The FT has reported that:
Donald Trump's anti-trade stance has been blasted by a pillar of the corporate establishment in an attack reflecting growing alarm in business over the property mogul's dominance in the Republican presidential race.
Jim McNerney, a former top executive at Boeing, 3M and General Electric, said on Tuesday that Mr Trump's hostility to international trade posed a serious threat to US prosperity.
In another article the FT has suggested that three commissioned surveys by economic forecasters all showed that it was likely that Brexit would impose considerable costs on the UK.
The argument is essentially the same in both cases: it is that voting for something not endorsed by the wisdom of an elite will cost a great deal. And I suspect that, if anything, this will encourage those determined to vote Trump and Brexit to do just that.
I really do not think most people anywhere close to that elite have any clue how far their lives are removed from the reality of living in the US or UK.
It has taken an article by Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardian this morning to point out that fights about payments to those with disabilities are about real people's lives, not what happens to George Osborne.
Despite that obvious fact we had George Osborne saying to the Commons yesterday that he may have made a mistake but he was not going to say sorry: his contempt - the contempt that let him demand the cuts in the first place - was apparent. Indifference was writ large over all he said.
It is an indifference based on a belief that people think there is no alternative to what they are being offered: that those in power think they are the pinnacle of achievement and we should be grateful to them. It is belief that also thinks that the system of power we have is the only one available. Martin Wolf succumbs to that in the FT today, saying:
It is hard, though, to believe that an innovative and outward-looking China can be contained indefinitely within the straitjacket of an all-powerful party-state. Its political institutions must surely move beyond the “democratic centralism” invented by Vladimir Lenin a century ago.
And yet we have an increasingly centralised system of power in the UK, and elsewhere. Only yesterday, in another gesture that shows the arrogance of those in office in the UK, it was decided that the UK's opposition parties could keep the funding they need to ensure that they can at least try to provide an effective opposition to the government. But make no mistake, the threat of withdrawing 28% of their funding was deliberate: it was to make them feel like supplicants and to remind them that they are funded by the grace of the government alone. The elite shall rule.
As it will in the country's universities. In another FT article the issue of gagging of university researchers at the whim of the Cabinet Office, to which I have referred here, is addressed. I suspect that like opposition party funding this will be reversed in some way but the threat will remain: self censorship will become the norm. The elite will have their way. The threat will be enough to achieve the goal.
And to come back to the issue with which I started this post, this is precisely why so many will vote Brexit and for Trump. They almost certainly do not want either really. But they are deeply alienated by an elite whose every uttering is no longer trusted, and with some reason, which is what the IDS resignation's real significance is, for it shows that there was a cold hearted cynicism at the centre of the cuts that were supposedly such difficult decisions to make.
Until that elite - the 1% as it is called - realise just how strong this distrust is then they will not realise the risk that we face, and the backlash that they might unleash.
I do not want Trump.
I do not want Brexit.
I would like wise heads to prevail.
I would like democracy to be restored to its rightful place.
I want freedom of speech.
I want government that genuinely seeks to act in the interests of all people, and most especially those in need.
But we are not getting that type of government. We are getting small minded, oppressive, indifferent government in the interests of a few who aren't even wise enough to see the risk in doing that.
Is it really surprising that as a consequence people are saying they have had enough?
It really is time for the elite - from wherever it comes - to realise that. And act. People have had enough. And the mechanism they might use to say so has very grave consequences, way beyond the short term.
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Good piece Richard. For decades the Labour Party in Scotland was the ruling elite. Now they are nowhere and finding it impossible to comprehend why. It is difficult to see the same happening to the Conservative party in England and very difficult to imagine the attitudes of the Conservative a Party changing.
Fred and Richard, picking up on your point about the obdurate impenitence of the Tory Party, and its systemic contempt for the electorate, I think it needs to be said that this is not a new phenomenon, but is almost certainly yet another fruit of TINA and the reign of Margaret (her “imperial majesty “we have become a grandmother”) Thatcher.
I can recall a political eventvI was involved in staging, a “Your Question Time” in Edgware cinema, in late 1993, where one of the panel was Chairman of the Police Federation.
This speaker (as I recall, Mike Bennett?), naturally had direct dealings with the then Home Secretary (probably Michael Howard). As I recall, this was also the time of the Sheehy Report, which prompted the police into taking action as near to an outright strike as has ever happened since the last police strike in 1919.
Well, what the Police Federation Chairman said was that he’d raised the point about public discontent to the Home Secretary, who responded with words to the effect that he didn’t give a damn about what people thought, so long as they voted Tory!
The Chairman, and we, his listeners, were visibly shocked at this clear contempt for the voters, even Tory voters, as anything more than lobby-fodder. I fear that contempt for the electorate is now written into the DNA of the Nasty Party!
people read about french and other revolutions that were truly class based, and government based, revolutions in the history books and they don’t understand the lessons to be learned.
the entire government is run for and by large transnational corporations.
in one of the democrat debates boeing had the ballz to have cnbc ask hillary and bernie about the export import bank. a question no one in the audience knows anything about . the question MUST have been sponsored by boeing , meaning they asked cnbc to put it in because IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ANSWER, A CUT TO COMMERCIAL TELEVISION HAD A BOEING ADVERTISEMENT.
the thing is americans and people generally are mostly zombies and not interested in their world around them.
no one knows about the scandalous ‘loans’ gifted to boeing’s customers by the u.s government by way of the american chamber of bribery.
no, people don’t understand how the elite STAY elite. they just know, like rats trapped in a cage, when their world is foodless and getting smaller.
the elites do not care, anyone who could oppose them succesfully was deliberately crushed.
this train only goes one direction. when it stops history will continue upon the ashes of the ‘accident’ that was engineered by the leadership classes of america. and most people won’t ever care about why the train crashed, they just want to focus on how to keep going……….
I think you may be over analysing
Good article but I think you miss one point. The EU has never been about trade. It has always been about politics and removing the mechanism whereby the people make decisions. This is why it so beloved of the elite, and why we the people can never turn back the tide unless we first exit the EU where by those we vote in can be held directly accountable again for their actions. Our politian’s today don’t fear the electorate and this drives their indifference to our wishes.
Both our main parties, and UKIP are stuck in the 1800th century when it come to how modern politics needs to work. This is the real reason when UKIP has the sentiment on their side they still lack the where with all to offer a credible alternative to the tired and worn our way we govern ourselves.
The day people who really care, stop engaging in the Tory vs Labour debate (they are both completely elitist and utterly useless) is the day the debate move forward. Both our established main parties and what left of the Lib Dems are lefty wing, almost dictatorial in nature. Look at Cameron over Brexit. Look at Corbyn almost up his jacksee. Its time for something completely new. We won’t get it whist the elites have us working as surfs to further enrich themselves.
“it shows that there was a cold hearted cynicism at the centre of the cuts that were supposedly such difficult decisions to make”. Osborne and his cohorts constantly bang on about the difficult decisions and hard choices that are involved in imposing austerity on the poor and vulnerable but these are easy decisions for them to take. The really hard choices would be to raise taxes on the elite and the corporations and to make life slightly less comfortable for their wealthier supporters living in the Tory heartlands. The have take none of these difficult decisions.
This clip from the Independent shows Gove and Osborne ignoring John McDonnell and sharing a joke, at exactly the time he was asking for an apology.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw in live yesterday, but I think it says all you need to know about our political masters. With Osborne, the lord of the manor, and little Gove, the poor man at his gate, they are really the ones who are all in it together.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-pip-cuts-disabled-disability-laughs-house-of-commons-john-mcdonnell-parliament-a6946176.html
All too true.
Trump might be lying anyway just to get in to power so that is when he will miraculously ‘rediscover’ the prevailing orthodoxy.
The way in which Gove and Osbourne laughed over something on a mobile phone whilst the shadow chancellor berated him for upsetting disabled people was truly arrogance in action. Disgusting. I hope voters saw that.
But it also up to ALL opposition parties to seize the moment and work together to unseat this bunch of …………well…. reasonable words fail me to be honest.
It is interesting that in the US there are reports saying that some people who support Sanders are willing to vote for Trump if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination simply to use it as a protest vote.
I think we need to lay the blame where it really lies: THE UTTER FAILURE OF THE LEFT.
This arrogance of those on power (I refuse to call the the ‘elite’) is highly dangerous and they are manifestly not smelling the coffee. The signs are that people will be driven to extremes if the establishment choking on its own power doesn’t see what is happening. For the first time those on the right are overlapping with what the left should be saying-which is why, in my view, Trump (who was a Democrat supporter in the past) is sounding like a schizoid mixture of left and extreme right -he doesn’t really know who he is but he’s getting his ‘anti-establishment’ message across but without cogent analysis which will appeal to a tired and stressed populace.
Labour seems to be failing yet again to breath fire. One asks why once more.
the blame lies with those who have the criminal intention, not those who fail to prevent those intentions being implemented.
Yes, the many strands of the left have not got their act together and, some cases have enabled the Right to succeed, but that is not the same.
So-the fact that Labour have not used strong arguments to counter the neo-liberals when strong arguments exist means they are blameless?
A very important piece Richard. However, I think that at least some of the 0.01% feel very much at risk after the GFC. Prior to 2008, the legislation to dismantle ‘democracy’, and lock in the Washington consensus, was hidden and taking place very slowly … the ‘boiling frogs’ strategy. I can only think that they have been forced into more overt action because they are terrified that another global financial crisis will bring that ‘backlash’ and they need to get everything in place to maintain their control and wealth.
I am always impressed that every action of this ‘Conservative’ government results in increasing the precariousness of ordinary people, usually by increasing indebtedness… the weapon of coercion at every level from the individual to the international. The real players behind Cameron and Osborne are certainly not stupid. This is a highly sophisticated and elegantly co-ordinated program, designed to remove the power of ordinary people to ‘backlash’.
Debt is the weapon of oppression, without a doubt
I have always thought that university fees and debt was about controlling the students.
Exactly
We’ve seen some of the risks of Government arrogance and it’s monetary obsessions play out in extremist tragedy. The Molenbeek are of Brussels has 40% unemployment and analysts are pointing out that extremists target disaffected, alienated youth who are already involved in crime (common sense really). This does not fully explain why young men and women decide to cause random mayhem and death but must be an element.
Richard, if you’ll permit me to quote Bill Mitchell on this occasion, his blog today is pertinent:
” It is too easy simplistic to attribute the growing dangers in Europe and elsewhere to concentrations of high unemployment. But if a society deliberately denies a particular generation of the chance to gain employment and, instead, vilifies them as lazy, wanton individuals then it is easy to see why those characters will conclude that society has nothing to offer. In Europe where these manifestations are becoming increasingly obvious, the flawed monetary system is at the heart of the problem. It has failed categorically and the fall out of that failure is multi-dimensional.”
The arrogance of those in power do not see the ‘slow train coming’.
Caution needed on one factor: the neoliberals controlling a ‘move towards’ social justice which negates the real effort.
In many ways the transition from the workhouse era was helped by troubled voices – and some real action – amongst the advantaged. Capability for a ‘compassion con’ is a worry, in fact the IDS thing is a mini-version especially the reporting of it. Knowing full well that their route needs to change because of perception change which is from reluctantly putting up with the Tories to despairing them, the elite’s answer will be to re-route perception. With the media machinery under their control, potential next step is to invent a pseudo-middleroad direction, to include specific social one-offs and in so doing pump it up as ‘socially-just efficient management’.
Basically it will be re-tweaked Blairism but headed by an old duffer or similar and not a spiv. The elite who give us just enough for us to tolerate them realise that oh bugger they have got to give us a bit more.
Or Boris the Pricipled Maverick. It will indeed be all about image, with the ironic significance that (post-Blair/attempt to instil David Miliband/Cameron) they have sussed downplaying image is in fact the image requirement. It will be sort of re-jigging what the three Labour leadership contenders couldn’t manage, only the Tories’ ‘Corbyn’ will be a rightwing smoothie placed to lose, as a contrast to the ‘new sensible plodders’ the detestable smoothie is put there to contrast.
If we can get past that, and to your vision above, then all and good. But we must consider how it shapes up with Tory choices. Not saying you haven’t of course, or that I can be sure I’m right, just a consideration to throw in.
But of course you are right about the direction – this indeed can be both grassroots and an elite realisation combined. The public perceive the elite as Branson/Sugar/Murdoch/the Royals/Bullindons/polo/posh Colonel on the news/Black Rod and that’s about it. You can probably add the EU as an abstract perception of elitism.
The Tories are thinking ahead by the gagging of learned reseach you mention, because they know that their is great potential to thwart them, which means this has got to come above the radar now, very strongly, and in itself that oppositional action could apark all that you suggest above.
The concept of ‘elite minds’ is one angle that needs fuelling, this has started with McDonnell’s advisers. The rest needs to come from upper ranking jobs, academia and notable achievers and specialists. This ‘proper elite’ needs identifying and introducing. Recent Lords hinderance of course is notable and very welcome, and it must be indicative of something wider out there across elite sections that stretch further than the titled and privileged.
The key words for me are start, draw and build. Your article calls for what everyone gives a thought to at some time, even if it’s ‘now why ain’t that Stephen Fry involved in running the country, he’s bloody clever’. But every step needs a start. Some sort of Social Justice Elite is offered a bit tongue in cheek but there is a great commonsense in drawing minds together and building a strength of social thinkers who are truly progressive with busienss background etc who can see the flaws and dangers in the structure. With a Neolberals not Allowed In notice on the door.
There is something that could happen. Maybe it will, maybe it is being timed carefully. And that is something bold, something that challenges our whole thinking and begins positive alternative. Basic Income loud and clear, stir it all up, including the Blairites, and we mght find that a great numbery of positive ‘elite voices’ get more kick-started than they would by planning a strategy just for them.
Sorry, bit of a rant, can understand if considered unsuitably bit long and ranty:-)
Rant if you wish
Totally agree with all of the above.
The ‘boiling frog’ strategy explains precisely what’s happening in the ‘real world’.
Here is yet another micro example of Compassionate Conservatism currently at work, cross-posted from ‘Pride’s Purge'(read MP Sarah Wollaston’s Tweet!): https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/amputee-who-lost-leg-at-age-of-9-told-by-dwp-she-is-no-longer-disabled.
The Labour Party should hang its head in shame – what does it take to make it angry? Its abject failure to properly represent its ‘natural’ constituency (especially the less-advantaged) is an historical disgrace.
End of rant! Wishing you all a happy Easter (now there’s a symbolic tradition for Christians to meditate upon).
Tweeted that out
The removal of social security opens up a multibillion pound private insurance market for the likes of Unum, the disgraced American giant. MPs who help bring this about will no doubt be rewarded with what for many would be considered fabulous wealth. From watching the situation for the last several years, I’d say most of the Tories and many Labour MPs past and present are all champing at the bit, all clamouring to get a piece of that multibillion pound pie. They really don’t care who or how many they kill to get it. Many people in Labour are the enemy, then, and can’t be relied upon to defend their constituents when what they want to do is throw them to the wolves for profit. One thing further, something I’ve had drummed into me by Sue Jones is that just because something isn’t being shown in the media, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It may be that Corbyn et al are going at the Neoliberals hammer and tongs, just don’t expect to read about it in the Tory-owned press or on their tv channels. What we are presented with isn’t necessarily any kind of accurate portrayal of what’s happening. That should be born in mind.
Interesting post as usual, thanks.
One of the biggest problems I see with democracy is that to work it requires an educated, and more importantly engaged, population. I think most of us have been metaphorically asleep for many years. The ‘Zombie’ electorate. Many of the present company are probably somewhat excluded but I do include myself in this. I’ve always been somewhat interested in politics but if I’m honest I didn’t pay close attention for most of my adult life. Even in the last parliament I just sort of trusted that the Lib Dems would curtail the worst excesses of the Conservatives. It sounds laughably naive in my head as I type it.
Since last May I have tried to educate myself and many of the things I have learned are frankly terrifying. When you try to explain it to others though, they are mostly not interested and do not see the hard fought for rights of our parent’s and grandparent’s generations being taken from us. Their prejudice is a huge barrier and you end up as ‘conspiracy theorist’ or a ‘stupid leftie’. Such is the power of this narrative that I am still not 100% sure it isn’t true. Am I paranoid or one of Syzygysue’s boiling frogs only starting to see the danger? It has probably always been this way but perhaps the ruling classes were less good at it in the recent past. Maybe the difference of the post WW1 and WW2 generations was the huge number of military trained ordinary people. Maybe improved media control and the demilitarisation of the working classes since 1945 has rendered us less of a threat.
The ‘elite’ do still fear the masses though and some in their number realise the danger. We might read something more than altruism into Warren Buffet or Bill Gates’ generosity and Amazon investor Nick Hanauer’s “The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats” is more specific.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
More an more people are ‘waking up’ as is evidenced by the Sanders campaign and the formation of Momentum in the UK. However, I agree, there is a terrifying and seeming apathy and zombification that strikes one forcefully once one has emerged out of the ‘slumber’ oneself..
Keep talking, reading and questioning-change will take time.
An alternative idea is to be found in Peter White’s column in the Guardian yesterday. Although I do not usually find his writing very illuminating, the idea in this one seems interesting: that much of the problem arises from the governing classes in the west having lost their restraining fear of revolution, or of the violence of the ‘mob’ (over a timescale going back beyond the Russian revolution to the French). It was that fear, is the suggestion, that was the only way their inbuilt tendency to opression and exploitation of the populace was restrained.
It is a depressing theory that assumes we cannot look to either the unrestrained ‘elite’ or upsurgent masses to produce good governance, but It may be realistic.
What White does not seem to consider is whether the surprising quiescence of the populace in recent years is accounted for by structural changes in western society. One might call to mind the growth (over society as a whole, disregarding relative deprivation and inequality for the moment), of material goods and entertainments, the increasingly entrenched power of corporate and financial interests, the enormous increase, with computerisation, of the ability of the state to monitor and coerce populations, and, perhaps most of all in recent times, the direction of fear, amongst the governed as well as the governing, against not ‘the enemy within’ but the enemy without – in the senses both of those without material comforts (witness the ability of our government to arouse a broad range of hostility amongst people of relatively modest means or social status against a very small band of supposed ‘scroungers’) and of those outside our borders, whether they be refugees, ‘economic migrants’ or would-be terrorists (all conflated in many people’s minds).
Recent experiences in places as separated as Egypt and Greece provide no consolation in this respect. In our own country thinking back to the relative golden (or at least gilded) days between the war and Margaret Thatcher is perhaps to focus on a brief and exceptional period of special circumstances to which there is no way back.
It would, it seems to me, take more than the Americans electing Donald Trump as president to provide the efficient shock to the ‘elite’. They would certainly find it surprising and disturbing but would probably cope with it. Trump is after all a very flawed kind of popular leader.
On the subject of fear properly motivating politicians, it might be worth noting that, while cut after cut have been made to the income of disabled people, people who by definition would have a hard time fighting back, with no response other than distress, the recent PIP cuts laid out in the budget proved a cut too far. Politician after politician complained about receiving threats of harm to themselves and/or their families if these cuts went ahead. The outcome? The proposed PIP cuts were very publicly scrapped. Lessons to be learned there, perhaps?
Yes
“(witness the ability of our government to arouse a broad range of hostility amongst people of relatively modest means or social status against a very small band of supposed ‘scroungers’) and of those outside our borders, whether they be refugees, ‘economic migrants’ or would-be terrorists (all conflated in many people’s minds)”
Scapegoating others to draw attention away from the much larger transgressons of those with the wealth and power is a common tactic. Sadly, pandering to the social conservatism which doffs ones cap and touches ones forelock to Queen and flag, which is necessary to turn a blind eye to the privilege of hierarchy and blame the undeserving poor and the immigrant instead, is not a practice confined to the present party of Government.
Sections of the Labour Party are also happy to do this, preferring to pander to certain sections of what remains of the working class prejudices toward’s immigration, happy to play one disadvantaged group off against another, rather than provide real leadership by challenging myths and prejudice.
I’m going to pop this in here as it seems to be the most appropriate place, and ask that all the regulars read it http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/duncan-smith-and-grayling-must-face-criminal-probe-over-wca-deaths/ It seems disability activists Black Triangle have approached the procurator fiscal in Scotland with evidence (there’s plenty of evidence) that both Duncan Smith and Grayling have behaved so badly in office it amounts to criminality. A criminal investigation is asked for. Back in 2010 both appear to have ignored a coroner’s letter regarding the potentially adverse effects of the fit to work assessments, the WCAs, on those with mental health issues. instead of acting on it, they ignored it and expanded the WCA testing nationwide, with extremely grim results; from memory, something like 600 untimely deaths are linked to the WCAs. Anyone who might have thought I was exercising hyperbole earlier when I suggested they don’t care who they kill should read this and remember too there’s Unum the giant American insurance company with the established history of criminality lurking in the background. This is very sober stuff indeed. Eye-opening I’m sure for those unacquainted with the true picture.
The fact that we even talk about an “elite” is acceptance of the fundamental failure of the political left to change the narrative so that the use of such words become loathed and unacceptable within a civilised and democratic society.
One day we may eventually be able to truthfully state and demonstrate in reality that all people are of “equal social, economic and political value”.
Until then we face the continuing growth of the corporate “assessment culture” to decide just how unworthy some of us really are, within a production line and farmyard based economic system that places a monetary value on each and every one of us until such time as your monetary value turns negative and it is time to be euthanised at the lowest possible cost.
I look forward to a day when such terms as class, caste, status, the establishment and all other descriptions relating to an inherently unequal social order based on power and wealth – are no longer of any relevance and as shunned in society as all other such immoral and inhumane concepts should always be.
Until such time as that goal is reached, we must continue to find ways to peacefully but forcefully change the mainstream narrative and deny all soothsayers preaching “there is no alternative” any further opportunity to fool us into accepting such an inhumane and unjust fate.
I’ve always hated the word elite, but on checking its etymology it derives from the Latin ‘eligere’ to pick out/elect/choose. I suppose we have as a culture continued to ‘choose’ these people and allow them their power.
Despite 40 years of their failure and corruption we still haven’t displaced them.
This is a question for psychopathology to examine.
I have a problem with the word “elite” too, in that it does to me imply genuine superiority, rather than simply status. I prefer to describe the people we are referring to as the “establishment” (see Owen Jones). A more neutral expression, that doesn’t imply any qualities at all, except that the people we refer to are “there” already, they are entrenched, they benefit from the status quo, and they fight to preserve their position. As we know many of them owe their position to wealth, nepotism or patronage (and if we go back to the robber barons, to criminality). That some also exhibit characteristics associated with pyschopathy is not just coincidental in my opinion.
Pitchforks won’t do it these days, but maybe the internet can give us strength in numbers, and the communication channels to challenge the old order.
Some day my Prince will come. We are such a polite, stand in an orderly queue populace. Need some hot bloodied Mediterranean types.
You all have such wonderful humanitarian thoughts and ideas.lots of money needed to leave work and put ideas into action. The blessed NHAP are still there with a voice worth hearing. This arrogant government are quite complimented to be thought of as elite and arrogant I am sure. We can only hope an acchiles heel can be found. They create a murky, hard to follow trail.oh expletive expletive.
The concerns of the “elite” are truly overwhelming, and their burdens must weigh heavily on both themselves and on us…
https://www.change.org/p/topshop-pay-your-cleaners-the-living-wage/u/15941318?tk=0Np9OONLHgagJhJTHpJ0WDbbutlLlBA5Gv3k6ryZ6Lg&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email
It was interesting to see that The Bolshevik Party of Lenin’s invention is mentioned in the Martin Wolf FT piece above. Unfortunately, Mr Wolf knows little,in fact, of Lenin’s actual party, even less of its internal power structure and dynamics, and much about fairyland. A perusal, for instance, of the post-soviet works of the US historian Alexander Rabinowitch, in particular of “The Bolsheviks Come To Power” reveals that in 1917, the the year of the revolution in Russia, the leadership of the party was at a loss to control, and frequently was overwhelmed by, the mass radical action of not only its supporters in such cities as Petrograd and Moscow, but by that of its rank-and-file members and committees, from the district and area levels up to the national level. Democratic Centralism at that time was not at all what the “elites” have been so insistent in lying through their teeth about.
I say this because, with the centenary of the Russian Revolution approaching, there will be a hailstorm of pseudo-academic bullshit (I’ve no better words, I’m afraid, for this), aimed at the wholly remarkable events of that year, intended to libel and slander the attempts of the working people of The Russian Empire, and many, many more across Europe, to free themselves of oppression. The fact that reaction triumphed, that the revolution did not spread deeply or widely enough, and that the world was not made a democratic whole, and that their lives became subject to the cruel force of a totalitarian bureaucracy, and all the other consequences that ensued from that failure, does not invalidate their efforts one jot.
The question to be answered is, for me – can modern humanity succeed in throwing off the political and economic power of elites, and can it do this in time to save itself? I think the answer is in the affirmative. The secondary question is: can the elites regain power? The pudding must be tasted. “Try again, fail better” as Beckett once wrote.
Can we stop referring to ‘elites’ and start referring to ‘the parasitic class’ please? Also can we stop referring to bank ‘loans’ when we know what we really mean we’re referring to is asking a bank to create new money in the form of credit? Seriously, adopting these practices will help people have a better idea of what we actually live in and therefore what our problems really are.
Money creation by banks giving loans is a strange concept for the majority of people who think loan funds come from banks circulating from am existing money pile and presume banks actually risk their own hard-earned cash.
In my own naivety about such matters, it seems to me that we don’t need banks to get the sum back they never had but nonetheless ‘lend’, because if one eg. considers a bad debt situation, the ‘loan’ of invented money buys goods or services that passes through the economy buying more and more, and all that happens from an adverse perspective is that the bank does not get a sum back it never had ownership to, and neither a profit for the privilege.
I know I’m overlooking some simplistic arguments here and I’m sure there are a barrel load:-) – but while I don’t at all suggest free money all over the place, surely the bad debt scenario of no actual loss of physical money suggests that electronic fund-boosting of the economy could take some form completely separate form than setting up banks to be gifted the value of all created debt for non-existent money.
Bad debts erode bak capital and then they lose liquidity and can fail
thank you for such a concuse piece we all need this
To me, Osborne’s attitude smacks of complacency. His categorical refusal to apologise stems from the idea he is doing ok. Yes, he made a mistake, he has admitted it and changed the proposals. But does that mean that everything else he does is beyond criticism? Do we have a Chancellor actively addressing the needs of the British people and economy, or do we have a Chancellor of Oz, borne in a hot air balloon?
More importantly than correcting the mistake is correcting the ideology that caused it. But to admit to a mistaken ideology is political suicide. What we need are more politicians, from all parties, who are prepared to challenge the prevailing dogmas and stand up for what they believe in. Iain Duncan-Smith’s resignation was a welcome reminder of what compassionate conservatism should represent, and how far removed it has become from the current leadership. I think the whole issue of Brexit is a distraction. Change is certainly needed, but it has to be the right sort of change. One could argue for that on both sides of the Channel.
Politics urgently needs to find its way, beyond the insults and accusations of cross party exchanges. We need to move beyond the prevailing opinion that if I am right, everyone else must be wrong. Labour is beginning to embrace this by creating a more open, diverse party structure, but it has a long way to go. The Tories, meanwhile, need to get back to their roots, enabling people of good will to work together for the benefit of all with minimal state intervention. They could begin by recognising people of good will across the political spectrum (not only within their own ranks), and revise their notion of a minimal state by accepting the limitations of the private sector. Then they must end the rule of ideology which insists that their way is the only way of doing things, bludgeoning through changes in an unfair democratic system. Such root and branch reformation of the party may need to be triggered by electoral defeat, but it is absolutely necessary if they are to survive the Trumps and Brexiteers of the future.
I don’t expect to see this overnight. For now, the Tories are still the “Nasty” party. But it is what I call a politics of hope.
We have to have hope