As I have often said, words mean different things to different people. Take the word "austerity", if you are one of the ordinary people of this country you will be well aware of what that word means. It will probably conjure up such words as hardship, anxiety, poverty, stress, deprivation, and misery, or worse. However, if you are in that bracket of the upper echelons of society's parasites, "austerity" will be difficult to understand, if you are one of the political ballerinas, then the word will be translated in your head to a strategy for "balancing the books" or for those of a slightly different political persuasion, dispossessing the poor.
How do you comprehend "austerity" if you are one of the UK's top business bosses? Obviously it is impossible when you enter that greed driven world, and your salary for 2015 increased by 10% raising your average salary to £5.5 million.
Another group that will probably have all sorts of academic explanations for the word "austerity", but unable to really know what it is, is our academic guardians. The figures for the salary increases to the already well paid principals of Scottish universities is really staggering, as the table below shows.
Hands up all those in lousy jobs on crap wages, those on zero hours contracts, the gig-economy, part-time work etc., have seen their wages rise by 76% in the last ten years? I thought so, no hands.
Our political ballerinas are not shy of granting themselves a whopping pay increase, while insisting on a 1% pay cap on public sector workers. In 2015, MP's enjoyed a nice little increase in their salaries of 10%, and again in April 2017, granted themselves another increase of £1,049 bring the MP's salary up to £76,011, plus very generous expenses. Of course most of them have second and third jobs to push that meager income up considerably.
So there you have it, we are all in this together, my arse. It is just a matter of how long will we tolerate this man made unjust, unequal, exploitative system that produces so much wealth, but leaves those who produce all that wealth in a life of constant struggle, poverty and deprivation, while the parasites who hold the reins of power, wallow in opulence with complete disregard for the misery that surrounds them, and for which they are responsible.
To tolerate this system of capitalism is to be complicit in our own exploitation. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to become involved in the dismantling and total destruction of this cancer that breeds deprivation, wars and the destruction of our planet. Capitalism can not be reformed, it has to be destroyed.
