The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has decided that people other than the large financial institutions should be able to buy some shares in Lloyds Bank.* How kind Mr Osborne is to the little man with a bit of money behind him. Of course we all know that these shares will end up in the hands of the major shareholders of the big financial institutions anyway but even if supporting the failed capitalist system by purchasing these shares may be profitable for some, what has happened to the Lloyds Bank which we, the poorer taxpayers and all our citizens employed or unemployed, took ownership of when we rescued it with our taxes? What with the Conservative government's austerity measures, many of us cannot afford to buy shares even if we did mistakenly think it a good thing to do? What's really crazy is that we should need to buy shares in something we already own. I may have got this wrong but to the capitalist's way of thinking isn't taking a person's property without their permission, without paying for it and selling it to another party considered a form of theft?
Other than the shirt on my back which ,unless I choose to give it to someone else ,I've always believed that as a human right, to be mine alone, I do have a few items that I own, along with all my fellow citizens, including, for example, the United Kingdom's greatest achievement, National Health Service. In addition to the taxes I happily pay as an owner to fund the National Health Service, so that everyone can have the same level of health treatment, will I now be expected to further pay other institutions for something I already own? Some might accurately say to me, "You already do pay them," since so much of the work of the National Health Service is now hived out to companies whose sole motive is making large profits.
It seems we are forced to accept a government, which gained less than 40% of the popular vote, that is umbilically connected to the interests of Capital which are in turn fed by inequality. The driver of inequality - returns on Capital that exceed the rate of economic growth - continually creates discontent as well as undermining democracy (see, for instance, Thomas Piketty, 2014). In the case of the sale of Lloyds Bank shares, democracy is undermined because resources belonging to everyone are, in effect, being taken away from a less well off section of our community and made available only to the better off.
Be it the National Health Service, other currently publicly owned essential services or Lloyds Bank shares what we are seeing is a warning sign on the road ahead. Think you own that shirt on your back ? don't be sure of it.
*Source : BBC
Reference :
Thomas Piketty (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press
Other than the shirt on my back which ,unless I choose to give it to someone else ,I've always believed that as a human right, to be mine alone, I do have a few items that I own, along with all my fellow citizens, including, for example, the United Kingdom's greatest achievement, National Health Service. In addition to the taxes I happily pay as an owner to fund the National Health Service, so that everyone can have the same level of health treatment, will I now be expected to further pay other institutions for something I already own? Some might accurately say to me, "You already do pay them," since so much of the work of the National Health Service is now hived out to companies whose sole motive is making large profits.
It seems we are forced to accept a government, which gained less than 40% of the popular vote, that is umbilically connected to the interests of Capital which are in turn fed by inequality. The driver of inequality - returns on Capital that exceed the rate of economic growth - continually creates discontent as well as undermining democracy (see, for instance, Thomas Piketty, 2014). In the case of the sale of Lloyds Bank shares, democracy is undermined because resources belonging to everyone are, in effect, being taken away from a less well off section of our community and made available only to the better off.
Be it the National Health Service, other currently publicly owned essential services or Lloyds Bank shares what we are seeing is a warning sign on the road ahead. Think you own that shirt on your back ? don't be sure of it.
*Source : BBC
Reference :
Thomas Piketty (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press
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