kipling revisited

by Alun Rees


If you can vote yourself enormous pay-offs
while shutting factories down and sacking staff;
if you can ignore the human cost of lay-offs
and go skipping blithely backwards with a laugh;
if you can raid a pension fund for profit
and claim you're well entitled to being boss,
advising
those objecting to come off it
for chaps like you must never take a loss;

if you can urge the jobless to rely on
market forces to get them back on track;
if while war's waged you keep a beady eye on
large profits to be stolen from Iraq;
if you can fix the game to boost your fortune
whilst those you've robbed are left to beg for bread
and tell them it's a temporary distortion
and better times are waiting up ahead;

if you can snatch a public service (via
a PFI, which means the public pay);
if you can hoist your income even higher
and when the service crashes walk away;
if you can count your gold without a flicker
of conscience or one moment of self-doubt,
and go on looting, looting even quicker
in case the stream of money should run out;

if you can shout that working folk are greedy,
expecting job security and such;
if you can blame the undeserving needy
for problems, for they're asking far too much;
if you can fall asleep inside a minute
after a day of thieving just for fun,
yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
and - more - you'll be a capitalist, my son.