The rich are enemies of democracy and of an independent Scotland
Speymouth
The biggest political issue of our days is one that few politicians are talking about. That’s the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority. In 2023, the world’s richest 1%, defined as those with more than $1 million, owned 47.5 percent of all the world’s wealth – equivalent to roughly $214 trillion. This inequality has only continued to grow. The world’s richest individuals are experiencing a rapidand historically unprecedented surge in their wealth, with the top 1% accumulating nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world combined since 2020. In the UK, billionaire wealth grew over 1000% since 1990, with the top 50 families holding more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population.
This massive inequality is incompatible with a properly functioning democracy. It is not a coincidence that the super-rich hoovering up an ever increasing amount of the world’s wealth has also seen a rise in the far right and a marked rightwards shift in the centre of politics in Western countries, as shift best seen in the Labour party, which has moved so far to the right that the original founders of the Labour party would be expelled from it and which now occupies roughly the same political ground as the Conservatives did before Brexit drove them insane.
The super-rich have captured the political parties through a system of donations to parties and individual politicians, and by creating a network of supposedly independent think tanks which formulate and promote policies which are beneficial to the wealthy, who are marketed as “wealth creators” and not as what they really are, “wealth hoarders”. But above all, the rich perpetuate the conditions which permit them to keep enriching themselves through their control of the media, both the traditional media and digital media. These outlets favour and promote a narrative that societal problems are created by immigrants, benefits claimants, asylum seekers, people of colour – particularly Muslims – women, transgender people, disabled people, or protesters. Anyone and everyone must be blamed for society’s problems, except those who are really responsible for them.
In the UK, a recent YouGov poll has revealed that 75% support a wealth tax of 2% on fortunes above £10m, while only 13% oppose it. Yet despite this, very few politicians have voiced their support for a measure which an overwhelming majority support. Our politicians have become tame creatures of the robber barons from whom they are supposed to protect us and too afraid of the media which promotes its owners’ viewpoints.
As wealth becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of a few, the right wing press and parties become increasingly shrill and hysterical in their demonisation of minority groups, this dehumanises entire sections of the population, stripping them of any right to empathy, compassion, or understanding. Trans women are routinely categorised as predators and deviants, trans men, insofar as they are noticed at all, as mentally ill girls who have been led astray by deviants. Asylum seekers are described as fighting age men with the implication that they are an invading force. They’re never described as working age although that’s perfectly accurate.
All this serves to divert attention from the real root cause of the failure of public services and the inability of an entire generation to find secure well paid jobs and affordable housing, the insatiable greed of the billionaires.
That our political class has turned into clients of the wealthy is incompatible with democracy. Root and branch reform of the system of political donations is long overdue. This system has given us the astroturfers of the far right. Nigel Farage would not currently be tipped as a future prime minister if the system of political buying which prevails in the UK did not allow millionaires to funnel massive donations into his political vanity vehicle. They do so because they know Farage and his minions will enact policies which enable the rich to profit even more at the expense of the rest of us.
The purchasing of political influence by the rich goes hand in glove with ownership of the media by the wealthy. As campaigner George Monbiot pointed out in a social media post. You cannot have both a free market in media ownership and a free market in information and ideas. The oligarchs who dominate the sector stifle inconvenient thoughts and promote the policies that protect their fortunes. We see this acutely in Scotland where the media landscape is very far removed from the views of the country it purports to represent. A country which is predominantly on the left politically and in which a majority according to opinion polls supports independence has a largely right wing media which overwhelmingly opposes independence. Pro-independence views and information are marginalised and ignored, and we are force fed an unceasing diet of attack stories targeting the main pro-independence party, the SNP.
BBC Scotland, the supposed public service broadcaster, reflects that deeply biased and intensely skewed press and claims it’s being impartial. It does not occur to BBC Scotland that it could best fulfil its duty as a public service by acting as a corrective to the biases of the Scottish press. That’s because the BBC is an intensely British institution which is itself keen to fend off the rising support for independence which Scotland has witnessed in recent decades. With a population with strong left wing sympathies, a historically deeply rooted egalitarian tradition and a traditionally collectivist culture, an independent Scotland would provide the perfect soil for a democratic socialist political culture which was anathema to the interests of the super-rich. In an independent Scotland, Scotland’s vast natural wealth would be harnessed to benefit its true owners, the people of Scotland and the Scottish Government would have the powers to prevent Scotland’s wealth being extracted into the bank accounts of the wealthy. No wonder the rich, their media outlets and their bought and paid for politicians are so eager to keep Scottish independence at bay.
I am considering starting a new premium subscription service to the blog. All blog articles will continue to be freely available to everyone, as now, but should there be sufficient interest I am thinking of sending out an additional premium subscriber only email piece once per week to everyone who pays a regular monthly subscription fee of £5. Everyone who currently makes a regular monthly PayPal donation to the blog would automatically be added to the premium email list. Please let me know in the comments if you’d be interested. I intend to go ahead with this in the new year but am having trouble collating a list of the emails of everyone who currently supports the blog monthly.
______________________________________________
I’ve added a new method to make supporting my work easier, you can now donate via Ko-fi
Or click the following link https://ko-fi.com/weegingerdug
Having abandoned Twitter I will be actively posting on BlueSky from now on. You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/weegingerdug.bsky.social follow me there and I will generally follow back.
This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.
You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address [email protected]. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug
