““The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
JFK: Volume 1: John F Kennedy: 1917-1956″ by Fredrik Logevall
The quote is that of a very young John Kennedy before he left Harvard, before he took his first steps in politics and before his war service. It has the classic Kennedy “Ask not what your country can do for you…” balanced rhetoric we were to become familiar with later.
My point about what JFK said way back in 1938 is that it frames the key political question not just in those distant days but always, especially today and especially in Britain today.
John Kennedy was not an idealistic young student protesting against the iniquities of the capitalist system. His father was one of the wealthiest men in America and though a supporter of Roosevelt’s New Deal was hardly an enthusiastic one and no sort of Socialist ! And nor were his children.
But John Kennedy was looking at America and modern Europe (which he had recently extensively toured) and seeing the extremes of wealth and privilege, on the one hand, and poverty and distress on the other.
Roosevelt had seen the extremes as well and with his “New Deal” had been in a position to do something about it. In Britain it wasn’t until after the War that Attlee’s government created the Welfare State to address the “Two Nations” reality – a hundred years after Disraeli looked at Victorian Britain and coined the term!
In 2024 Britain and America we have to an unacceptable extent returned to Two Nations and to argue for economic redistribution conflicts with the institutionalised norm of laissez-faire neoliberalism which governs us. The “Sunday Times Rich List” records in some detail the “abundance of those who have much” in these polarised times.
Food banks in Britain are a response to need and some politicians of the Right see their proliferation as an achievement. That’s how low we’ve sunk. I have used the term “redistribution” deliberately to suggest that it is not the quantum of the economy that is the main problem (though a growing economy is obviously better than a stagnant one). It’s how the wealth of the economy is distributed that we need to address.
“Trickle down” , as a national goal along with its cousin “Levelling up” implies that you can leave it to the system to benefit all. Up to a point, but as Roosevelt and Attlee showed us, intervention is essential in times of extreme distress for many.
The point about economic distress is that it is uneven:
We have in London the richest region in Northern Europe, but in Britain we also have nine of the ten poorest regions. Take London out of the British economy and we are the poorest country in Europe. This should be debated in the General Election campaign but if it is the inherent structural reasons and potential cures will be ducked.
The young John Kennedy was right – judge a system and a country on how well it provides for those who have “little” not on how it celebrates those wallowing in abundance. Gordan Gekko said in “Wall Street” “Greed in all of its forms. Greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind” The “Greed is Good” mentality has far from disappeared in modern Britain and the Times “Rich List” symbolises this. As do the seven figure salaries the head honchos in Britain’s top firms pay themselves, whilst median disposable income for the poorest fifth of the population actually decreased by 3.8% to £14,500 in 2022.
Will inequality and the need for redistribution be addressed in the Election campaign? Don’t hold your breath.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
A very interesting demographic Paddy. If you were to do likewise for southern Europe I suspect a different picture may emerge.
Here in Spain I see great extremes of poverty alongside modest wealth. That wealth generally obtained by dubious means. Some dating back to the Franco period when he would reward his lackies with the gift of land. Exploitation of migrant workers in the agriculture indutry is a particular disgusting practice. However at least they are allowed to work and that gives migrants hope to try and improve ther lives. The beacon of hope is all humans need.
I dont believe for a moment that Sunak would embrace JFK’s excellent statements. I am not even sure he believed it himself. Power by any means is the sole goal. The world is led by that reality. Elections almost never improve peoples lives or encourage transfers of wealth to the poorest. If it did the richest and most powerful would prevent it by any means.
Elections simply shuffle the chairs around so the status qou remains. For Starmer its ‘Buggins Turn’ and his election to lose. After fourteen years of Tory misery almost anything will be an improvement.
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