In April 1938, President Franklin D Roosevelt despatched a message to Congress during which he mentioned:
Sad occasions overseas have retaught us two easy truths in regards to the liberty of a democratic folks.
The primary fact is that the freedom of a democracy shouldn’t be protected if the folks tolerate the expansion of personal energy to some extent the place it turns into stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—possession of Authorities by a person, by a group, or by another controlling non-public energy.
The second fact is that the freedom of a democracy shouldn’t be protected if its enterprise system doesn’t present employment and produce and distribute items in such a manner as to maintain a suitable lifestyle.
There’s apparent resonance in what he mentioned for dialogue on this weblog this week due to the reference to fascism that he made.
His interpretation of fascism is value noting. It’s closely influenced by the Italian understanding of fascism at the moment. Nonetheless, it ought to resonate very strongly at this second. The concept that we’ve got fascism when non-public energy is extra necessary than the state is of appreciable significance.
So, too, nevertheless, is this concept when mixed along with his second staff, which is that democracy shouldn’t be protected if enterprise thinks it acceptable to organise itself in a manner that doesn’t meet the wants of individuals.
Now, let me put this within the context of a present concern. As the Guardian notes this morning:
After regulator resists 40% enhance in payments, [Thames Water] shareholders deny request for extra cash – elevating prospect of nationalisation
The UK water trade could be very clearly organising itself in a manner that doesn’t maintain a suitable lifestyle on this nation. Roosevelt’s second situation is met.
As considerably, so too is the primary. Not solely will the present Tory authorities not correctly nationalise Thames Water, however neither will Labour. We all know that the previous is true as a result of the Tories handed laws, utilizing statutory devices, in January this 12 months to guard the pursuits of shareholders within the occasion of the insolvency of a water firm, with Thames Water clearly in thoughts. As the FT famous on the time:
[A] lawyer additionally warned that collectors may endure greater losses than they may have below the present regime.
Not solely was it the Tory’s intention to guard the highly effective shareholders the Thames Water, however they have been prepared to take action at price to collectors, together with workers, pensioners, and people different companies whose companies it’s important that Thames Water retains if the corporate is to proceed to fulfill the duty to provide water to roughly one quarter of the folks in the UK. The Tory indication was clear: on this energy wrestle, the shareholders of the dominant organisation have been deemed to carry all of the playing cards, by legislation. This meets Roosevelt’s first check.
I’ve two causes to suppose that Labour will do nothing about this. The primary is that yesterday Keir Starmer mentioned:
I can not faux that we may flip the faucets on, faux the injury hasn’t been carried out to the financial system – it has. There is not any magic cash tree that we are able to waggle the day after the election. No, they’ve damaged the financial system, they’ve carried out large injury.
It so occurs that he was speaking about funding for native authorities, however he may simply as simply have been speaking in regards to the provide of cash for an additional important public service, which is the supply of water on which, fairly actually, the lifetime of the UK relies upon. What he made clear is that he doesn’t suppose {that a} Labour authorities can have the need or willingness to command the assets to make good the issues that the Conservatives have created.
It’s, after all, full nonsense that the assets to fund each native authorities and the rebuilding of our water provides don’t exist. As I’ve proven within the Taxing Wealth Report 2024, as much as £90 billion of taxes could possibly be raised a 12 months by taxing the rich extra, just by altering present tax legal guidelines. As well as greater than £100 billion could possibly be raised a 12 months to fund capital funding if solely the foundations on tax incentivised saving have been modified. That has nothing to do with discovering a magic cash tree. It has all the things to do with a authorities’s capability to tax, which Labour is clearly not prepared to make use of within the public curiosity.
I’ve a second purpose for pondering that Labour is not going to act, which is that sources inside the social gathering inform me that they’re completely refusing to think about nationalisation and that the one possibility that they imagine to be on the desk is a few type of repackaging of the present firm to maintain it inside the non-public sector.
Put these two elements collectively, and we are able to see that Labour additionally meets Roosevelt’s first situation for the existence of fascism. It believes that the ability of the non-public sector is bigger than that of the state, even in the case of one thing as basic as the availability of water on which we’re all completely dependent. Its perception is that there’s nothing you are able to do in response to the failure of a non-public sector entity, however bail it out and return it to non-public possession. That is although it’s now manifestly apparent from proof all over the world that the one profitable mannequin for the availability of water to a nation is that it should be below public management.
The state of affairs at Thames Water is frightening sufficient. Our main political events’ response to it’s, if something, far more worrying nonetheless. What they’re confirming is that, so far as they’re involved, the state has withdrawn from the regulation of the non-public sector and from the regulation of the availability of companies important to the well-being of individuals on this nation. They’re, in that case, successfully heralding the onset of fascism, to which they are saying they haven’t any reply.
Roosevelt declared in his message to Congress that it was important that the State regulate the non-public sector. That, he thought, was a basic position of the state. He instructed how he would achieve this to require that the non-public sector serve the general public good. He concluded his message by saying:
No man of fine religion will misread these proposals. They derive from the oldest American traditions. Focus of financial energy within the few and the ensuing unemployment of labor and capital are inescapable issues for a contemporary “non-public enterprise” democracy. I don’t imagine that we’re so missing in stability that we will lose religion in our personal way of life simply because we search to learn the way to make that way of life work extra successfully.
It might now appear that we lack any fashionable politicians, a minimum of inside our main political events, who may even think about having such a imaginative and prescient, not to mention being able to ship it. And that’s the reason we’re in very deep bother.
