Capitalism: on the way out?

Transport usually ends up being political. If you doubt that, just ask City of York Council whether or not temporarily restricting traffic on one bridge turned out to be a political event.

In a sense, everything is political – a disturbing thought, in a way, as most people appear disconnected from politics, commonly expressing despair at the whole grubby business. The trouble is, this leaves politicians all too free to carry on changing everything.

Railways are political, same as everything else. In the days of Major and Thatcher, the party in power grew impatient with the nationalised system, and so flogged everything off to the private sector. Extravagant promises were made that the service would be much improved and would by now be running all the way to the moon and, with luck, back again (a degree of exaggeration may have crept into this sentence).

Whether or not you think this turned out to be a good idea probably depends on your own politics – or how often you have to travel by train.

The railways could well end up providing a debating point in next year’s election, as a number of candidates standing for Labour have told their leader, Ed Miliband, that he should consider bringing rail back under state control.

Whenever this argument rolls into the debating station, it is nearly always said that York-based East Coast rail provides a perfect example of why this would be a good idea. The rail company has, in so far as this economic simpleton understands it, been run under a form of national ownership since 2009, when the franchise ran by National Express failed – due, as I recall it, to the franchise system being a form of Chancellor-funded railway robbery.

An opinion poll in The Observer newspaper at the weekend found that 55 per cent of those asked back some form of re-nationalisation of rail services, as opposed to 18 per cent who opposed such a move.

The problem for the ordinary traveller, apart from shelling out for the tickets, is that it is difficult to understand how the system works. Unfettered private enterprise is easy to grasp: companies sell things and make a profit, without resort to direct help from the taxpayer. With railways, the situation is more smudged. As the rail network is reported to be costing us all £4 billion a year, you might well wonder what private enterprise has to do with it.

I am sure a slithering Government minister or the chairman of Robbing Railways Corp will have an answer for you; but I can’t promise that you’ll like it.

So perhaps Mr Miliband should give this idea a go. Incidentally, I haven’t a clue if it would help him to win the election. Sometimes it seems that Ed himself has little idea on such matters, although he does have a geeky air of quiet self-absorption, as if he’s in on a big secret.

The fresh arrival of another railway row comes at the same time that a French economist is proving to be a bit of a media rock star. A new book by Thomas Piketty is said to be challenging the way we think about wealth.

I have not read Capital In The Twenty-First Century, possibly because crime novels are my usual form of literary distraction. But reports about the book suggest that his main message is causing panic on the right. Piketty argues that rising inequality is killing capitalism.

According to Larry Elliott, the economics editor of The Guardian, and just the sort of person an economic simpleton turns to at such times, the gist of Piketty’s book is that, “Returns to capital are rising faster than economies are growing. The wealthy are getting wealthier, while everyone else is struggling.”

In other words, forget all the promises they made about wealth trickling down.

It doesn’t do that: instead it just “trickles up” into the pockets of those who are already doing very nicely, thank you.

And that is really not all that surprising at all.