Dems agree with the demands stated here. I am simply aiming to dispel he idea that this movement is totally alien to our values.
Sam Barnett
On the Church, Matthew, I was present on the day of the first march and I assure you they only settled at St Pauls after being denied access to Paternoster Square then kettled on the cathedral steps.
Yes, I know that. I am not claiming they deliberately settled tehre to attack the Church.
There was always going to be an occupation, and as City financiers didn’t want it on their property, the Church is suffering
Yes, and that’s my point. The Church did not set up measures to stop them, rather they allowed them to settle there at first. That’s is why I feel it is just plain nasty that they did not repay that original support by moving on, but rather placed the Church in an extremely difficult situation by staying there indefinitely. If someone helps you with a protest by letting you use their land temporarily, but then you refuse to move on despite your continuing presence damaging their livelihood, well, what sort of person does that make you? I’d say someone not very nice, someone I would not trust, someone whose claims to be all about justice and fairness sound very hollow. Sorry, but I was just staggered by the ingratitude shown by the protestors here, and then by the sheer nastiness of the Church-bashing that followed in some quarters, along with the moral blackmail of the line that unless you agreed 100% with all the protestors said and did you were a supporters of the worst aspects of capitalsim.
Achievements of Occupy London so far:
– damage the Church of England.
– er….
…that’s it.
I’m all for speaking out on what you believe in, but I don’t get what they think they’ll achieve by sitting there.
Greenham Common was a very clear issue; ‘we stay till you get rid of the nukes’.
That bloke with the anti-Iraq protest in London: clear issue.
Given that very long wish list, most of which is vague to say the least: at what point would these people say “we’ve won, let’s go home”?
It’s all a bit “we’d like world peace and an end to poverty”. Wouldn’t we all? But how do you propose achieving it?
Meanwhile, the bankers are presumably saying: “They can sit there till the cows come home: doesn’t affect us”.
OK, now to the main issue – what is the point of this “Occupy” protest? What are they intending to achieve and how? It seems to me it can be one of two things:
1) They are hoping to get existing politicians to change their minds and enact more left-wing policies.
2) They are hoping to provoke a revolution in which they or someone who supports their sort of politics will seize power.
I cannot see any other way in which what they are doing has any point – it must be either 1) or 2).
Now I see 2) as extremely unlikely. Even so, should such a thing happen, the results of such revolutions are usually unfortunate. They start off claiming to be about people power, they end up in some charismatic dictator taking control and it is “one man, one vote” and he’s the man with the vote.
OK, so let’s suppose they have 1) in mind. So why work so hard at changing the minds of the existing politicians when we live in a democracy, and in a democracy you can change the politicians? My experience throughout my lifetime of involvement in electoral politics is that you can change the politicians. In most places the number of people actively involved in party politics is very small, so it does not take that many people to change things. That is, all the effort present on this protest would be far better employed in active democratic politics, fighting elections. The idea that you can’t change the politicians so you just have to beg and plead to those we have through this sort of protest is pathetic and defeatist.
The retreat from electoral politics to protest politics has had the devastating effect of letting the political right win by default. If those on the left sit in little huddles in these protests instead of going out and actively winning votes for the left, no wonder the right wins elections. I have seen politics shift to the right steadily during my adult lifetime – why? The reason is that those who could be fighting for the left have abandoned it for silly self-indulgent protets which are really about upper-middle class people talking to each other and saying how wonderful they are and how nasty everyone else is.
I am sorry, but all I have seen reported from the protests suggest most of the people there are from an upper middle class background. This is not really the 99%, it’s the 10%. It’s students and intellectual poseurs and that sort, not ordinary people. The message they are putting out is not getting through to anyone except people like themselves. Meanwhile, the people who are really hit by capitalism aren’t getting any decent left-wing politics because going out and winning their votes and converting their minds is, well, I don’t know, maybe not as nice or easy as sitting in a tent being a protestor. Instead, those who are working those really hit by capitalism is the far right (including the far right in its religious guise, either right-wing evangelical Christianity or Islamicism). THE Sun newspaper speaks to the white working class, drip-feeding right-wing politics to them, because no-one else does. It does sterling work shifting the blame from where it really lies onto the EU, foreigners (apart from Americans) etc. It is regrettable that groups like the BNP and the EDL are the closest working class equivalent to “Occupy”, but they are, because they are the only lot working actively to turn the white working class into action. The wrong sort of action, sure, but it serves the super-rich well to have attention distracted from them in this way.
Is it not amazing that we hear UKIP is doing well, because to the proles it sells a simple anti-EU message. The reality when you look at its upper layers is that the main thing it has against the EU is that the EU might serve to stop red-blooded capitalism. These utter hypocrites sell themselves to the guillble as “patriots”, win votes from those downtrodden by the inequalities of capitalism, while in reality having a political platform whose main line is to make our country even more open to being bought up and controlled by the global super-rich.
And Occupy has NOTHING to say or do about this, because rather than go out and fight this lot, they sit in their tents being self-righteous. I’ve been seeing this type for decades now – the more they engage in their self-indulgent protests, the more the poliics of real votes and real people shifts to the right due to the lack of anyone shifting it to the left.
Occupy’s message may be simplistic but they are voicing the frustration of many people, who see public services affected by cuts while bankers bonuses keep on being paid and top directors award themselves eye-watering pay rises. Their appeal is an anti-establishment one – dare I say it, that used to be the appeal of the LibDems also, that they did not embrace the orthodoxy of the two main parties. Now we see Simon McGrath and other posters dutifully repeating the coalition line that “there is no alternative”; the markets must be appeased at all costs.
Vince Cable and Ed Miliband are right, that the Occupy protesters have tapped into the public mood and politicians need to try to address that, rather than dismiss the protesters. As for the claim that some of them are from middle-class backgrounds so what? You don’t have to be living on the streets to detest a lot of the things this government (particularly the Tory part of it) is doing.
Cable has been very constructive with his comments on Occupy. He does very well at seeming sympathic, but wise enough to know better. That ought to grab some people’s attention.
Matthew,
You’re saying it’s self-indulgent for the Occupy gang to go on a jolly camping spree, when they could be doing something much more constructive in proper politics. Like delivering Focuses and winning councils, I suppose. Well, once upon a time that might have been true, when councils had power, and Lib Dems still had principles. It isn’t true these days.
I don’t really think Occupy are being self-indulgent, but they should be watching the Spanish elections with some alarm. Despite a large popular “indignados” protest movement, the Spanish conservatives are heading for victory. Why?
I suspect the answer is that sympathy and logical agreement don’t translate into votes. Instead, hard times scare people into turning towards politicians who offer false certainties. Cameron and Osborne offer the solidity and certainty of a tough, uncompromising stance on the deficit. It matters little that it isn’t working. It matters that it exudes a sense of strength, and sadly, that’s what scared voters want to vote for.
@Matthew Huntbach @Simon McGrath @cassie
Couldn’t agree more!
They’re affecting the careers of a few well-meaning old clerics while the bankers carry on unaffected. It’s not a particularly democratic way of expressing “demands” and as a direct action/PR exercise it’s hopelessly mistargeted.
@John “Occupy’s message may be simplistic but they are voicing the frustration of many people, who see public services affected by cuts while bankers bonuses keep on being paid and top directors award themselves eye-watering pay rises. Their appeal is an anti-establishment one – dare I say it, that used to be the appeal of the LibDems also, that they did not embrace the orthodoxy of the two main parties. Now we see Simon McGrath and other posters dutifully repeating the coalition line that “there is no alternative”; the markets must be appeased at all costs”
Firstly , good news. bank bonus are substantially down this year. Of course that means they won’t be taxed at 66% which means more cuts but that is doubtless a price you think worth paying.
On whether there is an altenrative can you explain what it is. We need to borrow hundred of billions of £ this year – where do you think it will come from?
A very interesting piece by Sam. I think that a lot of Far Left groups identify problems that are similar to the problems that Lib Dems identify – but do they identify similar solutions? Do I really agree with Occupy on defence spending, deficit reduction or the supremacy of Parliament? I AM happy about the Lib Dems’ presence in the Coalition Government. Sure, everyone supports “ending repression”, but what do we mean by that? For liberals, it means opposing tyranny everywhere; for some of the Occupy types, it means supporting dictatorships in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.
Well we could always just trundle along supporting economic models that don’t actually work and hope that the voters we.ve alienated and the next generation of intellectuals we are accusing of being a bunch of middle-class egghead lefty types eventually thank us for it…
As far as I’m concerned the centeral point of Occupy is right. We’ve spent the last 30 or so years being spoon fed the idea that the tax system needs to favour wealth creators and the only people they’ve reallyy created wealth for is themselves. And this has resulted in a series of glorified pyramid schemes to make sure they can keep their hands on the loot. That’s what I think and I’m sticking to it.
Occupy London’s demands aren’t policies – they are emotional spasms…
http://livingonwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-38-degreesoccupy-wall-street.html
Reasonable to a degree, but the simple fact is that the wealth they created for themselves is what funds the systems that make the rest of the population not wealthy, but generally healthy and living at a tolerable standard. It’s also true that the only thing you’ll accomplish by knocking this down is to remove those systems – the rich and powerful will still be the rich and powerful.
We have to make things better, not get angry and smash them.
David Allen
You’re saying it’s self-indulgent for the Occupy gang to go on a jolly camping spree, when they could be doing something much more constructive in proper politics. Like delivering Focuses and winning councils, I suppose. Well, once upon a time that might have been true, when councils had power, and Lib Dems still had principles. It isn’t true these days.
David, I have written about this often enough that you really ought to know better. Time and time again I have written about how the original aims of “community politics” were MUCH more than winning council seats, and urged that we go back to what they were – which was using local issues just as the STARTING POINT to get ordinary people thinking about politics, and using victories in local elections as just the STARTING POINT in showing people that actually you CAN change things, that ordinary people are not powerless, or as we Liberals used to sing “Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hands?”.
My point is that protests like Occupy aren’t doing anything to win over the masses. The idea that a few student types having a demo is the way to react to any political situation they don’t like has been around for decades, and has grown – and the more it has gorwn, the more politics in terms of what people voted for has shifted to the right. I believe the two are connected – it is the abandonment of electoral poltics by left-inclined people and its substitution by “demoes” that has allowed the right to do so well electorally because it has left the right without challenge on the ground.
I do believe the Liberal Democrats have principles, so I disagree with your alim they do not. Firstly, I do not see “the Liberal Democrats” as just Nick Clegg and a few surrounding him. I see it as the whole party, and I do not think the whole party changed the way it thinks overnight just because of the coalition. As I have argued many tinmes, I don’t like the fact of the coalition, but it was the only real choice given the way the peope voted in 2010 and the way the electoral aystem distorted those votes, and then in May 2011 the people of this country gave a massive vote of confidence to that system and its distortion. Sorry, the most basic principle of the Liberal Democrats is democracy, and the people voted for what we have now by two-to-one in the May 2011 referendum – they voted for “NO” after the “NO” campaign EXPLCITLY said it was good to have a system which distorted representation in favour of the biggest party and against third parties, and that is PRECISELY what we have now – the Tories with much more power than they would have if their share of seats was closer to their share of votes, the LibDems with much less. Anyone who didn’t like the coalition should have voted against the electoral sysetm that gave it to us by voting “Yes” in the referendum. I have no time for the utter hypocrites – many Labour supporters – who voted “No” but yet criticised the formation of the coaltion. So far as I am concerned voting “No” was supporting the Tories in a deeper and more fundamental way than voting Tory becvause it was supporting the electoral system which gives the Tories power they don’t deserve and makes it so much harder for anyone else to break through and challege their dominance.
So where were all these people in their stupid “Guy Fawkes” masks (same as one of the most influential pro-capitalist bloggers, and underneath same anti-politics mentality, so political brothers really) when the case for electoral reform so urgently needed to be made in order to undermine the main argument the Tories have for their dominance? Oh, that’s REAL politics, you have to talk to and convince real people, and that’s much more hard work than some self-indulgent demo, isn’t it?
To be sure, I hate the way Nick Clegg has played the coalition, as I have also said many times. However, I have argued many things many times, and almost always been on the losing side. Indeed, I argued passionately against Nick Clegg during the leadership campaign – but I lost. Within the Liberal Democrats I am always being told the sort of politics I want, both in policy and way of doing politics, would lose us votes. So, I disagree with you that it’s due to a lack of principles that things have gone as they have, it’s because of the way people have voted. That is why I DESPAIR when I see people whose politics are more to the left like mine spending their time on self-indulgent demoes, rather than in voting along with me to make things more left-wing within the Liberal Democrats, or other parties, and in gaining more support for the political left amongst ordinary voters.
However, I fear people like Occupy are not really left to the core, rather they are thoroughly upper middle class people with upper middle class ideas, just poseurs who strike a few trendy lefty positions beause it looks good. That it is thoughtless posing rather than real deep down CARE for other people is very much shown up to me by the NASTY way they in effect spat in the face of the St Paul’s staff after the St Paul’s helped them out by letting then have that space.
If these were real deep-down lefties, they would be standing out against the driving force for inequality in Britain – the way owning land and housing brings huge dollops of cash untaxed through capital gains and the way inheritance imposes a permanent and growing division between the haves and have-nots in our society. So where are their banners calling for much bigger inheritance tax and land vaue tax and the like? Oh, no they won’t do that – why not? Well, look at them, how many of them stand to get a HUGE inheritance from mummy and daddy in time? A rather high proportion, I feel.
Simon McGrath writes: “Firstly , good news. bank bonus are substantially down this year. Of course that means they won’t be taxed at 66% which means more cuts but that is doubtless a price you think worth paying.”
So large bank bonuses are good because the tax on them offsets cuts? Hmmm, that”s an interesting line of argument. I don’t think even George Osborne has tried that one!
Of course, if the banks paid less in bonuses, they might have more money to lend small businesses, thus helping the recovery. And since some of the banks are still effectively state-owned, isn’t the money they pay in bonuses really OUR money? So even if the Treasury gets some of it back in tax, we (the taxpaying public) are still losing out.
Still, if the Liberal Democrats really want to campaign on the doorstep at the next local elections as the party which supports bankers bonuses, good luck with that. It doesn’t strike me as a vote-winner!
@John
I don’t think bonuss are good or bad. Most people in banks have nothing to do with the crisis, are very hard working and get moderate bonuses.
It should not be up to the satte to decide how much business pay their emplpyess ( apar fo course from minimum levels)
Of course state owned banks can pay people less. This is why RBS for example can’t recruit in large parts of the world and is losing business. making shares worth even less.
@David Allen
“I don’t really think Occupy are being self-indulgent, but they should be watching the Spanish elections with some alarm. Despite a large popular “indignados” protest movement, the Spanish conservatives are heading for victory. Why?”
The problem, surely, is that “Occupy London” are massively self-indulgent -at least based on many of the 9 key points referred to in the article.
But I’m not clear what you mean by saying that “they should be watching the Spanish elections with some alarm”.
Possibly you mean that the Spanish elections are demonstrating that that the “Occupy London”-type viewpoint finds little electoral support there. So when you refer to a “large popular protest movement” in Spain, it appears not to be popular at all.
Or is it a case that democracy is fine, as long as it delivers the result you want?
No. Shareholding does not work that way. It means owning a share of the sale price of the business and any dividends it pays, not owning the assets of the business or controlling its actions.
Andrew Suffield,
The idea that 1% of the population are wealth creators is deeply flawed. Firstly, they would not create any wealth without the wider population working for them or consuming their products. So we’re all effectively wealth creators, anyway. The problem with over-rewarding that 1% is that their spending is not high enough to sustain countries with large populations. They might spend more than the average person, but not anywhere near the ebough to replace millions of lower paid people. The criticism used to be about Tax and Spend politics, this has become don’t Tax and Borrow. Pandering to the markets has also produced higher unemployment, job instability, lowering living standards, loss of industry and finacial collapse.
Now, I’m not in favour of smashing the system either. But I am in favour of strong regulation, serving the national interests through a certain amount of protectionism and from a moral persective championing a more egalitarian economic model. In my opinion the influence of Free Market Fiscal Right has proved to be a world-wide economic disaster and ironically has boosted the stock of inhuman totalitarianism in China,
Glenn
The idea that 1% of the population are wealth creators is deeply flawed.
Agreed, a lot of what we’re hearing from these people and their mouthpieces these days is on the insulting idea that only the super-rich can really create wealth, so we must forever kow-tow to them.
In reality, the “finance industry” is just the admin department of capitalism. It’s a vastly bloated and arrogant admin department which has got far too big for its boots. Well, we know that’s how admin bods get if given a free rein, isn’t it? They start to think nothing would happen if it were not for them, and their mundane information passing role is what is really getting things done and therefore all the big pay should go to them.
I’m simplifying, of course, but there has been a big confusion between what really is work that is achieving something and how much of this “wealth creation” is just sitting on the pipes where the money flows and taking your tap. Now, to put it even more simply, the postman who takes a letter which seals the deal from A to B could say: “Look at me, if it was not for me that deal would not have been made, therefore I am responsible for the billion pounds that deal has made, therefore I should take ten million pounds, that’s just 1% of it, as my fee”. This may be extreme, but how much of the money taken by the “finance industry” is really just this sort of thing, dressed up with a little mumbo-jumbo to make it seem much more?
Agreed.