"Repossessing the Future" a report on public ownership of energy



A Common Weal Strategy for Community and Democratic

Ownership of Scotland’s Energy Resources

Since I wrote my piece on public ownership yesterday, I’ve come across a report by the Reid Foundation www.reidfoundation.org , published in September this year.

It covers many of the points I made yesterday and more, running to 37 pages, and places the discussion in the context of the Scottish independence referendum.

The paper concludes:

“The independence debate thus far has been mired in short-term thinking about the economic returns from energy without fundamentally challenging the status quo. A much longer term approach to Scotland’s energy is required where energy resources are owned, managed and distributed for the collective good, and on behalf of present and future generations rather than being appropriate for private and corporate interests”.

Full of interesting examples and analysis, it’s well worth a read.

http://reidfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Repossessing.pdf

Public Ownership



The recent – and continuing - hikes in energy prices, just as the cold weather starts, have caused widespread anger.  Party politicians have made noises that they hope will play well to that audience (simplifying tariffs, temporary price freezes), but neither the Westminster bubble nor the mainstream media is paying serious attention to the idea that in a decent society, these utilities should be in public ownership and control.

Sell-offs

When our gas and electricity supplies were sold off to private investors in the 80s and early 90s, we were told this would lead to consumer choice, and that competition would mean lower prices for all of us.  That was never the real aim, but it has nonetheless failed to deliver that promise. 

Instead, ownership is concentrated in the hands of a small economic elite, who profit at the expense of spiralling fuel poverty for many.

Infrastructure failures

We were told that private investment would mean the infrastructure could be upgraded and modernised.  This, too, has failed to happen.  The electricity grid vitally needs to update in line with the demands of the modern energy realities, but this is just not being delivered, as the big shareholders rake in the profits.

We have seen the same with our privatised water supply infrastructure; the antiquated pipes leak while our bills mount.

Efficient for whom?

During the privatisation mania of the 80s and early 90s, we were told that the publicly owned industries were inefficient, and were costing the tax-payer money.  Wouldn’t we prefer that private investors took over the burden, to enable us to have lower individual tax bills?

The trouble is, that the “efficiency” that was delivered was not in our interests.  The utility companies are efficient all right – efficient at making themselves a tidy profit, while old people make heartbreaking choices between eating and keeping warm.

In any case, the supposed inefficiency of these industries was due to successive governments damaging them by using them as economic tools, variously to bring down inflation, as tools of investment funds, and to cream off funds as a way of disguising taxation.

A decent society

In a decent society, the delivery of heat and water (the products of natural resources after all) should be designed for the benefit of all, especially the most vulnerable. The aim should be addressing social need, not private greed. But also the ownership and control of these utilities should be subject to better democratic control.  The older centralised model that allowed governments to mismanage our resources and then blame the industry should be replaced with better models which focus on better local participation and control.

Rail

As I write, it is the 20^th anniversary of the privatisation of British Rail.  This, too, has seen the familiar story of escalating costs to the consumer, while private companies make a tidy living from public subsidy.   Privatisation of the railways has not led to savings for the taxpayer, but actually to spiralling costs to the public purse.  A recent study by Transport for Quality for Life found that “net Government support to the railways has more than doubled in real terms since privatisation”.

As we see Royal Mail sold off at a budget price to private investors, and the prospect of further sell-offs, we need to call a halt.  The last 3 decades and more of privatisation are not for our benefit; they are about channelling profits into the hands of the few, and privatising control.

In a decent society, gas, electricity, water, railways, health services, Royal Mail and much more need to be under public control, for the benefit of all.

http://unisonactive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/return-utilities-to-public-ownership.html

http://actionforrail.org/

http://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/u/files/120630_Rebuilding_Rail_Final_Report_print_version.pdf

Class Bias in the Media



Why should we care about the disproportionate over representation of one class in our press and broadcasting media?  Why does it matter that this class, personified by the 7% who went to private school, is vastly - vastly - over-represented in the management of the BBC, the Guardian, and all sections of civil society.

Well, this has an impact on which stories those people think of as depicting life in Britain. This happens not through deliberate editorial conspiracy, but simply through unconscious bias, based on what their life experiences are, and what the life experiences of their commissioning editors are. Unconscious filters that sift what we get to see, and results in a world-view being presented which does not reflect the real lives of the majority.

How does it work? You gather together a load of people from a particular background, and have them work with people from the same background. They are going to talk about what they know. There are few people to tell them otherwise, because in the world they inhabit, their background is vastly (and it's hard to overemphasise the proportions here) vastly over-represented.

 Only 7% of people in the UK went to private school. And yet the last information I had was that all of the section heads at the Guardian newspaper...(That's 100%. Not 10%, or 15%, or even 50%. But all of them)... All of them went to private school. So naturally, they are interested in things people from their background are interested in. "How do we pay the kids' tuition fees?" "Which part of Tuscany should I visit this year?" "What is the best Phillippe Starke lemon squeezer?" They hire people who write about those things. A feedback loop is set up, because now they're reading the things that they think people are interested in reading, because it’s what they're interested in reading. What is "newsworthy" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 Does that make them, individually, bad people? Of course not; just people. The problem isn't that x, y, or z went to public school, but that x,y,and z and all of the other letters all did.

The fact is that the reality for the 93% who did not attend private school is not the same as the guy compiling the "ten best" whatever in the i newspaper. £5 for a single shop-bought scone? £140 for a fancy lemon squeezer? Really? It's the reason so many people feel that their reality is completely divorced from that of the media. You want a reason for alienation and disenfranchisement; the feeling that nobody talks our language? There it is.

MPs’ Expenses

There’s a good reason that public fury about this is far from over.  It’s a very simple reason: MPs set the rules for the rest of us, but don’t want to follow them themselves.

Take the Bedroom Tax.  They made the rules, using the argument that public money shouldn’t be used to subsidise a home with spare bedrooms.  Are there exceptions due to personal circumstances such as disability or part-time custody of children?  No.

Do these rules apply to MPs’ publicly funded second homes?  No, they do not. 

It’s as simple as that.  Those on low incomes, disabled people, unemployed and disadvantaged people are savagely penalised, but it’s absolutely fine for MPs.  And they make the rules.

Working Away From Home

Sometimes apologists for MPs will say “ah, but they work in Westminster, which may be hundreds of miles from their constituency”.  Indeed, well let’s look at that.  What about other people who have to be away from home due to work? Oil rig workers, for example, are put up on the rigs in accommodation provided by the company.  So let’s do that.  Let’s provide hostel accommodation for MPs, something like student halls of residence, say. 

Travel

The rest of us cannot claim expenses to travel to work, only travel that we do for work.  So travelling between a second home and Westminster should not be subsidised by the public.

The new rules are admittedly attempting to be seen as tackling this, but still the provision for MPs is far more generous than ordinary people would encounter.

Lunches

Most of us do not have our lunches subsidised by our workplace – that comes out of our own pockets.  The same should apply to MPs.

Beer

MPs also have cheap beer provided to them, subsidised by the public purse.  And yet they cheerfully discuss minimum alcohol pricing for their constituents. They should pay the same prices as the rest of us for alcohol, food, or anything else.

The Average Wage

MPs are out of touch.  A good way to focus their minds on keeping in touch, it is sometimes argued, would be to award them the national average wage.  Self-serving as they demonstrably are, this would ensure that they strove to raise the average wage.

Average versus Mode

There is, of course, a problem with this, since “average” needs to be clearly defined.  Were I in a room with a bunch of people on the national minimum wage and Bill Gates walked into the room, the average income in the room would jump dramatically without the wages of anyone else being affected.

It therefore follows that MPs could raise the average simply by further enriching multi-millionaires, as they do now.

For that reason, it is sometimes said that the mode wage - that is, the wage most frequently paid - would be a better benchmark.  I have done some looking into this, and can’t find any statistics kept on the most frequently paid wage.  My working assumption is that it is the national minimum wage.  (Should anyone have any information on this, I’d be happy to see it, and make it known on this blog).

A lot of people doing hard, unpleasant and important work are paid the minimum wage.  Since they set the minimum wage, I’d welcome a justification by MPs of why those people deserve the minimum wage and they do not.  As with all matters regarding authority, the burden of proof lies with them.  They must demonstrate, with powerful argument, that it is fine to pay some people the minimum wage, but that they deserve more.  I’d like to see that justification made, and not just to the satisfaction of the media elite.  I think a lot of us would.

Second Jobs

MPs should not have second jobs.

There are two issues here.  Many employers would feel that a full-time employee cannot devote their full energy to the post if they have another job. It is a condition of many people’s terms of employment that they do not take second jobs. 

More importantly, though, is that MPs often have business interests that conflict with their stated task of representing their constituencies.  If, for example, you are an MP and have business interests which would profit from the NHS being dismantled, then it can be legitimately asked  in whose interests they are actually taking their decisions.

This leads us again to the question of representation.  

Representation

It is sometimes said that if such conditions as discussed above were placed upon
MPs, then only millionaires could afford to be MPs.  This is an interesting argument.  I earn far below the national average wage, and nobody subsidises my beer, and yet I do my job without being a millionaire.  Millions are in the same positions.  It rings rather hollow to them to hear that only a millionaire could possibly afford to live their lives.

Representative democracy must answer the central problem of whose interests it serves: who exactly is represented, how are they represented, and how is that ensured?

Over a century ago, the cry was to increase the working class presence in Westminster.  Well, that was tried, but they very quickly went native.  No matter their good intentions, they were faced with an institutional artifice telling them “Oh, but that simply can’t be done”, and they found they were overruled and eventually co-opted.  It’s the same today. There are all sorts of reasons that things “simply can’t be done”.  Well, now they are being called on that assertion.

What the public outcry over expenses amounts to is a challenge to representative democracy to answer that central question: whose interests does it serve?