Moments ago, the
Guardian’s Deborah Orr published an article entitled, “I switched to the Co-op bank as an ethical alternative. What a joke.”
Kudos to Orr and The Guardian. They have summed up in a headline, what
the Right has been saying about institutions like the Co-Op, their trade union
and Labour buddies for decades. Pseudo-morality,
feigned-ethics, and a holier-than-thou approach to business and politics has
been the hallmark of the Left since the Labour movement first came to fruition.
Now it seems, the mask of
morality is finally slipping, and the Left’s own skeletons are being dragged
clattering and shrieking from its own dusty closet.
The Guardian writes in
its sub-head for Orr’s article, “It’s virtually impossible to be without a bank
account, so why is it so hard to find a good one?”
The question, at first,
seems like a good one. But the premise is faulty, and it reveals the
wrong-headed approach to financial and political institutions that plagues much
of the Left.
In Orr’s search for “a
good one [bank]” she applies specious notions of morality to institutions she
disapproves of, and takes the Guardian reader on a journey of banking over the
past generation, ending with the comment, “The saddest thing is that, in the
recent past, the Co-op bank has been a progressive, admirable institution. It
was the first bank to introduce free banking for customers in credit, in 1974.
It was the first to offer interest-bearing current accounts, in 1982. Its
ethical policy, barring it from investing in all manner of dodgy
enterprises, from arms trading to sweatshops, is – on paper at least – exactly
the direction that all financial institutions should be heading in.”
But Co-Op’s “ethical” banking was and always has been a marketing
ploy, as is most of “corporate social
responsibility”. The British public is
generous, and banks, politicians, and other firms are keen to exploit our
generosity and guilt by turning it into a sales pitch. “Bank with us,” they
scream. “We boycott Israel!”or something of the sort. Playing on
individual’s politics and preoccupations is the mindset of an effective
marketer. The bank’s introduction of free banking and interest-bearing accounts
is further evidence of this.
Orr claims that arms
trading and sweatshops are “dodgy” as if such things a) would disappear if
banks didn’t invest in them, and b) are wholesale “immoral”.
Of course, no one is
comfortable with much of what they hear about arms trading and sweat shop
conditions, but isn’t is “progressive” to be relativistic about things?
Shouldn’t we take into account that arms trading is a reality, and has often
led to the overthrow of dictators? Where would the Left’s murderous Che Guevara
have been without an efficient arms trade? And sweatshops? Bad sure, but better
than starvation, destitution, unemployment and economic ruination? Probably
not.
It is of course natural,
be you Left or Right, to feel that you have the answers to the injustices that
plague the world, but the Left’s selective moral outrage is encapsulated
perfectly by Orr’s search for the perfect bank. No such thing can exist. Humans
are flawed and therefore human institutions will be flawed.
Moreover, Orr acts as if
organisations such as banks have a duty to her sense of morality, as a customer
and a commentator, over their duties to their shareholders and their bottom
lines. It is this method of thinking that causes the epic flaw in her moral
standpoint. To assure morality is to allow free markets – and therefore
customers and shareholders – to act in unison, not protect institutions like
the current political establishment protects the banks.
Without investment in
“dodgy” things, banks may not be able to return as much to the shareholder or
provide as good a service to their customers as they do.
Of course, Orr’s answer
to this would no doubt be to simply extricate the idea of shareholders:
creating instead a “People’s Bank”. But that is exactly what the Co-Op was, and
inevitably, being run by humans, it was fallible.
If the Left truly wants
to change the nature of banking in this country, it should start by advocating
for a break-up of the corporatist government-banking nexus. Big banks should be
allowed to fail, not be bailed out, and customers would be further empowered in
the knowledge that their tax money wasn’t going to pick up the pieces of banks
embroiled in “dodgy” practices, be they sweatshops or sub prime mortgages.
The best way to affirm
morality is not to extricate the shareholders, but to empower them. Government
is what must be removed from the banking sector, and then the clever marketing
managers can play to Orr’s need for a Guardian Bank with free quinoa on
sign-up, while the rest of us can go to where the interest rates and dividends
are highest.
