Throughout the ages, there have been references to the group
of people who produce nothing, but take much. Today it is clear that we have
this class of people – they make nothing at all, and indeed do it on borrowed
money, or worse, non-existent money such as debt. They have huge salaries and
even bigger bonuses. They are not penalised when they gamble billions away, and
they do not go to jail when they defraud the public. In short, they are the
bankers.
The Sterile Class was a term used by a group known as that
Physiocrats in the letter part of the 18th Century, and never before has it
resounded so clearly. We have a whole class of people who work in institutions
deemed too big to fail and too wealthy to jail. They do nothing useful for
society. They are sterile. They are a Sterile Class.
The old economic systems of China put merchants at the
bottom of the class hierarchy, because they did not produce but only distributed
goods made by others.
In the late Roman
Republic, the dominant senatorial
class was not allowed to engage in banking or commerce but relied on
their large plantations for income.
The French school of Physiocracy has particular relevance
today, because they saw quite clearly that all life remains dependent on the
productivity of the raw soil and the ability of the natural environment to
renew itself. They first used the term ‘the Sterile Class’ to illustrate the
difference between the productive class – those who made or grew something
useful – and those who did not.
In the past, banking did have a useful function: to lend
money for increased production for example, but banking always had its
unproductive side. Financing wars to prop up the egos of monarchy was very
popular. It still is.
Islam
forbids
lending with interest even today, and the Torah states that all
debts should be erased every 7 years and every 50 years (in the Jubilee year, as described in the Book of
Leviticus). The majority of Muslims and Jews alike do not attend to
this teaching.
There is a wonderful phrase in international legal thought–
Odious Debt. Odious Debt is debt that
is incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the interest of the
state. Interestingly, these debts are considered to be personal debts of the
regime that incurred them and not debts of the state.
Compared to the size of our economy, Britain is now one of
the most heavily indebted countries in the Western world. The real national
debt is close to £4.8 trillion and rising. That is approximately £78,000 for
every person in the UK, and more than 103.5% of GDP (Centre for Policy Studies).
We are servicing debts we will probably
never pay back – well, not without raiding the savings of ordinary people.
Today, in the rise and completely predictable fall of banking
we can see clearly that these institutions are less about useful productivity (they
never were interested in funding for the greater good, even if profitable) and
more about the creation of debt for debt’s sake. Debt has become the new money,
it is unearned; it is sterile. Debt today, though accountable as wealth, is not
wealth. Wealth, in real terms is the productivity of land and people.
We have a useless and toxic Sterile Class, and it is time to
see them as such. They have gained far too much for doing far too little, they
should take responsibility and start paying the bills.
