Citizens versus the City

Mr Justice Lindblom, giving his judgment on the legality of the St Paul's occupation, said on Wednesday that the Corporation’s attempt to evict the protest camp had been “entirely lawful and justified”. On any one of the issues raised by the City Corporation they were right to remove the protesters, he added. He then thanked the occupiers for their politeness.

On Thursday the cudgels against bad capitalism were then taken up by Messrs Cameron and Miliband. It was difficult for commentators to see many distinctions between their approaches. Both wanted a gooder capitalism! A capitalism without these nasty short term bankers running the show. A capitalism without the drive for immediate profits in its financial transactions.

Is this possible?

In China and India there is a good chance of vast, quick profits from equally vast pools of cheap labour. International finance is, on the other hand, still the monopoly of Western banks. In the west, particularly those countries driven by 'Anglo-Saxon' capitalism, there was money to be made ... from money! (Not from making things. Not from organising productive work.) Britain was a prime example. Between 1997 (the year of the advent of the New Labour Government) and 2007, of the £1.4 Trillion spent on overall investment, 81% of it went on finance and mortgages. Since 2008, the value of that 81% has been virtually wiped out.

It proves, if it needed proving, that value in an economy ultimately comes from working, with things including natural resources, to make other things.

Western, and particularly British capitalism, no longer takes us there. Who invests in long term projects these days in most of the the west? Governments. Now even that has stopped. But we can't make any real, stable, new value by fiddling with money. That was always it turns out, an illusion.

So what sort of economy do people need? Why did a recent GlobeScan poll in the US show that support - even there - for the 'Free Enterprise System' had fallen among the general population in the last ten years from 80 to 60%? (FT 19 Jan.)  Start from basics. We need, all of us, to work to make things that we decide we all really require (cheap energy, housing, technology, good clothes etc). So. Let's start by working out and voting on what it is we have to have as our priorities (rather than letting loose a 17th brand of detergent.) Then we want long term investment to set up to allow us to produce what we need as efficiently and as skillfully as possible. Than means that people (and governments) with money have to pass a five year or a ten year threshold before they can cash in and take any profits. Then we want controlled banks that serve how we want to use our money (investment, welfare, education etc.) Banks should not be profit making institutions in their own right. They should serve the economy that CAN produce real value that is sustainable.

Simples.

But I'm not sure we will be able to be polite to Judge Lindblom for much longer.