In 2015 We handed £93bn on welfare benefits to corporations. That is enough to wipe out at a stroke this year’s budget deficit – and it was given to companies in direct aid, subsidies and tax breaks.
The term “corporate welfare” may sound unfamiliar to some. In the Westminster thesaurus, welfare appears alongside benefits and social security as a term for public spending targeted at individuals and households. But corporations rely on public funds, too.
When Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic took £28m from the Welsh government in 2011 to set up a call centre in Swansea, that was a form of welfare. The German, French and Dutch companies that now run our train services are subsidised by the British public to the tune of hundreds of millions. The £45bn taken by firms in corporate tax benefits is a form of welfare. So is the ultra-low cost insurance scheme the government runs for exporters such as BAE Systems.None of these are labelled corporate welfare, but that’s precisely what they are: direct public spending aimed at protecting and supporting businesses.
The very idea that the privileged are speaking out against a system that has disproportionately benefited them should be revealing. A working class person hailing socialism will be dubbed envious; she or he lacked the individual merit to succeed. “What ‘contingent factors’? They lacked the innovation, the ambition; they did not strive hard enough!” However, a rich person – a rich person has won, against the odds they have come out on top. A systemic redistribution of wealth is directly against their economic interests. And thus, in this respect, it is more poignant that they support it nonetheless.'
No comments:
Post a Comment