I come across the above phrase and others like it increasingly often these days. It is widely used in right wing libertarian commentary and increasingly openly as far as I can see and hear amongst Tories.
What it means is that democracy is at fault in imposing the wish of the majority who vote for parties who propose progressive taxation meaning that those with above average incomes pay more tax as a proprtion of their income than do those of lesser means. Since these people think all taxation is theft and say so often they consider this taxation to be tyranny.
Their solution is a simple one. They want the abolition of democracy and its replacement by rule by the market - represented by rule by wealth, of course.
It appears they are set on their way. When we can see abortion rights rolled back as a result of similar far right opinion do not doubt that moves to remove Labour seats and to undermine Labour funding aren't direct moves against the 'tyranny of democracy' by ensuring there is no opposition in the UK capable of funding an assault on the Tories.
Only a year or two ago I would not have believed this but having seen the straightforward far right obsession of many new Tory MPs and their total lack of concern about anything but serving the interests of wealth I have changed my mind.
Not only is the Nasty Party back (as described by Theresa May) but it's now moving on democracy itself.
Of couese they will deny it but the real question will not arise from addressing that denial. The real question is about how we are going to address this real tyranny that is threatening democracy itself.
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Richard,They will have a job knocking out Labour but then they willl have to fight my party.The problem with the far Right is that they can’t see that taxation is the first step of philanthropy. When we can make them see Democracy/Philanthropy they may see that the alternative to Democracy is Dictatorship. The ex-leader of Lybia is looking for a job.
In its political victory, neo-liberalism should perhaps be more accurately re-termed neo-feudalism. The pinstriped berserkers of its ruling class will never be satisfied with merely accumulating more wealth than everyone else. They now aim to ensure that their supremacy remains unassailable.
I couldn’t agree more, Richard. Interestingly although a lot of the focus has been on the boundary changes and reduction in the House of Commons from 650 to 600 seats, in actual fact it looks like this will only be a marginal disadvantage to Labour – Lewis Baston has done some detailed research of the likely impacts here and finds that the most likely outcome is that the Tories lose 15 seats, Labour 18 and the Lib Dems 14. A marginal advantage at best for the Tories – much more worrying for the Lib Dems, who are facing near-annihilation at the next election on current polling anyway!
Far more worrying for Labour are the proposals on party funding which could vastly reduce trade union donations to the Labour party (although I would imagine the party could rejig funding arrangements to get around the new rules) and even more so, the potential for a “yes” vote in the referendum on Scottish independence later this Parlament. As the ConDem government moves towards extreme right policies focused on enriching the South East of England at everyone else’s expense, I think there is an increasing likelihood that the Scottish people will vote yes to independence – and who can blame them really. That doesn’t make a majority Labour govt in the remainder of the UK impossible but it does make it a lot more difficult.
How I agree, Richard. I used to entertain a sort of intellectual conceit, namely, that Margaret Thatcher wanted there to be two political Parties, but to be Leader of both, so she could be PM in perpetuity. Of course, she achieved that by getting “New Labour” to be a Thatcherite clone, under “TORY” Blair. I also argued then that she was after the re-feudalization of society, with serfs (having all the duties) and Lords (having all the rights), a situation that necessarily entailed the dismantling of democracy, which evisages citizens having both rights and duties, with shared responsibility for both.
Her attack on any centre of power other than the market, (as championed and symbolised by the Tory Party, which, rather than Marx’s “Executive Committee of the bourgeoisie, was actually the Board of Directors of the unfettered market), and especially on any instruments of common action and solidarity for the common good, such as mutuals, co-operatives, and of course, Trade Unions, was phase one of the strategy.
Now, through her successor, the second part of her “grand strategy” is being played out, that of finally choking off any constitutional barriers to complete marketisation – a gerrymandered House of Commons, a stitched-up House of Lords (both already sorely wounded by the expenses scandal, miraculously “engineered”, I am sure, to deflect the public’s attention and anger away from the new “Barons”), a new “Bill of Rights” to replace awkward concepts such as “human rights”, and a final, complete and total sell-off of everything that makes for a civilised society – schools, universities, NHS, museums, libraries – to put money in the pockets of their friends.
This “new feudalism”, however, differs starkly from the original in two important respects: first, however thin it might have worn at times (and it assuredly did have major weaknesses), the original feudalism really did have something of the nature of a contract about it; you served your Lord, usually by service in kind – work on his land, if you were a serf, or military service, if you were higher up the scale. In return, your Lord offered you protection, and the whole structure was aimed at serving the common good. Secondly, everyone in feudal society was answerable to someone, right up to the King, and even the King was answerable to God, so feeling himself to be constrained to some degree.
The new feudalism, however, totally lacks those two elements. The new serfs = everyone who is not in the class of Barons, will have NO rights, only duties – to worship and obey the market; to keep quiet, and not complain; to keep spending their relatively small amount of wealth (increasingly to purchase things which used to be funded by taxation, such as health and education), so as to allow the Barons to prosper.
The Barons, by contrast, meaning all Thatcher’s rentier class of card-sharps and speculators, whose activities contribute not one iota of real “wealth” to society – they will have NO duties (of protection, of compassion, of understanding, of support and furtherance of the common good), only rights – to get, and stay, rich, and to enjoy the wealth created not by them, but by the serfs. And they will be accountable to no one, except themselves, and “the market” – a “deity” they will have carefully fashioned to meet their wants and wishes, and no-one else’s, so that it entirely lacks any concept of accountability.
Labour REALLY HAS TO WAKE UP, DITCH THE WHOLE “New Labour” NONSENSE, AND GO ON THE ATTACK FOR DEMOCRACY (just as Obama HAS to attack the Republican loonies) – otherwise the whole, two century old, “RIghts of Man” project begun by Thomas Paine, will be unwritten and expunged by Cameron’s and the Tea Party’s “Ministry of Truth”. I really DO think things are as serious, and critically balanced, as that.
Your analysis is spot on, Andrew, and “new feudalism” (or neo feudalism?) a fitting label for the kind of democratic landscape that we now see around and before us. I’ve tended to work with the term “managed democracy” – which has now become an accepted term for describing the kind of polity that exists in Russia – since the publication (in 2001) of research I did with other, but to be honest there’s little difference in the substance of that and “new feudalism”. In the 2001 book we argued that a two-tier democracy was emerging in Europe (which was our focus): a “big” democracy concerned with policy and decision-making at national and international level, dominated by practices and people that were agents, or actual members of, your ‘Baron’ class; and a “small” democracy where “ordinary people” – your ‘new serfs’ – try to make a diference in terms of the quality of their everday lives. What we did not anticipate in that research is that over the space of a decade the schism between the two tiers/spheres of democracy would widden so rapidly and to such an extent that, as you say, the ‘rights of man’ are now seriously eroded and may in all likelihood be expunged in the foreseeable future.
My thanks to you and Andrew for such depressingly thoughtful contributions
My wife also enjoyed both
They made both of us feel our concerns are shared
“a “big” democracy concerned with policy and decision-making at national and international level, dominated by practices and people that were agents, or actual members of, your ‘Baron’ class”
That is exactly how I have grown to view it. Maybe (cultural) hegemony is a better term than democarcy.
Looks like Gary has been reading his Gramsci.
@ Andrew Dickie
“New feudalism”
And as a growing consequence these are today’s headlines taken from the “Baron’s” favourite newspaper (not one at the top of Richard’s prefered reading list) …
QUANGO BOSSES DOUBLE THEIR PAY
Britain’s highest-paid quango bosses are almost doubling their salaries with six-figure bonuses, special allowances and pension windfalls
BBC STAFF EARN £32.5M A YEAR IN EXTRA ALLOWANCES
The BBC pays £32.5 million a year in extra allowances to more than 8,000 employees whose hours of work are deemed unpredictable because they “only” receive two weeks’ notice of their shift patterns.
NURSING IS NO LONGER THE CARING PROFESSION
As they rise through the ranks to a desk job, many see patients as a nuisance to be ignored …
HOME OWNERSHIP TO SLUMP TO ‘MID-1980S LEVELS’
Home ownership in the UK will slump to its lowest level since the mid-1980s over the next decade, leading to an “unprecedented crisis” in the housing market, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has warned
Labour has to “wake up”…Obama has to attack the Republican loonies”…are you taking the piss mate? Are you really that bloody daft? Since when have the Labour Party leadership and its MPs given a toss about the working class except insofar as they can keep us quiet? Since when have either Labour or the Democrats been anything at all other than bought and paid for handservants for the self-styled ubermensch? Neither Labour nor the Democrats are part of the solution – they are the left foot of the colossus whose right foot is currently flattening our social structure. How about a break from these sham populists instead – and the building of actually socialist parties? How about that for change “you can believe in”? Sheesh! Now wouldn’t that be ridiculous?
Further to “Don’t call me Dave” – I’m not going to respond in kind, other than to say that you appear to be one of those SWP-type tankies, who think that “everything will be alright in the rear future”, once we have a General Strike, enabling the masses to take power. In the current set-up ONLY the Labour Party here in the UK, and the Democrats in the USA have the remotest chance of turning the tide: give up on them and you give up on the whole game – exactly what the neo-liberal Right-wing wants. I don’t fancy following the Light Brigade in a charge up that particular deadly blind alley.
I agree
The challenge is to get Labour to embrace the Courageous State
At the moment the challlenge is to get the Labour Party to embrace the Courageous Anything. Their recent policy announcements seem to consist in agreeing with the Tories “but in a nicer way”.
No wonder they can’t build up a lead against one of the most unpopular governments in recent history.
Here’s another headline, from today’s Express: ‘House prices to soar by 21%… over next five years according to economists’. They really are very clever, these economists, aren’t they?
Can someone please explain how reducing the number of parliamentary seats from 650 to 600 creates more democracy? If this country has more representation than most others, isn’t this something to be proud of?
It does not improve democracy
It erodes it
That was always the aim
I respect your right to moderate your own comment section Richard, and, given that you have not granted me right of reply through the provision of a “Reply” button on my last comment, I get the picture.
But…in reply to Andrew Dickie above – and with no other recourse to reply than via another posting – and with little expectation of your publishing this – I wouldn’t touch the SWP with a bargepole. And can I take it that you don’t understand that “Tankies” refers to hard-line Stalinists? Not me at all and hardly the SWP in any case.
You appear to have a poor grasp of the history of both the Labour Party and the Democratic Party – and also possess a tendency to ascribe to me political positions that only exist in your imagination. To be kind – do you believe that organisations financed, staffed and as programmatically undemocratic and slanted as these, can be anything other than systematic betrayers of the hopes of their constituents? Denial isn’t an argument chum. Point to their dismal record since the times of Callaghan and Carter, if you will, and enlighten us as to where this has not been the case. I suggest that if you want to be part of turning this tide, build a bigger moon – you’ll have a better chance than through reliance on Labour and the Democrats. Who’s up the deadly blind alley here, then? Surely it’s not the chap relying on the Labour Party and the Democrats to change the face of capitalism! They can’t turn the tide – they are the tide.
More to the point, Richard, I agree with your Courageous State concept – it’s just that I can’t conceive of any aspect of it being implemented by the ragbag of creeps that inhabit our political universe today. So good luck in trying to change the politics of the Labour Party, but please don’t hold your breath whilst you wait. You’ll probably give birth to twins before that lot move to the left. Fantasy Labour anyone?
I had no intention of editing you
Have you not thought that the way out of this “new feudalism” cul de sac is by abandoning city life and its dependence upon globalisation? If people live in the countryside, demand that their council provides allotments and tried to free themselves of the yoke of consumerism and reliance on multinational capitalism, then they would have much more independence and freedom.
Or to look at it another way, if people use what little economic freedom they have to buy global branded lager and watch Sky Sports, that is their choice. Making their own wine from hedgerow fruit and sitting down chatting with friends in the park costs less, all that is missing is the realisation that a different way of life is achievable. Throwing away the television is generally the first step.
The PSG knows a lady who lives in a wood thriving on the wide variety of “food” that this wood provides. Totally independent of any outside influences, she even makes her own medicines to treat her very infrequent ailments.
The local council hate her (although they have only seen her once) claiming that her bio-degradable toilet could pollute the water system (which in her case is impossible).
Unfortunately when she dies (she is in her seventies) all her skills and secrets for survival will be lost for ever. Unfortunately not many of today’s youngsters have the either the aptitude or inclination to follow her example.
… If people live in the countryside…” Do you imagine that the owners of the British countryside will let you live there? 1% own 70% of the land.
0.3% actually. We need land reform very urgently.
Ah,but how many of us and their children,in all honesty would now practice survival skills(okay,maybe have a log cabin),to give up their central heating,cookers,fridges and freezers,not to mention hot baths or showers! And no cars I assume?
I did once live for nine months in a cottage with no electricity,running water,sanitation,or heating apart from the oven.The loo was in the next field,water came from the well,and light was paraffin lamps.Remember last winter? As they might say up here-think on!
Of course,we presumably would still expect decent schools,hospitals,libraries etc-even if we did go everywhere by bicycle-or horse!
It would make an interesting landscape too,with the M25 as the worlds biggest cycle track?
People fled the countryside, to the towns, because they had no life in the countryside.
Buying your affordable cottage with the affordable garden is not going to support you, nor pay the council tax. No electricity is nice, until you need food and realise it has developed a green overcoat because the freezer isn’t working.
And we have another extremely cold period approaching…….I’ll bet the “great and good” will be preparing for a life of luxury while the rest of us shiver…
Those that advocate that everything is to be run by the so-called “free market” should be careful what they wish for. They obviously do not comprehend the implications of a genuine free market system.
Attempts to regulate the amount of hours and what age a child could start work (not eradicate child labour completely, mark you) was looked upon by the business community as “impediments to the free market”.
If capital is the basis for running everything from roads, public services, housing and infrastructure, what regulation is there going to be? If the govenment is effectively out of the picture (and free market advocates apprently wants government completely out of the picture) then what’s stopping companies destroying the ceiling on working hours, taking away designated breaks or imposing third world wages?
A toll on every road, public transport totally ran for profit, no cap whatsoever on immigration, (a restriction on people’s ability to work where they choose) a health service ran for profit, not need, a fire service only putting out fires of those insured with their company, no ceiling whatever on rents and rates and no restrictions whatsoever on whatever rentiers can aquire for themselves.
In other words, hell on earth! The US is getting dangerously close to this. Of course, a GENUINELY free market will never happen as governments around the world give capital any number of subsidies to obtain an advantage – cprporate farming being the most clear example of this. The private pension industry gets billions in subsidies, and the so-called “private” rail companies have received millions of pounds of public money.
Socialism will be kept -for the rich! The rest of us can enjoy the fruits of so-called “free enterprise”.
“no cap whatsoever on immigration, (a restriction on people’s ability to work where they choose)”
Non-EEA immigration for work (i.e. the tier 2 visa) is much more insidious than that. Tier 2 visas are employer sponsored and the migrant’s right to live an work in this country is controlled by their employer. The US equivalents (e.g. L1 and H-1B) are often described as indentured servitude by critics.
@ Dont call me Dave
I asked my father recently why he clings on to Labour – he told me the story of the old clock repairer.
The repairer dies and the townsfolk have no-one to take their broken clocks to. One by one, they break. Some people wind theirs up evey day even though they are broken. Some people give up and ignore their broken clocks. One day a young man comes to the town and says he is clock repairer. The townsfolk are very happy and all rush to him with their clocks. He says he will look at them all and give a verdict en mass the next day.
The next day he tells the people – I have successfully mended the clocks which were wound up every day. Those that were left untouched, I am afraid, are beyond repair.
And the moral of this story, children, is that if you have something that is already running, but unsatisfactory, keep it going until the opportunity arises to make it satisfactory.
Labour is way short of the mark, but it is there and it is big.
You could join the LRC!!
I think there is sound logic in that
I like that a lot, Mary. Hope you don’t mind that I’ve posted it on FaceBook and sent it to my local Labour members. And yes, I have joined LRC. I think John McDonnell is wonderful.
Yes, it’s a lot easier to change something that exists than to create something new !
Isn’t the fact that the current government are doing things which (you would consider to be*) against the wishes and interests of the majority of people another illustration of ‘the tryanny of democracy’?
What we have is a very blunt instrument where a largely unengaged electorate vote in governments with wide powers, which can be excercised freely according to their whims, and with little regard to whatever mandate they may have started with. Accountability for their decisions is almost non-existent.
Those that see what is happening – whether they be to the left or the right of the core parties – have no real ability to do anything about it. There are small victories along the way, but the good ship UK keeps sailing in the same general direction.
There is an argument that the free market is different… because you and I can excercise our rights as individuals to opt in/out of parts of it as we choose, but in reality that market, like our democracy, has fundamentally ploughed a steady furrow in one direction so, again with occasional small victories, the aforementioned argument has failed.
You’ve accused me, from time to time, of being one of those libetarian types you dislike so much. I’m not. But I do have an issue with the power of the state, because I think it’s excercised without due accountability. However, I have exactly the same issue with corporate power. My problem is with the scale of an organisation, not with where it’s mandate and funds come from. The bigger it is, the less accountability there is, and the less it is likely to regard the best interests of people who are distanced from where the power is concentrated.
I don’t know what the solution is. I guess I would like to see less central government and more local government, to bring more key decisions closer to the people they impact. On the corporate side I guess I just want to see more SME’s thriving to the detriment of the MegaCos, greater transparency, and closer links between management and the rest of the workforce. In my own company there is a marked difference in how the top management approach things according to whether they are executives who have daily contact with the business and the employees, or non-executives who only see the numbers. To put it starkly, it’s much harder to put someone out of work in order to enhance shareholder returns (and your own bonus) if you’ve got to look them in the eyes whilst doing it. The same, however, clearly must apply to ministers and planners locked away in Whitehall closing libraries in places they’ve never heard of.
But that’s what our democracy has given us… and it’s been going on since long before May 2010.
* Although I qualify this statement, I don’t do so to indicate disagreement. It’s just rather difficult to know without lots of polling and hindsight.. but, if it helps, I don’t think any government in my lifetime has acted in the best interests of the majority.
Minor point but your comment ‘The same, however, clearly must apply to ministers and planners locked away in Whitehall closing libraries in places they’ve never heard of.’ is not quite correct in that library closures are proposed and undertaken by local councils as a means of balancing their budgets. i.e. local government who operate the current library estate.
When 80% of their budget is from central gov’t your point is pedantic
Well – the point of Lee T’s post was to increase local government and decrease central government. He quoted potential library closures as the example of why local government could be better. Where the budget comes from is not the issue. This is not ‘pedantic’ but key to Lee T’s proposal.
Don’t suppose this will get published?
Well, I didn’t read it that way
I read it as an argument that deflected from the reality of the current situation
But you can differ with me
It is allowed
Carol
Have you ever considered the role that John McDonnell has in the Labour Party, what would happen without him, and why the rest of the Labour Party tolerate such an ‘outspoken Left winger’?
He sits so close to the leadership of major unions – the guys waiting for House of Lords seats – you couldn’t get a rizla between them. Those unions keep funding the Labour Party. Get the picture? John McDonnell keeps the so-called Left believing that they have a foot in, and may one day get something for their money, other than used and abused.
There is no chance that anything he proposes will become mainstream, while without him that gap might apear quite a lot wider and that union funding would be in jeopardy.
So he is solid gold for the Labour Party for the bottom line without threatening the Party’s neoliberal policy direction.
Im still pondering the clock analogy and how it could practically be applied with effect.
And as for John McDonnell’s Labour Representation Committee (LRC), I was on the committee in its first year when it was producing a manifesto. I had to fight huge abuse to get anything in that for women – like on pensions and on rape. Anything that is in it for women cost me blood.
And McD’s economics committee? A refusal to have women or anything on the international trade agenda which is the umbrella legal framework for economy.
Linda
I do not think there was a refusal – just a total lack of willing to deal with your aggression
If only you calmed down it would help a lot
I do not accept your accusations
Please do not project the particular to the general