Adam Smith or Karl Marx? Neither

Adam Smith

Karl Marx

I was going to post the fourth instalment of the pew saga, and might do later; but a short reflection on the status quo seems in order. Aditya Chakrabortty writes in todays Guardian on the Covid testing crisis; our 'world-beating' test & trace system, which the NonGovernment® and Boris Johnson trumpeted months ago and which has all but stalled, the blame as usual deflected onto the people themselves and the by now well beleaguered Civil Service; the state of the art app that never appeared; the PPE which miraculously turned out to be a pup; the contracts handed out without question or tender to private companies hand-in-glove with the NonGovernment® and its principle actors; Serco, Deloitte, Accenture, McKinsey, etc., etc., etc.

The question very few are voicing overtly is that of the overarching motivation behind all of this. That the UK has resources in depth, of world renowned quality and already within the public sector is simply a matter of fact, as Chakrabortty points out: the NonGovernment® simply refuses to employ these resources, instead farming out the work to companies seriously ill-suited to the job: consultancies and mega-contracting-out firms such as the late and not-much-missed Carillion take the cream of all this without having even having to tender a bid in fair competition.

This is self-evidently wrong. A capitalist system based on fair competition and good business practice is one thing. That such a system should also be leavened with a good deal of State security to account for excessive inequality is also a given, in any right-thinking person's mind. But a system where even business - and most business is extremely small business: micro-business, the real wealth-creator - is marginalised by a neo-liberal elite of money-movers, whose espoused praxis is merely the acquisition, storage and movement of wealth - money - is just contrary to the economic health of the world as a whole. If the system's raison d'etre is solely the movement of liquid assets from one bank account to another, producing nothing of usable worth in itself, then we are truly stuffed.

I'll quote Chakrabortty's final paragraph verbatim, as it sounds remarkably like one of my sign-offs - a kindred and also much-frustrated spirit:

'These chancers bring to the state no imagination, nor any idea of how to mobilise its resources. Their main skill is looting it for money to give to their mates in the private sector, while blaming it for their own fatal mess.'

Couldn't have put it better myself, but I'll add the rider that Boris Johnson is not a businessman, doesn't understand business and is essentially a privileged and independently wealthy individual who sees himself in the role of scion of the landed gentry. A man of independent wealth who would rather be supping at the tables of royalty and enjoying the fruits of his inherited and undeserved gains. Wake up call. He went to the right school and his family are wealthy, that's it. His agenda is all the more sinister because of his disdain for business. He is the only Tory in history to have gone down on record as having said publicly "Fuck Business." I rest my case.