Boss Radio

It's an argument that occasionally breaks out on various forums around the net. 'Communism doesn't work'. Of course it doesn't. For communism to work you'd have to: a/ Eliminate money, and b/ Line everyone that didn't think it was a really good idea up against the wall. It's a Utopian dream, and for as long as people want to keep ahead of the Joneses it'll remain a dream.

Unfortunately those who propagate the 'Communism doesn't work' line appear to believe that therefore, automatically, capitalism does work.

No it doesn't.

Last night on the BBC World Service's 'India week' they were explaining that despite India's burgeoning economy, the gap between the rich and poor was simply becoming more and more pronounced. Blow me if they didn't follow this item with a trail for an upcoming series about China, where it appears that despite China's burgeoning economy, the gap between the rich and poor is becomeing more and more pronounced.

It's not like this is in any way something new. It happened in Russia after the overthrow of communism, it happened in Nicaragua after the elections which overthrew socialism, hell's bells, it happened in Britain while the madwoman Thatcher was in charge.

It's really quite simple.

When people say "Anyone can make money" they're lying. Well, OK, speaking literally, anyone can make money, but pretty much anywhere in the world if you try it you get arrested. Only the mint can manufacture money, everyone else has to persuade others to hand over some of theirs by begging for it or working for it. Or maybe by showing them some pictures you took last summer with an enormous telephoto lens. Now most countries try to keep the issue of money down to the actual wealth of the country, so if there's only that much wealth in the world it has to be a finite source. Therefore if, under a burgeoning exonomy, people are getting richer, other people must be getting poorer. It's absolutely the only way it can work. To put it another way, it doesn't work.

For a start the system requires a workforce to actually do the work. If every one of the world's employees decided that they were going to become entrepreneurs the whole of the world's economy would collapse overnight, and the only people who'd survive would be the ones that could actually do something for a living. This, in part, was what was behind Thatcher's destruction of the Trade Union movement. Trades Unions are workers bodies (Usually elected by a greater percentage of those eligible to vote than the policians who we expect to run the coutry for us), who try to balance, or maybe 'upset', the bias between those who exploit and those who are exploited. By simply denying the Trades Unions their power the Thatcher was able to create a society where, oh look, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

Now previously we'd had a glorious system whereby power in government bounced backwards and forwards between the Labour Party, which was pretty much in hock to the Trade Unions, and the Conservative Party, which was, as now, almost completely beholden to the guys at the top. They both denied it, but let's be honest, does anyone really believe that people, be they rich or Trade Union members, give away money to the people that they want to rule the country without expecting anything in return?

So the Labour Party did this, and the Tories undid it when they got in, and vice versa, and by and large we bounced along quite nicely. Then the media joined in. It was almost like everyone except me thought that the media were honest and that when they said that everyone in the Trade Unions and Labour party were scoundrels of the first water, then it had to be true. Rupert Murdoch's character assassination of anyone who proved too successful in either of those two bodies was positively Victorian, but it mattered not that whenever the stories came to court he lost, he was rich, he could afford it, and anyway, his media never publicised losing, except on occasion to dismiss the result as an outrage to justice.

The Labour Parties solution was simple. They moved right. Right into the Tories arena in fact, where they promptly pinched some of the Tories big business backers, including Rupert Murdoch. Looking back it seems hard to believe that there was a time when the Conservatives stood to the left of the current Labour party, but it's right there in the history books. Back in the days before there even was a Labour movement the Tories were the party of the left. They were responsible for the majority of nationalisations.

Try reminding them of that now.

You see? There once was a time when even the Tories knew that capitalism didn't always work.

And they reckon that we're not dumbing down...