Edward Luce has written this in the FT this morning:
If Harvard Business School did case studies on political incompetence, it should start with the Republican Party's recent default brinkmanship. In the space of the 16-day government shutdown, the party's Gallup approval rating dropped by 10 points to 28 per cent — its lowest to date. It was among the sharpest slaps in polling history. Little wonder Republican leaders dropped all conditions to reopen government and extend the debt ceiling on Wednesday night.
Luce goes on to explore the impact of the current ending of the US crisis as it relates to the Republican party. But I think there is something more important in this than that.
First, as he notes, support for Obamacare went up during the stand-off.
Second, what the two noted movements in opinion imply is that a clear majority of people believe that the state has a string and valued role in their lives.
It is obvious that some wish to challenge that. The Tea Party faction in the States and the right wing think tanks that pander to deep neoliberal thinking both in the US and here (Heritage, Cato, the AEI in the US, the Institute for Economic Affairs and TPA here) might want to, and do argue, that we need a small state but the simple fact is that most people do not agree.
I suspect the polls correctly reflect that fact in the US - and it's not fair to assume that all 28% left supporting the republicans do support a US default, although it is likely that many of those from the Republican party who voted against the Bill that ended this impasse do. So a fairly small minority in a country where distrust of government is deep seated in the psyche want to limit its role.
I make no secret that I believe in the power of government to deliver value. I want politicians who say and believe in the same thing. It baffles me that anyone would disagree. Why wouldn't you want someone in power who believes in the merit of what they're doing whilst respecting the limits of what can be done? My book The Courageous State was on such themes.
I happen to think most people agree. But they still need the champions who will say so.
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Very true Richard. Let’s be frank, UKIP and the Tory right, many of whom are ministers in this government, aren’t so far from the libertarian lunacy of the Tea Party.
What is the point of these people being in government when they believe that government should do as little as possible? All Thatcher’s chickens from the 80’s privatisations are now coming home to roost, yet they continue with selling off valuable national assets like the PO for a bargain basement price so speculators can make a quick buck – whilst at the same time, leaving the pension fund liabilities with the taxpayer.
Or maybe I’m being naive? The right like government when it acts in favour of corporate interests, but not when it does so in favour of society as a whole. So corporate welfarism is fine, but the welfare state is not.
Just before I read this blog I’d read an article in the London Review of Books by Stefan Collini (The Costs of University Privatisation), which I think resonates with the subject of this blog, Richard. It begins:
‘Future historians, pondering changes in British society from the 1980s onwards, will struggle to account for the following curious fact. Although British business enterprises have an extremely mixed record, and although such arm’s length public institutions as museums and galleries, the BBC and the universities have by and large a very good record, nonetheless over the past three decades politicians have repeatedly attempted to force the second set of institutions to change so that they more closely resemble the first.’
Now, from what I know, much the same applies to US arms length public institutions, including the National Parks Service and so on (and indeed in many countries, except where corruption is widespread). Of course, until the 1980s it was widely accepted – and there was and remains much evidence to support this – that the most effective way for economies to operate, and thus deliver public value to a wider society, was through cooperation between government and public and private sectors. For example, and as I’ve noted before on this blog, in 1968 the Fulton Committee’s review of the Civil Service recommended secondments and such like between the public and private sector as a means to further strengthen and enhance this situation (e.g. recommendation 11).
Sadly, the obsessives and apostles of neo-liberalism that populated the last government, and dominate this one, have no time for evidence based practices or policies. Nor do they have time for compromise – which they see as weak and a trait of an inferior “liberal” mindset. Thus, as we saw in the months after the 2010 UK election, and as the Tea Party demonstrate in the US, slash and burn is their preferred method (creative destruction being the philosophy that underpins this approach), with the vast majority of the population left to suffer the outcome like rats in some lab experiment: just so much collateral in the search for the neo-liberal holy-grail.
Where I disagree with Collini though, is in his belief that there will be future historians who will be willing or free enough to tell the story he outlines. On the present trajectory (or nexus) of the corporate capture of democracy, the state and “public” enterprises, the reach, power and unaccountability of the (so called) intelligence services, and the hegemony of neo-liberalism, 20 years from now it’ll be a very brave or foolish person who seeks to tell such a story – or indeed run a blog such as this.
Now that is depressing
I hope to have at least 30 years more blogging left in me
I had no plan to retire early
Ivan, did Stefan Collini refer to the Larry Eliot Guardian article of 1982 (yes, that long ago!) I’ve referred to on this Blog before, in which Eliot referred to how successful Universities were being urged to adopt unsuccessful business practices – a process that Larry felt was exactly back-to-front.
Who can doubt that UK business would have performed much better if it had adopted the rigorous, evidence-based, pursuit of excellence and cautious, but enlightened, management of resources displayed by our Universities before they were infected by the Thatcherite “Black Death” of management fads, tokenism, herd instinct, and unexamined assumptions of so much that passes for British “management”. “Blue skies thinking” anyone? All carried out over a “brown bag lunch”.
No Collini didn’t mention that article, Andrew. His piece (Sold Out – is the title) is based on a review of two books that forensically examine the changes that have been imposed on the British (mainly English) higher education system since 1979 and 2010, respectively.
I have to say that the detail – and Collini’s powerfully argued conclusions – are disturbing even to someone who works in HE. As he notes earlier in the article:
‘Deep changes in the structure and dominant attitude of contemporary market democracies are everywhere putting pressure on the values that sustained the ideals of public higher education. Unfortunately, the UK has put itself in charge of the pilot experiment in how to respond to these changes. Other countries are looking on with a mixture of regret and apprehension: regret because the university system in this country has been widely admired for so long, apprehension because they fear similar policies may soon be coming their way.’
As he goes on to note:
‘The cunning of government propaganda, in higher education as elsewhere, is to pose as the champion of the consumer in order to force through the financialisation and marketisation of more and more areas of life.’
I shan’t detain anyone who reads this comment by citing any more. What I would say is that anyone who cares about the future of higher education in this country, and/or has children at university, or who they think may attend university in the future, should make a priority of reading this article, if for no other reason than Collini’s discussion of the cost and future direction of the loans and fees system – and then be very worried.
You seem to imply that anyone who argues for a smaller state and/or less power for politicians is aligned with the most extreme forces on that side of the debate.. which is akin to implying that someone who believes in a larger and/or more powerful state is aligned with the most extreme statist/communist thinkers.
That’s not the case. It’s possible for someone to believe that the state has a vital and positive role to play in society, and that politicians can and should manage that role, whilst still believing that there are significant areas where the state currently plays a role, but should not do so.
For example, I believe in the legalisation of drugs. You may not, which I respect.. but would, I hope, recognise that the argument exists and is not a left/right issue. So I can point to various state functions I’d like rolled back. I also believe that the military should be significantly reduced (but partially replaced with a service explicitly set-up to carry out and expand upon the the non-aggressive relief/humanitarian work that the military currently also does) again.. that means me wanting the state to do less. Curiously, the Tea Party Republicans don’t seem to have the slightest problem with that particular element of their own ‘bloated’ state – but that just shows them up for the fraudsters that they are, and isn’t a knock-out blow to everyone with concerns about the size/power of the state.
Further, you should also recognise that calls for a smaller state aren’t necessarily also selfish calls for lower taxes. I believe in the state and taxation as a means of collective funding of things like health and education.. but am less wedded to idea that the state must be the sole/dominent supplier of these things. The amount of national income spent by the government instinctively feels high to me, but on a personal level I’m not concerned about what I pay (and I am probably, fortunately, way into the higher echelons of net-contributors to the state.)
A politician who seeks to pass his power to someone else, be that an individual citizen, and organization, or a ‘lower’ level of government, still believes in the merit of what he is doing. Deciding that power is better excercised elsewhere is a positive move, not an abdication of responsibility or a expression of lack of faith in ones own ability to do good. It can take as much courage to say ‘I can’t do that’ as to say ‘I can’.
I am really not sure how your claim is supported by what I wrote
I made clear not all republicans did want this shut down, for example
Too true, Richard. Here are the views of the “inestimable” (= impossible to estimate the depths of her stupidity) Michele Bachmann on the ending of the shutdown.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/michele-bachmann-government-reopening_n_4115780.html
It’s clear she wanted it to go the full mile, and effectively to “un-President” the President.
Andrew
Don’t be so negative. Michele Bachmann in the US, like Toby Young in the UK, is the electoral equivalent of one of those old Leprachaun’s “endless bottles of Whisky”. Every time they open their mouths a fairy flies into a left/liberal household & says “don’t forget to vote”.
If it was up to me I’d put Toby Young on C Beebies to ensure a generation that would never vote Tory again.
Mind you, if we’d like Michele Bachmann, how much more would we want Stephanie Banister, 27, running under the banner of the anti-immigrant One Nation party in Queensland, who delivered an embarrassing television interview that included “I don’t oppose Islam as a country, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia,” adding that “less than 2 per cent of Australians follow Haram.” (“Haram” in Arabic means something that is forbidden or considered sinful by Islam, while “Halal” refers to foods that Muslims are permitted to eat.) Finishing that “Jews aren’t under Haram, they have their own religion which follows Jesus Christ,”.
“They [the Jews] don’t have a tax on it, they’ve just got a certain way of mak
Mind you, if we’d like Michele Bachmann, how much more would we want Stephanie Banister, 27, running under the banner of the anti-immigrant One Nation party in Queensland, who delivered an embarrassing television interview that included “I don’t oppose Islam as a country, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia,” adding that “less than 2 per cent of Australians follow Haram.” (“Haram” in Arabic means something that is forbidden or considered sinful by Islam, while “Halal” refers to foods that Muslims are permitted to eat.) Finishing that “Jews aren’t under Haram, they have their own religion which follows Jesus Christ,”.
Lee T
In many respects I agree with you, but I’m not sure society is set up to cope with that degree of individual freedom.
If you look at the history of humanity since we stopped being hunter-gatherers, every single civilisation has run as a “top down pyramid”. Authority has been vested in either a monarch, a priesthood, a dictator, a warlord, an elected representative or a corporation. Of the possible options,an elected representative seems least worst but far from perfect &, as we see regarding drugs, climate change & even badger-culling, an elected representative
will always bow to pressure from the majority even when the evidence is transparent that the majority are misguided or misinformed.
William
I’m not suggesting that we shut down parliament and turn the lights out at all the organs of state. Democracy is the least worst form of government anyone has come up with.. but, personally, I just don’t think that what we have (a ‘cabinet dictatorship’, where any cabinet we get will be comprised of a strikingly similar profile of person) is in the least bit democratic. And that’s before bringing the question of the EU into things. Power must be accompanied by accountability, and I think that the two are wildly disconnected because of the vast distance between the exercise of power and the implications of it.
I’d love an open and balanced debate about the role of the state.. because it got the role it has now without any of us being asked what we want. I largely disagree with Richard about what that role should be, but welcome the contribution. It would be nice if people with alternative views could air them without being compared to those fruitloops in the USA. It would also be nice if people didn’t try to polarise the debate along the old right-left lines.. because that just doesn’t work. It was the ‘left’ that demanded that the state should have no regard to what consenting adults do in their bedrooms.. and the left that has championed drug liberalisation (except tobacco, for some odd reason). They are examples of the left wanting less government.. yet not necessarily a less courageous one.
“I happen to think most people agree. But they still need the champions who will say so.”
And in a democracy you need people to say the opposite, then the public can decide……what you can’t do is ban people from saying something you disagree with regarding the role of the State……such as you do on this blog……
A ban means someone has no outlet for their opinion
There are ample opportunities for outlet of opinion differing from mine
And editorial freedom is a right too
So very respectfully, this comment is ridiculous
Which is why I have posted it
Feel free not to publish this (as I know you will feel free to so do), as it is more of a direct message to you, to explain the frustration I think some commenters feel.
This particular commenter and the dozens of others who take exception to your approach to critical comments are complaining that when someone disagrees with you, their comment is less likely to be published. They are not complaining that they are denied an outlet for disagreement whatsoever, more that they are denied an outlet for disagreement in front of those that agree with you, which shields your other readers from considering alternative viewpoints.
I know you don’t always delete comments posted by those that agree with you, and clearly lines have to be drawn somewhere to prevent abusive or trolling messages. However, I think some people feel that you draw the line too harshly or arbitrarily and apply a lower standard of moderation to those that agree with you than you do to those who disagree. That starts to look less like editorial freedom and more like an unwillingness to engage. I hope this is helpful in showing you why people keep bringing it up, as you seem frustrated by it.
Well over 90% of all comments get onto this blog
What are you complaining about?
I’ve explained it very clearly in my post. You don’t apply the rules equally. You seem to allow 100% of comments that agree with you and a lower percentage that disagree with you, regardless of whether the ones that agree with you are adding anything to the discussion or comply with your moderation policy.
Again that’s not true
I do delete those who agree if I do not like the way they do it or seek to abuse others
You are simply making your commentary up to be candid
I too have noticed that you only post comments that are from people who are friendly towards yourself and your frame of mind. Whilst I do agree that there are many people who think you are a god. That is only natural in a diverse country.
However it doesn’t help your story if you only publish comments that you like. You are not opening a debate about your thoughts.
Instead you are just a small club that wont achieve anything in the next 15 years.
I have made clear that this is not a site for neoliberal trolls – or it is as debased as the Guardian’s comment is free
This is a place for debate
You have got on
You clearly on’t agree with me
Now, what more do you want?
Whilst as to effectiveness – you think nothing has changed as a result of what I and others have done?
I sometimes differ with Richard’s view, and have posted that view – I don’t think I’ve ever had a comment blocked.
Sometimes I feel that the response has been dismissive and less than objective, but I have never been denied a right of reply.
A blog with a non-conformist/either side of central will tend to attract polarised contributions, but I think Richard’s moderation is quite fair, not always his blogging, but his comment moderation is IMO fair.
Thank you
Consider, what if no government of any leading world power or standing has been “competent” now effectively in the last two to three decades? Essentially, all of them are failing in key areas one way or another, some more some less. They have all been on a money/debt binge masked by various ways and means and media control. Add to that the theory that there are no “right decisions” only those with a least worst option and what do you have?
I’ve just got to say, in my honest opinion, the US govt. shutdown was the biggest load of s**t in years. The Lefties wanted far more spending on health and the Righties want their pork barrel too….defence and security spending.
Net result, both sides got what they wanted…..pretty much increased spending on everything. The Reps. collapsed when they realised that the President really wanted healthcare but was also prepared to allow the spending on Rightie Pork Barrels….
….much to the annoyance of some Lefties who thought that all the new money would be for their pork with none for the righties.
Economists like Bastiat wanted Government to shrink to almost vanishing point but he expected people to be spontaneously supportive and generous with each other. The evidence at present is that the wealthy a far from naturally generous and would rather people died in abject poverty than lessen their obsessive white-knuckling of what they have.