40 Years of Deregulated ‘Free Market’ Capitalism
Adapted from a Twitter Thread by Dr. Russ Jackson @docrussjackson (Images added by @TweetForTheMany).
Britain was a much more equal society before Thatcher than it has been at any time since.
In his short THREAD, Dr. Jackson quickly takes stock of what forty years of increasingly deregulated free-market capitalism has actually achieved.
The attacks on the welfare state in the 1980s were based on views that saw poverty as the result of individual moral failings, rather than structural inequality. This narrative has become so dominant, it is now unusual to hear the Govt attach the prefix ‘structural’ to any issue.
Permanent jobs and decent pensions for the masses have become a thing of the past.
British manufacturing, once the envy of the world, has all but disappeared.
Around 10 million people are trapped in insecure, relatively low-paid work, with declining working conditions.
There‘s been a housing crisis for at least a decade.
Prior to the pandemic, rough-sleeping was up 169% since 2010, with well-over 100,000 homeless people.
Through no fault of their own, more & more decent hard-working people are having to stay living at home with their parents.
Since the 2008 financial crash — caused by the reckless irresponsibility of a greedy & woefully under-regulated & deregulated financial sector — our once genuinely world-beating public services have been utterly decimated, with tragic consequences for millions of decent people.
Britain has shocking levels of deprivation: over 2,000 foodbanks, which nearly 4 million UK adults (1 in 14) have been forced to use; at least 2 million pensioners are living in poverty, as are 4 million children — footballers have to beg the Govt to not let children go hungry.
Since 2010, 800 libraries closed, there are 20,000 fewer police, council funding has been cut by 49%, & many essential public services have either been privatised, or replaced with faceless profit-motivated corporate outsourcers with no local knowledge, links, or understanding.
Millions of young people are saddled with massive debt, while a mental health crisis sweeps the country.
The Red Cross has warned that the end of lockdown & furlough payments will drive millions off a cliff edge — leaving them unable to recover from the impact of the pandemic.
Sociopathic MPs & the hysterical tabloid press frame unemployed people, carers, & disabled people as ‘lazy work-shy scroungers’ & an unproductive drain on resources, whose motives & ability to work must be assessed by corrupt organisations incentivised by cruelty.
Endless, cruel & purely ideological cuts & privatisations left Britain & our underfunded & undervalued NHS highly vulnerable to coronavirus, which has catastrophically now taken well over 100,000 lives, while £millions have been handed to Tory donors with disastrous consequences.
Yet at the same time, tax-avoidance has become easier for the very rich — many of whom help to fund & support the corrupt Conservative Government.
Shell-companies & tax-havens mean that desperately needed taxable wealth can all too easily be concealed from the HMRC.
Hedge-funders, investment companies, & disaster capitalists bet against British businesses succeeding, & wealth inequality has reached completely unimaginable levels, to the extent that globally, at least $30 TRILLION is hoarded offshore, by people who really don’t need it.
In the run up to, & since the EU referendum, British society has become more polarized than ever before.
Populist nationalist rhetoric has become the dominant political narrative, building on the forty years of demonization of migrants, ethnic minorities, & especially Muslims.
Almost daily, senior Conservative MPs demonize ‘activist lawyers’ & mobilise some of the vilest antisemitic conspiracy theories on earth — including ‘cultural Marxism’ & the ‘illuminati’, without condemnation or even mention by a fearful, sycophantic, & compliant news media.
Opportunist Libertarian billionaires — often based overseas — own or invest in myriad free-market-supporting institutes, magazines, think-tanks & ‘charities’, as well as the overwhelming majority of the press & vast swathes of the broadcast media, including #talkRadio & #GBNews.
Our dumbed-down press & news media function as outrage-machines, designed to drive ad-revenue, push free-market ideology, & keep voters angry & divided, while concealing the fact that the rich manipulate public opinion so they can continue with their exploitation & corruption.
The relentless demonization of migrants & Muslims has not just normalized populist nationalist rhetoric, but has encouraged dangerous far-right ideology unseen since Mosely, & now, with Brexit, we’ve stopped looking for collaborative solutions to the world’s pressing problems.
The manufactured “will of the people” has resulted in alienating our closest neighbours & rising inequality, & now the full force of the Libertarian elite is focused on the only thing stopping an authoritarian kleptocratic post-welfare idiocracy from becoming a reality: the Left.
So when the Right are asked to account for the above, all they’ve got is to scream “WOKE VIRTUE-SIGNALLING CANCEL CULTURE MARXISTS!” & hope this is enough to distract from the fact that while elites hoard unimaginable wealth, millions of decent people live in quiet desperation.
Flattered by the fantastic response to this thread! Thanks for all your positive comments & RTs.
We need to get on the front foot: to stop responding to the childish provocations; to identify exactly what is wrong; & to clearly state what is needed to get Britain back on track👍
