You might expect the Labour left or the trade union movement or the Greens to blame the recent riots on an “out-of-control consumerist ethos” — but how about one of the largest inter-dealer money brokers in the world?
From today’s Guardian:
The recent riots in London and other big cities were the product of an “out-of-control consumerist ethos” which will have profound impacts for the UK economy, a leading City broker has said.
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The report by the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, Tim Morgan, is part of a series in which the brokerage analyses bigger issues for the UK. It details recommendations to resolve what it sees as a political and economic malaise: new role models, policies to encourage savings, the channelling of private investment into creating rather than inflating assets and greater public investment.
It warns: “We conclude that the rioting reflects a deeply flawed economic and social ethos . . . recklessly borrowed consumption, the breakdown both of top-end accountability and of trust in institutions, and severe failings by governments over more than two decades.”
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The note pinpoints the philosophy behind the riots as consumerism.
A typical internet user sees a hundred adverts an hour, the report says, and the underlying message many receive is: “Here’s the ideal. You can’t have it.” Accompanying this is an inflation of government and private debt, a key theme of Morgan’s other work.
“The economy has been subjected to repeated ‘boom and bust’ cycles, above all in property. The overall pattern has been that an over-consuming west has borrowed and spent the surpluses of the increasingly productive and under-consuming east.
“The dominant ethos of ‘I buy, therefore I am’ needs to be challenged by a shift of emphasis from material to non-material values. David Cameron’s ‘big society’ project may contribute to the inculcation of more socially-oriented values but much more will need to be done to challenge the out-of-control consumerist ethos.”
