He said that the success of the construction of the tomb for the Pharoah to travel to the stars in the afterlife showed that targeted funding could work if directed at sections of the Egyptian economy. Speaking at the annual union conference in Memphis, he said the Pyramids proved the "market doesn't always deliver" and vindicated the state's role in the Egyptian economy.
"It's right to celebrate the Pyramids, but it's even more important to learn from them, for the central lessons of these 20 years – that private isn't always best and the market doesn't always deliver – surely need to shape future policy," he said.
"We can't muddle through with our trip to the afterlife – we need investment, planning and a Giza-style national crusade. We won't build up industrial strength unless we work out what we do best as a country, whether it's temples to Isis, Osiris or Horus"
He said the rest of the Egypt also needed a Giza-style infrastructure boost, not just in terms of burial tombs, but also in new palaces.
12 comments:
From the article:
Brendan Barber said the success of athletes such as Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis showed that targeted funding could work if directed at sections of the UK economy.
WTF
He's talking about lottery funding for those athletes.
The irony is that none of those athletes is currently getting lottery money. The three famous athletes from these games are also the ones that make a living from the free market. Which I think says something about how much government needs to be involved in sport.
Ah, I thought he was referring to the 12 (or was it 20?) bn for the whole event. No, the big athletes make it on their own, while there may be a case for a a town, or lottery funding for that matter, chipping in on a field for the kids to play football, top-level athletes aren't really a creation of the state.
TS, exactly.
Something else that bugs me is that all the historians and archeologists and indeed tourists say how impressive the pyramids are, when in fact that are one of the most colossal wastes of human energy and raw materials in all of human history (relative to the size of the economy at the time), built with slave labour, serving no useful purpose etc.
It was aliens who built it though wasn't it? What's there to see for tourists if there's no follies of past autocrats MW? Like those pyramids built by the Maya's right before they, er, collapsed as a civilization...
Kj, it wasn't aliens, it was Israeli and other slaves from surrounding areas. Unless you mean 'alien' in the meaning of 'foreigners who did not hold Egyptian passports'.
But you are right, there's nothing like a last hurrah of insane megalomaniac building projects just before your civilisation collapses.
Interesting observation.
I've been to Egypt and there's a lot of cool old stuff, but now you mention it, most of it is temples and burial places.
The Romans were different. Their religious places were mostly quite small shrines, often part of something bigger and their cool stuff was quite useful.
Not sure the roman habit of blowing money on panem et circenses helped.
SB, what's wrong with bread and circuses? Do you want people to be hungry and bored?
And the Romans did lots of good stuff which was built to last - roads, canals, bridges, aqueducts, drainage etc.
"And the Romans did lots of good stuff which was built to last - roads, canals, bridges, aqueducts, drainage etc."
Not only that, but they used the army to do it: saved them sitting around bored costing the state money and the generals thinking up pointless wars to keep them occupied. Not that the Romans didn't have their own pointless wars. They even invaded Iraq because they didn't like the guy in charge.
It has been suggested that the pyramids were an employment scheme to keep idle hands busy between the planting and harvesting seasons. If so that does make a certain amount of practical sensein a non-capitalist way.
On the other hand if Pharoah had put a bit of the money into X-Prizes for Egyptians at a loose end to spend the time designing and building spaceships - well OK lets start with prizes for paper, easier smelting of iron and horse collars - they would have done a lot better.
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