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It’s socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us in Britain
by Owen Jones
Who are the real scroungers? Free-marketeers decry ‘big government’ yet the City and big business benefit hugely from the state – from bailouts to the billions made from privatisation. Socialism does exist in Britain – but only for the rich
A view of London’s financial district, as seen from the Shard. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Socialism lives in Britain, but only for the rich: the rules of capitalism are for the rest of us. The ideology of the modern establishment, of course, abhors the state. The state is framed as an obstacle to innovation, a destroyer of initiative, a block that needs to be chipped away to allow free enterprise to flourish. “I think that smaller-scale governments, more freedom for business to exist and to operate – that is the right kind of direction for me,” says Simon Walker, the head of the Institute of Directors. For him, the state should be stripped to a “residual government functioning of maintaining law and order, enforcing contracts”. Mainstream politicians don’t generally talk in such stark terms, but when the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg demands “a liberal alternative to the discredited politics of big government”, the echo is evident.
Bill Bard says:
Saying it as it is.
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2014/08/its-socialism-for-the-rich-and-capitalism-for-the-rest-of-us-in-britain/
