Socialism DOES Work | Jeremy Corbyn | Oxford Union

thank you very much mr. president and thank you for inviting me here tonight the last time I spoke at the Oxford Union we won the debate that was about the freedom of the press the previous time the Oxford Union showed enormous presence when in 1994 the Labour Party was debating changing Clause four it's the dawn of new labour the Oxford Union sauce through it and supported the original clause for by an overwhelming majority that proves that a radical tradition is alive and well in this university and I'd really don't want to upset my colleague John redwood with his rather strange analogy of traffic lights and roundabouts I wasn't quite sure where it was going except in a circular place but in London it's his great friend who hates egalitarianism in every with every pore of his body and supports inequality with every fiber of his being Boris Johnson who is actually bringing in traffic lights rather than round votes maybe you could have a word with him if you get membership with a Bullingdon Club I'm sure they'd have you now at last they obviously missed a chance with you earlier on if I could just be slightly more serious for a moment what do we owe to socialism in this country every single one of you in this room at some point has benefited from the principles of the National Health Service free at the point of use as a human right the free market capitalist economy of the United States has 40 million people without access to health care and the rest have to pay a great deal for it where did those ideas come from did they come from some benign very wealthy person or were they yes the dreams of people who saw their mothers dying in poverty saw their wives dying in childbirth or saw other I'm coming to you or saw others suffering grievously because they could not afford medical care they wanted a communal system that protected everybody from illness and disease the institution in the National Health Service and in particular has widened since the increase the vast increase in expenditure on it so at the very least is not an egalitarian institution Wow health inequality is increased since there's been universal vision of the health service I seriously doubt what you are saying what I do know is there is health inequality within our society because of poverty because of debt and there is a longer life expectancy for the richer than the poorer there are many things to be conquered in health issues but the very principle of a health service as a right and free at the point of use is surely something that we can all be proud of and that my friends is its origins to those socialist thinkers in the 19th century that saw the evils of free-market capitalism in Victorian Britain think about that surely something good in that and you could go on about many other things such as access to education such as the development of council housing in the 1920s by the Labour Party particularly but by those that believed that there should be decent housing for all the party that is heavily represented by the other side here our presiding over an explosion of free-market private rented flats which now make up 1/3 of my constituency and the people are being socially cleansed by high rents and insufficient benefits and a refusal of government to bring in any form of rent control again better quality housing leads to better education achievements leads to better health there are many things that we owe in our welfare state to the whole ideas of socialism but I want you to I'll take one more yes how the the moral and socialist principles of the coop Bank is so badly miscarried the morals and principles that co-op Bank are in my view it should be an ethical Bank and it shouldn't involve itself in the arms trade and it doesn't and it didn't and it shouldn't involve itself in experimentation on animals and it doesn't and it didn't it has been mismanaged obviously and there are a number of us who are customers if you like members of the coop who do not want it taken over by hedge funds but want to raise funds in a different way to protect the principle of a mutual bank but you're in no position no position whatsoever to lecture anyone about Mutual's when you were part of a government that destroyed many of the Mutual's in this country such as Northern Rock Abbey national and others that are now part of some big banking enterprise you promoted greed at the expense of an egalitarian society and that is everything that Thatcher was about and you in particular we're about as a minister in her government and so I want to bring to you the moral case about socialism those people opposite that spoke will have you believe that somehow or other there's something normal and natural in living in a society as well as Katy says the dog eats dog the poorest go to that go to hell and the richest do well there isn't there isn't at all I believe in everybody there is an ounce of socialism in some people that are pound in some pace paid people there are many kilos of socialism socialism is surely about the kind of society you want to live in do you want to live in a society where there is no public provision of any kind of service there is only private provision and the only thing to worship is money and getting wealthy at the expense of others or do you want to live in a society where there is universal health care where there is a protection against a total destitution and poverty and every child gets to go to school because in many parts the world they don't and I want to live in a society that has that kind of collective principle about it but I also think that we have to have a thought which hasn't come up very much tonight about the natural environment in which we live we live in a free-market society to some extent in Britain to a great extent in the U I say and certainly the domination of the world's multinational companies and banks is very very powerful indeed are they really caring about what happens to the environment are they really caring about the level of exploitation of oil and other mineral resources are they are they really caring about the damage they're doing to the environment it's only if you live in a society on a set of principles where you where you take from people what they can afford in order to give that to people that they that who need it so in other words from each according to their means to each according to their needs is surely a very sensible very basic principle in life since you're getting so excitedly so agitated I will be so abusive speak quietly that principle found its fullest expression in Eastern Europe in the Marxist States which taught that nature was resource to be exploited and that resulted in the smokestack degradation which has not been likened to anywhere in the capitalist world the best thing to have happened to the environment was the fall of the Berlin Wall so the property rights began to reverse the ecological catastrophe the Marxism had created the reserve some interesting parts of Marx which you obviously didn't get round to reading about Marx and the environment and about the sustainability of life I have not actually said anything in defense of the exploitation of natural resource in Eastern Europe or anywhere else I'm making a point that if we want to survive on this planet we cannot go on exploiting and polluting at the rate we are we cannot ruin our environment destroy an ecosystem and expect to survive if you live in a free-market society a free-market capitalist society will grab every piece of resource it possibly can and it won't give a damn about the environmental effects of it a collective principle where we care for everybody does give us that opportunity to protect the natural world and the natural environment there were many things wrong there were many things wrong with what happened in the Soviet Union and I am NOT here to defend Stalin or his strange views what I would say is this that if you want to live in a decent world then is it right that there the world's economy is dominated by a group of unaccountable multinational corporations they are the real power in the world today not the nation-state it's the global corporations and if you want to look at the victims of the ultimate of this free market catastrophe that the world is faced with at the moment go to the shantytowns on the fringes of so many big cities around the world look at those people migrants dying in the Mediterranean trying to get to land producer why are they why are they there why are they dying why are they living in such poverty I'll tell you this it's when the World Bank arrives and tells them to privatize all public services to sell off state-owned land to make inequality a paragon of virtue that is what drives people away now and into a danger and poverty and I will conclude with this thought think about the world you want to live in do you want the dog to eat the dog or do you want us all to care for each other support each other and eliminate poverty and injustice a different world is possible thank you

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Keywords: Socialism Does Work, Jeremy Corbyn, Oxford Union, Socialism, Does, Work, Jeremy, Corbyn, Oxford, Union, Socialist, Social, Healthcare, NHS, Education, Housing, Benefits, Capitalism, Left Wing, Right Wing, Politics, Ideology, Poverty, Economy, Equality, Communism, Wealth, Rich, Poor, Failed, Britain, UK, Argument, Opposition, Proposition, Oxford Union Society, Oxford University, University, Debates, Debating, Interview

Id: pZvAvNJL-gE

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2013