West Ham New Capitalists

Last night I was the “guest” speaker at West Ham Labour Party CLP General Committee (GC) at Stratford, Newham, East London, E15.

I had actually agreed to speak on “New Capitalism and a Labour Party Forum” at last months GC, but had completely forgotten to check that this clashed with Labour Party conference. The Political officer and the CLP Executive Committee kindly agreed for me to speak this month instead.

I pretty much gave the same spiel that I gave to East Ham CLP Manor Park & Little Ilford wards in July. To summarise my (and many others) arguments, it is that in Britain ordinary people own a majority of the voting shares of companies listed on the British Stock Exchange and significant other equity markets across the world. These are small investors in pensions schemes, insurance policies, other collective investments and individual share holdings. It is completely wrong, both morally and financially that these investors do not exercise not only their rights of ownership but also their responsibilities as owners for their investments.

If owners do not do this (by and large they do not) then it is vital that within the Labour Party there is a forum to engage and debate this issues and bring them to the attention of the Party.

I hope this post will encourage similar levels of discussion as my last post. Also that Harry Barnes latest grandchild is doing well and he can now rejoin the fray!

Being before an audience of Politicalised East Enders there was of course a fairly lively debate in the Q&A. They were very gentle with me, no doubt because I was also a West Ham GC delegate! However, there was a good debate on my points. Delegates brought up whether this was just a repetition of “1960’s utopianism? or was “New Capitalism” just a reflection that the state does not feel able to regulate or control companies anymore? Were we just following Thatcher’s arguments? Were my facts simply wrong? Is this a repudiation of Anthony’s Crossland’s belief that ownership of capital is not as important an argument as its equitable distribution of income? Financial interests will never give up real power to worker’s capital; workers are just not interested in their superann contributions past pay day etc. There was also a sharp observation that Newham Council appeared to be “back pedalling” on this is issue corporate governance in its staff pension fund. This was repudiated by the pension fund chair.

Good questions: My answer to many of these questions was that while I am personally very optimistic about what we can achieve via “New (or Workers) Capitalism” I recognise that it will be very difficult and that New Capitalism is not the answer to all problems and should be seen as complimentary not an alternative to traditional politics.

However, at least we can try to ensure that our money, our savings, our pensions are not invested in companies that do harm. That companies we own take their responsibilities seriously and do not employ child labour, do not persecute trade unionists nor recklessly pollute the environment in order to maximise short term profits.

That’s a start.