Don't bash the banks - take them over

The banks' profits are untouchable. This is as true for Labor as it is for the Liberals.

Is there an alternative? We could push for a rent tax on the banks' super profits. But that is small bickies. It leaves in place the structures of exploitation and the ongoing attempts by the banks to maximise their profits..

Nationalise the banks under workers' control so all the community benefit.

State support and a quasi monopoly of the big 4 banks put the banks in a strong position to grab an extra share of surplus.

So while the banks are particularly hated (since they impact directly on most working people) their gouging merely reflects the feeding frenzy of all the bourgeoisie on the profit we create.

Why not nationalise the banks and use their profits for socially useful spending? The case for nationalisation? Ken Henry put it this way in relation to mining companies.

"Public production allows the government to control exploration and production expenditure, but may lower the return to the community if public enterprise is less efficient at resource exploration and production due to a lack of expertise and market discipline."

Substitute banking for resources and the point remains the same. In fact given the failure of the banking sector during the GFC the onus should be on banks to show that public ownership wouldn't be more efficient.

To paraphrase Henry, public ownership allows the government to control finance, and will increase the return to the community if the public enterprise is under bank workers' control.

Add in the profits from the other Big 4 banks and a real resource rent tax and we have a good basis for addressing climate change, closing the gender pay gap, ending aboriginal disadvantage, building public housing to end homelessness, fixing public transport, ending the hospital queues, improving education outcomes and paying better wages to the workers in those industries, for example.

None of this will happen because this is asociety that puts profit before people. It's time to turn society on its head and put people before profits. Nationalising the banks under workers' control would be a good first step in doing that.