Rugby Green Party member – Roger Hills has produced 3 papers to promote an
understanding of economics in the Green movement and to suggest how the Green
Party can tackle the dominance of finance capitalism – which is responsible for
the crisis faced by millions of people in the UK and around the globe.
Roger
and Rugby Green Party welcomes discussion and comment.
City of London - brief history
Two major
factors brought about England and then Great Britain/United Kingdom as a world
military and financial centre. Stable Government and the discovery of America.
Both these are crucial to the growth of the power of the City. The growth of
the City is synonymous with the growth of Great Britain and Empire, the defeat
in turn of Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler.
The City
of London has been a financial centre since before 1066.
Indeed, it
was Alfred the Great who oversaw the rebuilding of the City around 886.
William 1st
made a deal with it to leave it independent, with its own freehold rights,
ancient liberties and militia. The king even had to disarm on entering the
city. The City was excluded from the Domesday Book! Thus the City allied itself
to the monarch directly.
Throughout
the last millennium it has remained largely independent and monarchs and
governments have allowed it to be so, just as long as it stumped up with taxes
and loans. Henry 1st in 1189 allowed the City to appoint its own
mayor with his approval and by 1215 it was allowed to elect one.
Famously
William Walworth, lord mayor of London, knifed to death Wat Tyler leader of the
peasants revolt in 1381.
Much of
Britain’s
political structure is borrowed from the City: House of Lords from the City’s Court of
Aldermen, House of Commons from the City’s Court of
Common Council (the “grandmother
of all parliaments”).
Cardinal
Wolsey tried to tax the aristocrats and City.
The City accused him of having the French Pox and breathing on good old
King Henry VIII. His fall from grace was
a big success for the King and the City. As a reward and in memory of this
success the City is allowed a man in the Houses of Parliament known as the
remembrancer. He (Paul Double at the moment) protects the City’s
interests in Parliament and actually sits in the House of Commons behind the
speaker during sessions. One of his most
recent acts was to oppose the European efforts to rein in the activities of the
Hedge Funds.
In the
1600s the enclosure acts caused massive homelessness and many made their way to
London. The City refusing the Kings request to look after them shipped them off
to Northern Ireland to Londonderry.
The
Cromwell revolution at last saw the defeat of the monarch’s
monopolies over trade and industry. It let loose the freedom of financiers and
industrialists to expand their businesses without hindrance and downright
robbery by the monarch. This, arguably, was the turning point of English
history which shaped not only the future of Britain but the world. England’s and then
Britain’s finance,
trade and industry expanded exponentially.
In 1690,
in much need of support after booting out Charles II, William and Mary gave the
City of London virtual carte-blanche under statute. After disastrous naval
defeats by France, revolutionary action was needed to raise money and build a
proper navy. In 1694 the Bank of England was set up as the government’s banker.
(It remained in private hands until 1946 when it was nationalised. The effect was as much to strengthen the City’s hold
over the government as the government’s over the
City).
The surge
in the development of the Royal Navy and of Empire in the 1700’s is now
legend. But against King and Parliament, in the 1770s, the City supported the
movement for American independence and rejoiced when it succeeded.
And during
the long Napoleonic wars while the City funded the war successfully it refused
to let the press gangs within its borders.
In 1844
another revolution added impetus to the growth of British trade and industry:
the establishment of the limited liability joint stock company. This allowed
people to invest without risking their own personal fortune and possessions.
Integral
to the whole process was the formation of the British working classes who were
the physical and often intellectual power behind the industrial, scientific and
trading revolutions. They powered the massive developments in mass political
democracy, trade unions, education, health and much else.
In 1884
reformers introduced a bill to merge the City with the rest of London. A huge slush fund and massive mobilisation
ensured the reformers were defeated and smeared. The City had, of course,
become the financial centre of worlds biggest ever empire and the pound
sterling became the currency of the world.
It was an exclusive club and a place in the City was a key prize for
those old Etonian aristocrats who wished not only for a large fortune but who
wished to rules huge swathes of the planet.
After two
ruinous World Wars and with the decline of empire the City had to find a new
role. This came with the Euro-dollar, then deregularisation (1986) under Maggie
Thatcher, followed through by Blair and Brown. After slipping behind New York
it again became the top financial centre in the world … at a
price. We shall explore this in the next paper.
The two
key points to remember here is first that the growth of the City of London
enabled Britain to overthrow the despotic monarchy, develop an empire and
defeat its two key enemies in the process: France (1815) USA (1812). As the
empire grew the City grew, as did Britain’s trade
and industry.
As the
process of industrialisation grew so did a new class of paid workers, manual,
skilled and intellectual. This class fought successfully for a massive
expansion of democracy and social provision of education, health care, etc.
End
Paper 2 – out soon.
