Workers' Liberty

I blogged in a post a week or so ago, about the celebrity culture that Britain has adopted following on yet again from the US. The idea that people live their lives vicariously through those of others, and that the attitude promoted is that we all have to be like these “celebrities”, one of the reasons that consumer debt has gone through the roof as people attempt to buy the latest piece of ephemera. The whole thing is egged on by Blairism, that encourages people from the earliest age to go into debt on the basis of a gamble that such speculation in Education will result in big bucks later on. It follows on from their encouragement to people to believe that their problems can all be solved by buying a Lottery ticket, or scratch card, and now that is being taken further with the introduction of super casinos. Of course, the chances of solving your problems by any of these means are non-existent, and it is the poorest in society, the people nost desperate, and with the least alternative methods of getting out of their situation that end up throwing away the largest amounts of money in these schemes. It is the same culture that leads to the profusion of shyster lawyer adverts on the telly just after the take out more debt adverts, that advertise all kinds of ambulance chasing opportunities by making money from suing somebody for something.

Now the whole thing has been set out in a book. The New York Times reported recently on a new book called “Money
Changes Everything,” an anthology edited by Elissa
Schappell and Jenny Offill.

The New York Times: “... issues of money — and the
envy it causes — is creating more financial and psychological distress than we can imagine, psychologists and social scientists say. We overspend to keep up with neighbours and friends; take jobs we’re not happy at to keep up a lifestyle we think we should have; and compulsively watch television shows that flaunt multimillion-dollar homes and exotic vacations.”

As a result of the explosion of credit that has caused this mountain of debt, the distinction between who is rich, and who isn’t has been significantly blurred. Probably, one of the reasons for the increase in social antagonism between those that have absolutely nothing, and the much larger number of – actually working class people – that appear now to be rich, to have lots of possessions etc. People can live, what would formally have been, the lifestyle of the relatively rich even though by any rational definition they are not. With banks and building societies offering loans on five times earnings, and for virtually unlimited periods even people on average earnings or even below can borrow huge sums of money that other than in London and the South-East allow people to buy houses that would formally only have been within the scope of the rich, or upper middle class. The result has been a spiral in house prices. That in turn has meant that those people that were able to buy houses in the 1960’s or 1970’s – often in the North for around £1,000 - £2,000, now find themselves as they approach retirement, with considerable assets. The house price was inflated away by the inflation of the 1970’s and early 80’s, meaning the mortgage was cleared, and a large amount of disposable income could be saved. The consequence now is all of the adverts for “equity release” for such people, encouraging such people to sell all or part of their house – usually at some knock-down value – in order to get cash now to make up for the fall in state pension, or to maintain a fairly affluent lifestyle. At the same time those that were unable, or chose not to buy during that period have found themselves well and truly screwed in comparison. And seeing such people continuing to enjoy such a lifestyle not only increases social tension – actually against people of their own class rather than any anger being directed against the capitalist class – but also encourages further borrowing by others to try to keep up. For younger people that have not had this historical advantage the example of this lifestyle merely encourages borrowing in the first place, and with every new electrical gadget, every new fad in motor vehicles, every new accoutrement for improving the house, the need to keep up with the Jones’s means borrowing money to do it, whilst nether realises the Jones’s didn’t have any money either, but were also loaded with debt.

“All the ready credit gives of the illusion of living the American dream,” says Schappell. “Economists report that middle-class families are now carrying record levels of credit card debt, going without health insurance and filing for bankruptcy at several times the rate of the early 1980s.”

“Schappell said she now believes... that the old-fashioned ideal of working hard, saving and gradually making it is a bankrupt one. Instead, the way people envision growing rich, she said, is through a windfall: “a malpractice lawsuit, the lottery or going on a reality show — it’s the new American dream.”