Neoliberalism – the idea that the market is the most efficient and therefore best way to organise every aspect of our lives – has won. Education – both higher and basic – is being privatised. The NHS is being privatised. The police is being privatised. And if that’s not enough to convince you that neoliberalism has won, then let’s look at how we have started measuring the value of people.

When former Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said that increasing the motorway speed limit might cause more deaths but would also generate huge economic benefits and it was all about finding the right balance, that probably came as a shock to no one. (Though that the same man should only a few weeks later be found fit to be Defence Secretary was, I must admit, a surprise.) After all, you expect neoliberals to measure everything – including the value of human life – in economic terms. But when that same argument is made by every sandal-wearing, Guardian-reading leftie, we have a problem.

Let’s start with me. One of the topics I write passionately about is immigration. This is because I am an immigrant, and every time someone mutters about the foreigners stealing our jobs and our women it’s personal to me. Yet more often than not when someone attacks immigrants, the first words out of my mouth are “higher rate taxpayer”; as if that is the only way to justify my own existence and presence in this country. When Gillian Duffy cried “flocking Eastern Europeans”, I cried “I pay more into the tax system than I get out of it”. When David Cameron cried “good immigration, not mass immigration”, I cried “Look at the economic contribution immigrants make to British society!” It’s a compulsion: whenever somebody questions why I’m here, the first thing that comes to my mind is the economic argument.

I am, of course, far from alone in this. Look at Stonewall, the white, middle class face of LGB(T) rights campaigning. One of their biggest campaigns is convincing UK employers that being nice to LGB(T) people is okay because there’s a business case for it. Employees working in a supportive and inclusive environment where they can be themselves, the argument goes, are 30-40% more productive. The value of the “Pink Pound” – the disposable income of LGB people in the UK – is about £5-6 billion. Not only that, but LGB people tend to be better educated, have more disposable income than straight people, are very brand-aware and extremely brand-loyal to companies that specifically market to them. If you’re nice to LGB people, you too, dear company, can have a slice of that pie. Of course this argument works very well – you show someone where the free money is and they’ll go for it. One wonders, though, how one is supposed to campaign for the rights of people with lower-than-average disposable incomes.

My friend Rho, after describing in excruciating, harrowing detail the impact constant transphobic abuse has had on her life, then proceeded to explain the economic benefits of being nicer to transgender people. It’s a good, logically solid argument that even the most patriarchal of neoliberals should understand.

The disability rights campaigners behind the Spartacus Report on the proposed reform and cuts to Disiability Living Allowance felt compelled to point out the high cost of implementing the reforms.

Campaigners for women’s rights in developing countries point out how empowering women will lead to economic growth.

Our vocabulary for expressing the value of people has been reduced to three words: “consumers”, “workers”, “taxpayers”. This is indicative of a seismic social change that has crept in so slowly, so quietly, that none of us noticed before it was too late. Neoliberalism has not only won – it has redefined the game. We find ourselves in a world where respect, human life and human dignity count for nothing unless you can monetise them; where the only acceptable argument is the economic argument.

We need to take that world back. I am not a consumer. I am not a taxpayer. I am not a worker. I am a woman. I am bisexual. I am an immigrant. I am human. That is what entitles me to dignity and respect, not my higher-than-average disposable income or net contribution to HMRC. Repeat after me:

I am not a consumer.

I am not a taxpayer.

I am not a worker.

I am human.

That certain members of the current government are actively hostile to the BBC is a given. Back in 2010, Conservative Home reported some of the milder remarks on the subject from Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

“…there are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.”

Other quotes, if I remember correctly, included words like “we must all feel the pain” in conjunction with “deficit reduction”. Of course, the BBC’s license fee settlement plays absolutely no part in deficit reduction as the license fee is essentially an earmarked tax – there is nothing else the government could do with it even if they wanted to. What the government can do is make the BBC pay for things which have historically not come out of the Corporation’s budget – like the BBC World Service.
In recent years, the World Service (which celebrates its 80th anniversary on February 29th), has been funded by the Foreign Office. There is a very good reason for this: The World Service is, essentially, a foreign policy tool – an extension of diplomacy. This is clear both from its history and from its current activities. Consider this:

• In World War 2, news bulletins in Danish and Norwegian began on the days the two countries were invaded; a Dutch service was set up about a month after Holland was occupied.
• The Service was also used to broadcast coded messages to spies and resistance fighters during the war.
• During the Cold War, the World Service (along with Voice of America and Deutsche Welle) played a crucial role in providing alternative news and views to the government-approved reality behind the Iron Curtain. I remember my father listening to DW (and being told I was allowed to tell no one) in 1986 to find out news about Chernobyl.
• The Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene services did not last long after the end of the Cold War – their political use had diminished, and the funds were rerouted to Arabic and Persian-language TV channels instead in line with shifting foreign policy priorities.
• As the situation in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia continues to stabilise, we have recently seen the demise of the Serbian, Macedonian and Albanian services.
• Last year, the World Service signed a funding deal with the US State Department to combat internet and TV censorship in countries like Iran and China.

Despite this history, the government is in denial about the role of the World Service in foreign policy, and from 2014 the BBC will have to make its license fee money stretch as far as funding the World Service.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the World Service. Over the years, it has helped me learn English, provided half-decent news when I’ve been travelling and even asked me to appear on one of its radio shows. As extensions of diplomacy go, it beats war hands-down. I just think the government should call a spade a spade and continue to fund the World Service out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s budget rather than dump it on license fee payers like an unwanted puppy ten days after Christmas.

So the word of the weekend appears to have been “shareholder”. David Cameron and Danny Alexander have been out in force, explaining to us how shareholders should be given a say on executive pay. Here are just three reasons why this is a red herring if I’ve ever seen one.
The uninvolved shareholder
I happen to be a shareholder. I own shares in two distinct ways. Firstly, I’m a shareholder in companies I have a significant involvement with – my full-time employer and a small start-up I helped out over the summer. The start-up hasn’t had an AGM yet, so I can’t tell you how I would vote at that, but when it comes to my full-time employer, I get a letter from the share management company with some vague explanations of what we are voting on (and links to more details), a recommendation on which way to vote, and some boxes to tick. Most years I tick the boxes, some years I even remember to send the form back. This is, frankly, what an involved shareholder looks like.
The other way in which I own shares is rather more removed. I have a stocks and shares ISA which puts my money into an investment fund which is managed by my bank and currently seems to be eating my money. I also have a company pension which too puts my money into one kind of investment fund or another, managed by one bank or another. I don’t even know which companies I own shares in through these vehicles. To be more precise, I don’t own shares this way – I own chunks of an investment fund, which in turn owns shares.
So when the Prime Minister says that “shareholders” should have a say in executive pay, what he actually means is pension funds, investment banks and insurance companies. Those are the largest blocks of shareholders around, and the only ones with enough clout to make a difference. Their interests are not always for the company in question to be productive, stable and long-term sustainable, as long as they can make a quick buck.
The sprawling multinational
The reach of any legislation on shareholder involvement in executive pay is likely to be limited. It will hit small and medium-sized domestic businesses, as well as the “C” level of larger companies incorporated in the UK. Yet if you just happen to be a “Director” or “Vice President” running the UK operations of a sprawling multinational incorporated in the Cayman Islands, well then you’re not an executive, are you? Nevermind that the level of responsibility and the salary to go with it are probably quite similar to those of a “C” level exec of a UK company.
At this point, it’s worth asking ourselves whose pay we’re limiting and why. This is where the answer you are likely to get from the coalition is something along the lines of “not paying for failure”, whereas someone like Deborah Hargreaves from the High Pay Commission will tell you that it’s all about addressing inequality and social injustice. It does somewhat depend on your motivation as to whether the shareholder argument makes sense.
The old-fashioned Marxist analysis
Finally, let me indulge in a piece of good, old-fashioned Marxist analysis. If we look at this through the lens of the capital/labour dichotomy, we quickly see that any move to give shareholders more say in executive compensation retains the power on the side of capital. Employees continue to be disenfranchised in this process. There are of course exceptions in the form of employees who may own a small number of shares in the company – but for those cases I shall simply refer you to the problem of the uninvolved shareholder above.
So if a fig leaf is what we want, then giving shareholders a say in executive pay is the way forward. If we actually want to address both the widening social inequality we are experiencing and the market failure caused by interests of major shareholders being less than compatible with the long-term interests of the company, then we need to look for other solutions.