Wake Up Bradford!

Simeon Scott

In a recent BBC broadcast (World Service 7^th April 2025) two feminist economists, Jayati Ghosh of India and Emma Holten of Denmark, offered not only working class women but also working class men some important insights into the culture of the capitalist system. They argue that the driving relationships between people in Britain, as elsewhere in the most advanced capitalist nations, are transactional: buying and selling. This has the result, they continue, that the vast range of other kinds of relationships are judged to be of lesser importance. As examples of the downgraded relationships they cite informal care for the elderly, for the sick, the disabled and others; these mainly involve women but are given no economic value and are therefore not included in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics. As someone who had to put up with 3 years of being taught neo-classical economics, I am well aware of Ghosh and Holden’s reference to utility, a term used by 19^th century English advocates of the then new capitalist system. Claiming that utility can be measured, these thinkers, and most contemporary economists, described utility as the satisfaction obtained by buying and consuming commodities; there being no mention of the array of human activities, such as those mentioned above, which are not transactional. These writers argue yet further that this state of affairs, treating everyone we come into contact with as a potential means of making money, leads to a dysfunctional society in which stress, poor mental and physical health, rather than flourishing and wellbeing, become the order of the day.

On education, which these authors mention, with nearly 40 years teaching in further and higher education, I know how students, particularly those from overseas, are treated as cash cows: as long as they pay their fees who cares if they cheated in their assignments? I did care, but some of my managers did not. Similarly, teaching staff are hired not for their commitment to encouraging their students to learn and create a better world, but rather to bring in money to the institution by means of research grants from the public or private sector. These writers also mention the environment and its gradual destruction; pointing to pollution, traffic jams, rubbish dumped in our inner cities and the countryside, to mention but 3 examples. Surely these and many other activities that have a negative impact on our wellbeing should be deducted from the GDP figures which are reified by most apologists for contemporary capitalism, including our current GDP growth obsessed chancellor Rachel Reeves.

It could perhaps be argued further that a key factor in the transaction dominated state of our society is what followed the end of the colonial period in European history. In short, during colonial times the ruling elites of the European powers, particularly British factory owners, made their profits by importing raw materials at rock bottom prices, using them to manufacture goods which were then exported across the world. However, this model collapsed with 20^th century decolonisation and ruling elites had to increasingly rely on selling their goods and services in their home markets. The reason for Ms Reeves’ diatribes on growth is that, quite simply, large numbers of working class people, increasingly working in non-union zero hours gig economy jobs cannot afford to spend spend spend on high streets and in shopping centres. In terms of recent mass immigration, large numbers of low skilled young men coming to Britain will send money to their family members living abroad, thereby stunting UK GDP growth figures. So, no amount of the advertising on our screens and billboards, that we increasingly have to endure, will provide us with the money to go out and give Rachel the growth she so craves. Although, it does not work in terms of delivering growth, this ever advancing spectacle of marketing and advertising plays a major role in turning us into the transaction obsessed beings that Ghosh and Holten refer to. All in all, these economists offered their listeners some useful insights.