In 2009, Would Billy Eliot's Dad Work For A Bank On The Dole?

I saw the musical Billy Eliot last night. For those who do not know the plot, it tells the
story of a 12 year old miner's son from Newcastle (UK) who wishes to become a ballet
dancer. The social issues of gender stereotypes play out against the backdrop of the year-
long miner's strike in Britain in 1984 that pitted the Thatcher government against one of
Britain's strongest labor unions. Thatcher's ability to hold her government together until
the miners buckled in 1985 cemented her reputation as The Iron Lady and led to her third
landslide victory in 1987. It also marked the end of the power of British trade unionism
over the management of the British economy, the beginning of the great wave of
privatization, and arguably paved the way for the prosperity that Britain enjoyed from
then until the financial crisis of 2008.

I traded bonds in London from 1986-1990 so I remember those years well and with great
fondness. The show triggered nostalgia and reminded me that my salad days are history.
It also made me wonder if the Billy Eliots of 2009 are more likely to come from families
shaken directly by the financial crisis that from what remains of "the working class."
As the show makes clear, the miners truly believed that they were fighting to preserve not
just their livelihoods, but their communities and the values of solidarity and shared
sacrifice on which they were built. Billy's individual success stood out, not just because it
occurred in a field not considered "manly" but because it was individual and not
communal. In that, it represented not just a social challenge to the established order of the
mining community but an economic one as it promoted the idea of the individual with
skill and drive finding success amid the economic failure of the commune. It is a fine
metaphor for an era defined by a woman who said on 10/31/87 that "there is no such
thing as society, only families and individuals."

Fast forward 25 years to 2009. The English-speaking parts of the world dominated by the
economic legacy of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, are in a deep recession.
Major financial institutions remain afloat only through the largess of taxpayer-funded
support. The very governments that have provided these life rafts find themselves in a
vicious fight to change the way these institutions do business in order to prevent a repeat
of the events of the past few years. For their part, the banks, like the British trade unions
25 years ago, have wrapped themselves in the flags of their respective countries to
proclaim that their way of doing business is integral to the fabric of their societies and
should not change despite the problems it has caused for these same societies.

25 years ago, the trade unions were wrong, and Thatcher and Reagan were right to draw
lines in the sand and rein them in. Today, the "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions that
want taxpayer-funded insurance with no strings attached are equally wrong. The public at
large cannot bear the costs of supporting these "heads I win - tails the taxpayers lose"
business models any more than the British public could support the anti-competitive
business practices of socialized British industry. Parasites are parasites, whether they
wear miners’ gear or tailored suits. As they work to re-regulate the financial sector, our
politicians need to draw their own lines in the sand today.
Somewhere in Surrey or Fairfield County, CT, a child whose parents expect him to
follow them into the money mines of Wall Street or the City is dreaming of a different
future. For all our sakes, let's hope he gets the same chance Billy Eliot got.