Some days ago I was at a private breakfast party in the City of London. The ‘guest of honour’ was a distinguished business man who had had a very successful career as a clearing and investment banker. I asked him why nobody had asked the ‘what if’ questions. Why had nobody asked ‘What happens if the wholesale money market dries up?’ or ‘What happens if American borrowers cannot keep up with their mortgage payments?’ or ‘What if the banks do not understand what is inside these “securitised” packages they are investing in?’ Those questions must have occurred to somebody.
His answer was illuminating. ‘Well, Mervyn (King) said something but the truth is that people tend not to ask such questions in boom times, particularly if politicians or the government of the day are important to them.’ What he was describing was an insidious form of self-interested self-censorship which we are all tempted to engage in at some time or another. We are like ostriches that mix their metaphors as they stick their heads in the sand with their tail-feathered bottoms pointed to the sun and murmur either ‘apres moi le deluge’ or ‘I have never had it so good.’
But now we are not in boom time and people – not the politicians - may be more inclined to ask ‘what if’ questions. There are two which interest me particularly.
Gradually, throughout the world, the banking system is becoming owned or controlled by national governments. In some countries that has been the established situation because of constitutional or political commitment. But in others it is new and, supposedly, temporary. What if there was a change of political will and it became permanent? A good friend of mine said to me ‘They could not do it. Those governments must sell their stakes back to the private sector as soon as possible. They need the money.’ I understand that but what if , for political reasons, they decided not to do it? What would follow?
A second, and related, question. What if ‘labour’ organised itself globally and either bought those government owned stakes or used political leverage to ensure they were not sold. Would not labour then, in a sense, be on the road to owning or controlling capitalism? There’s a thought!
Perhaps such developments would make it easier for international treaties to ‘stick’. But that pre-supposes a global outbreak of honest government. Maybe that poses the most important ‘what if’ question of all.
