Renewing nuclear weapons is the ultimate supply-side joke

The simplest definition of supply-side economics — which has been the dominant economic policy since Thatcher and Reagan and which forms the basis of the neoliberal plundering of the state — is that to make the rich work harder they need to be paid more and to make the poor work harder they need to be paid less. (This succinct definition is lifted almost word for word from Ha-Joon Chang’s splendid Economics: The User’s Guide.)

Here’s another thing. Since the 2008 crash, the richest have become even richer. The proportion of global wealth owned by the very richest is now mind-boggling where before it was merely staggering and perhaps ludicrous.

At the same time, little or nothing has changed in terms of regulating the workings of the financial systems behind the crash or to punish the casino capitalists that risked our futures on shaky bets. Personal debt remains at an obscene level and in the UK much is tied up with house prices and spending is driven by borrowing via a credit card.

So, if the rich have lived through a devastating crash and not only survived but prospered, what, other than a conscience that has never been shown to exist prior to now, is likely to prevent a repeat performance?

Austerity was seen to be the answer — albeit to a question that few had really asked — after the crash of 2008. And austerity — which is the label we give to policies that more quickly transfer wealth upwards — is the ideologically driven punishment served out when the markets misbehave. It is, however, an unequal punishment: it is served on the poor.

And, in this context, poor is a term that gradually expands to include almost everyone who is not part of the elite. Many of the middle class still labour — and I use the word with caution — under the misapprehension that they are moving upwards and that their future lies within the elite or at least on its fringes. They are wrong: the middle class are being impoverished while the really poor are being, in many cases, literally starved — of food, hope, and opportunity.

And as the time comes when the victims of the pillage start to wonder why things are so bad, the corporate media knows to play its part. Villains are created, lies are spun, the truth subverted at every turn.

Nothing quite underscores the absurdity of modern Britain than the willingness — as evidenced yesterday in a short debate prefacing a fixed vote about a renewal for Trident — to spend untold billions of pounds on a nuclear deterrent and its delivery systems while deliberately underfunding our welfare state and the NHS in particular.

What, exactly, are we defending with an arsenal of skeleton-melting bombs? Theresa May — our new PM — has declared she would be willing to launch the weapons and slaughter people by the hundreds of thousands. Again, why? If there are nuclear weapons raining down in the UK does it really betoken anything other than a futile gesture — an apocalyptic resentment, even — to fire back? Quite possibly at the wrong target.

More than anything, using the weapons is a clear sign that deterrence has not worked. Nuclear weapons are surely more likely to fall into the hands of organisations working outside the state. If a terrorist group launches a nuclear strike who do we fire back at? Do people like Theresa May, who believes strong leadership derives from the willingness to slaughter, care? Possibly not.

It is, of course, about money more than domestic security. Money and feeling big. This is the politics of the wide boy. The sums involved keep defence contractors living well for another generation while the rest of us suffer from a lack of affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage, declining transport, declining health services, and a general decay of the society that once promised so much.

So when someone tells you that supply-side economics works and that it is necessary for keeping the country running, it is hard to know whether to laugh, cry, or swing a well-aimed punch.