Jeopardizing Livelihoods: Carillion Collapse Shows the Urgent Need to Democratise Social Services
NOVANEWS
By Prof. Colin Leys
Red Pepper
Carillion’s failure has been compared to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, but what the Lehman case shows is that you can engage in behaviour that puts millions out of work, and destroys the hopes of a generation, and not pay any price, or significantly change your behaviour. Lehman was emphatically not a ‘watershed’: no one has paid a significant price for the greed, irresponsibility and criminal behaviour that was exposed when Lehman went bust. The challenge is to ensure that the Carillion moment will be different: that the ideology that has led to companies like Carillion fleecing the public and jeopardizing livelihoods finally gives way to a new common sense about how Britain must be run.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers showed...