We live in a country whose banking system seven years ago was only saved by a £1tn intervention, and that remains crippled by the legacy of private debt and stunning losses. Months ago, the secession of Scotland, which threatened to break up the foundations of the state, was narrowly avoided; it remains an ongoing threat. Our share of world markets continues to shrink, and our trade deficit has climbed to unthinkable levels. Wages have fallen, in real terms, by the greatest degree in more than a century.
Inequality of income and wealth have risen to desperately high levels that may soon metastasise into a serious economic and social cancer.
Yet what is most extraordinary about the present moment is that all this now seems unexceptional; our political and economic order is so thoroughly broken that many no longer find that fact worthy of notice.
The crisis goes to the very roots of how we produce and work, and how we frame the institutions that should support the lives and ambitions of millions of ordinary people. Five million wait to be housed – yet over the last generation, five million
council flats have been sold and not replaced.
Millions of workers struggle in a harsh demimonde of temporary jobs and zero-hours contracts. For many, it is no longer a realisable aim to acquire skills or a profession and pursue a stable career with an enduring and reliable organisation; our companies indulge in unending cycles of restructuring, regrading, and reshaping, while the public sector has been shrunk to an unprecedented degree. It is only those at the very top who see their pay and possibilities expanding – along with the ease of passing on advantages to their children, creating a new closed caste of elites and diminishing prospects for social mobility.
If we wish to create an economy, and a society, in which the majority of us flourish, Britain in 2015 is not the model to follow.
Is this the collective wisdom of the individuals you are talking about?
