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As a child, I could always draw reasonably well, no matchstick men for me, people had to look like people, horses like horses and so on. I can remember my Irish Grandmother sitting beside me and saying something like; “With a talent like that, when you grow up you could be a Draughtsman and earn £20 a week”. In that memory is encapsulated the concept of a “natural order” in society, deference but then she was born during Queen Victoria’s reign.

There was an interesting “guest” article in the Times by Charlie Mayfield who is the chairman of the John Lewis Partnership which operates not as a normal business but as a “Partnership” or if you prefer, a co-operative, with variations, it is a concept that I want to explore further.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7047304.ece

Slave Labour

Throughout history, major civilisations have resorted to using slave labour in one form or another to subsidise their life style and yet inevitably, such societies pay a heavy price for doing so eventually in social costs. Even today we have a derivative form of it in terms of Mexican Wetbacks in the USA and illegal immigrants in Europe.

In Ancient Rome soldiers were guaranteed a plot of land on retirement from service to the Eagles, this was important as it gave them a direct stake in the growth of the Empire and in return, right across the piece because effectively they were stealing land from the people they conquered, a ‘seeding’ of people who believed in core “Roman Values”.

However and bearing in mind that Rome as both a Republic and Empire lasted 100s of years, by the end, the “Roman” element in the Legions had long since been diluted with Auxiliaries and troops recruited from conquered tribes so that the blood commitment of ordinary citizens was just not there any longer, Rome was bound to fall sooner or later.

A Repeating Pattern

Throughout History, civilisations have grown, prospered, become complacent and finally crumbled in one way or another but mainly besieged by outsiders who wanted what they have. In this sense the theory that all wars at heart are economic or based on controlling important ‘resources’, is probably correct.

The reality for any ‘vibrant society’ is as Plato said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” It is a personal belief that any nation that wants to “strut its stuff”on the World stage needs both a military capability and a trade potential and in this context with our national finances in such a dire state, some 8 million people in the UK “economically inactive” it may make most sense to be very bold and radical in solving the problem.

The “accepted wisdom” at this time is that the Government should increase spending as a counter cyclical measure to keep the economy moving forward unfortunately due to Brown’s incompetence whilst Chancellor and the fact that Europe too is pretty ‘flat’ economically so that even a 25% devaluation of Sterling doesn’t help our exporters, none of this is possible.

Desirable Things to be Doing

The reality is that there is a lot of spare labour resources available although not all the 8 million “economically inactive” will be viable, possibly 2-3 million might well be and a lot of those will be under 25 years of age. We need to turn the accepted roles of both Business and Government on their heads and look at things in a totally different way. Neither ‘Business’ nor the Government can afford to invest in building the infrastructure that we need for the future whether that is faster Broadband, new power lines for energy distribution or new rail links.

Why not consider a ‘New Deal’ – a new form of National Service where the young are drafted into a form of military service in the sense of discipline, very few would actually join the Armed Forces, most would get physically fit, live in barracks, get paid little money but fed and clothed plus, get a belated education or skills training.

A Modern Form of Slave Labour but…

Probably organised on County, City or Regional lines, they would provide a labour pool to get on with digging trenches or, whatever is required. They would focus on Civil and Industrial Engineering projects concentrating on ‘infrastructure, food, energy, clean water’ and the means of delivery. But there would be one important variation, in the future when the project was finished, the completed facility would be ‘leased’ to the commercial sector and the income that generated would be paid on likely a co-operative basis, to those who had built it.

The big problem whether with productive work being done in prisons, by disabled people and so forth has always been the ‘threat’ to jobs and commercial profits. However the World has moved on and in reality should be less of an issue today. Commercial companies whether in Civil Engineering, Building and so forth would act as the Project Managers and expertise sources and depending upon the particular project, could be paid by Government or, take a slice of future revenue but no ‘ownership’ in the completed work..

Further Still

Taking the idea further forward and thinking of the Aircraft Industry because I live near Bristol where historically there is a large footprint to this day, let me illustrate an example based upon that. High performance military jets are now likely beyond the UK in stand alone mode but unmanned aircraft are not, what the Americans call UAVs – Unmanned Ariel Vehicles.

With some 7,000 miles of coastline to patrol, we have a need for UAVs that can stay airborne for many hours at a time on ‘surveillance’ operations, in fact we could reduce our casualties in Afghanistan if we had a lot more operating there right now.

But let us look at the ‘job/career’ training opportunities that could be generated. There is the airframe itself, engines, printed circuit boards, computer programming, optics both conventional and digital, weapons systems, if designated to be shipborne we are into ship building plus all the associated design, test and build activities.

From just one idea is generated a whole world of potential new industries, careers and wealth creation. We can multiply that potential in other areas as with creating power lines for electricity transmission which is a big issue where I live in Somerset as it is in the Highlands of Scotland. Hinkley Point has a Nuclear Power Station, a further one is due to be built there and increased capacity in terms of cables are required to take the output from there up to Bristol.

The proposal is for a string of massive new pylons because the cost of burying the cables are considered too expensive but, not necessarily as per above… Fibre Optic cabling to the whole of the South West of England might also be another project, Light Railways, Power generation through tidal barrages… lots to play for here and all good stuff for the future both in terms of facilities, income generation and skill sets.