The Pragmatist International?

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Anthony Barnett (London, OK):  Robert Peston has come up with a plan on his BBC blog. It is that the new pension scheme the government is going to introduce for the low paid shoul be given £50 billion to invest now in the big banks thus giving them desperately needed capital while hugely boosting the value of the pension scheme for the future.

The big point here is that for the past few years, there's been a massive widening in the gap between the rich and poor, because it's only been the rich and the super-rich who've been able to take advantage of the fabulous investment opportunities that presented themselves in the decade or so before the Crunch.

But the boot is now on the other foot. Probably only governments, through the deployment of taxpayers' money, can solve a financial crisis that was created in large part by the foolish financial risks taken by bankers and financiers whose common sense was wiped out by greed.

If we as taxpayers are cleaning up the mess, there should perhaps be a dividend for those in low paid jobs and insecure employment, who are hurt most by the economic slowdown precipitated by this crisis.

I think this was first floated on the Marxist left by Robin Blackburn. If I recall rightly, he suggested that pension funds be used appropriate the stock exchange. But his argument was based on the idea that society needed to get control of the corporate capitalism. Peston is saying that the corporate banks need us. so we should use Buffet style terms for egalitarian purposes. It might even make the bankers feel better about themselves (fat chance). I think it is really important to welcome such proposals and blog them and build on them - and not be cynical and say it could never happen. As the great Roberto Ungar says we need political inventiveness and experimentation. We have to do better than the Economist whose leader this week somewhat defensively says that governments have to help "when markets fail".

That's pragmatism, not socialism.

Well blow me down! Peston's approach seems more attractive: if you are going to do it, be wholehearted about it. Over in the Observer Will Hutton sets out a larger, integrated case for a Peston approach.He also adds this:

There was no effective opposition. The left and organised labour collapsed as intellectual, social and political forces; there was no conviction that any alternative to this shareholder value-driven, financial, 'securitised' capitalism existed, or any political muscle to support it even if there were. Mainstream culture moved away from public purpose and fairness; the new priorities were individual self-fulfilment, personal experience and loyalty to self.

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