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Beware...Quapitalism!

'Red' in tooth and claw, ruthless in pursuit of its aims, wreaks havoc in the communities it descends upon - voracious!

Absurd construct we know! But it sums up the often absurd Kafka-esque, quasi-Soviet situation we find ourselves in, where 35% of the city-region's 'economy' is dependant in one way or another on public investment. We have transcended the grant culture and now have a firmly established grants system that must be maintained. So we see the situation evolving into an almost organic system of self perpetuating synergy, where one public agency pays for another's support, , another sector will fail in it's remit (for example 'training') so as not to disrupt the advances of another sector (for example, enterprise and employment growth leading to high wages) Policy is driven by the demands of a cartel driven by maximising revenue that itself is dependant on there being huge levels of poverty being inherent in the system. Non-existent buses 'run' ontime, the city has the 'most highly trained population in the country' whilst at the same time being 'the most underskilled, so even more structural funds must be given' - and everything is hunky-dorey! The system is fed, not by 'grasping entrepreneurs' but by 'quangos' perpetuating the poverty they are supposed to eradicate in order to keep the grants coming in and the departmental budget bloated.

Just one small example of a warped 'community focus' was perfectly portrayed in a recent ITV Tonight special investigation ( Friday 20 May 05 at 8p.m) into the appalling New Heartlands initiative that is casting Housing Associations in the role of relentelss property developer - as they so often have become. Many of the RSL's (as they like to be called) are now so large that they have tremendous difficulty maintaining and justifying departmental size, as much of the housing needs have been resolved. So to maintain the levels of grants that managing stock could justify we now have a cabal of planners, social interest professsionals and RSL's drafting up huge swathes of the city where perfectly sound, though old stock can be identified for 'neighbourhood renewal'

© 2005 Downtown Liverpool Organisation