One of the most hateful aspects of modern life is the return to wealth and higher class being seen as virtues. Back when you could be skint but respected for being clever or creative, there was room for those without money or the fortune of birth to make their way and have an identity. I don’t see it now. Newspapers and the media have rather too much reportage on money and wealth, as if it makes you a better or more interesting person. It doesn’t. Eurotrash used to be a term of insult.
I don’t want hear about what the rich are doing
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Another bugbear of mine is that you can’t offend business leaders, as if they are the only people that really matter, the engines of our economy or whatever. Surely, part of the reason we have become so stuck in our political thinking is precisely because we (politicians, newspapers, the establishment) have become in thrall to corporations and their interests. We can’t upset the financial services industry because if we do they’ll fuck off somewhere else. Well, I wish they would fuck off, because until they do, we will never be able to build a fairer, more equal society. Oh, but what about the effect on growth, will go the cry. Well fuck that too. What are we growing for? To make the rich get richer. Real growth – not the the economic kind – comes from the amazing potential of human beings. Sadly, we are living in a society where most of this human potential can never be realised. What a waste.
That’s a great post. Excellent expletives!
Perfect post. Says it all really. Until our government and media pull the rug from under the corporations that overly influence them, there is no end to this. The general election this year is an exercise in choosing which corporate lickspittle to vote for.
Totally agree, Vincent.
The media have been confusing being rich with being an interesting or worthwhile person for some time now, and it’s deeply tiresome. I don’t care about their glamorous homes, or their glamorous lives. I don’t care what the rich kids of Instagram are up to (beyond being ignored and bought off by their parents, in most cases).
Give me the interesting people, the outsiders, the ones who think and act different, the ones with values, who can’t be bought. Spare me those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing,.
Many, but not all, of the richest people I’ve known in my personal life have been the least fulfilled: a deep bank account guarantees you nothing. Money is so very far from being everything, far less a gauge of character or intrinsic worth. A recognition of this simple fact would do wonderful things for our society.
Alan Moore turns down huge royalty cheques from the terrible movies made of his stories, because he has some integrity. He’s a fool. Jeremy Clarkson hits an underling: ah, but he’ll make even more money when he moves to Sky.
You are not what you own. You are so much more than that.
I really don’t see that, from two viewpoints – firstly, there’s always been privilege and publicity for those with more money – it’s really not anything new, and if anything I think the gap in terms of ability to break out of your situation and improve yourself has never been better with the very huge and important group of the very poor, who have seen the gap opening wider. If you go back to the 1970s for instance, people from white collar backgrounds worked in white collar jobs, and blue collar workers in blue collar jobs – there was little chance to improve.
I totally agree that the poorest need help from a new government. The thing that struck me most when watching a programme about foodbanks was that the vast majority of people who were forced into using them had to do so not because they had no money or benefit but that it hadn’t been paid to them by the agency due to a delay…. that should have been easy to sort but no-one does and it results in people starving. Shame that no-one willing to highlight this, as it’s easier to make political capital (scrounging benefit claimants, Poor-hating Tories) than deal with the problem.
Secondly, I’m not sure there’s more [upper?] class and money on display on the media – let’s ignore the sidebar of shame from the Daily Hate for now – the huge number of reality TV shows which big up the most talentless young herberts into being celebs are a good example. “Ordinary” people on TV – whatever next?
The Beeb did that week long series of programmes just after Christmas all about how the other half live, and I remember thinking that it was a sign of the times and in poor taste.
The thing I don’t get about modern companies is that they get away with saying their prime focus is on shareholder value. Why not employees? Or customers? Or society? Why just the people that gamble money on their business outcomes?
Because shareholders can remove management, and ultimately dictate how the company is run. They’re also the ones who lose money if the company is run badly.
Not saying that it’s right, but it’s how it works.
But it drives companies to do the wrong thing. To reduce investment in products and talent. To cut headcount. To productise everything (excuse the use of a buzz word but that’s what they call it). Ultimately it kills companies but the smart investors would have bailed at the top.
Well, yes and no. It drives companies to increase their own value. Arguably, a company that serves its internal talent and customers poorly will lose value soon enough. The problems occur in the instances where that logic fails.
I’ve no problem with shareholders. My issue is with the constant need to show the market year on year growth, which leads to dreadful short termism and a relentless focus on the next 12 months. I’m not convinced that’s the most efficient way to run a company.
That’s probably the point I’m making as well – just in a hurry and not getting it out right. Everything becomes quarter driven. A flat quarter hits the share price and so cost cutting kicks in. None of this is helped by the fact that the board all have massive stock options which drive an almost religious focus on share price rather than anything else and they work to specific timescales (i.e. when the options mature).
thats what always drives me nuts. when you see on the news that “Big Bucks Inc” has had a disastrous financial year because it ONLY made 6 billion profit this year as opposed to last years 7 billion. Boo hoo. We should all have such hard times
Absolutely agree with all of that.
This will explain it all.
Bravo. My thoughts too. The greedy, backed by the ignorant, in pursuit of the unattainable. Well done homo sapiens, you really know how to piss in your own bed.
Interesting, how this reply to Martin’s contribution right up there at the top has ended up down here. That’s what you get for using responsive html and looking at it on an ickle screeny phony-woo.
Fat cats, capitalists, captains of industry, call them what you will, have always been there doing their thing (screwing people & the environment, in order to make money basically). It’s the fawning adoration of them in the media that I cannot understand. Is it a symptom of the austerity measures we are forced to live under?
The high school which our daughter attends is an academy which specialises in, wait for it…entrepreneurship. Ffs.
All this bollocks about “shareholder value” really pisses me off. It’s bonuses and stock options that drives big business these days ie short-term greed with no thought for long-term good.
And the worst thing is that for every genuine innovative business leader there are 45000 useless wankers who just happen to be in the right place at the right time or have gone to the right school or whatever.
The entrepreneurial pressures these days are a way of distracting folks from doing anything more productive, given the amount of businesses which fail. The thing about ideas and creativity is that there is no ‘failure’, depending on how you look at it. Now everything is judged by the bottom line, which is the ability of it to make a profit. While we are at it, what cnut started throwing around the word “elite” so it is now in parlance by the most oppressive of the gautleiters? Don’t they know that the English way is to be understated about one’s competencies even if you are gifted, and to also realise that the people at the top are often there because they are lucky/ well-connected, and many people as good as you simply don’t get the breaks? Everyone’s success builds on the efforts of others.
I can´t remember who said it …….”If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at who he gave it to”
The worshipping of wealth and the interesting businessman has been going on far longer than this government has been in power, though I have to grit my teeth and avoid kicking the cat (a metaphorical one) when I hear ministers praising what oligarchs bring to this country as “wealth creators”. Eh, wealth hoarders maybe, but creators certainly not. There is nothing wrong in becoming wealthy through your bright ideas/hard work etc, but some corporate responsibility please or some ethical stand please which is more than pr guff would help. There are some very good points on this thread which I can’t really add to other than to say that parties who aspire to power should be a lot braver in stating what they really stand for, show some positivity, have a set of ideals which doesn’t have t be messianic but sensible/attainable and is rooted in some ethical political philosophy. None of the major parties currently have that; Labour have been going on far too long with a culture of envy and so anyone with money gets punished without doing a great deal for the less well off and the Conservatives bang on about wealth creators which is bloody meaningless. I have gone on far too long, but basically I agree with you Vincent, admiring wealth and money for its own sake is crazy and needs to change. When the Afterword party get elected, things will change……
I reckon it’s all evidence that the squares and bores we cruelly excluded from our discussions on Barclay James Harvest, and, post 1976, punk rock and reggae, are getting their revenge. All those pale and interesting types reading the music papers for free in WH Smiths, and the dope-and-dole-queue slackers of the early 1980s were outpaced by young Tories, and our sneers at their post-Live Aid interest in rock music just made it worse. Now those young Tories are middle-aged and in power in middle-management we were too cool to engage in – and it’s payback time. Maybe we brought it on ourselves? I’m being flippant, but not totally.
well yes we did, but only if you accept they’ve won, and even more, only if you’re bothered about it. They might have more money, but they’re still pissboring dullards who can’t see success or satisfaction beyond a financial value, so fuck ’em. Losers.
Another, only slightly related, bugbear of mine is the fetishisation of certain rich folks above others. Bill Gates, who has quite possibly done more than any single other living human to improve the average living standard of the entire species, is always seen as a terminally uncool nerd and a figure of fun, whereas Steve Jobs, whose main achievements were driving Chinese factory workers to suicide and being too stupid to see a proper doctor, is idolised.
Bill Gates may have done more for the poor and disadvantaged, but Steve Jobs did more for little old iPod, iPad, iPhone and Macbook loving me. His company’s products have enriched my life enormously.
*Applauds Kid Dynamite*
The way I see it is that there have to be those at the top and they will probably be wealthy, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, that’s my Tory side. My Labour side says well ok you’ve done well you’ve created, taken a chance or been handed it but how about sparing a thought for those who haven’t, share it out to make things more equal. Maybe I’m a Lib Dem, I must read that thread. Maybe it’s where someone like Russell Brand (I did read that thread) sets an example with his thinking, his karma, his openness and his willingness to break the mould. He did good for himself, has too much, so he opened a coffee shop to be run by recovering addicts to give something back and the circle is complete. How you make that happen God only knows, know if we just had a set of commandments to live by……..
“Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness,”
We only need one commandment.