Even as the people of the UK are told that the country is heading out of recession, there are those who see the prospect of recovery as tinted with danger. The fears of these critics lie in the possibility that the path chosen to lead us out, lays no foundations that might prevent us from falling right back in again (Elliott, 2013).
The trouble is - and this is something that will nag at all three major parties, who have all pledged support for austerity and for a leaner state - the critics have a point.
The problem is that Britain's wealth is not underpinned by any form of industrial infrastructure. All effort has been geared, almost entirely, towards financial speculation, and the UK's industrial base has been allowed to stagnate and waste away. With it too went the working class jobs that paid wages and created consumer demand.
Going into the 2010 UK General Election, the Liberal Democrats had plans for government investment to set about undoing these problems. Their plans included putting into place the groundwork for a green energy industry, which would convert old shipyards into centres for green energy production (The Independent, 2010).
Such plans would have paid off both in the short and long term: new jobs, reduced dependence upon importing external sources of energy, plenty of new and lasting industrial manufacturing work in green energy technology, and on top of all else, a more environmentally friendly future.
However, destructive corporate investment habits have forced the UK down a different path out of the mire. Rather than the road paved by human attempts to positively interfere, nature's unrestricted course has been taken instead. Attempts to improve the world are being cut away in favour of competition. In favour of the survival of the fittest. But this choice betrays only a short memory.
The sovereign debt crisis, the core of the present troubles and the foundation upon which stands the architecture of austerity's justification, was not the result of wanton helpfulness. Neither was it the result of irresponsible levels of offering healthcare, nor the deplorable excesses of offering bread and shelter to those who are starving and homeless.
It was the result of the collective resources of the people being turned into a colossal investment fund with which to create the single largest financial bailout in history. It was the result of money gathered together for the building of roads, and hospitals, and schools, and for insurance against sickness and savings for the future; it was all of that money being redirected to prop up a marketplace that had put all of those things in jeopardy in the name of selfish profit. Because the selfish profiteers had become too big to fail.
The state was damned if it did, and damned if it didn't.
Particularly so, since those who benefited from that bailout, and continue to profit, still have influence. That influence is being used to ensure that the very states by whom they have been rescued, stay firmly out of the way next time.
The withdrawal of the state, along with the ever ongoing weakening of the power of the labour movement, has left capital excessively powerful and virtually unchecked (Hughes, 2011). Fears are that a new, false, economy will be constructed out of the wreckage of the old one, and, like a car constructed out of two broken chassis, there will be too much focus on just getting to a particular destination that the condition in which the passengers arrive there, if they arrive at all, will not be sufficiently considered.
We must plan for more than just escaping the present situation. We must also think about the future and ensure that the welfare of the people cannot be so threatened again.
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References:
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+ Larry Elliott's 'UK economic recovery built on shaky foundations - again'; in The Guardian; 27 October 2013.
+ James Tapsfield & Joe Churcher's 'Conservative Party Conference: David Cameron defends Tory plan for seven more years of austerity'; in The Independent; 1 October 2013.
+ James Chapman's 'I won't reverse the cuts if I become PM, says Miliband: Labour's election pledge to keep austerity budgets'; in The Mail; 22 June 2013.
+ Rowena Mason & Patrick Wintour's 'Nick Clegg persuades Lib Dems to stick with austerity'; in The Guardian; 16 September 2013.
+ The Telegraph's 'Nick Clegg wants disused shipyards to become production centres for wind turbines'; 11 February 2010.
+ David Harvey's 'Crises of Capitalism'; RSA Animate on YouTube; 28 June 2010.
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