A MODEST PROPOSAL… (a fable for our times)
Major employers in Britain greeted
with enthusiasm a leaked proposal from an unnamed minister at the last Cabinet
meeting that the problem of inequality of
pay between men and women in the UK
would be easily solved by reducing men’s pay to the average present
level of women’s. (That is, excepting boardroom remuneration, since that is a private matter for individual companies.)
The T.U.C. is predictably opposed to
what it calls ‘an outrageous idea’, but certain other interests also expressed
concerns: leading retailers have spoken of falling consumption levels as a
result and HM Treasury officials have anonymously voiced worries about any
major national wage reduction adversely affecting income-tax receipts. It was,
however, pointed out that reduced tax intake could be compensated for by
raising the existing lowest rate of tax. Meanwhile retailers need only
compensate loss in sales volumes by raising prices, thus counteracting potential
deflationary pressures.
Women’s groups were divided as to how
to react: some feminists were of the opinion that ‘it would teach the men a
jolly good lesson’. Others more radically inclined referred to the proposal as
leading to ‘a race to the bottom’. They were supported by economists demurring
over a further downslide in productivity if everyone
were low-paid. The Guardian’s position was, as usual, equivocal.
The principal conundrum is, however,
the electoral effect, since reducing the level of men’s wages to that of women’s
would likely make doorstep canvassing somewhat challenging. But since all the
biggest financial and business interests would be overwhelmingly in favour the
Conservative Party could expect campaign contributions on a massive scale, swamping
Labour’s funding, providing all Tory canvassers with protective gear and
ultimately determining the tenor and direction of the next election decisively,
what with near-blanket rightwing control of mass media; while social media ‘fake
news’ about Jeremy Corbyn’s father having boiled babies for breakfast and the
Labour Party intending to build a ring of concentration camps for Jews might –
taken together – be sufficient to swing enough support to the Tories to deny
outright socialist victory. But electoral Tory victory would be more securely
ensured by the prior reintroduction of pre-1867 ‘property qualifications’ for
voting along with excluding those who had served prison sentences of over two
years, together with re-zoning constituencies (known in America as ‘gerrymandering’)
through which an estimated 50 Labour constituencies could be abolished.
One Daily Mail columnist, noting the
likely expansion of food banks and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s rapturous approval of
their altruism, wrote that ‘self-denial’ on the part of Britain’s male workers
would strengthen the nation’s moral fibre: enough to see it through Brexit with
determination and vigour, pointing out that personal sacrifice on such a scale
had won the war.
Whatever; the universal lowering of
male wages has become the ‘new normal’ in political debate. As one rightwing
politician put it: ‘We can take it from there.’
In
case you think the above is make-believe, I would refer you to the lead letter
in Mail on Sunday ‘Letters’ for March 11th, 2018: ‘Easy way to end
the gender gap – pay men less’.
The
letter points out that with men earning on average 18% more than women,
business simply can’t afford to bring women’s pay to level-pegging, so the only
answer is to pay men less, if we want equality.
Any
more than business not so long ago said it could not ‘afford’ to pay a national
‘living wage’ of £7.50 an hour: in other words, barely enough to live on. If
business is in this parlous state, what is it for? And ask why women doing the
same work should of necessity subsidise even greater company profits, just for
being women. One option might be to
change sex.
Long
ago Nassau Senior argued strenuously against the 10-Hour Act limiting the
working day to 10 hours on the grounds that this would impoverish business. (He
apparently saw nothing wrong in children working 14 hours a day, which in some
countries they may still do.) In other words we should only row back a bit on
people worked to death for 24 hours a day on no pay at all. Jeff Bezos on his £112 billion over at Amazon
has shown eloquently how this kind of approach does indeed maximise
profitability, at least for the CEO.
Of
course, as Marx pointed out, the parliamentary limiting of the working day
forced manufacturers to become more inventive in how to maximise worker
productivity within a 10- and later an 8-hour limit: through advancing
technology per worker per hour. Result was that manufacturers made more money
than ever. But today, with ever-cheaper labour reserves available for one
reason and another, Nassau Senior may live again.
WHO OWNS THE PRESS?
Just a
brief breakdown of the obvious: for those who argue that there should be no
restrictions on press ownership in the name of ‘press freedom’. But how ‘free’
a press is it? Let’s have a look:
National
Dailies: Political
outlook Proprietors:
FINANCIAL
TIMES – centre-right Nikkei Inc.
(Japan)
THE TIMES
– right
Murdoch – News Corp.
DAILY
TELEGRAPH – far right Barclay
brothers
DAILY
MAIL – far right
Viscount Rothermere
GUARDIAN
– centre left
(trust)
i –
centre right
Johnston
Press
DAILY
EXPRESS – far right Trinity Mirror
(soon ’Reach’)/Desmond
THE SUN –
far right
Murdoch – News Corp.
THE
MIRROR – centre left Trinity Mirror
DAILY
STAR – far right
Trinity Mirror/Desmond
MORNING
STAR – left
Peoples Press (not for profit)
National
Sundays:
SUNDAY
TIMES - right Murdoch
– News Corp.
SUNDAY
TELEGRAPH – far right Barclay
brothers
MAIL ON
SUNDAY – far right
Viscount Rothermere
OBSERVER
– centre/left/right (‘liberal’) (trust)
SUNDAY
EXPRESS – far right Trinity
Mirror/Desmond
THE SUN
ON SUNDAY - far right Murdoch– News Corp.
SUNDAY
MIRROR – centre left Trinity
Mirror
THE
PEOPLE – centre left
Trinity Mirror
DAILY
STAR ON SUNDAY – far right
Trinity Mirror/Desmond
So I
would class 10 of these nationals as ‘far right’, two as ‘right’, two as
‘centre right’, four as ‘centre left’, and one as ‘left’. That’s fourteen as
‘far right’ or ‘right/centre right’, with five as ‘left/centre-left’. Plus the
Observer, which expresses views across the whole spectrum, but is never more
than very cautiously left. (Or cautiously right, come to that.)
Unfortunately
the present-day Fleet Street lacks a DAILY HERALD, a mass-circulation title once
the platform for the TUC which could, at least, be depended upon to express the
views of organised labour. Its place has been taken by the MORNING STAR, once a
Communist-run newspaper and with continuing close links to the Party (formerly
the DAILY WORKER) but now more broadly-based across the whole left spectrum,
including Labour and Green party members, and run by a co-operative that
reflects this spectrum. The MORNING STAR, very conscious of being the only
paper reflecting trade union views (for example in regard to disputes) is thus
the only paper which is reliably leftwing and as it lacks the resources of
commercial advertising it is dependent upon day-to-day crowdfunding. It has
become of major importance since the moment it became the ONLY national daily
to support the candidature of Jeremy Corbyn (a STAR columnist then) and which
continues to be the only paper that reliably reports his views and policies.
The print
medium isn’t what it was, what with social media and news on the Web, and all
print circulations (insofar as we know) have dropped. It seems likely that in a
country in which the Conservative Party membership is some 130,000 while that
of Labour under Corbyn is well over 600,000, the predominant press bias does
not in any way reflect the views of the country taken as a whole: a fact which
keeps the well-paid hacks of the rightwing press going through enormous
populist contortions in which only the
truth suffers.
I have
not mentioned the SOCIALIST WORKER, organ of the Socialist Workers Party which
if anything is larger than the (main) Communist Party and with a
paper-circulation to match. SOCIALIST WORKER stands at the head of myriad left
weeklies of infinitely less circulation. This is because the SOCIALIST WORKER
comes out weekly only and so really ought to be classed alongside weekly
periodicals. It is not commonly found on sale at newsagents, either, but relies
upon a web presence plus – for the print version - both membership
subscriptions and hawkers.
