The Common Table

Abstract

The financial crisis has taken Britain to the brink. Look down into the abyss and see reflected the country we have become. There is increasingly entrenched wealth for the few, verging on the dynastic in some cases, alongside some of the highest levels of poverty and inequality in Europe. There is more home ownership, but no investment in housing for the next generation and now a scandalous national housing crisis. We live in a consumer wonderland, but stagnant wages have led to unprecedented levels of personal debt. And amid the glittering baubles is a society in which trust has declined, and our democracy and liberties have been diminished. We are at risk of becoming a society stricken by loneliness and increasing levels of mental illness. Our economy grew on bubbles and speculation. Whole regions of the country are dependent upon public spending because business will not invest in the future economy. The boom was a false prosperity that lined the pockets of the business elite. The bank bailout socialized the huge losses but left control and the profit in private hands: did the government nationalize the banks or did the banks privatize the government?

From the poem ‘Te Deum’, by Charles Reznikoff, The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, Black Sparrow Press, 1976.