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A 'new kind of capitalism'
This crisis of capitalism
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The mutual way to put Britain back on its feet
By any account the UK economy is in a dire position. According to a McKinsey report in January total British debt (that's corporate, personal and public debt)
was 469pc of GDP.
Our situation is second only to that of Japan, whose economy has atrophied for nearly 20 years.
Heavily indebted, we must do what any household or business would do: cut costs and increase income. For a country this means getting more out of what we spend
on public services and growing our private sector ...
Unable to make the most of our people and denied access to finance and long-term funding, both the public and the private sector need a new model to drive
intensive long-term investment in research and development, business capacity and skill appreciation.
That new model could and should include an updated version of an old one: co-ops. A new, modernised mutualism is one of the ways we can escape the present
economic crisis.
Right now we still operate under a shareholder value regime, where companies have increasingly focused on short-term gain using debt leverage to increase
stock value.
A new mutualism, where every employee owns something, offers stakeholding instead of shareholding as a method to raise performance, productivity and investment.
And this is no fantasy. Employee-owned firms have outperformed the FTSE-All Share Index over the last 18 years by an average of 10pc ...
Daily Mail 04 May 2010
Economic Democracy
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Conservative 'philosopher king' advocates 'new kind of capitalism'
Philip Blond is to appear alongside Mr Cameron to argue that Britain must be rebuilt around community values.
He has already been nicknamed the "Red Tory" for advising the party to put tackling poverty at the heart of their message, and now wants a new kind of
capitalism which gives more people access to markets.
Launching his think tank, ResPublica, with Mr Cameron on Thursday, he will say ordinary working people have been crowded out from wealth and
entrepreneurship ...
Mr Blond believes slashing the power of big private-sector firms is the only way to help the less well-off.
He will highlight areas such as banking, supermarkets and public-sector contracts as areas of 'monopoly dominance'.
Mr Blond will argue they should be handed over to social enterprise or community interest companies modelled on the John Lewis partnership, where employees
have a stake in the business.
"It's about capitalising on our two biggest assets – the insight and dedication of front-line staff and the engagement and involvement of citizens and
communities," he told the Daily Mail.
Mr Blond will condemn the modern state for destroying the respectable working class and promoting a form of multiculturalism which divides rather than
integrates society.
"The state has bailed out the banking system but has proved incapable of saving its own citizens from debt and servitude," he will say. "Moreover the state
has arrested social mobility and destroyed the structures of working class advancement.
"And in the absence of a common British narrative that unites all peoples and classes; proper respect for other cultures and traditions has collapsed into a
state sanctioned multiculturalism that has produced antagonistic communities and licensed the return of extremism and racism." ...
Telegraph 24 November 2009
David Cameron and the 'Red Tory' philosopher
Regulation won't solve this crisis of capitalism
The causes of our present indebtedness go back much further than Brown and Blair.
On a global level, they originated in the abolition of capital controls by Thatcher, Reagan and Clinton. The casino opened its doors in the 1980s, not with the
election of New Labour in 1997.
As financial globalisation took off, it created securitised mortgage debt and allowed it to multiply and infect the whole financial system.
As such we allowed a tax-evading, off-balance sheet, offshore economy to speculate with the savings and assets of an onshore, on-balance sheet, tax-paying public.
What is worse it that having lost our savings this industry now expects us – through tax bailouts – to pay again.
Similarly on a national or local level Conservatives need to recognise why so many people have turned to credit. For too many, wages were too low, there was
simply no other way to make ends meet.
For the real story of the last 30 years of neo-liberalism is not rising prosperity for all, but rather the utter destruction of the wealth and savings of the
bottom half of the population.
Outside of property, 50 per cent of the population now own just 1 per cent of the wealth whereas in 1976 it was 12 per cent.
Similarly wages for those at the bottom have stagnated – and the much-vaunted minimum wage is set so low that the state must subsidise it through tax credits ...
Independent 30 September 2008
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