Dear Editor
Government money for investment is raised through taxes of all kinds on the people. Private investment comes from the rich and very well-off.
The biggest investment of all is the labour power supplied by working people every day of the working year, transforming money investments into products.
Both government and private investors, after costing materials and labour, keep the surplus – called ‘profit’.
Government profit should be ploughed back into society in the form of public services. Those who give their labour power – without which there would be no profit – do not receive any of those profits; they of course get wages of varying amounts for a year’s work … as opposed to the ‘efforts’ of the rich who in making one investment telephone call!
Private investors, as ever, look to maximise profit, keeping costs as low as possible, particularly wages and working conditions (zero hours contracts are the modern way): this is where trouble starts.
If wages are restricted by private industry or the government, the ability of the working people to buy what they have produced is cut. This eventually leads to private investors withdrawing and closing down companies – reducing further the ability of people to buy goods.
The situation is made worse if the government – like the present Tory/Lib Dem one – is dominated by and operates in favour of private investors, and not those who produce the wealth in the first place.
A. Delahoy
Silverknowes Gardens
24
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20
