Guest post: Report on the UfSO Inaugural Bank Flash
Posted on Tue 15th Feb 2011, 1:47pmThis is a guest post by The University of Strategic Optimism.
On the morning of 24th November 2010 the University for Strategic Optimism held its inaugural lecture at a branch of Lloyds TSB bank near London Bridge station. The operation had been planned with an almost theatrical precision: watches were synchronised, the reconnaissance was unveiled, a location was revealed and at precisely 12 noon a secret crowd of around fifty people suddenly materialised out of the nearby streets and shops and began to flow swiftly and excitedly into the small bank.
They had come from many directions to listen to UfSO professor Étienne Lantier kick off the university's winter (of discontent) term, giving the first instalment of a collectively written course entitled Higher Education, Neo-Liberalism and the State. It seemed this was to be a practical workshop. As Lantier began to address the assembled body of citizens, a general bemusement from the bank's customers gave way to a largely supportive reaction as they too stopped to listen to the important truths that were being conveyed. This was a truth that has been spoken in many different ways, at many different times and in many different contexts, but it is one that needs to be spoken again and again, so that we do not come to forget it or begin to disbelieve in its urgent power. Indeed it often seems as though it could not be true, its facts are seemingly incredible, but it is ultimately the stark and unavoidable truth of an almost inconceivable injustice. It is the simple fact that the majority of ordinary people in the UK, indeed people in many countries across the world; the poor, the hard-working, often some of the most vulnerable in society; are being shamelessly robbed of their livelihoods, their essential public services and their futures in order to pay for the greed of a tiny, ultra-wealthy elite who continue to make huge profits at the expense of those numberless masses which they so remorselessly exploit.
Despite brief and ineffectual protestations from the branch manager, stripped of his authority in the face of the message that stood so plainly in front of his eyes, the bank was momentarily transformed into a truly public space, the living lecture theatre of this new university. This gesture, set on reclaiming the hushed and shady architecture of the bank, returning it to the public, by whom it was after all was owned, seemed to speak that truth to people. That day, November the 24th, was the day of a large student demonstration in London against fees, cuts and the wholesale introduction of a neoliberal marketplace into higher education. After leaving the bank that lunchtime, many amongst the audience headed down to Whitehall to swell the ranks of those crowds that had earlier gathered in Trafalgar Square. After reaching Whitehall and joining the main march they were lawlessly detained, 'kettled' like countless others, by a shamelessly political police operation of entrapment, violence and intimidation. This was a reminder, if any were needed, of those the government is eager to see punished for this crisis of capitalism: namely the young, the vulnerable, those least able to speak out, those least able to pay.
In its actions parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a performance of representation where public dissent is managed and enclosed by a government whose only response to the crisis is to proceed with, and intensify, the zombie logic of global capitalism. This is why it continues to be essential to speak the truth to those in power, those who are really to blame, in the banks, the multinational corporations and in government, a government without democratic legitimacy and bankrolled by those very financiers who caused the crisis in the first place. We must make plain that we will not be condemned and that we understand the systemic barriers to our wellbeing can be challenged. This is not a plea to morality that imagines a more benign economic-state that cares for its subjects, nor is it a plea to the super-rich to share their wealth. Recent social uprisings across the world are about more than austerity cuts. They stand against the eviction of democracy from politics and simultaneous loss of public space to the domain of private property. We can act, take back our agency, and map our own future.
On the morning of 24th November 2010 the University for Strategic Optimism held its inaugural lecture at a branch of Lloyds TSB bank near London Bridge station. The operation had been planned with an almost theatrical precision: watches were synchronised, the reconnaissance was unveiled, a location was revealed and at precisely 12 noon a secret crowd of around fifty people suddenly materialised out of the nearby streets and shops and began to flow swiftly and excitedly into the small bank.
They had come from many directions to listen to UfSO professor Étienne Lantier kick off the university's winter (of discontent) term, giving the first instalment of a collectively written course entitled Higher Education, Neo-Liberalism and the State. It seemed this was to be a practical workshop. As Lantier began to address the assembled body of citizens, a general bemusement from the bank's customers gave way to a largely supportive reaction as they too stopped to listen to the important truths that were being conveyed. This was a truth that has been spoken in many different ways, at many different times and in many different contexts, but it is one that needs to be spoken again and again, so that we do not come to forget it or begin to disbelieve in its urgent power. Indeed it often seems as though it could not be true, its facts are seemingly incredible, but it is ultimately the stark and unavoidable truth of an almost inconceivable injustice. It is the simple fact that the majority of ordinary people in the UK, indeed people in many countries across the world; the poor, the hard-working, often some of the most vulnerable in society; are being shamelessly robbed of their livelihoods, their essential public services and their futures in order to pay for the greed of a tiny, ultra-wealthy elite who continue to make huge profits at the expense of those numberless masses which they so remorselessly exploit.
Despite brief and ineffectual protestations from the branch manager, stripped of his authority in the face of the message that stood so plainly in front of his eyes, the bank was momentarily transformed into a truly public space, the living lecture theatre of this new university. This gesture, set on reclaiming the hushed and shady architecture of the bank, returning it to the public, by whom it was after all was owned, seemed to speak that truth to people. That day, November the 24th, was the day of a large student demonstration in London against fees, cuts and the wholesale introduction of a neoliberal marketplace into higher education. After leaving the bank that lunchtime, many amongst the audience headed down to Whitehall to swell the ranks of those crowds that had earlier gathered in Trafalgar Square. After reaching Whitehall and joining the main march they were lawlessly detained, 'kettled' like countless others, by a shamelessly political police operation of entrapment, violence and intimidation. This was a reminder, if any were needed, of those the government is eager to see punished for this crisis of capitalism: namely the young, the vulnerable, those least able to speak out, those least able to pay.
In its actions parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a performance of representation where public dissent is managed and enclosed by a government whose only response to the crisis is to proceed with, and intensify, the zombie logic of global capitalism. This is why it continues to be essential to speak the truth to those in power, those who are really to blame, in the banks, the multinational corporations and in government, a government without democratic legitimacy and bankrolled by those very financiers who caused the crisis in the first place. We must make plain that we will not be condemned and that we understand the systemic barriers to our wellbeing can be challenged. This is not a plea to morality that imagines a more benign economic-state that cares for its subjects, nor is it a plea to the super-rich to share their wealth. Recent social uprisings across the world are about more than austerity cuts. They stand against the eviction of democracy from politics and simultaneous loss of public space to the domain of private property. We can act, take back our agency, and map our own future.
What is the Big Society Bail-In?
Posted on Sat 12th Feb 2011, 8:57pm
Saturday 19th February will see the start of something rather special: the second public takeover of Britain’s banks. The first takeover, or “bail-out” was astonishingly expensive and not much fun. The public was left billions lighter in the pocket, with little more to show for it than their names in the fine print. What did we get for our money? Greater regulation to ensure the crash didn't happen again? No. A reformed banking system that serves us rather than the city? No. How about penitent bankers showing restraint with their pay packets? Um, also no.
Luckily, The Big Society Bail-In is much cheaper, more effective and, crucially, much more fun. Adam Ramsay has already done an excellent job chronicling how the bail-out of deadbeat banks led to the deficit and the resulting rationale for swingeing cuts. Now, for the antidote – the Bail-In. From next Saturday onwards, intrepid UK Uncut volunteers up and down the land will be bailing into the banks and setting up libraries, forests, hospitals, schools, playgrounds, leisure centres and everything else that needs saving. After all, as Osborne’s valiant defense of city bonuses against common sense shows, the banks have nothing to fear from the austerity agenda. What better place to keep our services safe from the Treasury axe?
Since October, the campaign against tax dodgers, the Big Society Revenue and Customs consistently found spectacular and imaginative ways to make tax avoiding corporations pay. In Brighton, Santa Clause glued himself to a BHS. In Oxford, the tax dodger’s grand prix whizzed round the avoiders dotting their high street. In London, volunteers set up a library inside Vodafone, a Sports Day inside Topshop and a NHS field hospital in Boots.
Our next wave of actions will be even more exciting. A Bail-In means marching into our broken banks and building something better. Make your silent, sterile Barclays branch sing, dance, explode with life! Reclaim the space and make it into something thrilling, something that shows how much creativity the anti-cuts movement has. Let’s smash austerity with a smile on our faces. We are Cameron’s nightmare, a real big society with the vision and bravery to transform the institutions at the rotten heart of our system.
UK Uncut is your movement. There are no centrally planned actions. If you have an idea for an action, or want one on your high street, it's up to you to make it happen. First step is to visit our action centre and check whether there is an action listed near you. If there isn't, why not take on organising and listing one yourself? Second, visit our targets section for all the information and resources you'll need. Third, and most importantly, call text tweet facebook email everyone you've ever met asking them to come along. More details on how to organise an action are here.
This Saturday we target Barclays. Next Saturday we're hitting RBS/Natwest. Start thinking now about how you might spruce up your local bank. Send us your ideas and we'll share them around.
This is bonus season: traditionally the time of year when the people who drove the global economy into the ground shamelessly reward themselves for their efforts. Traditionally, we are outraged. Traditionally, our outrage doesn't turn into action and so, traditionally, they get away with it. This year, as our public services are being torn to pieces by a government that has done nothing but indulge the banks, we want things to be a little different. It's up to you. Get creative, get organised and take action.
This is the Big Society Bail-In - we will not pay for their crisis.
See you on the high streets.
Guest post: We Remember, Mr Cameron
Posted on Sat 12th Feb 2011, 9:35amThis is a guest post by Adam Ramsay, who blogs at Bright Green Scotland. You can follow him on Twitter here.
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting". I was recently reminded of Milan Kundera's famous quote. And how apt.
Because more than anything else, this government is hoping that we forget. They are praying that we don't remember what caused the economic collapse. They want us to believe that the public sector is to blame - that our welfare state became bloated. They hope that we buy the lie that we've lost our jobs because our nurses cured too many sick people, our libraries had too many books, we cared too much for older people, and invested too much in the young.
They want us to forget words like 'credit crunch', 'sub-prime mortgage' 'AIG', 'RBS', 'bail-out', and 'Fred the Shred'. They hope that our anger at bankers' bonuses was a flash in the pan. They think we've moved on.
But the truth is that we remember. It is not much more than two years ago that RBS was first bailed out. We haven't forgotten that our economy collapsed because the bankers who paid for the Conservative Party's election campaign had built our wealth on a house of credit cards. Rather than allow wages to rise, they persuaded us to borrow, and borrow, and borrow, and then cashed in the cheques on our interest payments. Rather than investing our wealth in the real economy - building a better, more prosperous future - they bet it on the money markets. Instead of solar towers, they built towers of derivatives. Instead of investing in new knowledge, they invented new financial products. They were gambling with the global economy - with other people's jobs, livelihoods, and lives. They wore sharp suits and used long words to hide the fact that they were earning massive bonuses in jobs most of them didn't understand.
Or maybe they did. Because when the financial wizards' magic turned out to be little more than a sleight of hand, when this house of credit cards finally collapsed, they didn't need to pull a rabbit out of a hat. They just went cap in hand to the government, and demanded a bail-out. And, now that the real economy has been destroyed in their wake, these conjurers have not been asked to chip in. The con trick continues - we are being asked to pay the crooks.
And while some just didn't understand the rules of the game, others knew only too well what they were doing. At Goldman Sachs, leading banker Fabrice Tourre made it clear in 2007 that he got: "The whole building is about to collapse any time now. Only predicted survivor, The Fabulous Fab (yes, that's what he calls himself), standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created". And Mr Osborne is hoping that we didn't notice that those who caused this crisis have seen their wealth soar in the last year - they have crashed our economy and made a killing from the salvage.
Yes, Mr Osborne, we remember. It was not the teachers and the doctors and the nurses who caused this economic crisis. It was your good friends, the people who paid for your election campaign. The bankers. You may have cut corporation tax, and handed our national economy back to them - for now - but we remember only too well that it was they who caused this mess in the first place.
But we remember further back too. Because in the past, the bankers wouldn't have been allowed to get away with this. We used to regulate our financial sector. We had rules to keep everyone safe. But then came Mrs Thatcher, Mr Reagan, Mr Clinton, Mr Blair - they dismantled the protections that wise men had put in place after the last great depression. And, all the time, they were cheered on by Mr Osborne and his friends. Because for the last 30 years, Britain has been built on the myth that if you give money to the rich, it will trickle down. And for 30 years, ordinary people's wages have stagnated, while the mega-rich have plundered the wealth our work creates, and now scuttled the ship.
We were told that Britain would become a nation of financiers - we would hand all to the bankers, and they would make us rich. Others tried that path too: Ireland, Iceland, Dubai - a roll-call of the damned. This idea was foolish from the outset, and now must surely be consigned to the dustbin of history. For this idea hasn't just delivered one economic crisis. The global economy has lurched from collapse to collapse. From 1945 to 1970, unemployment in the UK was never above 500,000. Since we set the banks free in the 70's it has never been lower than 500,000. Even by its own measure - GDP growth - this model has failed. Both in the UK, and around the world, economic growth has slowed rapidly since 'trickle down economics' became the flavour of the month. Surprise surprise - an economic system based on expecting the majority to thrive on the scraps from the table of the richest doesn't work.
But this system did deliver something. Because while most haven't got any wealthier, the mega-rich have seen higher and higher bonuses. Inequality in Britain is at a level we've not seen since Queen Victoria was on the throne. This inequality is not just morally abhorrent. It is ripping Britain apart.
And yet Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron are trying to re-inflate the banking bubble. They are pumping money from our public services to fund corporation tax cuts, and they are selling the bailed out banks back to the city as though nothing had happened. They are allowing the grotesque bonus bonanza to continue.
But we haven't forgotten that this crooked system that Mr Osborne is trying to re-build - exactly as it was before - this crooked system was designed by the mega-rich, for the mega-rich. And we haven't forgotten that it doesn't need to be this way.
And as long as we remember who it was that caused this crisis, as long as we don't forget who built the house of cards in the first place, we won't let Mr Osborne forget either. The banks thought they had got away with daylight robbery. But they will be held to account, today, and tomorrow. Because the winners write history, and we are not willing to lose. Because man's struggle against power is a struggle of memory against forgetting, and we will make sure that everyone remembers.
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting". I was recently reminded of Milan Kundera's famous quote. And how apt.
Because more than anything else, this government is hoping that we forget. They are praying that we don't remember what caused the economic collapse. They want us to believe that the public sector is to blame - that our welfare state became bloated. They hope that we buy the lie that we've lost our jobs because our nurses cured too many sick people, our libraries had too many books, we cared too much for older people, and invested too much in the young.
They want us to forget words like 'credit crunch', 'sub-prime mortgage' 'AIG', 'RBS', 'bail-out', and 'Fred the Shred'. They hope that our anger at bankers' bonuses was a flash in the pan. They think we've moved on.
But the truth is that we remember. It is not much more than two years ago that RBS was first bailed out. We haven't forgotten that our economy collapsed because the bankers who paid for the Conservative Party's election campaign had built our wealth on a house of credit cards. Rather than allow wages to rise, they persuaded us to borrow, and borrow, and borrow, and then cashed in the cheques on our interest payments. Rather than investing our wealth in the real economy - building a better, more prosperous future - they bet it on the money markets. Instead of solar towers, they built towers of derivatives. Instead of investing in new knowledge, they invented new financial products. They were gambling with the global economy - with other people's jobs, livelihoods, and lives. They wore sharp suits and used long words to hide the fact that they were earning massive bonuses in jobs most of them didn't understand.
Or maybe they did. Because when the financial wizards' magic turned out to be little more than a sleight of hand, when this house of credit cards finally collapsed, they didn't need to pull a rabbit out of a hat. They just went cap in hand to the government, and demanded a bail-out. And, now that the real economy has been destroyed in their wake, these conjurers have not been asked to chip in. The con trick continues - we are being asked to pay the crooks.
And while some just didn't understand the rules of the game, others knew only too well what they were doing. At Goldman Sachs, leading banker Fabrice Tourre made it clear in 2007 that he got: "The whole building is about to collapse any time now. Only predicted survivor, The Fabulous Fab (yes, that's what he calls himself), standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created". And Mr Osborne is hoping that we didn't notice that those who caused this crisis have seen their wealth soar in the last year - they have crashed our economy and made a killing from the salvage.
Yes, Mr Osborne, we remember. It was not the teachers and the doctors and the nurses who caused this economic crisis. It was your good friends, the people who paid for your election campaign. The bankers. You may have cut corporation tax, and handed our national economy back to them - for now - but we remember only too well that it was they who caused this mess in the first place.
But we remember further back too. Because in the past, the bankers wouldn't have been allowed to get away with this. We used to regulate our financial sector. We had rules to keep everyone safe. But then came Mrs Thatcher, Mr Reagan, Mr Clinton, Mr Blair - they dismantled the protections that wise men had put in place after the last great depression. And, all the time, they were cheered on by Mr Osborne and his friends. Because for the last 30 years, Britain has been built on the myth that if you give money to the rich, it will trickle down. And for 30 years, ordinary people's wages have stagnated, while the mega-rich have plundered the wealth our work creates, and now scuttled the ship.
We were told that Britain would become a nation of financiers - we would hand all to the bankers, and they would make us rich. Others tried that path too: Ireland, Iceland, Dubai - a roll-call of the damned. This idea was foolish from the outset, and now must surely be consigned to the dustbin of history. For this idea hasn't just delivered one economic crisis. The global economy has lurched from collapse to collapse. From 1945 to 1970, unemployment in the UK was never above 500,000. Since we set the banks free in the 70's it has never been lower than 500,000. Even by its own measure - GDP growth - this model has failed. Both in the UK, and around the world, economic growth has slowed rapidly since 'trickle down economics' became the flavour of the month. Surprise surprise - an economic system based on expecting the majority to thrive on the scraps from the table of the richest doesn't work.
But this system did deliver something. Because while most haven't got any wealthier, the mega-rich have seen higher and higher bonuses. Inequality in Britain is at a level we've not seen since Queen Victoria was on the throne. This inequality is not just morally abhorrent. It is ripping Britain apart.
And yet Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron are trying to re-inflate the banking bubble. They are pumping money from our public services to fund corporation tax cuts, and they are selling the bailed out banks back to the city as though nothing had happened. They are allowing the grotesque bonus bonanza to continue.
But we haven't forgotten that this crooked system that Mr Osborne is trying to re-build - exactly as it was before - this crooked system was designed by the mega-rich, for the mega-rich. And we haven't forgotten that it doesn't need to be this way.
And as long as we remember who it was that caused this crisis, as long as we don't forget who built the house of cards in the first place, we won't let Mr Osborne forget either. The banks thought they had got away with daylight robbery. But they will be held to account, today, and tomorrow. Because the winners write history, and we are not willing to lose. Because man's struggle against power is a struggle of memory against forgetting, and we will make sure that everyone remembers.