#coporations

We saw that the aristocracy and landed gentry own 30% of England, a position that has not changed for centuries, and that they have increased their wealth at expense of the rest of us.

But the aristocracy and landed gentry are not the only ones who own land. Big corporations also own vast tracts of England.

“Multi-million pound corporations with complex structures have purchased the very ground we walk on – and we are only just beginning to discover the damage it is doing to Britain.” (Guy Shrubsole, quoted in the Guardian, 19/04/19)

Big corporations own 18% of England. Topping the list are three privately owned water companies. Since they were privatised in 1989, water companies have issued massive dividends to their shareholders.

 “…payouts in dividends to shareholders of parent companies between 1991 and 2019 amount to £57bn – nearly half the sum they spent on maintaining and improving the country’s pipes and treatment plants in that period."  (Guardian:01/07/22)

Since privatisation, water companies have not built a single new reservoir, have continued to pump raw sewage into our rivers and seas, and have failed to stem the tide of water leaks that blight the system.  Over 70% of these water companies are foreign owned, so that there is no guarantee that the £57 bn paid in dividends since 1991 has remained in this country.

More worrying still, is the fact these dividends are paid out using borrowed money. If these companies were ever to go bust it would be us, the British taxpayer, having to bail them out.

The water companies are only one example of how corporate landownership affects all of us in a negative way. Land banking by construction companies is another problem.

“The big boys of construction are sitting on enough land to build a couple of cities, and their collective stashes have increased by nearly 10 per cent in just a year…This is surely scandalous in the worst decade for house building since the war. From a peak average of 361,885 homes a year in the 1960s, completions have slumped to 154,533 annually. Even when you take council and social housing out of the equation, the number of dwellings built by the private sector has fallen 38 per cent from an annual average of 197,141 in the 1960s to 121,500 in the current decade.” (Bigissue: 30/07/19)

This contraction in house building is known as “pipelining”. In effect the large construction companies deliberately restrict the flow of newly built homes onto the market to maximise their profits. According to Campaign to Protect Rural England, over a ten-year period the biggest house building companies increased their land banks by 20% but actually built 13% fewer homes. Restricted supply means higher house prices, means greater profits for the construction companies at the expense of ordinary working people. The House of Commons Library sums up the problem thus:

“When people are unable to access suitable housing it can result in overcrowding, more young people living with their parents for longer, impaired labour mobility, which makes it harder for businesses to recruit staff, and increased levels of homelessness.” (Commons Library: Tackling the under-supply of housing in England)

More generally, Private Eye, who investigated landownership in England and Wales, found that

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/dont-be-fooled-voting-really-matters/

Don't Be Fooled, Voting Really Matters

With Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court being an international topic of conversation, it would be logical for most to believe Americans would agree on the importance of exercising their voting rights with mid-term elections less than a month away. Unfortunately, in some thought bubble, the importance of voting is a subject of conversation.

Image distorted to protect privacy.

The process of a functioning democratic republic depends on citizens participating in the voting process. Voter ID Legislation, The Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program, and attempts to close voting locations are direct assaults on US citizens Constitutional right to vote — the way to enact political change within a democratic system. Without participation in elections (or the threat of), US protest movements throughout history wouldn’t have been able to bring about legislative change.

The Republican Party; which has since lost its progressive roots, rose to be the second most powerful party in the US Congress in under a decade by running on an anti-slavery platform — leading to the Presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Protests against slavery existed well before the formation of the party, yet the eventual abolition of such did not occur until concentrated voting efforts came into effect at the highest political office, and the defeat of the Confederacy; formed of states which seceded from the Union in protest, during the Civil War.

The Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights movements both involved using the vote as aspects of their platform. Allies of the suffragists were able to pass the 19th Amendment, while John F. Kennedy ran on a staunch civil rights platform which Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law after Kennedy’s assassination. While protest and strategic political activism were important aspects of both, it would be incorrect to ignore the role of the ballot in each — the right to vote was a core principle at the center of the social movements.

“Voter turnout in the United States fluctuates in national elections. In recent elections, about 60% of the voting eligible population votes during presidential election years, and about 40% votes during midterm elections. Turnout is lower for odd year, primary and local elections,” according to FairVote, suggesting the problem is more of the lack of voting than the process being ineffective in bringing popular change.

From Pew Research, “The 55.7% VAP [Voting-Age Population] turnout in 2016 puts the U.S. behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), most of whose members are highly developed, democratic states. Looking at the most recent nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.S. placed 26th out of 32 (current VAP estimates weren’t available for three countries).”

via Pew Research Center

Michael McDonald, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida uses Voting-Eligible Population (VEP) instead of the VAP metric. He explains the calculation, “The voting-eligible population is constructed by adjusting the voting-age population for non-citizens and ineligible felons, depending on state law. National estimates are further adjusted for overseas eligible voters…” Using McDonald’s calculations the VEP for the 2016 election cycle adjusts to 60.1% remaining far lower than most OECD nations.

The last ten VEP mid-term turnout figures provide insight into political apathy within the United States:

1978 (39%)

1982 (42%)

1986 (38.1%)

1990 (38.4%)

1994 (41.1%)

1998 (38.1%)

2002 (39.5%)

2006 (40.4%)

2010 (41%)

2014 (36.7%)

A 2014 study by Martin Gliens and Benjamin I. Page, published in Perspectives on Politics, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” examines how the will of economic elites and organized groups represent business interests and assert their will over public opinion. They detail:

The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

via Testing Theories of American Politics (Gilens, Page)