by Owen Jones
It should go without saying that a challenge to the grotesque redistribution of wealth and power to the very richest over the last thirty years is long overdue. Some might call this class war; but surely that phrase applies more appropriately to the fact that, while recession was ravaging workers' living standards and throwing thousands out of work, the wealth of the top 1,000 richest people shot up by 30 per cent between 2009 and 2010---the biggest hike ever recorded. Or the fact that, while the Conservative-led government is reducing corporation tax to 24 per cent-s-one of the lowest rates in the developed world-VAT, a tax that disproportionately hits the poor, was increased to 20 per cent. This is class war, and a new class politics must answer it.
While the financial crimes of the poor, such as benefit fraud, are frequently in the crosshairs of politicians and journalists, the far greater financial crimes of the rich are largely ignored. That is why fire must be redirected from welfare fraud to tax evasion which, as we have seen, costs the taxpayer seventy times more. And, of course, the whole tax system has to be rebalanced so that the burden falls properly on the wealthy. After all, during the boom times, the profits of the wealthy increased by unparalleled amounts: there is certainly no lack of money at the top.
The objection is always: 'Won't the rich just flee abroad to escape the taxman?' Chartered accountant and former company director Richard Murphy points out that this was the argument used against the new 50 per cent tax rate that was introduced in the dying days of New Labour for those earning £150,000 and above. 'Itwas said that they're all going to be fleeing to Switzerland-but the number of applications to work in Swiss finance from the UK in 2009 was 7 per cent down on 2008. And the total number of questions was just over a thousand, and most of them were from the backroom-the technical people, IT and administration-not from the dealing room.' The six major corporations that left were not even paying tax in Britain in the first place. Indeed, despite all the controversy, the tax receipts flowing into Treasury coffers were actually higher than estimated.
It will take a lot more than changing the tax system to stop the nation's wealth being sucked into the bank accounts of the rich elites. There is little real pressure to stop them amassing huge riches while their employees' wages stagnate or even decline. At the heart of this scandal is the destruction of the power of workers as an organized force-that is, the trade unions. 'There are studies that show that one of the features of more equal societies is stronger trade union movements,' says Professor Richard Wilkinson, co-author of seminal book The Spirit Level.
I think the ability of people at the top, the bankers and chief executives and so on, to give themselves these huge bonuses reflects the fact they're in a situation where there are no constraints on them. If there were strong trade unions and perhaps a union or employee representative on the company's board, it would become more embarrassing for CEOs to award themselves huge pay increases and bonuses while holding down wage demands from employees.
The decline of the trade unions lies at the heart of many of the problems of the working class: the fact that they don't have a voice; their stagnating wages; their lack of rights in the workplace, and so on. As Tony Blair once boasted, even with New Labour's changes, the law remains 'the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world'. Indeed, Britain is actually in violation of its obligations as a signatory to various International Labour Organization conventions. 'Although workers look for representation in the workplace, the anti-trade union laws have undermined the ability of trade unions to represent people,' says John McDonnell. 'The unions do their best in a difficult, very cold climate:
Despite all the hammering that unions have suffered, they remain by far the biggest democratic civil society organizations in the country, with over seven million members. At the heart of the unions' weakness is the fact that they have more or less been evicted from the private sector. While over half of public sector workers are union members, it is only the case for 15 per cent of their private sector counterparts. The restrictive laws are partly to blame-as Ken Livingstone says, 'the intervention of the state to guarantee fairness in employment could change it overnight' -but the nature of the hire-and-fire, fragmented service sector with its high numbers of temporary and part-time workers makes itdifficult to organize. At the tum of the twentieth century, the mission of trade unions was expanding from their relatively privileged skilled base to recruit largely non-unionized unskilled workers. It was called 'New Unionism'. If the trade union movement has a future, it needs a New Unionism that focuses specifically on organizing the new service-sector working class.
In an era of cuts and austerity, it also means that the unions have to reach out far and wide. 'They need to form coalitions with user groups so that powerful enough alliances can be formed to defeat the cuts agenda of the government through extra-parliamentary action,' says industrial relations expert Professor Gregor Gall. 'Unions need to do this as a union movement, not just as individual unions. The rationale here is that defending jobs and pay is synonymous with defending the quality and quantity of public services.' For example, the argument has to be made not just about public sector workers facing the sack, but also about the loss of services for users, and the economic knock-on effects imperilling the jobs of private sector workers too.
Above all, the unions have to adapt to the working class as it is today. 'You have to recognize that the labour movement is different, and it's never going to be what it was thirty years ago,' says trade union leader Billy Hayes. 'It can regain its strength, but it's looking for that next generation ofleaders who will come up with ideas and initiatives that people like me aren't capable of developing.'
It will be said that a movement with class at its heart will alienate the middle class. But there is no automatic rule that it has to. One politician put it to me that it was 'the politics of despair' to stand on the most conservative of programmes, merely 'because you'll never convince those people in Surbiton'. That was Hazel Blears, a stalwart defender of New Labour, and I happen to agree with her.
Most middle-class people cannot afford to go private, and want good, properly funded local schools and hospitals. Polls show that middle-class people support higher taxes on the rich-and indeed there is no reason why they would be any less happy to see the wealthy pay their fair share than a working-class person. It is in the interest of middle-class people to live in a society with less crime, and reducing the social causes is a major way of achieving that. As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's groundbreaking study of inequality, The Spirit Level, has shown, all groups in society benefit from greater equality- including the middle class.
But a new class politics cannot simply be a British phenomenon. As the ultra-rich business elite has globalized, so too must working-class people. With multinational corporations able to hold elected govern- ments to ransom, only the power of a strong, international labour force can meet the challenge. Only by making common cause with the bur- geoning workforces of India and China can British workers hope to stem the consequences of a global 'race to the bottom' in pay and conditions.
It would be tempting to make all sorts of doom-laden, apocalyptic predictions about what will happen if such a movement fails to get off the ground, and warn darkly of riots and revolutions. The reality is just downright depressing. The working class will remain weak and voice- less. They will still be the butt of jokes at middle-class dinner parties, detested in angry right-wing newspaper columns, and ridiculed in TV sitcoms. Entire communities will remain without secure, well-paid work, and the people that comprise them will continue to be demonized for it. Living standards will go on stagnating and declining, even while the richest rake it in like never before. Ever fewer working-class people will bother to vote. Right-wing populism will tap into growing disillu- sionment and fury at the manner in which working-class people have become so despised. Mainstream politicians will continue to focus their energies on satisfying the demands of a small, wealthy elite, while growing ever more indifferent to
the needs of an increasingly apathetic working class. Politics will revert to what it was in the nineteenth century: essentially, a family argument between competing wealthy factions.
At its heart, the demonization of the working class is the flagrant triumphal ism of the rich who, no longer challenged by those below them, instead point and laugh at them. As this Conservative-led government pushes ahead with a programme of cuts that makes the working class pay for the crimes of the elite, they have much to laugh at.
But it does not have to be this way. The folly of a society organized around the interests of plutocrats has been exposed by an economic crisis spar ked by the greed of the bankers. The new class politics would be a start, to at least build a counterweight to the hegemonic, unchallenged class politics of the wealthy. Perhaps then a new society based around people's needs, rather than private profit, would be feasible once again. Working-class people have, in the past, organized to defend their interests; they have demanded to be listened to, and forced concessions from the hands of the rich and the powerful. Ridiculed or ignored though they may be, they will do so again.
Acknowledgements
This book was made possible only by the enthusiasm, advice and experiences of others.
Without the encouragement of Jordan Goldman and Dominic Sandbrook, I would never have put pen to paper in the first place. I could not be luckier to have an agent as committed as Andrew Gordon, who helped kick the original idea into shape, offered invaluable advice from the very beginning, and never wavered in his support. The book would not have happened without his efforts. Tom Penn has been a brilliant, patient editor who improved the book immeasurably, not least by ruthlessly clamping down on some of my clunkier prose. I'm honoured that Tariq Ali was enthusiastic about the project from the very beginning and made sure Verso took iton.
Sarah Shin has been a tireless publicist for the book, and it is partly down to her dedication that the book made the impact it has. Like every Verso author, lowe a huge thanks to Rowan Wilson; he is a major reason why the company punches above its weight. Mark Martin and Loma Scott Fox mercilessly purged the book of my grammatical cockups, misused words and long-winded sentences; Chavs is far more readable because of their efforts.
I'd like to add a special tribute to Clara Heyworth, Verso's brilliant Marketing Manager in the United States, who tragically died not long after the book was released. I had the privilege of meeting her in New York and corresponding with her, and was struck by her warmth and intelligence. It wasn't foreseen than Chavs would make any headway in the United States; it is down to her efforts that it did. I know she is sorely missed by everybody at Verso and all her loved ones, and my thoughts are with them.
A number of specialists kindly sacrificed their time to offer their expertise, bounce ideas around and clarify some of my own thoughts. They include: Alan Walter (an inspirational campaigner for council tenants who tragically passed away during the writing of this book), Martin Barnes, Phillip Blond, Prof. John Carey, Nick Cohen, Prof. Danny Dorling, Larry Elliott, Dr Gillian Evans, Prof. Gregor Gall, Prof. John Goldthorpe, Lynsey Hanley, Johann Hari, David Kynaston, EiHs Lawlor, Prof. Rob MacDonald, John McDonnell MP, John McInally, Dr Ross McKibbin, Fiona Millar, Richard Murphy, Sam Tarry, Matthew Taylor, Mark Thomas, Graham Turner, Fiona Weir, Peter Whittle and Prof. Richard Wilkinson.
I was very lucky to have had the love and support of my friends throughout the writing process. A number of people read through early drafts and offered crucial suggestions and criticisms. I am eternally grateful to them. They are: Grant Archer, Ruth Aylett, Graham Bash, Alex Beecroft, James Bevan, Liam Cranley, Tim Flatrnan, Lola Frears, Rob Jones, David Easton, Andrew Fisher, Leah Kreitzman, Eleanor Mae
O'Hagan, Sue Lukes, Dorothy Macedo, Sarah Morrison, Mike Phipps, Jamie Rann, David Roberts, Dr Adam Smith, Stefan Smith, Tom Stoate, Wes Streeting, Chris Tapp, Jemima Thomas and Chris Ward. George Taylor went through the struggle of his life not long after the book came out. He did so with courage and dignity, and I am very proud of him.
I am hugely thankful to everyone who gave up time to be interviewed. This is particularly the case with those people in working-class communities across the country who agreed to answer intrusive questions, often with little or no notice. No other interviews in this book are as authoritative, perceptive or revealing as theirs. It is more important to me than anything that I have done justice to their experiences and opinions. I hope that I have.
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