Sunday, October 30, 2011

Its easy to criticise

Everyone has the right to protest.
In fact the right to protest or simply disagree en-mass is one of the defining characteristics of a free society and I am 100% onboard with this - no argument at all.

Sometimes though, actually more often than sometimes I find myself questioning the logic and rational behind such protests.

What exactly do the protestors want to get out of such public displays of support or disagreement?

In my mind there are two types of protest, the safe type and the pointless type.

The safe ones are generally marches against things which no one really would disagree with or at the other extreme, for things which people absolutely disagree with. The key point here is neither are going to change anything, raise an eyebrow or even get a mention in the houses of commons. Examples of such protests or marches would be marching against racism or for racism, for and against Nazi’s, terrorism, cute dogs, violence against women/men/homosexuals etc etc, the list is never-ending. I say these are safe because the people marching through the streets know, they absolutely know, that regardless of their numbers nothing will change.

The pointless ones are a little bit worse in my mind because they ignore the basic rules of human nature, society, physics or facts. Examples of such are marching for world peace, for curing death, to make everyone happy or to eliminate corporate greed.

Which leads me to the point of this blog entry - the current ongoing, ‘Occupy’ protests taking place around the world.

These are, in my mind, a perfect example of a pointless protest and one which I freely admit I do not entirely understand.

Reading their blurb they are primarily against social and economic inequality and corporate greed and are going to camp out in various cities until…well that’s not entirely clear.

A better world, magically materialises perhaps?

My issue with this particular protest is not that their mission isn’t worthy – social inequality and corporate greed is very worthy, could probably only be trumped by sick kids or cute kittens. No, my problem is the tabloid dumbing down of the issues and the outcome they want, or I am guessing they want, because I am not 100% sure what it is that they want.

They hold banners claiming bankers to be the scum of the earth, the devils who brought us to the brink and companies are just as bad. Why should we, the tax payer, have bailed out the banks with impunity, dropping gazillions of Euros, dollars and pounds into the banking system with no return? We have no jobs whilst they pay themselves staggering bonuses.

No! No! No! - someone will pay - and we will sit here until they do.

Firstly my issue is this, without a society full of willing people the bankers simply wouldn’t have been able to sell their dirty, credit loaded, products. It’s a bit like a drug addict complaining about his dealer. Anyone who stupidly took credit, had a job or bought something during the last 20 years is partly to blame, not just the credit dealing bankers. We all fell for it. 125% mortgages, wide screen TV’s, holidays we couldn’t afford, designer clothes, SKY TV, the Premier League. Even if you didn’t have a loan or a stupidly oversized mortgage we still took advantage of an economy which was booming on, well credit. Directly or indirectly we are all complicit in this to a more or lessor degree.

Secondly the bailout. I too am annoyed that taxpayer’s funds were used to bail out these private companies but I don’t understand what exactly they would have done differently. I have no plan B?

Just let the banks fail?

Let’s think about that for just one second, what would happen if, say for example, one evening I looked online at my bank-statement and thought for even a second, I could not access the number shown on the screen, or worse still that it didn’t really actually exist? What would happen if the rest of the bank account holding population in the UK or the world for that matter had the same thought?

Can you envisage a society where everyone takes their pay in the form of cash and keeps this cash at home? Can you imagine a society where banks did not exist? Panic, disorder and the gossamer-thin belief system which underpins our society would fall away immediately and we would be on a fast track to becoming a barter society relying on pigs, beads and druids. In other words the UK, circa 527AD.

Ok I am exaggerating here but a run on the banks is something we want to avoid, even at its most basic level we would find out very quickly that the numbers on the computer screen were just that and nothing more.

This, in my humble, simplistic, Tory-boy view, is much, much, worse a scenario than the bailout which ensued, however much it sticks in the throat

The status quo is like a cold war, a mutually assured destruction and I would like to keep it that way.

The bonuses which are being paid are obscene, yes but the harsh realities of life are that if one bank or corporation stops them the staff will leave, or the talented one who can will. That’s just simple human nature, nothing more.

That’s just the banks, what about other corporations which are making billions hand over fist? Should we control them and stop them from feeding on people’s misery?

No, actually we shouldn’t.

Not unless, that is, we want the whole world to turn communist overnight. We can tinker at the edges, with legislation and we do but really, a company is just a vehicle to make money, nothing more and the ones which do it very well seem to be the ones targeted here.

All except Apple curiously.

The only way to bring the whole messy affair under control, stop large bonus’s, the migration of talent and make sure companies are basically good world citizens is do it in a well coordinated way across the globe.

Outside of creating a world government I would contend this is a bit of an ask and without wanting to sound fatalistic I am yet to be convinced that the appearance of a few bearded or bead wearing campers outside St Paul’s and Wall St is going to achieve this.

I know it’s easy to sit on ones backside, not take a stand and just criticize but its also easy to lash out and blame someone else, anyone other than yourself.

Unless these protestors become the catalyst for the creation of a world government, or society I cannot see them changing anything, anything other than, say, the toilet provision just outside of St Paul’s .

I will opt out and drop this protest into the ‘pointless’ category for now.

I will also continue to look at the numbers on my bank statement and kid myself that there actually is a money filled box somewhere in the vaults at Credit Suisse with my name on it just waiting for me to appear someday.

I sort of like it that way.