The Western world is falling apart because of neoliberalism - Yorkshire Post Letters

There is a reason the western world is falling apart. It’s because of neoliberalism or capitalism.

The central feature of capitalism is to make a profit. Not to be fair to the consumer or distribute wealth equally or have any moral standards but to make a profit for the firm and its shareholders.

To do that it must keep costs low but sell at the highest price. It’s biggest cost is labour so it keeps wages as low as possible or gets a machine to do the work.

It must also sell its product at the highest price, ideally it seeks a monopoly where, because it has no competition, it can charge what it likes.

The water industry comes to mind. Another example would be the supermarkets and how they pay the farmers as little as possible and charge the customer as much as possible. As a group they are a monopoly. They all hate competition because that may drive down profits so they buy out their competitors.

We, the puny consumer, can do little on our own. Our representative, the government, must regulate for us. But look what has happened, big business has begun to take over even this.

Trump is primarily a business man, a deal maker. Interested only in what will make him wealthy, everything else is accidental.

The UK will follow his example. Already our chancellor is more interested in what the money market wants than the needs of ordinary people. This is why we are all angry. We all feel helpless as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Profit is not necessarily a bad thing but excessive profit leads to greed and inequality. We bear some of the blame. As much as 70 per cent do not vote at elections. Understandable but counterproductive

There are no easy answers but beware of copying films where one charismatic man rides to our rescue. It rarely ends happily.