‘Levelling Up’? A Neoliberal Threat To Humanity.
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The New Tory Slogan (2021)
“The earth (which was made to be a Common Treasury of relief for all, both Beasts and Men) was hedged in to In-closures by the teachers and rulers, and the others were made Servants and Slaves: And that Earth that is within this Creation made a Common Store-house for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of a few, whereby the great Creator is mightily dishonoured, as if he were a respector of persons, delighting in the comfortable Livelihoods of some, and rejoicing in the miserable povertie and straits of others. From the beginning it was not so.”
— Gerard Winstanley, The True Levellers Standard Advanced (London, 1649),
At the Tory Party Conference this week the latest new big idea from the Tories was doing the rounds in speeches and in interviews with various media outlets: ‘Levelling Up’. There is even a Minister with responsibility for this idea and he is Michael Gove MP. Then in the leaders speech to his party — and the country — Boris Johnson talked about it and it seemed to consist of the usual platitudes of bringing people out of poverty through work.
The whole idea can only be plausible if the economy can create the wealth to reconfigure the existing landscape of huge inequality through high wages high growth and high production according to the Tory mindset. Yet already we have unearthed the paradox inherent in the Johnson idea. To create wealth you need high productivity so you can then pay high or higher wages yet increased productivity can only be achieved through higher wages. And at the moment we have low wages and no signs of a change.
The government must then provide funded schemes for training to fill gaps in certain sectors of the economy. We already know what sectors in the British economy are short. But these are not high paying jobs. Some are and some are not. But once filled the market will reach its equillibrium and the higher wage benefit dissipated by cost of living increases. One step forward and two steps back. And the low paid? Well an increase in the minimum wage to a living wage of £15 per hour must be the way upwards towards a decent life.
But where are the high tech jobs that will pay higher wages to come from? The Green technologies are the…
