Heroes Not Zombies

It seems like, however the government want to label it, the UK is about to enter into another phase of austerity…..because, apparently, they’ve “found a black hole” in the finances. This is such a common narrative. The one where governments say they need to “balance the budget”, match the government’s income to its expenditure, or vice versa. There’s talk everywhere about “deficits”, “the gap in the budget” and “cuts’. Yet all this comes at time of wage stagnation, deteriorating Public Services, schools, hospitals, hospices, care homes, GP Practices struggling to deliver the basics.

Well, I’m not an economist. I trained as a doctor, graduating in 1978, with no debt, because the State paid for my education. My generation experienced job security, were able to purchase their own houses or afford rented accommodation, had access to local libraries, sports facilities and so on, in ways which are no longer the case for my grandchildren. I can’t help but wonder why. Why could the country afford better services, a better NHS, free education and decent jobs back in the sixties and the seventies, but can’t afford them now? Has the country become so much poorer over the last fifty years? If not, where has the money gone?

But my first thought is “what is money anyway”? I understand that centuries ago the Knights Templar developed an early banking system, allowing someone to deposit gold in an abbey in one country, receive written confirmation of that deposit, then travel to an abbey in a completely different country, present that note and receive the same amount of gold. There was a link between the paper and the gold. As best I know that remained at the heart of finance for centuries. The paper notes in my wallet, and the coins in my purse, represented something physical stored somewhere else…..gold, or other “assets”. But that’s not the case any more. Now money, for me, is a number on a screen on my banking app. A transaction involves somebody’s account increasing by the same number as mine reduces. We don’t actually send each other anything. It’s a sort of balancing act. Money is no longer tied to gold, or to anything else.

I could understand that in the past, more gold could be mined, refined and stored, and that notes could be issued relative to how much gold there was, but maybe that was always a sort of fairy tale. However, nowadays, for any country which has its own sovereign currency, it’s the government who “issues”, or “makes” the money. I know they talk all the time about increasing the government bank balance by taxation – taking it from other peoples’ bank accounts – but how did it get into other peoples’ bank accounts in the first place? Actually, it was the government which issued orders to change the numbers in the Central bank upwards. Money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s created in spreadsheets.

During the pandemic governments suddenly “found” or “issued” billions more pounds, dollars, or whatever. They lent this “new money” to individuals and companies, and, apparently, billions have been “lost”, loans not paid back, and money “disappeared”. They spent “new money” on purchases of vaccines, protective clothing and testing materials. They didn’t have to say, “sorry, we haven’t got any money in our bank account”. As has been said before, in times of war, governments always find the money. It’s at other times that they choose to say there isn’t any.

Over the last decade or so, the number of millionaires and billionaires has increased, while average earnings have stagnated, or fallen. The profits of energy firms, pharmaceutical firms, and global corporations have soared. Money, what money there is, has moved….away from workers and families and Public services to private individuals and corporations.

It turns out the country isn’t poorer now than it was when I was at university. It’s just redistributed the money into the hands of fewer and fewer people, away from Public services to private companies.

So, when the government talks about black holes, and needing to balance budgets, it is choosing not to do at least two things….one, redistribute money away from those who have the most, and, two, create the money needed to fix what needs fixed.

It’s the system which is failing millions of ordinary people. It’s the system which needs to change, and the system won’t change until the values change. The covid pandemic showed us that we need each other, that our shared environments affect our chances of getting sick, that poverty, poor housing and chronic ill health are the biggest determinants of who gets sick and who dies.

It’s not a lack of money which is hindering our ability to create a better society.

Maybe it’s time to try kindness instead, to draw upon the wells of compassion we saw in the early days of the pandemic. Most human beings will act to try to help others when they can. We’ve seen that time and again, during the pandemic, during floods, earthquakes and forest fires. We need to nurture that basic quality, instead of promoting selfishness, greed, and hyper-individualism.

What do you think? Does this make sense to you? If it doesn’t, tell me why. I’m always keen to improve my knowledge and understanding. I just don’t think it’s necessary to make peoples’ lives harder.