The revival of popular capitalism. Everyone an owner?

POPULAR CAPITALISM

 

I have been asked to speak at a meeting to discuss what Margaret Thatcher would have done today. I have also been asked to write an updated Introduction for a new edition of my book Popular Capitalism about the drive to wider ownership at the heart of the policy I took to Downing Street in the 1980s.  I reproduce some of this thinking below. 

          Popular Capitalism spread a long way from its  origins in 1980s UK. Much of the world is a wealthier place today , with more owners , higher living standards and amazing technological developments. Free enterprise capitalism has empowered people with the mobile phone and the internet, and transformed much business with the all conquering silicon chip, on line shopping, downloaded entertainment and new social media. Many countries transferred large industries from public ownership, backed privately financed infrastructure, encouraged wider ownership and helped  more owner occupiers with their own homes. The USA remained truer to free enterprise throughout and expanded its lead in many fields.

 

 

         

 

What is Popular Capitalism now?

 

           The idea that everyone should be owners remains a powerful positive driver of prosperity and success.  Many People want the freedom of owning their own home to be able to adapt, use and decorate it as they wish. It is so much better to reach retirement  with the mortgage paid off and no rent to pay from your pension. Many want to work for themselves and build their own small businesses, enjoying the fruits of their labours by pleasing the customers rather than a boss. Many want savings put by for life’s big events or for misfortunes. All want a decent income in retirement which is best assured by saving through a pension scheme. These impulses remain now as then, but in many places other government priorities have impeded their fulfilment for all too many people. High interest rates make home buying less affordable. High inflation erodes savings and living standards. Tax and regulation can deter people from working for themselves or from expanding a small business.

 

           Popular capitalism has also suffered some reversals in  business and the wider economy. The manifesto for popular capitalism is based on competitive free enterprise delivering energy, water and most transport. Many of these industries have been denationalised in a variety of countries but in recent years there has been a return to more regulation, direct clumsy interventions in service, price and  investment plans and in some cases renationalisation.  The old lessons that nationalisation all too often meant big losses for taxpayers, poor working terms for employees and bad service for customers are being forgotten. Monopolies normally serve you badly at too high a price. The world has seen peak tariff free barrier free trade, with the main blocs and leading countries now developing strategies based on tariffs, price controls, bans, subsidies and government directions. The world has turned again to excessive debt build up, when equity is a preferred way of financing to spread ownership.

 

       Europe and the UK have gone too far in regulating and centrally directing. Productivity growth has stalled despite the huge advances that US digital technology makes possible. Government favours the large corporation and  imposes taxes and rules that make it more difficult for challenger companies. They  drag more markets towards state capitalism or heavily regulated limited competition in a hollowed out private sector. The pursuit of net zero has led carbon reduction to replace greater prosperity as the main aim of many policies. Government and international conferences visit upon the world their view of what consumers want, only to find they are at variance with what the public wishes to do and buy. In order to travel the road to net zero there has to b e consumer buy in on a grand scale, which requires more innovation, choice and competition, not more prescription, subsidies and rules.

 

     Too few young people think they can afford a home of their own any time soon. Too few see working for themselves as a liberating opportunity. Too few hear or read the messages that freedom , enterprise and democracy are interlinked and mutually support each other. The tyrannies of Russia, Iran and North Korea to a lesser or greater extent tell people what to think, what to do, and what to buy. They erode or remove human rights, limit consumer choice and thwart democratic disagreements. They create poorer societies in every way.

 

 

      State monopolies hold back countries and frustrate employees and consumers. The  more people who own, who actively run businesses, who save and invest, the richer the society. The world needs another dose of free enterprise. There are too many state inspired wars, too many high taxes and state rules. That way poverty beckons. Excessive debts build up til taxpayers are overburdened with interest charges.  Governments are tempted to inflation to try to conceal their failures, only to make it worse. Everyone an owner democratises capital. More capital is needed to provide all the facilities and services we need for a good life.

 

 

64 Comments

  1. Ian wragg
    September 30, 2024

    Popular capitalism goes against the UN/WEF playbook.
    8today we have witnessed the closure of our last coal fired power station and the closure of Port Talbot steel production. There is also the travesty of the 3 close support ships for the RN going to Spain.
    We are being systematically destroyed as a nation as part of the great reset.
    Revolution is the only solution and the tories which you supported played a primary role

    1. Cynic
      October 1, 2024

      A pity you felt obliged to include Net Zero in your speech without making it plain that it is being imposed upon the people. There should be freedom to choose government policies,.

    2. Donna
      October 1, 2024

      Agreed. The British Establishment is systematically destroying the UK. It wants Global Governance and (arrogantly and foolishly) assumes that it will be a major player within it.

      1. Peter
        October 1, 2024

        ‘ The world needs another dose of free enterprise. ’

        Nobody in this country is going to effectively promote this. The Conservative Party is currently dormant, or licking its wounds. When it elects a new leader, and is therefore obliged to re-engage, I see no figure that will effectively pursue this line. Certainly none among the remaining leadership candidates.

        So the discussion is largely academic. Life goes on. Conservatives hope buyers’ remorse will win them the next election without actually doing anything.

    3. James
      October 1, 2024

      You are right there are national security and strategic reasons for keeping some industries alive and well. Steel is one of them.

  2. Mickey Taking
    September 30, 2024

    I doubt the growth of share ownership has been increasing, probably the reverse is true.
    At one time account holders of Building Societies, Banks, Utilities, Communications could benefit from a share distribution. Some saw that as an immediate cash-cow, others as a positive investment. This first-time share holding and trading wetted the appetite for some to seek spectacular share value hikes in gold coin holding, wines, mining for example. Penny shares became a fun cheap speculation. Of course who knew that the meteoric rise in technology values would crash faster than many could sell out?
    Other types of investments became attractive, fine art, rare stamps or coin collections, vintage cars etc. A way of avoiding tax on trading. However all these long term investments in capitalism, or short term backing get subdued by taxation.
    The spirit of capitalism has lost its attraction to most workers, it remains with the sources of market manipulation and insider knowledge.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 1, 2024

      +++
      Very good.
      And I don’t see the point of ownership when one’s goods become the subject of astronomical taxation.
      Nor actually do I think that so-called technology has improved our lives.

  3. Geoffrey Berg
    September 30, 2024

    ‘The world needs another dose of free enterprise’. I very much agree. I intend to devote all 3 Bulletins (and mailings) on my website http://www.modernrationalpolitics.com next year to various aspects of the case for more free enterprise Capitalism. The overarching and best argument for free enterprise Capitalism is that it is the system that most closely accords with the realities of human nature. People, although they often pretend or virtue-signal otherwise, are mostly motivated by the prospect of self-betterment -without that prospect the economy falls apart. It is the affinity between human nature and Capitalism and the non-affinity between more idealistic economic theories and human nature that needs to be emphasised along with a plea to people to forsake virtue signalling and start examining the behaviour of other people and indeed their own behaviour with honesty. For instance why do most people who go to University ( hotbeds of virtue signalling leftism among both students and academics) do so and accumulate substantial debt to do so? The answer is generally to get a better and usually better paid job for themselves. Nothing wrong with that except if, as usually happens, one denies the reality of that in one’s political outlook!

  4. Lifelogic
    October 1, 2024

    State monopolies or just rigged market that favour state provision, as we have with the NHS, schools, transport, banking, energy, universities, housing the BBC…

    Basically the state sector should be under 20% of the economy not heading for 50% mainly increased by the fake Tories.

    1. Lifelogic
      October 1, 2024

      But far worse to come from Starmer whose policies are almost all 180 degree out from what is needed. Net zero and the closing of UK virgin steel production yesterday was a prime example of this lunacy.

  5. Mark B
    October 1, 2024

    Good morning.

    Aspiration. That is the key word here for me. Not mentioned in the piece but alluded to I think. People will want to always better their lives and those closet to them. If you allow them to climb the ladder of life, using their inbuilt talents and skills to do so, reaping and keeping the rewards as they do so, you will create a growing economy.

    One can write a long reply to the this piece but our kind host probably, and understanderbly put it on the back burner, so to speak. But one only has to look at former Communist countries and the UK (for those that can remember) of the 60’s and 70’s to know what wide spread Socialism can do to hobble a country.

    Today, unlike back then, the UK is far less idelogical. People are voting less for or against a colour of a ribbon and more for the person likely to lead a government. It has become very Americanised. The current PM did not so much win the last GE, but rather just didn’t lose it. Thanks to social media, an area that is seeing its own issues between State and Private control, we can communicate and debate more widly and (in the US at least) more freely than before.

    We have the power. We just need to learn how to harness it.

  6. Wanderer
    October 1, 2024

    “The tyrannies of Russia, Iran and North Korea to a lesser or greater extent tell people what to think, what to do, and what to buy. They erode or remove human rights, limit consumer choice and thwart democratic disagreements.”

    And we now have a corporatist version of this tyranny here in the West. Since Covid it has been extending its grip over all these areas. Controlling and manipulating information, locking people and businesses down, reducing democracy to a uniparty charade, giving away our sovereignty to global bodies and the US…the list goes on.

    Is Russia so bad in comparison? Not so much as it used to be, I’m sure!

    1. Everhopeful
      October 1, 2024

      Agree 100%
      And with it has come a bizarre kind of disrespect for customers and an even more bizarre disdain for their money.

    2. R.Grange
      October 1, 2024

      Sir John, you say ‘the tyrannies of Russia, Iran and North Korea to a lesser or greater extent tell people what to think, what to do, and what to buy’. I dare say you are right about the last two, but I wonder when the last time was that you visited Russia. Tyranny? It has an opposition-run polling organisation that regularly finds Vladimir Putin has a popularity rating that Western leaders can only dream of. It has a large and vocal Parliamentary opposition (the Communists) who constantly voice criticism of Putin. It has achieved economic growth that has put money in people’s pockets, to judge from videos I’ve seen online by Western visitors showing people shopping in well-stocked supermarkets. (I haven’t heard of any Russian food banks.) Then I look at the Labour government here, and I see a nanny state telling me what to think (or at least not to say it out loud), what to do and what to buy (EVs, heat pumps, vegan food, etc etc). Should we call it tyranny?

      1. Mitchel
        October 1, 2024

        Yes.Go to Youtube and look at the videos posted by many,many visitors(and not just to the biggest cities)showing the huge range of goods available in the shops,low cost of living,the family friendliness,general cleanliness, sense of order,the impressive public transport systems,etc

        The common refrain is :”it’s not what we were told to expect by our media and governments in the west.”

        There is a young Moscow-based Russophone Brit by the name of Jonny Tickle who has a youtube channel;he set himself the task of visiting Russia’s 100 largest cities which he had more or less completed when the Ukraine war broke out.He went back to the UK when the war broke out-but returned to Russia a few months later,as have many of the expats he knew.Check out his latest video:”Moscow Metro EXPANDED Again:Putin opens brand new line”-and weep!Or try Frenchman,Francois in Russia’s equally recent video:”My Life in Sochi-the Lush Russian Monaco”Or Real Reporter’s “This is how sanctions changed Russia’s car market” and “How western brands ‘left’ Russia.”And so on!

        Our host is in danger of coming across as a cheap propagandist

        Reply Russia has more than twice as many people as U.K. but a lower GDP.

    3. Donna
      October 1, 2024

      Putin recently offered asylum to people fleeing the neo-liberal (ie “woke / cultural marxist) values which are being pushed in the west.

      I wonder if people who are arrested for praying silently near an abortion clinic in the UK feel tempted to take him up on it. Or people who lose their jobs and livelihoods for stating the biological FACT that a man, born with XY chromosomes, isn’t and can never become a woman.

  7. agricola
    October 1, 2024

    Popular capitalism has an enemy called socialism. Socialism has been allowed to feed on popular capatalism (PC), its only teat, because in itself it is barren. In the UK and in the EU it has bloated itself to the point of destroying that on which it feeds PC.

    Almost all political parties in the UK have indulged socialism to a greater or lesser degree, so at present there is no clear route out of it. Socialism embodies the equal application of misery to the majority. At its top end corruption and self gratification, with predictable self justification, or it is our turn at the trough.

    Like it or not, accept it or not, Reform offers the only path of return, so collectively our GPSs need to be reset. Providing our truely needy are carried on this reset I am all for what will amount to a revolution in thinking and damascene momets in all individuals lives, hopefully minus the stone throwing. It will not be easy because to many feed at the trough of socialism. Those capable of creating the elements of PC have already been set on the route of departure, should it persist the UK is on a road of no return. I found no enjoyment in spelling this out.

    1. Mickey Taking
      October 1, 2024

      Agricola : ‘At its top end corruption and self gratification, with predictable self justification, or it is our turn at the trough.’
      Do you only refer to socialism? Big mistake!

      1. agricola
        October 1, 2024

        No mistake, socialism is almost all we have in Parliament today.

    2. Bloke
      October 1, 2024

      agricola:
      ‘Man’ came from Latin ‘manus’ for hand.
      You refer to the way things are going now. In the early 1980s a US computer company instructed its international offices to change all their literature referring to ‘salesman’ into ‘salesperson’. It was unpopular.
      Then, a manageress lost femininity to became a manager. Headmasters became headteachers. Station Masters disappeared with control, and more followed.
      What now next?
      Huperson for human. Personual for manual. Huthey for doubt.

  8. DOM
    October 1, 2024

    John must condemn his own party’s leaders for rejecting the values and world view he promotes which of course is a world view that we all know to be good and wholesome. Unfortunately woke sputum and yes they are sputum (Blair, Cameron and the like) who seek power at all costs despise this world view for it does not aid and assist their thirst for political and cultural power

    An example of the above. Equity, diversity, inclusion, hate speech laws, mass importation and critical race theory are pure bred woke strategies. Their aim is to destroy opposition, force conformism and remodel our nation along different ethnic and cultural lines. Both main parties have adopted this poison that overturns merit and truth. This politics will lead to social breakdown in the next 40-50 years for that is its purpose, chaos and provocation

    I note Newsome (uber woke) in California has just passed a bill making it illegal to demand voter ID in state elections. In effect the state governor can send out voting slips to non-American citizens who will they be able to vote. This is what woke bigots are doing, they are undermining our democratic process to cling to power and drive their agenda

    Reply This site is not a Conservative site. Do try and understand the nature of this forum if you want to be posted here.

    1. agricola
      October 1, 2024

      Reply to Reply,
      I dont believe anyone contributing ever thought it was a conservative site, the party in Parliament who maqueurade as Conservatives left your way of thinking long ago. You have been very clear both in and out of Parliament that you are at odds with the parliamentary party’s left of centre thinking and doing. It is also at odds with its traditional electoral support. You have yet to come to terms with it, but your natural home is in fact in Reform. Forget all the labels, it is the philosophy that counts. I don’t think DOM or anyone else sees this site as anything but one of open discussion which can involve agreeing and disagreeing with you and each other, which I assume is it’s purpose. From such, progress evolves.

      Reply Then stop attacking me for Conservative mistakes I did not agree with.

      1. Hat man
        October 1, 2024

        + 1 Agricola. I have followed this site for a few years now, taking it to be just as you say. It did not seem to be speaking for the Conservative government as such, though of course Sir John has to show tolerance for what he calls ‘Conservative mistakes’. But I would do the same if I was trying to keep on board with the Tory faithful in the constituencies, rather than the parliamentary party, who are beyond redemption now. Whether that strategy is still worth pursuing, I’d rather leave it to Sir John to judge.

  9. Lemming
    October 1, 2024

    A reminder that no one in this country under the age of 45 remembers the time when Mrs Thatcher was in power. Yet you Conservatives seem astonished that young voters have given up on you

    1. Bloke
      October 1, 2024

      Young folk remember what they learnt at school, such as ancient Rome, Agincourt, the South Sea Bubble, Checkpoint Charlie and much since. People of all ages follow whom they recognise as a leader in their own time. Truss didn’t stay. Cameron, May, Johnson & Sunak strayed.

    2. Peter Wood
      October 1, 2024

      I was pondering the difference between Baroness Thatcher and the Tory Party leaders since; what is the fundamental difference? I came to the conclusion that Mrs T put Country before self, AT ALL TIMES. Whereas since, Party leaders have put self above all. An egotistic character must be a part of any leader, but the venality the recent lot has been loathsome.
      I exclude Mr Sunak in this, since he has not, so far, exhibited this characteristic.

    3. Mickey Taking
      October 1, 2024

      and most under 45s have been fed distaste of her time, in equal measure with those who fondly recall.

  10. Bloke
    October 1, 2024

    Landing on a hotel in Mayfair or Park Lane is more attractive when you own it. Those who shun ownership opportunities risk debt every time they pass by again. They end up renting in the Old Kent Road or Whitechapel, or stuck in jail with nothing. The Community Chest is too meagre to sustain them.

    1. Mickey Taking
      October 1, 2024

      and our money and wealth is becoming a joke like the games’ currency.

  11. Everhopeful
    October 1, 2024

    And this in a country where one can not own even one chicken without registration and regulation?
    Nor a cat come to that!
    And it wasn’t this govt. that put the orders in place.
    How can anyone achieve anything with higher bodies than parliament making our laws and quangos directing this that and the other.
    Oh and any new push for “ownership” would this time need education in civilised behaviour.

  12. Everhopeful
    October 1, 2024

    I very much admired. Mrs T but I’m not certain what actually ensued from her actions in later years since nothing has been good since then.
    One thing I imagine is certain
she did not have to live with the “new owners”.
    Those who had been given the “Right to Buy” and thus in effect actually handed free of effort, a huge deposit on the sort of houses the rest of us had to struggle and move around this country to afford.

    1. a-tracy
      October 1, 2024

      I agree. I disagreed with right-to-buy. I certainly disagreed when that house was rented with housing benefit paying the rent for decades then bought for peanuts, sold on or rented out at private house rental prices. However, what it did do in hindsight was ensure that these ex council house rentee/owners no longer became eligible for housing benefit to pay the rent after retirement.

      I wonder how many people on housing benefits after retirement pay their full housing association/council rent? I wonder what this bill is per annum? People that scrimped and purchased are saving the government a lot of money but they seem to be frowned on now and a wealth grab is discussed as though they are the problem.

      If these homes, often big family homes, are provided free of charge to the tenant, is the tenant still allowed to keep it once their youngest child becomes an adult? How does one get a rental in London now from the Council or HA if you are a born in London or b just moving to London from elsewhere in the Country with a job but no family there and no home there? Is it possible without a child?

    2. Bloke
      October 2, 2024

      ‘Right to Buy’ entitled loyal tenants to discounts linked to their long-term tenure record. Many had been paying rent to the Council for 30+ years. They became home owners, maintaining the property at their own expense. The purchase price of the property was controlled by what the Council had spent on building, buying, repairing or maintaining it, and new owners were restricted from re-selling within 5 years. Owners tend to look after what they own, improving their environment.

      1. a-tracy
        October 2, 2024

        No, sorry, Bloke; maybe in some areas, they are looked after; there are examples in Knutsford, but in others, they don’t look after what they own. My Nan would be horrified to see what became of her beloved council house and that of her two dear neighbours after they died. They are worse than Onslows houses with rubbish piled up in the gardens of all three; the whole street now has an air of ghetto, and what were previously well-stocked gardens and front lawns are now mud driveways and storage areas for old fridges.

        I know two women who had the State pick up the tab for their full council house rental until their youngest got to 18. They then racked up their 30-year ‘discount’ to buy that house for ÂŁ35,000 (a house worth ÂŁ265k) with their boyfriends’ help. I know a family that bought their Nans’ house; their Nan hadn’t paid 30 years’ worth of rent as she was on the social then widows social.

        The only way to get a social house now is to misbehave, have two kids out of wedlock, become unable to pay the private rent with benefits and get kicked out and become homeless. In London, immigrants whose parents were given social housing can’t get social housing; they now want Khan to build them social housing, do they get higher up the social tenancy list if their parent is already in a social home?

        1. Bloke
          October 3, 2024

          Agreed a-tracy. Some folk don’t look after their own bodies, personal reputation or economy, and generate squalor. Many bring dependence on themselves and act as parasites on the state where the state itself is lax: allowing them to exploit benefits beyond proper entitlement. However, if they ‘owned’ a mobile phone they had paid for from money they earned, they would care if someone else stole it from them.
          At one time, when housing was not in over-demand, Councils maintained high standards for tenants contracted by law. Offenders were evicted and had to find someone who would trust them to live elsewhere. Unmarried mothers received harsh treatment and were assigned to refuges, often risking loss of their child. Now, those who are most careless or reckless seem to gain added privileges as if being incentivised.

  13. Donna
    October 1, 2024

    A political party with that prescription for government could be properly described as Conservative but unfortunately, there are very few of them left in the mis-named Conservative Party so I strongly suspect that Sir John has, once again, been talking to the hands with the faces looking elsewhere and ignoring what they consider to be an inconvenient buzzing noise in their ears.

    The UN, WEF, IMF, WHO etc don’t want Popular Capitalism. They want Socialist Global Governance and so do the Puppeticians in the West who are delivering it for them. The 4 potential Leaders of the Not-a-Conservative-Party are all failed Ministers in the last Government and we know for certain that three of them (Badenoch, Tugendhat and Cleverly) are unreformed Globalists. Jenrick, interestingly, wrote an article in the DT earlier this year saying that the Liberal Elites prioritise their reputation at Davos ahead of British interests. But, as we know to our cost, with “Conservative” MPs talk is cheap and mostly just hot air.

    “The tyrannies of Russia, Iran and North Korea to a lesser or greater extent tell people what to think, what to do, and what to buy.”

    And increasingly, so are the lower-level tyrannies in the USA, EU and UK. Or has Sir John forgotten the Covid Tyranny and the post-Covid attempts to control “dis/mis-information;” suppress free speech; punish “hate speech (if you’re white and working class, others get a free pass) and force us to buy certain products?

    On the day the Westminster Uni-Party destroy our final, reliable, cheap-to-run, coal-fired power station …. and condemn us to pay for expensive, unreliable, economy-wrecking so-called renewable energy or foreign imports for decades to come …. I see no likelihood of Sir John’s agenda for Popular Capitalism being implemented any time soon ……. unless Reform wins the next General Election.

  14. Narrow Shoulders
    October 1, 2024

    Sir John, you mention ownership and savings in your piece. Your government and now the Labour one penalises those who own who fall n hard times by insisting that they use up their nest eggs to support themselves before they are eligible for assistance. Or means test assistance.

    Help should be universal or non-existent. No reason why the responsible should pay for the irresponsible.

    Reply The last government was not my government.I spent four years trying to change its economic policies and to give it a hunger for wider ownership without much success.

    1. Mickey Taking
      October 1, 2024

      reply to reply…and did you resent so many Conservatives walking away or swallowing the new socialism in the hope the Gods would smile on them later? The price has been destruction but you would think they are certain of regaining control in the next GE. Where is the forensic examination of the candidate selection, the instruction on who to select, the tick in the box, the pretence on woke being fine and more than acceptable?
      If only you and a dozen others had ‘come out’ prior and sorted out a position with Reform, we may have avoided this shambles, and more importantly the long-term disaster that is Starmer and Labour. And to think we panicked over Corbyn!

  15. Narrow Shoulders
    October 1, 2024

    Entry to ownership becomes overly expensive when government intervenes. Importing users on an industrial scale, printing money. Government is unhelpful

  16. James
    October 1, 2024

    Don’t forget the Cooperative Movement as a neglected but long lived form of popular capitalism. The Post Office perhaps?

    Reply I have been promoting the idea of The People’s BBC owned as a mutual by licence payers.m

    1. a-tracy
      October 1, 2024

      As long as no foreign owners can own it. We seem to just sell up to foreign entities in this Country, from the national lottery to Canadian pension funds to water boards owned by Australian pension funds. Why don’t UK pension funds own these if they’re such a hot return?

  17. Donna
    October 1, 2024

    In his GB News interview this morning, Cleverly informed us that his ability to express himself clearly makes him suitable Party Leader material. He then proceeded to extol the “green crap” Cameron himself said the Party had to drop …. claiming that he’d deliver the “green industrial revolution” and export it.

    So he confirmed he’s a Net Zero lunatic, who will continue the policy of dismantling the UK economy in order to deliver the climate change SCAM in the UK.

    Just another LibCON who should be applying to lead the LibDems.

    1. Original Richard
      October 1, 2024

      Donna :

      Correct.

      Or even apply to lead the Green Party. What’s the difference between the Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and Green Parties? They all believe in mass immigration and Net Zero to destroy our well-ordered properous nation.

    2. a-tracy
      October 2, 2024

      Donna, I’m beginning to think that the party grandees prefer to go Libservative. It will put a line in the sand between the Tories and Reform, and we won’t have fake Libservatives pretending they’re Tory.

  18. Sakara Gold
    October 1, 2024

    Popular capitalism needs entrepreneurs, folk who are prepared to take risks with their capital to build businesses. People such as this need a low tax environment, cheap energy and reduced regulation to survive and prosper. Most of them go to America to be successful.

    1. Donna
      October 1, 2024

      One of the reasons they go to America is because America is using its plentiful energy resources to ensure that the cost of energy is kept very low.

      The British Establishment, cheered on by you, is doing the exact opposite and is refusing to exploit OUR plentiful energy resources thus ensuring that we have the highest energy prices in the G20 and can’t compete.

      1. Original Richard
        October 1, 2024

        Donna :

        Correct.

      2. Sakara Gold
        October 1, 2024

        @Donna
        The reason why electricity is so expensive here is because about 40% of it is produced by burning extremely expemsive gas. France is mainly nuclear with gas at ~5% and Germany is mainly domestic coal with gas at ~15% Plus the extortionate Standing Charges which are about 60% of your domestic energy bill

        As fossil fuel output runs down in the N Sea while the last economic fields are emptied, more cheap domestic renewables will replace expensive hydrocarbons, saving the British public from exposure to the volatile gas price – which is the reason electricity is so expensive here, as the Telegraph noted last week

        Reply More nonsense. Look at the subsidies and guaranteed prices for renewables and the high capital costs of extra grid and more windfarms.

        1. Donna
          October 1, 2024

          The reason Gas is more expensive that it need be is because we’re not using our own resources, we’re importing expensive LPG from America.

        2. Original Richard
          October 1, 2024

          SG :

          Nonsense. Read David Turver’s Eigen Values Substack.

          Our high electricity prices are caused by renewable subsidies. For instance, the current weighted average CfD price for offshore wind is ÂŁ155/MWhr whilst the Intermittent Market Reference Price (IMRP), which is the price used as the baseline for the CfD subsidies calculation and is weighted by generation including gas, is just ÂŁ51/MWh.

          So we have an energy system where the renewable generators make money whether the price is high or low. And if renewables are now so cheap why is it still necessary for the government to keep offering their subsidised CfD contracts? It doesn’t make sense.

          Plus of course all the additional the costs for upgrading the National Grid to bring the electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed and the costs to run a parallel gas generation system inefficiently to cope with the renewables chaotic intermittency.

  19. Paul Freedman
    October 1, 2024

    I very much look forward to reading the new edition of Popular Capitalism. Imagine the condition of Britain today if we had never abandoned these principles and solutions in 1997.
    Some of those things would include: UK GDP would be significantly higher and the cumulative effects of that would be every single one of the British people would be significantly wealthier than they are today; salaries would be substantially higher; taxes would be much lower; there would be far less individual and sovereign debt; products and services would be to a higher standard and cheaper too; overall standards in society would be higher and in general the British people would feel more confident and there would be less depression and other mental afflictions too.
    What price we have paid for the abandonment / dilution of this approach from 1997 onwards.
    The only way it can be retored is with the Conservative Party getting back on track again and I am becoming more encouraged that might happen. It is vital it does for the country’s future.

  20. Viv Evans
    October 1, 2024

    You can’t have popular capitalism unless bureaucracy is reduced to the bare minimum, only fulfilling the tasks a government/state needs to guarantee the safety – internal and external – of their citizens.
    But never mind – one ‘capitalist’ enterprise is thriving without bureaucratic supervision: crime. The interesting point here is that the state bureaucracy has it made very difficult for people to set up their own business thanks to regulations and statutes aimed at protecting the poor, stupid customers on the one hand while doing nothing at all about crimes perpetrated on those same citizens – crimes from burglaries and theft (the police has to ‘deal’ with hate crime because ‘words hurt’ …) to ever more elaborate scams.
    Isn’t it odd how banks and other customer-oriented businesses are rather demanding from their customers to jump through hurdles to identify themselves than demand from government to do something about it to protect people.
    Ah well – it’s the mindset of bureaucrats everywhere and at all times to mistrust the people they’re paid to serve, creating a general climate of mistrust.

  21. Berkshire Alan
    October 1, 2024

    Whilst I agree with much of your comment John, the biggest failure to moving forward has been increasing Government control, and ever rising taxation.
    Thus with the disposable income or profit from work, effort, savings, and investments it has been reduced for many, so is it any wonder we are not getting the growth in the economy that politicians now seem to want.
    I could list all the taxes that restrict aspiration, improvement, and growth, but we all know what they are.
    I seem to remember John Majors pledge of wanting a cascade of wealth down through the family.
    That is now a sick joke with todays restrictions and taxes, and it is likely to get even worse with Labour in control.
    People work for themselves and their families first, not the Government.

    1. a-tracy
      October 1, 2024

      “I believe that personal prosperity should follow the same course. I want to see wealth cascading down the generations. We do not see each generation starting out anew, with the past cut off and the future ignored.” Major 1991 [33 years ago] “not least for the security and independence that provides for people”. 1992 election result speech.

      Ruined by long-term care, said Yvette Cooper. The truth is more people with money pay privately for their care! Old age is increasingly expensive. Anyone with assets has to pick up the entire bill. “By the year 2041, nearly a quarter of the population will be over 65, compared to only 16 per cent in 1993.” The independent.

  22. Everhopeful
    October 1, 2024

    Actually what did happen was that the man in the streeet could buy an ersatz version of the luxurious item enjoyed by the actually rich.
    Often through increasingly unsustainable borrowing!
    Savings become far less valuable.

  23. David Andrews
    October 1, 2024

    It is clear that popular capitalism is under threat by the left. For a large segment of the electorate is is probably an alien concept and certainly one in which they do not participate – how many Sids are still around today? Desirable, even essential, though it is the concept is buried by other priorities such as green or woke issues. These dominate parliamentary time, regulation and taxation at the expense measures that promote popular capitalism. The recent Conservative governments have shot themselves in the foot over this, a reason for their downfall and the rise of Reform. Will a new leader change that? In addition UK governments now must also grapple with the implications of the rise of protectionism around the world and, in particular, of China`s domination of so many industries with state run policies to export and dump huge surpluses in other countries. The free trade mantra is dead.

  24. Ian B
    October 1, 2024

    Our ownership is the person in the mirror looking back at us, our responsibility likewise. Once someone else decides you need to be in their image that is Socialism.

    As Starmer said a conference it is time for Labour to take back control of the People, and judging from his party’s attitude that is exactly the direction he will take us.

    One answer to the over bearing controls and regulations is to put English Law (A phrase used outside of England) front and centre of our law’s rules and regulations, they should not exist unless created by democratically elected representatives, and at all times these can be changed, amended and repealed. Everything is Legal unless Parliament deems it not to be. The UK operated for 100’s of years under that system as do most free sovereign democracies. It wasn’t until we got mixed up with our Napoleonic neighbours where they reverse democracy to nothing is legal unless their bureaucrats deem it so.

    Governments meddling are just individual ego trippers try to impose idealogical will so as to be able to bully boy dominate. That is not working with, extracting the best that people can be that is fighting them.

  25. Ian B
    October 1, 2024

    Miliband’s net zero sprint risks destabilising the grid, warns EDF
    Rapid shift away from fossil fuels threatens to leave energy system at risk of shortfalls.
    Banning things on 100% a pure personal ideology is to punish a nation and its people. Even more galling is the rest of the World carries on not changing while all the time there is no resilient alternative even contemplated.
    From the Telegraph – ‘Miliband shows no interest in nuclear at all, large or small. It makes his beloved wind and solar energy look bad, something Dale Vince, one of Labour’s biggest corporate donors, is sensitive about. Vince is a patron of the Stop Hinkley campaign, showing up at protests.’
    The lunatics have stolen control of the asylum, control people’s lives, wreak them and you get the WEF ‘Great Reset’

  26. Bryan Harris
    October 1, 2024

    Popular Capitalism was always a sensible way forward, but those opposing, the establishment that wanted to control the state lost their powers. and had to fight back dirty.

    That same establishment that had lost too much power after WW2 ended watched, in the decades that followed, as people took back power and energised their lives. It has taken the establishment this long to reconcile their powers to reduce freedoms and potential for ordinary people. Now they are fully in control and have no intention to see another surge in personal freedoms.

    Yes, we would certainly prefer Popular Capitalism to what is now being forced down our throats – dire socialism that denies the soul and sees each one of us as fodder for their machinery. Unfortunately it will be a few more years before the gears come off this socialist machine – they have planned well, but suppression on this scale will always turn in on itself and fail, ultimately.

  27. Original Richard
    October 1, 2024

    “Government favours the large corporation and imposes taxes and rules that make it more difficult for challenger companies. They drag more markets towards state capitalism or heavily regulated limited competition in a hollowed out private sector.”

    This is the first part of the Marxist UN/WEF plan to eventually eliminate private ownership in the West (“you will own nothing and be happy”) with ESG/DEI etc. leading to a form of economic Fascism and then Communism.

    The Chinese have already instituted economic Fascism under their existing Communist system in order to benefit from a system which can efficiently produce goods which Communism simply cannot do. This is why China calls itself “one nation, two systems”. The first, Communist system, controls the land, the resources, the capital equipment and the money supply but allows a second corporate Fascist system to profit from production whilst the Communist system still has overall control. All Chinese companies and citizens are signed up to work for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party. This is China’s Communism (Mark 3).

    The Marxist UN/WEF’s intention is to transition the West towards Communism Mark 3 and then merge with China into a single entity.

    The false CAGW and its Net Zero “solution” is designed to cripple the West’s economies and destroy its wealth and independence by transitioning from cheap and reliable hydrocarbon energy to expensive, chaotically intermittent energy resulting in the rationing of energy, food and transport and thereby instigating the necessary political changes.

  28. forthurst
    October 1, 2024

    We are benefitting from technological developments which mostly took place abroad as with the manufacturing. Technological developments that took place here were sold off, often by the Tories to our competitors due to their total lack of understanding of science and technology and their importance in creating a high added value based economy here.
    The concept of giving people rewards for doing nothing is hardly conducive to encouraging endeavour. Too much of our economy uses a rentier model in which taxpayers pay subsides to benefit private profit. Sid sold his piffling holdings long ago and those erstwhile state owned businesses are mostly now in foreign hands, some governmental. Has all this reduced costs to consumers? Quite the opposite.

  29. Peter Gardner
    October 2, 2024

    There is only one thing worse than a state monopoly: a private monopoly. The long term contracts given to private companies in UK on taking over former state monopoly utilities and rail services in effect created private monopolies. One exception was gas which offered shares to previous account holders. New models of private ownership of state infrastructure and services are needed to ensure quality and price of customer service determines the bottom line of profitability..

  30. beresford
    October 5, 2024

    Not convinced that people have been ’empowered’ by the mobile phone, more like enslaved. It is becoming increasingly difficult to perform everyday functions without carrying and paying for one of these gadgets. They can be used to monitor your actions in ways not understood by the technically naive. Mothers pushing prams ignore their children while staring with rapt fascination at their palm, and youths step into the road without looking confident in the protection provided by the plastic box glued to the side of their tilted head. Journeys on public transport are punctuated by 101 inane one-sided conversations.

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