Liberal capitalism has rotted our souls. But its days might be … – The Guardian

Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. We have a moral problem in this country with something we used to be comfortable calling greed. Photograph: Getty Images

At the beginning of the 20th century, our political lords and masters dressed like theyd just come off a grouse moor. By the end of the century, they looked like they worked in an international hedge fund.

The left has sometimes been confused by this change. When the grouse moor lot were in power, the battle lines were clear. The class war had its recognisable uniforms, from tweeds to cloth caps. But this old war was made irrelevant bythe forward march of modern capitalism, with power leaking to those who were able to manipulate theworkings of the market, leaving a few harmless toffs deadheading their roses. Financial deregulation the liberalisation of the rules governing the City was a coup against the traditional vested interests of the pinstriped suits brigade. As the Essex boys took over, thepublic school traders were left chuntering into their golf club gins.

The liberal right of Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher was able to represent this change as one of democratisation. Money didnt have any sort of accent. Even the working class could own their own shares and thus stick their fingers in the cherry pie of economic growth and they could buy their own council house. As some on the left remained obsessed with fighting old battles against beaten enemies, power was being reconcentrated in the hands of the few. As Jeremy Corbyn has rightly put it, the system was being rigged. But tragically, under New Labour the progressive left decided that the best thing it could do was cheer along. Tony Blair differed from Thatcher only by a slightly more redistributive nudge of the tiller. The left had effectively surrendered.

And that is how many of us thought politics was going to last. But a chink of light has appeared, for this election pits against each other two leaders who have both broken from the Thatcher/Blair consensus. OK, Theresa May is not quite the politician of the old squirearchy, but she retains enough of its traditional values to despise the super-slick Blatcher poster-boy George Osborne and to understand the attraction of Brexit notwithstanding the fact that it may well make us slightly poorer as acountry. She is an old-fashioned politician who (quite rightly) wants to speak of our moral responsibilities and not just our legal rights.

And Jeremy Corbyn, intuitively a Brexiter, is the only political leader since Michael Foot to understand how the power of money comes to be concentrated in the hands of a few. To those who have, more will be given. To those who have little, even what they have will be taken away. This is the logic of modern capitalism.

Corbyn is right to call it out. He is going to do better in this election than the consensus-seeking pundits are all claiming at least, I hope so. So what that he isnt Mr Charisma? Because, contra glossy New Labour, there really is such a thing as being too rich. Ordinary people know it and Corbyn gets it. We have a moral problem in this country with something we used to be comfortable calling greed, which is both bad for the poor and, yes, bad for the rich, too. It rots people from the inside out Philip Green, Mike Ashley. And if you think you can detect a bit of my religion coming through here, you are damned right. A 70,000 annual salary equals being rich? Sounds near enough to me.

The problem with liberal capitalism of both the Thatcher and New Labour varieties is that it surrendered morality to the invisible hand. Adam Smith justified personal greed by making it out to be the driver of other peoples employment. This meant that even so-called progressives could worship the money god with a clean conscience. It will be a long road back from the Blair/Thatcher consensus that has stained our soul so deeply. But a start has been made with us leaving the European Union. Yes, Brexit threatens many vested interests, and the muscle of the City of London may derail it yet. But perhaps, just perhaps, the dismantling of Thatchers liberal legacy has finally begun.

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Liberal capitalism has rotted our souls. But its days might be ... - The Guardian