I think this post is going to be something of a rambling-on one. It also might get me in trouble at home; a bit.
I wrote here last week about joining the Labour Party. Since then I’ve attended a new members social evening at Viva Cuba in Leeds and I was present at Ed Miliband’s speech at the West Yorkshire Playhouse yesterday.
Here’s a quote from Ed:
“When a nurse earns less in a year than a banker earns in a week and it’s the banker that caused the credit crunch, and the gap grows wider every year, it is unjust, it is bad for society, it is bad for our economy and we should say so.”
We should say so indeed. I suspect a lot of people are still angry at the banks and bankers for the current economic situation in the world, I include myself amongst them. In fact, I recently wrote about a particular problem that I have with my the bank I use, Santander.
I completely understand that in our capitalist society there is a need for banks to make a profit. They are a business after all and that’s what businesses do. One of my issues with banks however is that I think they still don’t get it. They seem to want to screw every last penny they can out of people in the way of charges and interest. This profit surely filters upwards towards the hugely disproportionate salaries and obscene bonuses attained by those at the top of the banking food chain. Of course the majority of people working in the banking industry aren’t these parasites gorging on their ill-gotten but nevertheless legal gains. They are normal working-class people earning a normal working-class wage and they may have the same financial worries as everyone else.
Earlier this week, my partner’s1 sister came for dinner. The two women are both employees of a bank that’s perhaps the main subject of the public’s anger at the financial marketplace. While we were preparing the food, I spoke about how I’d attended the new members meeting at Viva Cuba (a Tapas Bar/Restaurant). The sister’s instant reaction was to ask “Was it free?”. At the time I simply laughed and said no. Since then however, I’ve remembered that when I told my partner about the meeting, she’d said something similar.
You see, both women are working in a culture that expects corporate freebies. They get pizza in if they have special meetings. They have drinks and meals paid for them by managers who in turn claim it back on expenses. I know that the same managers buy such things as Christmas presents for staff and colleagues. Then claim it back on expenses. Can you see where this is going? Over the past day my partner has been to a team meeting, an away day, in London. An overnight stay with travel and then treated to an evening meal by her boss. So I wonder who’s picking up that tab then?
My partner and her sister aren’t bad people, at all. In fact you couldn’t hope to meet a couple of nicer people (and hell I live with one of them). The same could be said for every other banking employee who enjoys the odd drink on the company. However, the working environment in which they exist seems, to me, riddled with the tradition of receiving gratuities. If those at the top are getting them in lumps, why shouldn’t those at the bottom? So when my partners’s sister asked “Was it free” it was just her corporate conditioning kicking in. I attended a meeting organised by a large organisation, albeit at grass roots level, so of course, the drinkypoos are going to be free aren’t they? That’s how it is, isn’t it?
Well no it isn’t. This is why the country, even world, is in such a big fat economic mess. The culture of avarice stretches beyond the banking industry into other sectors and even into government. Everyone’s got their hand in the till but now the till is empty. And it’s payback time. And we’re paying.
I don’t do the national lottery so the chances of me becoming super wealthy are pretty remote. I’m also burdened with the mindset that makes me do things without charge. It drives my partner nuts. Probably more so because it means I’m mostly skint. I can’t say that entirely fills me with joy either but I cannot shake off the feeling that you cannot put a price on everything. It’s one of the main reasons I use Linux as an operating system. It’s not just because I think it’s better than Winbloze or Apple, it’s because it’s honest and is made by people for people. If ever there was a Socialist OS, it has to be Linux and its cousins.
Don’t get me wrong, if I do some work for a concern that’s going to use my efforts to turn a profit, I want my cut. If the concern isn’t a profit making enterprise though, I don’t even want to talk about money other than recovering costs.
So, let’s juxtapose “Was it free” with a woman I met last night. If memory serves me right she was called Muriel but I’m rubbish at remembering names. Muriel, like me, had come to hear Ed Miliband speak. She also came armed with a question which she delivered with both guns blazing. Apparently Muriel is an official working at a local community centre. All the staff are volunteers and provide a focal point for an inner city area. The centre helps the aged, ill, deprived and unemployed citizens in its area and yet has a constant struggle to obtain funding. Muriel spoke of jumping through bureaucratic hoops when attempting to gain funds, only to be let down with nothing. She asked Mr Miliband what he would do about that situation. He gave a neutral answer because it was a question for the government rather than the opposition but his answer was sympathetic.
Muriel helps to run the community centre, not for profit, but because it needs to be run. She and others do it because they want their area to have something to be proud of. It’s a very altruistic way of being and I was humbled listening to her speak (even if she did go on a bit!).
I’m going to offer some help to Muriel. I understand that they offer to train non tech savvy people about computers and the internet. I could do that half asleep. Hey I might even be able to chuck a bit of Linux promotion in there for good measure. I may also offer to re-vamp their website, if they want me to.
Will my contribution be free? What do you think.
- I hate the word partner but girlfriend at my age sounds even sillier [↩]
