In the course of my working life I must have contributed tens of thousands of pounds to savings plans, insurance schemes, and other financial investments designed to fool me into thinking that I and my family would somehow be happier, healthier, and immune from personal economic tragedy.
Only a fraction of that cumulative investment ever has benefited me, my family, or the countless other needy people in our world who could potentially benefit from the security, health and wellbeing those thousands could provide.
As far as I am aware, none of that money has gone directly to finance arms dealers, drug dealers, people traffickers or corrupt governments. However, I cannot with absolute certainty rule that out. What I do know is that at least some of the money I have handed over to these banks, building societies, pension and insurance funds has been invested in tobacco, fossil fuels, and big corporations who apparently care little about the conditions or welfare of the people who work for them. And I am sure the rewards of those investments have gone, almost exclusively, into the pockets of the rich.
I am not, in principle, opposed to all savings and investments, nor to all insurance programmes. I have, after all, benefited from them, not just through the ease of mind they have brought, but also, in kind, when things have gone wrong. However, it does trouble me that so much money, which could do so much good, is channelled away from where it is most needed, and all driven – or so it would appear – by irrational fears and anxieties. And that, it seems to me, gets escalated at a national scale.
Tomorrow the British Parliament will vote on whether to go ahead with the renewal of the trident nuclear programme at an estimated cost of at least £41 billion (or a total lifetime cost of up to £205 billion). I struggle to understand why we are even contemplating this as a country. As Caroline Lucas, Nicola Sturgeon and others pointed out in a letter to the Guardian yesterday, the Government’s national security strategy has identified terrorism, climate change, pandemics and cyber warfare as the tier-one threats we face today. Nuclear weapons can do nothing to tackle any of those threats.
“This government’s national security strategy has identified terrorism, climate change, pandemics and cyber warfare as the tier-one threats we face today. Not only does Trident have nothing to offer in countering those threats, it sucks vast amounts of money away from dealing with them. Expert evidence indicates that the huge submarines that carry the nuclear weapons can be rendered redundant by cyber-attack and detected and targeted via new underwater drone technology.”
Caroline Lucas, Diane Abbott, Leanne Wood, Nicola Sturgeon, Mark Serwotka, Major General Patrick Cordingley
So what can I, or anyone else do about this pointless squandering of resources in chasing a myth of improved personal and national security?
As I reflect on how I have used my own resources, I feel ashamed that I, too, am a part of the problem. Over the past few years, I have worked hard to divest of my insurance policies and savings plans, particularly those I know to invest in areas that are damaging to health, welfare or our environment. I have striven to give more away and to live more simply, and have shifted my savings to ethical savings schemes. At the same time, I have written to my MP, my pension scheme and to some of the beneficiaries of the money I have invested. But I confess I haven’t found that easy. Perhaps I could do more.
We will find out tomorrow how our MPs vote on Trident. I fear that they, like me, may succumb to the irrationality of investing our money in a fear-based policy that really seems to miss the point.