A Milan prosecutor has requested that Dolce and Gabbana be put on trial for alleged tax evasion amounting to one billion Euros. What they have basically done is funnelled royalties on their brands through a sister company in Luxembourg, paying a much lower tax rate of tax in that country and avoiding paying the higher rate of tax in Italy.
Despite this being the ‘tax evasion case of the century’ This article from the guardian points out the Media in Italy have barely mentioned the case, so those who rely on the mainstream media in Italy for their information would be blissfully unaware of D and G’s aversion to paying their fair share. The article speculates that this is because D and G spend considerable amounts advertising in the mainstream media and because they are very well networked in Italian high society.
This is a good example of how those with money and social networks can use them to distort media reporting to keep information that is harmful to them outside of the mainstream media.
Something else Dolce and Gabbana probably wouldn’t want you know – you know it’s coming – yes – some of their stuff is made in sweat shop conditions – despite the fact that their clothes sell for ludicrous amounts and the tax evasion….
One subcrontractor comments – “They send me the materials and my team stitch, glue and finish the bags. I pay my 100 workers £2 an hour, but they are happy. They sleep in a dormitory above the workshop and I feed them. D&G sell the bags for up to £1,000 a time.”
However, while D and G take steps to hide the true extent of their class exploitation, they seem to be much happier expressing their contempt for women – as their use of anorexic models suggests (not that it matters because fashion doesn’t encourage anorexia according to DG) as does that notorious rape fantasy add from 2007.
Then again, is it realistic to expect people working in the fashion industry to have a social conscience? They make their money out of producing socially useless products that encourage self -obsession after all.
Supermax prisons are on the increase the United States – these are prisons where prisoners are kept in extreme solitary confinement – sometimes for years at a time. In this podcast Criminologist Sharon Shalev provides some details some of the findings from her latest book – which draws on her access to two supermax prisons and is based on in-depth interviews with prison officials, prisoners and others.
Shalev notes that there are about 30 000 prisoners in solitary confinement in the US and 44 states have supermax prisons.
The increase in supermax is indicative of the ‘popular punitiveness’ identifitied by Criminologists such as Robert Reiner and David Garland – Shalev acknowledges that the increase was correlated with the rise of conservative (neo-liberal) power in the US in 1990s. See also my previous blog entry that summarises Richard Wilkinson’s work on how more unequal countries (like America) get more punitive.
According to Shalev, what is also interesting is how we increasingly don’t care about the negative long term effects on the mental health of these prisoners. Supermax signifies that the idea of prison is moving towards pure retribution rather than punishment. Could this also be a consequence of 30 years of neo-liberalism? – That there has been a cultural shift to a harsher ‘I don’t care’ attitude towards other people? Sociologists such as Reiner would agree with this – which is an extension of Marxist (David Gordon) ‘dog eat dog’ theory.
I quite fancy reading her books btw – if someone buys it me for Christmas it’d be much appreciated, ta.
The latest episode of dispatches demonstrates how garments destined for New Look and Peacocks are being made in sweat shop conditions in Leceister.
The company making these garments (Sammi Leisure Wear) pays workers less than the minmimum wage – £2.50 to £3.00 and hour and the workers work in aweful conditions – no windows, very cramped, blocked fire exits, and no safety guards on sewing/ cutting machines.
The aweful pay and conditins means that the production of theses garments is in breach of New Look’s ethical code of practise. Of course New Look can claim they do not know about the conditions in the factory – and they probably don’t – (they are now investigating conditions themselves) – New Look places an order with a subcontractor for a certain price and the subcontractor delivers – without informing New Look about the immoral and illeagal practises that go on in the factory. To be fair to New Look – Sammi Leisure Wear was actually sewing fake labels into the garments saying they had come from abroad.
It is also interesting to note how subcontracting is used by a company to deny responsibility for the sweatshop – the subcontracting allows them to claim that they do not know it was going on – my arguement is that they must – all they have to do is basic maths to work out that someone, somewhere is getting exploited in order for them to make such profit margins.
Also think about how the law is applied differently here –buying and selling stolen goods is an offence – but as far as I know buying something that was produced by a company that exploits it workforce by making them work in sweatshop conditions and breaches health and safety law isn’t illegal. Perhaps New Look should spend more money in investigating working conditions in its factories and less money promoting its fake ethical image.
The web site of the programe is worth a look – it ends on the following note –
So where does the buck for this level of exploitation stop? Campaigning groups say the retailers need to take responsibility and place the factories under closer scrutiny. Others say the government needs to step in and regulate the fashion industry. But what about our responsibilities as consumers? Instead of buying blindly perhaps we should stop to ask more questions about where and how these clothes are made. After all, they’re not being stitched thousands of miles away, but right here on our doorstep by people who are being exploited because of our insatiable appetite for dirt cheap fashion.
In this book (published 2008)Robert Reiner analyses trends in crime since the 1950s and argues that neoliberal economic policies are associated both with higher levels of serious crime than social democracies and with more punitive and inhumane crime control.
Reiner argues that there are three main historical trends in crime post World War Two:
1950s – 1980s – rapid recorded crime rise
1980s – 1992 – crime explosion
1992 onwards – Ambiguously falling crime.
In this post I will outline Reiner’s analysis of why crime trends have varied over the last six decades, focussing especially on how neo-liberalism lead to rapidly increasing crime rates during the 1980s and 1990s.
1950s – 1980s – rapid recorded crime rise
Reiner argues that a variety of factors lead to increasing crime during this period. Among them are –
The 1950s was the decade when we entered the age of mass consumerism – it was the first decade where it was regard as normal and desirable to have a high level of consumption of material goods.
Reiner explicitly notes the role of television in ushering in a consumer culture and the norm of ‘immediate gratification’ – ‘ It is perhaps no coincidence that the rise in crime began in the same year (1955) that ITV, the first commercial channel, began to broadcast’,
Reiner argues that a combination of advertising and game show culture (stressing the idea that you can get rich quick for doing nothing) undermined the previously widespread norm of deferred gratification pointing out that criminals tend to be impulsive, insensitive, risk taking and short sighted – which in his eyes also describes the perfect consumer in a capitalist society.
Reiner also reminds us that the mid 1950s saw a weakening of informal and formal controls. The 50s saw the emergence of independent youth cultures and declining deference to authority.
1980s – 1992 – crime explosion
Reiner argues that the neoliberal economic policies of Margaret Thatcher’s government was the key accelerant behind this ‘crime explosion’ From this section we can identify several factors that explain an increase in the crime rate –
Increasing levels of long term unemployment
An increase in insecure, low paid, casual jobs (McJobs)
Declining wages for unskilled workers
Increasing levels of inequality
A culture of egoism – the ‘me’ society
The withdrawal of public services and supports, especially for women and children,
The erosion of informal and communal networks of mutual support, supervision and care;
The spread of a materialistic, neglectful and ‘hard’ culture;
The unregulated marketing of the technology of violence
The weakening of social and political alternatives to neo-liberal political economy
The spread of consumerist culture
Increasing social inequality and exclusion, involved a heightening of Mertion ‘anomie’.
The erosion of conceptions of ethical means of success being preferable, or of concern for others limiting ruthlessness.
Reiner’s take on Neo-Liberalism and how it relates to crime…
Reiner says of Neo-Liberalism – It is the economic theory and practise that has swept the world since the late 1970s. As an economic doctrine it postulates that free markets maximise efficiency and prosperity by signalling consumer wants to producers, optimising the allocation of resources and providing incentives for entrepreneurs and workers. Beyond economics, however, neo-liberalism has become the hegemonic discourse of our culture’
Neoliberalism as culture and ethic
To neoliberals free markets are associated with democracy, liberty and ethics. Welfare states they claim have many moral hazards: they undermine personal responsibility, and meet the sectional interests of public sector workers but not the public. Neoliberals advocate market discipline, wand Public- private partnerships to counteract this.
Neolieralism has spread from the economic sphere to the social and cultural. The roots of contemporary consumer culture predate neoliberal dominance, but it has now become hegemonic. Aspirations and conceptions of the good life have become thoroughly permeated by materialist and acquisitive values. Business solutions, business news and business models permeate all fields of life from sport and entertainment to charities and even crime control.
Neoliberalisation has meant the financialisation of everything, penetrating everywhere from the stuff of dreams to the minutiae of everyday life. Money has become the measure of men and women with the ‘Rich List’ and its many variations ousting all other rankings of status.
1992 onwards – Ambiguously falling crime
Reiner says of crime in this period –
No grand narrative can help explain wy crime is falling.
He dismisses the view that zero tolerance policing and mass incarceration have reduced the crime rate – because there is considerable evidence that crime rates have fallen in countries that haven’t employed these policies. It is very important to note that the ‘tough on crime’ approach is much more likely to be found in neoliberal countries such as Britain and is part of the ideology of neoliberalism. The New Right claim it is necessary to reduce crime – but this is a false claim because crime has been decreasing elsewhere!
There has been a fall in long term unemployment that partially explains the fall in crime
There has been a halt in the acceleration of inequality – which at least helps to explain why crime is not growing!
Reiner finishes off by noting that today there is a paradox of security – although crime has been going down since the mid 1990s, public fears of crime have not declined at anywhere near the same rate – there is thus a ‘reassurance gap’ – one of the reasons Reiner cites for this is that when we see increased measures of control – we think they must be there for a reason – so we assume the crime rate must be high. The paraphernalia of crime control reminds us that the risk of being a victim of crime is significant.
Look out for my next blog when I’ll be summarising Reiner’s views on the relationship between neo-liberalism and tougher measures of crime control
Hey – Just in case you were wondering why the Tories are making you and your parents pay for this current economic crises – part of the reason is perhaps because most of them are millionaires and they simply do not understand what life is like for ordinary people and can afford not to care about the rest of us.
A summary of a couple of recent news articles
18 of the 23 of the new cabinet are millionaires, according to an analysis by The Sunday Times.
David Cameron, the Old Etonian prime minister, is relative small fry: his £3.4m estimated fortune puts him only in sixth place in the ministerial rich list.
Top of the list is Philip Hammond, 54, the new transport secretary, with an estimated fortune of £7.1m. He made the biggest slice of his wealth through the property developer Castlemead.
George Osborne, 39, benefits from a 15% stake in his family’s upmarket wallpaper business, Osborne & Little, a firm valued at £12m. Osborne owes much of his wealth to inheritance
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, 43, a banker’s son!!!, is worth about 1.8 million
This article outlines details of a programme which claims that three ministers (Osborne amongst them) are avoiding taxes.
The programme also focuses on Mr Hammond, whose £7.5million fortune makes him one of the wealthiest of the Cabinet’s 18 millionaires. It suggests that his practice of paying himself share dividends instead of a salary from his property firm Castlemead is a tax-efficient device used by the wealthy and it claims that he moved to limit his exposure to the new 50p top rate of tax last year by moving shares in the firm into the name of his wife.
NB – The tories do not give a stuff about you – you have to make them care – by whatever means you think is appropriate!
Watch out for my next post – about Tory minister Andrew Mitchell – I will be explaining why he’s in the running for my ‘scum of the universe 2010 award’
Hey kiddos – my predictions about the toryscum shafting people and planet for the sake of corporate profits have come true –
Check out this item in which George Monbiot outlines how Giddeon’s cuts benefit his corporate chums.
A brief extract – ‘Public bodies whose purpose is to hold corporations to account are being swept away. Public bodies whose purpose is to help boost corporate profits, regardless of the consequences for people and the environment, have sailed through unharmed. The government’s programme of cuts looks like a classic example of disaster capitalism: using a crisis to re-shape the economy in the interests of business.’
Interestingly Monbit draws on Naomic Klein’s shock doctrine – one of the most important leftist books of this century – read it!
So if you think Marxism (well OK left-libertarianism) isn’t relevant – think again!
Another nice quote from Polly Toynbee’s blog about how we are accepting the need for budget cuts so uncritically…..In my mind this is a good example of neo-liberal hegemony.
“It has become the grown-up, rational, received opinion that there is no alternative to budget cuts of unthinkable proportions. People believe that Labour spending, not global finance, caused the deficit. So strong is the stranglehold on most media, a brainwashed nation has most people blindly repeating the mantra that deficit reduction, fast and furious, is the only medicine. Any other course is Red poison. If Labour tries to talk of its own values, its convictions, its alternative view of the world, it is attacked for indulging in ideology, not practical economics.”
According to this article the richest 1000 people in the UK saw their wealth increase by a third last year- an increase of £77bn – If I were in power I would give these people the opportunity to donate these profits to socially useful public services – (no one can actually earn this much money after all), if they chose not to, I would jail them and forcibly take their assets for the benefit of all. It really is morally unnaccetable that we are facing cuts of billions of pounds from our public services while the rich just go on getting richer.
The government’s response to this situation is of course to put in place budgets that make the poor even poorer!
In this podcast Laurie Taylor, Renata Selacl and Rachel Bowlby discuss whether or not we have ‘Too much choice? (second half of the broadcast)
This is relevant to ‘criticisms of postmodern thought’
Having established that ‘choice’ is the dominant way in which we experience life today’ – pointing to the areas in which we have to make choices – what school to go to, whether to have a caesarian birth, what mortgage,holiday, care, what partner… and so on!!! – two points of particular interest are –
Having too much choice can lead to anxiety – we constanly worry about ‘having made the right choices’ – and having made a choice – we sometimes worry that we have made the wrong choice and might focus on all the possibilities that have closed off to us a result – either way the net result of having too mcuh choice is anxiety. This challenges the idea that ‘more coice’ is automatically a good thing.
Secondly, there is the suggesting that we spend so much time making choices over relatively mundane things – that we lose sight of the bigger questions such as what’s wrong with society, where society is heading and issues such as social inequalities – Laurie Taylor in fact talks of us being ‘burdened’ with choice’ and there is a suggestion that ‘having to choose’ makes us less free and more powerless. ‘
I think the issue they are getting at is that we have choice over certain things – but only as consumers – and no real power to influence politics at a deeper level -the conservatives and labour and lib dems are all right wing for example. In this sense one can see consumerism as part of neo-liberal ideoligical control.
This clearly ties in with Bauman’s ideas.
A hyperreflexive blog focussing on critical sociology, infographics, Buddhism and extreme early retirement