Tony Barber is gloomy about the prospects for the right wing in the US and UK when writing in the FT this morning:
Matters have now reached the point at which it is no longer inconceivable that both the Republicans and the Conservatives will break apart. For two parties that once had an almost instinctive feel for the pragmatic style of politics that wins voters' trust and delivers election victories, this is an almost unbelievable turn of events. But the seeds of each party's divisions were sown a long time ago.
My City University colleague Prof Inderjeet Parmar also thinks there is a storm coming, writing in The Wire:
The established political system in America is in shock, and it does not look as if this firestorm is likely to burn itself out anytime soon. But it is the storm before the calm.
But, he adds:
As Thomas Jefferson said of Shays' armed rebellion against heavier taxes levied to pay the war loans of rich merchants, “a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” for a republic. It brings to the surface the simmering frustrations of the people which forces governments to act.
He sounds a note of pessimism:
Should Hillary Clinton and Trump slug it out in the contest for the White House, the degree of polarisation could well lead to general ugliness — and even serious outbreaks of violence.
But thinks there are also grounds for hope:
The core message from Trump and Sanders is that the economic system is failing most Americans, increasing corporate wealth, income and wealth inequality, and polarising society and politics. The votes for Sanders and Trump are really screams against a political establishment that has been taken over by corporations, corporate mentalities and agendas — lower taxes and more state subsidies for the rich, the outsourcing of well paid jobs through globalisation to low-wage societies. It is a delayed-reaction demand for a recalibration of the system after the long reign of neo-liberal, free-markets-know-it-all politics. The ideological dominance of neoliberalism is now under severe strain. Markets do not correct themselves, politics does.
It's the storm before the calm of which Jefferson would have approved, refreshing the tree of liberty, the health of government, and the happiness of the people.
As I said at the Political Studies Association on Monday, we are in a state of flux at a point where change in the political eras in which we live is inevitable, but what the next era might be is not clear as yet. Inderjeet thinks the system has the means to revive itself and has sufficient balances within it to embrace another new prevailing philosophy. I hope he is right: we need peaceful progress to new thinking.
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I agree with Inderjeet that the Trump/Sanders phenomenon is a ‘scream’ with the Sanders side being the more conscious of the forces that have created the problem. Trump is a schizoid mixture of left and right mixed with knee jerk populism. it’s the knee jerk stuff that worries me.
If Clinton gets in finally, I wonder whether she will have been pushed to a more progressive stance by Sanders -I doubt it, so the simmering resentment will still be there which doesn’t bode well for social stability.
Interesting video interview with Richard Wolff on Abby Martin’s Empire Files series, comparing the current US and European political polarisations with the increasingly apparent inability of global capitalism to deal with its inherent falling wages/falling demand contradiction now that the developed countries have maxed out on both private and public debt to fill the wage gap.
Is this the “tipping point” for a new economic system emerging?
http://www.rdwolff.com/content/rnns-empire-files-understanding-marxism-and-socialism-richard-wolff
Keith-thanks for that link. I regularly and eagerly await Wolff’s Monthly Lectures. He’s I great communicator (Like our Richard!) and presents things in a way that communicate with immediacy. I’m still working my way through Marx’s writing and they still have a fresh ring and relevance about them. In many economic deportments of Universities, teaching about Marx’s insights could get you to lose your job (particularly in the US)- he was clearly 100 years ahead of his time.
I like the way Wolff talks about the economy since 1975 when banks created a ‘bankers heaven’ – stagnating wages would be supplemented by banks ‘renting’ out the currency to make up the shortfall.
Another interesting historical economic discussion between Chris Hedges and Michael Hudson
Days of Revolt: How We Got to Junk Economics
http://michael-hudson.com/2016/03/the-inversion-of-classical-economics/
I’m not so sure that Trump and Sanders are products of the same political or social impulses. The Republican right wing has always appealed to the inward looking and anti-intellectual American fear of change and loss of status. Trump makes the same appeal, but as a candidate he is a loose cannon, whom the party feels it cannot control. Senator Cruz is pretty much on the same thuggish platform as Trump, but because he is less volatile, he has become the respectable face of GOP backwoods politics.
Sanders on the other hand, like Corbyn in many ways, appeals to the more enlightened end of the political spectrum (I would like to think), and a tradition which has been submerged for decades by the neoliberal success. It is a tradition of moderate socialism, and is espoused by many of the older generation who remember the sixties, and by a new generation who have never known anything but the neoliberal consensus.
It is this aspect of the current situation that gives me hope. Remembering the idealism of the sixties, and the faint glimmer that resurfaced in 1997 (sigh!), I can only hope that the ideas behind Sanders and Corbyn (for it not their personalities which attract) will reach a new energised, internet savvy generation of people who will force the political issue. Already the Overton window is stretching open a little, on the environment, on Trident, on social justice.
Clinton, who will probably win, has already shifted much to the left, in response to the threat from Sanders. I am not convinced she won’t revert to type if she wins the presidency, but we can hope the voices of the left will continue to ring out loud and clear, in the US and here in the UK.
My answer is that we cannot.
Those who have gorged on what North American capitalism can do for those at the top will not relinquish their gains or their political influence without a fight.
It could get really ugly. Especially over there where they have the right to bear arms.
Yet the oppressed, those with little – what option do they have? They have to fight.
It will happen here soon enough as the American corporations – having hollowed out their own economy – start coming here to the UK to do the same.
As a Brit living in Southern Oregon I can tell you that those with very little only have one option but it is not fighting. It is begging!
The degree of poverty and homelessness that one sees is heartbreaking.
Yet the degree of compassion and caring observed, locally anyway, is very moving.
More generally, what is going on politically is much more complicated than as reported in the media. But what is clear is that a majority of people are both very worried and very upset with the political process. My sense is that there will not be violence, not in a widespread manner, but that the stage is set for a completely new relationship between the Government and its people. Can’t define it any more precisely than that but come November we will look back and understand.
I hope that you are right about the violence.
But to be clear – I am more worried about the violence those in power and privilege might wield in order to keep their ill-gotten gains.
A ‘re-set’.
I like that.
America is, of course, a totally different beast from the UK, even while superficially the same (a Right Wing occupied by a crackpot, oligarchic, incipiently – especially now – neo-fascist Right Wing Party in both countries:Republicans/Teapublicans/potentially Trumpublicans there and the Nasty/neo-feudal/neo-liberal Tory Party here, confronted by a Left Wing straining to emerge from the “business as usual”/neo-liberal/hollowed out version of its real self, represented by Corbyn versus the neo-liberal Bitterites here, and Sanders against the sold-out, triangulated, oligarchic, corporate captured shadow of its old self Democratic Party).
The crucial difference, however, is in the allocation of power centres in the two systems: in the UK, power is excessively concentrated on the centre, where the winning of a very few votes (see http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/general-election-results-just-900-5682492#ICID=sharebar_twitterhttp://, which suggests a mere shift of 900 votes would have deprived Cameron of a majority – NOT a healthy system), within a pitifully small slice of the electorate (only 24.6% this time, and an even worse 21% in Blair’s third 2005 “victory !!!???”) allows the winning Party to exercise not just monarchical, but positively dictatorial powers.
By contrast, in America the Constitution has built in “checks and balances”, but above all foresaw the clash between size and uniformity, by devising radically different chambers of Representatives, that reflect the SIZE of States, and Senators, that are of equal number for each State, then electing them on different timetables (ALL Representatives every two years = size; Senators every 6 years = uniformity), and then distributing the power between the two Chambers, the President and the Supreme Court – all of which makes a UK “democratic dictatorship” constitutionally impossible.
When it is realised that this whole framework is reflected in different ways in different States (some of which are unicameral), but in each of which further opportunities exist to vote for REAL power (and not the bogus power afforded to our local Councils etc. all of which hang off Westminster power), then the difference between the UK and the USA is starkly apparent, with the centralising tendency of the UK system having been only moderately tempered by devolution to a Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies.
What the two nations DO share, however, is the affliction of the virus of corporate capture, the treatment for, and opposition to which, is essentially the same, namely, the re-invigoration, perhaps even the re-invention, of REAL democracy, though because of the different political structures, different routes must be adopted in the two countries.
I won’t presume to lecture the USA on what they should do, though I would hope that the fire lit by Sanders will be fed and fuelled by Americans who see what is necessary to achieve the Second American Revolution.
Here, in the UK, however, the absolute sine qua non of a real democracy is the radical restructuring of our Constitution and system of government – real “top to bottom” and “root and branch”, with the adoption of what I call a Fundamental Law Act, which will set out the principles on which we the people consent to be governed, drawing in aspects of it which MUST be put to the people in a referendum (the disposal of social capital in the form of privatising social goods being an obvious candidate – NO privatisation without a referendum!), defining which areas of the constitution are sacrosanct, so allowing a Constitutional Court to strike down “unconstitutional” legislation, such as the “gagging law”, the “snoopers’ charter”, the attempt to intimidate academia, the stitching up of boundaries and electoral registers). The FLA would ONLY be amendable if 80% of the Commons voted for a given change.
The FLA should also encompass Proportional Representation for elections to the Commons and a new, elected, Senate, which would itself reflect the new regional Parliaments, around 10 in all, including the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, which I would raise to the status of Parliaments, thus creating a Federal Britain.
Now, referring back to an earlier post, where Fiona and I discussed PR and a “rainbow coalition”, Fiona had this – very apt – observation to make:
“Your idea of a rainbow coalition cannot work in a neoliberal world, because there is no longer any consensus on the aims. The difference is not about means any more, it is about where we ought to be going. So I infer that what you envisage is a coalition of progressive interests AGAINST a neoliberal opposition. And that is fine, but we cannot pretend that it will result in the kind of government we had post war.”
Fiona, I agree entirely with your observation, and realise I did not make myself clear: the “rainbow coalition” would be a temporary, but I think an absolutely necessary, expedient in the current circumstances – an administration that would come to power for the sole AGREED objective of bringing about the “root and branch” reconstruction of our Constitution. It would run on a platform of implementing the above, setting in place all the arrangements for this reformation to take place, and then going to the country in a General Election that would also be a referendum on the acceptance of a new, preferably written, constitution.
There is, of course, a two-element “chicken and egg” problem here: to place the second first, the structures on which the referendum would be called would already need to be in place before the referendum, making the referendum a nullity. The solution to that is to have an election, followed by a referendum, which itself would be followed by the legislative and administrative actions to allow the wishes of the referendum to be implemented, which would then be followed by an election under the new Constitution.
The REAL “chicken and egg”, though, is how to get to this position, especially given the Tories’ “urgent haste” in implementing their long-desired deconstruction of our democracy, and its transformation into a neo-feudal state. And the answer to that is that Labour MUST realise that even if JC were the better-known JC, whose resurrection Christians will celebrate on Sunday, it is probably impossible for Labour to win, given Tory stitch-ups, unless it goes into a “rainbow coalition”, constituting a “Progressive Front” against the Nasty Party, running on a programme of “root and branch” constitutional reform, along the lines I have outlined above. The “rainbow coalition’s” sole aim would be to bring about the situation where a new election, under a new Constitution could take place – probaly , then, a two year life in all: 1 year to the Referendum, followed by 1 year to the election under the new Constitution.
I wish Labour could see the virtue in cooperation
I do not think it will do so as yet
Speaking as a member of the Green Party, I wish Labour would hurry up and find the virtue of cooperation. The Labour record in this regard is not inspiring. In the early 1990s they appointed Prof. Plant to investigate PR. He reported favourably but all was forgotten when Tony Blair came to power.
In 2005 Labour “won” the election with 36% of the vote. In 2015 Tories “won” with 36.9%. There was nothing about PR in Labour’s 2015 manifesto.
This is profoundly anti-democratic.
There seems to be something in Labour’s make-up that prevents it from ever sharing power. It seems they would rather lose 2 out of every 3 elections than be part of a multi party alliance opposed to neoliberalism. If they could change their mindset then we could make a Rump out of the Tory party.
Almost all the other left wing parties would, in my view, be in support of such a “soft re-set” approach to constitutional change and electoral reform as it would allow their views to be heard and acted upon much more so than today.
However, it is the Labour party (or many within it more specifically) that is more likely to be resistant as it would have to relinquish its current two party state dominant position alongside the Tories, thereby increasing the chance of a “hard re-set” approach once the general population gives up on conventional politics as its way to resolve social divisions and reverts to old fashioned violence instead.
A planned and long overdue reform of the UK constitution is a much better way to create a better country for our children and future generations, rather than gradual decline into civil disturbance and worse.
Not sure JC and crew yet have the necessary support or mindset to get on-board with the right programme for the nation. Perhaps they should read Andrew Dickie’s very well articulated plan of action and start to build on it!
Andrew, Meant to say much earlier on today (yesterday) how impressed I was with this analysis.
This is an interesting article from the last election on the problem with FPTP and safe parliamentary seats, which now make up over 50% of the UK parliament and are the modern day equivalent of “rotten boroughs”.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/may/06/incumbent-effect-safe-seats-general-election-psycholgoy
Osborne stated openly in today’s Treasury select committee that “Controlling welfare spending is necessary for the economy.” He went onto say that “One of the principal reasons why Britains public finance ended up in a complete mess was…there was a 60% increase in welfare spending under the last Labour government.”
An astounding level of truth denial, which he has either learned to repeatedly lie about or has convinced himself that he lives in a different universe from the rest of us!
No mention of the complete and criminal irresponsibility of the financial sector which drove the economy off a cliff and which really caused the UK’s public finances to end up in a complete mess!
Reducing welfare spending has been the cruel, divisive and politically motivated knee jerk response of the financial sector backed Tories to avoid the necessary policy responses that should have been enforced to control and reign in an out of control financial system.
What he meant was ‘it is necessary to create a super-‘rentier’ economy where the majority are on hopeless treadmills being spun by the financial sector.’
I suspect the man genuinely believes the crap ‘fed’ to him by advisers. They have to hang onto the ‘hammer welfare’ ideology as it is the keystone of their myopic thinking, take that away and the rest collapses.
A Rainbow coalition sounds like a beautiful thing and one to be hoped for because from my perspective I can only see pitchforks. The stress and strain on middle to low income housholds is such that something has got to give.
I had this discussion earlier today with a Con-party canvasser. He is a lovely person but on the whole completely brainwashed with Tory lies. I pointed out the facts and figures from your earlier blog-post which was quoted today Richard but I could see that he did not believe me. He didn’t want to, because people don’t like to have a belief system challenged because it would mean admitting to have been gullible, and no one wants to think of themselves as being easily led.
It is my belief that this whole political edifice will come violently crashing down. History repeatedly tells us that the masses are oppressed then they fight back. Rome, France, Russia, and you can bet your life that walking around today is tomorrow’s British equivelent of Radovan Karadzic. There is nothing to lose when you have nothing to lose.
I’m not a religious person, but I would pray for that NOT to happen.
I think almost everyone would join that prayer
But don’t doubt his cruelty exists in this country