Screw the Corbyn naysayers. No, seriously.
So Corbyn defeated May without winning the election. The result was a huge shock to every political pundit on the planet. Each one of them had predicted a Tory landslide that would end the Labour Party. Each one of them was completely wrong.
And the same political pundits who didn’t see this coming, now give their expert opinion on how Corbyn is the wrong choice. I disagree- He’s exactly what the country needs.
I am an Indian, and the Indian Quora Section that I once used to read- is dominated by Rightwing intellectuals. One such intellectual, who by the way is much more successful than me and has at least 300k followers, gave his opinions on the fact that just 8 people own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 50%. This guy justified it by saying that there was nothing wrong with it because these 8 people had earned it and that some of them didn’t inherit this wealth, so on and so forth. He even went further, to say that these people are proof that the system works. After reading this answer, I uninstalled the Quora app from my phone permanently and washed my eyes and hands to make sure I wasn’t infected.
No matter how hard you work, no matter how smart you are, no matter what you have done- you simply don’t deserve that much. The inequalities that we are witnessing- are not normal for a capitalist economy- but for a feudalistic one. The extremely rich aren’t just better off than us now- they effectively own us. The wealthiest 10% of the world own 89% of global assets, according to 2016 Global Wealth Report published by the Credit Suisse Research Institute.
Think about it. Not only do the billionaires own assets- they now own the politicians and media. No, the mainstream journalists aren’t lying, they’re simply out of touch with the system’s problems- because the system works for them. They steer the economy by influencing policy through political lobbying and steer the public opinion by the virtue of giving paychecks to journalists.
And it all happened when the Left stopped its war on inequality and class issues, jumped into the lap of corporate sector and used identity politics as its only tool (We’re looking at you Blair and Clinton). And there was nothing wrong that the Left moved closer to the center economically- except that the Right stood exactly where it was- believing in purist Trickle-down economics and Austerity.
This pushed the perception of economic centrism towards the Right so much that people thought of Sanders as a far-left ideologue- when he simply suggested some socialist policies that were already present in lots of developed capitalist economies in Europe.
Tories, who had already underfunded public schools and the NHS, were going to further destroy these systems, they were going to remove school lunches for kids, not to mention- dementia tax. All for further tax cuts. All of this while child/youth poverty was at high levels, NHS workers were resigning and classroom sizes were rising. Not to mention a housing crisis and an increasing number of people relying on food banks. They closed down fire stations, privatized prisons, cut police numbers and slashed legal aid. But I guess the ideology of austerity was much more important than reality.
The financial crisis in 2008 was the perfect example of how pure capitalist, laissez-faire economics does not work, just like pure socialism. After years of tax cuts, Reaganomics and deregulation, the system finally unraveled. And guess what, the ones responsible for the crisis got taxpayer funded bailouts which they used to give themselves bonuses. It was as Taleb said in a public hearing, “socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.” How fitting it was that the main deregulation that helped create the financial crisis was the repeal of Glass-Steagall, was passed by a President from the American “Left”- Bill Clinton. And how fitting it is that Obama didn’t reinstate it in his 8 years in office.
Raghuram Rajan, the former chief economist of IMF and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India(Indian version of Federal Reserve), was one of those who had predicted the crisis as early as 2005. In the documentary Inside Job, he said something which should light a few bulbs, “As the middle class falls further and further behind, there is a political urge to respond by making it easier to get credit.”
Which is why, Corbyn, is the perfect candidate to counter the steroid filled capitalism that the Tories endorse. It sends a clear message that things have become so worse with austerity, that people would rather vote for a socialist. All the right wing billionaire owned media and corporate shill politicians need to start working on the problem of inequality or shut up when the people embrace socialism.
And whether people like it or not, with automation taking over human jobs, we will have to move towards socialist policies. With no jobs, how will the middle and lower classes have purchasing power? In effect, the whole concept of capitalism- If you don’t want to be poor, get a job and earn money- will weaken.
You don’t like Corbyn? Good for you. But for many he is the only hope for a better and fairer life. Until someone else can do that, there is no stopping him.
