The North Built the North (and we’ll do it again!)
We are repeatedly told by establishment media that we need outside investment. Formerly this was supposed to come from the City of London, more recently we are told that it needs to come from an meta-national group of ‘entrepreneurs’ also known as the oligarchs, the global elite, or the Epstein mob.
After all, we are told, this is how the British Empire was built. Inventors and talented industrialists were lavishly funded by the City of London and spent the money on engaging skilled workers to create the ‘workshop of the world.’
Except like all good myths, that is exactly what it is, a myth. The City of London did aggregate the riches of the landed gentry, but then it was all invested in ventures such as the East India Company, which were building monopoly trading empires. These trading empires were not built on manufacturing but on trade: tea, cotton, silks, opium, spices, etc. To release these commodities for trade, local manufacturers were competitors, and needed to be eliminated. It is estimated that the Indian sub-continent in 1750 produced 25% of global GDP. Two hundred years later the newly-independent countries forming the sub-continent were mired in poverty.
Agricultural workers suffering from expropriation of their lands under enclosures, and those on poor quality land, as much of the north was, made their way to the towns and cities for higher wages but much worse living conditions: as the song goes, ‘From Hull and Halifax and Hell, Good Lord deliver me...’
The industries of those towns and cities grew on the presence of raw materials such as coal, steel, wood; and the labour supply from the displaced agricultural workers. However with the heavy capital transfers to India from the City of London, there was insufficient capital remaining to meet the needs of the rapidly-growing industries of the North.
The response to this need was met locally. Informal and formal groupings rose to meet the need: Guilds, Friendly Societies and other formal groups acted as informal investment networks, these developed into ‘country banks’ (i.e. not London) in major cities. Parallel to this, other informal groups developed into Building Societies, enabling individuals to acquire property capital for use as collateral. Before the advent of Business Plans, personal knowledge of borrowers was essential. These local and regional organisations and networks created the financial infrastructure upon which the Industrial Revolution and the prosperity of the North were based. Most importantly, the revenues from economic activity were retained locally.
As capitalism has matured, the original local institutions have been absorbed into national and international behemoths. In lieu of local knowledge we have computerised credit scores. The investment capital required by local businesses is both geographically and institutionally distant.
The rebuilding of our communities begins with economic activity, but outside investment will end up with rents, profits and interest once again being extracted from those very communities. We need to build networks of local community-owned organisations to invest in local property and businesses, keeping rents, profits and interest circulating within local communities, with one person’s spending becoming their neighbours income.
This means gathering stakeholders together to buy local properties and let at breakeven rents to local workers setting up worker-owned businesses, and local consumers providing goods for themselves otherwise unavailable. Profits and dividends distributed to members will generate greater spending power locally, and further savings for re-investment and growth. Together with Credit Unions to provide liquidity, and public bodies to provide support and grants, we can build a self-supporting economic network proof against global crises.
We built the North before, we can build it again.