The biggest lie

“In this treacherous world
Nothing is the truth nor a lie.
Everything depends on the color
Of the crystal through which one sees it”

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

As I write the streets are closed in the centre of London for the burial of the Baroness. Hectares of news print have already been expended on she-who-was-not-for-turning – seemingly as divisive in death as she was during her political career. I do not propose to add anything of my own in that regard.

I cannot – however – let the occasion pass without observing that the echoes of that time and of that particular administration still reverberate throughout modern Britain today and that – to my mind – much of our recent anguish has its origins in that period. One trait which first became apparent to me then and which I cannot abide – effectively that of kicking a man when he is down – seems again to have become accepted practice in recent times. This is – there can be little doubt – yet another side effect of the big lie that is at the heart of capitalism.

That lie – and it is a pernicious lie – holds that if the competitive free market were given its head and if we all take full responsibility for ourselves and strive with all our might, we can each attain the holy grail of success and fortune. The truth is that we can’t – any more than can each of the runners in the 100 metres final take home the gold medal. Any one of them might win – but not all of them can.

An alternative analogy. The lottery…

The focus of public interest in the lottery is, somewhat inevitably, the big winners. It should perhaps more pertinently be those who do not win. Were it not for the individual pounds or dollars that they contribute there would be no jackpot and thus no jackpot winner.  Again – though everyone that buys a ticket has a chance to win – not all of them can do so. Should – by some miracle – all those purchasing tickets just happen to chose the same numbers and should – by an even more miraculous occurrence – those numbers actually come up, then each contestant would simply win back their original stake… minus expenses! The lottery would stop working and no-one would ever play it again.

That this does not happen in practice is because the lottery is engineered not to work that way – in exactly the same manner that capitalism is engineered. Thatcher apparently held the view that those who were poor were responsible for their own condition and that to be poor was indicative of a flawed character. This is simply not the case. The poor are poor because – if this were not so – it would not be possible for the rich to be rich.

Capitalism relies on competition. Competition requires the incentive inherent in there being winners and losers. Though the prize money pot may grow bigger as the number of competitors increases, it does not do so because they compete harder! Capitalism – though probably the best we have – can never provide prosperity for all!

I have no issue with lionising those who win through their own hard work (though I do with those who cheat, lie or exploit the weaknesses of others) – what I can’t stomach is the demonisation of those who don’t.