Cameron feels working class pain
In a keynote address on his India tour David Cameron has highlighted the downside of globalisation. He highlights how in parts of the UK “…the winds of globalisation feel like a chilling blast, not an invigorating breeze”
He also argues that it is the economic forces of globalisation that have driven down wages not growth in immigration. He argues the failure to admit this means “…people project their fears and anxieties on to other ethnic groups or other countries.”
Its interesting to see a politician take that point of view, that immigration actually hurts the working classes. Not because it takes jobs but because it keeps wages down. Its good for the capitalist interest, bad for the labour interest. All this from a Conservative, makes it an interesting, attention grabbing statement.
Cameron feels working class pain. When I read that I thought it referred to the poor girl his entourage ran over in Mumbai …
http://dcindia06.blogspot.com/2006/09/minibus-accident-in-mumbai.html
We share your pain David.
Slug
That’s not what he said. He was talking about globalisation. That is not to say you are wrong. Interesting how many Insurance/Banking firms now say “All our call centres are in the UK”.
slug,
That’s not what he said at all – it was quite the opposite. He was referring to the freer movement of goods and services, not people.
I think its interesting that Cameron chose to say so in public : globalisation’s been the ever-growing elephant in the electoral livingroom for years now but most influential European politicians have not been ready to admit that all other policy might not rotate around the immutable given of globalisation.
Wonder where Mr C goes with this over the coming months ? Reconciling the profitseeker and worker interest wont be easy ; at the margin, democracy and globalisation may not even be compatible.
Thanks guys-my mistake.
However the argument I have outlined – that cheap labour from East Europe depresses pay for low skilled labour in the UK and therefore benefits capitalists rather than workers – is an arguemnt that people like Labour’s Frank Field have been making.
An extraordinary statement from any mainstream, Western politician, never mind the leader of the Tories. That’ll really piss off the corporations.
The World Bank and ITO will be calling him in for a chat.
What isn’t given enough consideration is what constitutes unfair competition and what actions should be taken to correct such practice. Is it subsidising production or research, restricting your markets, holding down the value of your currency, or insuring that your country has lots of available cheap labour, poor safety requirements, lack of pollution control etc. We talk of free markets and free trade but there has to be some rules.