Big Capitalism rarely gets as self-mocking as when it is crying out for state subsidies to preserve the failing out-of-date technologies of its biggest zombie corporations. It seems to me especially ludicrous as the CBI calls upon the Government to get people back to work in city centre office blocks. It's not that ordinary people want to spend their days travelling on crowded trains and buses so that they sit in rabbit warren offices peering at their betters in lavish offices who get transported by motor vehicles. Indeed if a lot more people work from home this will save heaps of money, resources that can be channelled into other things that people actually need.
It's just that property owners and property developers stand to lose a hell of a lot of money if the trend towards home working is not sharply reversed.
Of course there are a lot of city centre shops and cafes that are affected by this change, and they have my sympathies, but I suspect if it wasn't for the property owners and developers you wouldn't be hearing quite so much about the issue. But then I also sympathise with all those academics who get made redundant when student numbers fall. I just don't hear any clamour from the guardians of big capitalism for the state to stop such job losses - quite the reverse in fact, as we never seem to stop hearing about how there are too many students (statements always made by people who are graduates themselves of course).
If the centralised office is a declining technology then so are big power stations (whether fossil fuel or nuclear), and, you've guessed it, the CBI is usually first in line to urge the state to direct multi-billions of pounds to support these dinosaur technologies. The CBI has been making special efforts to get the state to pour great sums into funding EDF's vastly unprofitable (before the massive handouts) nuclear power plant at Hinkley C and soon, we hear, Sizewell C. Sizewell C's funding will involve an unlimited cash transfer facility from the electricity consumer to EDF under a scheme (RAB) that is, with deceptive irony, labelled as something that will save money!
We've heard a lot about how low-interest rates encourages so-called 'zombie capitalism', that is firms which would otherwise be insoluble but which are kept alive because they can service their growing debts. But what is much more flagrant is the way that the CBI retards innovation and channels the state's resources into bankrolling the status quo of big, concentrated, financial and industrial interests. That's zombie state capitalism, and it is the worst kind.
Some references:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53925917
https://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/articles/build-new-nuclear-power-stations-and-invest-in-carbon-capture-to-reach-net-zero/
https://www.power-technology.com/news/cbi-nuclear-power-carbon-capture/
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