IN almost everything I have written for Ekklesia for more than a decade, there has been one underlying theme – austerity. Whether it is poverty, hunger, the housing crisis, the state of the NHS or our prisons, roads and schools, the fundamental cause of all the problems we see has been austerity. Trying to run public services on the cheap, and depriving so many people of the resources they need to live a decent life, has harmed all of us to some degree.
‘Balancing the books’ has become the primary aim and measure of political and economic competence, so one government after another has placed money above the welfare of the population, in a downward spiral of misery and suffering. And the tragedy is, we know austerity will not and cannot succeed. Trying to make the economy strong by reducing the money the state puts into it will only make the economy weaker. And we have enough experience of privatisation, and private capital’s involvement in public services and utilities to know that it rarely, if ever, improves matters.
The truth is, money is not actually real. As the Native Americans understood long ago: “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realise that you cannot eat money.”
Intrinsically, money is useless. If you found yourself dying of thirst in the desert with a billion pounds in cash, you would give all that cash for a drink of water. People, land, food, energy, water, bricks and mortar are real. Money isn’t. And while real resources are finite, money can be created by the government. That is why Maynard Keynes said, “Anything we can actually do we can afford.”
Yes, creating too much money could be negative, but only if it is used in the wrong way. If it goes into the pockets of under-taxed rich people, who use it to buy up numerous houses and flats as investments to rent out, then the price of housing will be inflated. But if the money is spent by the government on building extra council housing, that could reduce the cost of housing, create a public asset, provide employment, reduce the need for housing benefit, and pay for itself in three years.
The government spending money on valuable assets such as schools, hospitals and housing, paying public employees a decent wage and supporting those who need it, investing in renewable energy – surely that would strenghten the economy, and make us all healthier and happier?
We have had fourteen years of austerity and it is no coincidence that most people are now much worse off than when it started, whilst billionaires have prospered. Either politicians should admit that the welfare of the majority of the population is not actually their priority, or they should abandon austerity and begin investing in the country and its people.
But perhaps most importantly, we should all rethink our understanding of money, and of public money in particular. It is a tool which can and should be used to make our lives better – not an implacable god to which we must sacrifice the joy of our children and the health of our nation.
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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. Her latest book is Illness, Disability and Caring: A Bible study for individuals and groups (DLT, 2020). Her latest articles can be found here. Past columns (up to 2020) are archived here. You can follow Bernadette on Twitter: @BernaMeaden