It feels like a while since I wrote anything here about mainstream party politics. I don’t think that was really intentional: it’s not that I stopped caring about what was going on in Westminster or was trying to avoid the subject, but rather that other, more interesting things caught my attention. Needless to say, my blood still has the potential to boil with rage whenever I come into contact with the increasingly idiotic, asinine spewings of the political right. Indeed, I hear that Kemi Badenoch has recently published a hundred page thesis in which she attempts to justify what she believes in as a tory. Such dross is always going to get me going and provoke a reaction.
The problem with those on the political right is that they think they are vastly more intelligent than they really are; or rather that their political beliefs have far more intellectual, altruistic grounding than they actually do. At the end of the day, their blindfold, unwavering belief in free market economics boils down to greed and selfishness: everyone should be able to hoard what they earn, and not have to contribute anything to wider society. Who cares if that just perpetuates social inequalities – if some people can’t earn as much as others, that’s simply due to their own laziness. Or rather, that’s what people like Badenoch tell themself in order to justify the privilege they were born into, as well as their distain for seeing a portion of their wages go towards assisting those who weren’t. They are like children who were never taught the necessity of sharing: they should be allowed to keep what they see as theirs, and if anyone else goes without it’s their own fault.
The thing is, I think deep down people like Badenoch realise this: she’s an intelligent woman, and deep down knows that free market economics is just a way to perpetuate longstanding ingrained social inequalities. Left unregulated, those who have remain free to exploit and dominate those who have not; wealth and privilege remains in the hands of the few while everyone else goes without; state structures like education are left deprived while those who can afford it send their kids to the best fee paying schools. Neoliberal economics is simply a way to perpetuate and justify social inequality. The problem is, those who advocate it will never admit this, even to themselves: they like to think they are as altruistic, caring and socially minded as anyone else.
Thus this article by Badenoch is clearly a form of self justification – a way to ground her greed and distain for contributing to society in some kind of intellectual guise, while deep down knowing that such principles are shortsighted and childish. As a black woman in particular, she must realise how socioeconomic privilege remains in the hands of the few if left unregulated, and how those born into wealth just continue to exploit and dominate those who aren’t. Not only is this inherently unjust but a waste of human potential. It is only through working together as a society that we can overcome such stratification. Thus the Tory leader can write as many articles as she likes, she can wrap herself in as many motherly terms as she wants; this doesn’t change the fact that she is the leader of the party of white male privilege whose primary goal is the perpetuation of socioeconomic stratification.
