As a Guardian email notes this morning:
A no-deal Brexit would rip about £260 a year from the average UK household budget, analysis predicts. The Resolution Foundation and Sussex University academics say “just about managing” families in the UK's poorer regions have the most to lose from trade negotiations failing, with significant price rises forecast on a range of goods, including 8% for dairy products and 6% for meat, while car prices would jump 5.5%. The study found that the impact of rising prices would add 1.1% to the cost of living for the poorest 20% of households, against 0.8% for the richest 20%.
So the Rees-Moggs of this world will see little impact from crashing out of the EU but very unsurprisingly many families living on the borders of getting by will be very hard hit.
Last night I was in discussion at Norwich Quaker Meeting with George Lakey and a lively audience. George openly supports passive civil disobedience to oppose the power of economic elites. That is how the Nordic economic model developed. One audience member suggested we have already seen a form of that in the Brexit vote.
I disagreed: that was the token gesture, in my opinion; almost the equivalent of signing an online petition. The real opposition will come when people have simply had enough of the imposition upon them by a corrupt elite hanging on to power in an obviously illegitimate democracy that hands them authority in a way that society clearly does not want.
When will that tipping point arise? I am not sure. It did in Iceland after 2008. It will here, I suspect, after and as a result of the next crash. At that point the fact that the old will have died and that the new is waiting to be born will become too apparent to be ignored. And then peaceful demonstration that makes clear that those who have thought themselves able to rule must give way to those with the publicly backed authority to do so will become too strong to resist.
Peaceful revolutions do happen. They are the way to consign a rotten state to history. We are living in a rotten state. It's just a matter of when and not if its time to be reformed will come. But I am confident it will.
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March 2019 is probably that tipping point.
The real question is why did the deprived and disgruntled non-metropolitan areas of the uk who voted for brexit in protest of a certain ruling elite go on to re-elect that ruling elite in this years elections?
Why did those who so suffered from 10 years of Tory austerity re-elect them despite a virtually non existent platform and complete shambles in leadership?
How much worse does it have to get?
Quite a bit worse
And it is going that way
How much worse does it have to get?
Pragmatically, I agree with Richard that there is plenty of scope for further deterioration of people’s current situation before we hit the ‘revolutionary chaos’ tipping point.
This is down to at least two factors. (Three if you include the dysfunctional FPTP electoral system, which effectively skews the representation of minority views)
1) There is still a very large and influential constituency of people who are actually doing OK , or better under under the prevalent conditions. They vote. They are a significant and unprincipled (don’t agree with my worldview) majority in the media and much of the public sector is governed by them by dint of their organisational seniority.
2) People who are not doing very well are constantly told it’s probably their own fault and tend to believe that. Believe? ‘Feel’ it perhaps, or both. Compare ingrained attitudes to mental health issues. If you are depressed it’s probably because you are ‘weak’ – not very robust. The fact that everybody will collapse at some stage if the external pressure is ‘correctly’ applied is the basis of torture.
Whilst senior people in the public sector may be reasonably well paid, I don’t imagine they are under any illusion about the current and deteriorating situation with public sector services is all right.
I don’t believe people vote for Conservatism, they’re actually voting against Labour who they’ve come to believe will be taxing away all their hard-earned and gifting it to disabled black junkie unemployed immigrant lesbians (for example :-)). They’re taken in by Tory propaganda. They don’t vote to get the Tories in, they’re voting to keep Labour out. The consequences of being governed by the Tories, actually far far worse, still elude them. This is a triumph of propaganda, not policy.
“They don’t vote to get the Tories in, they’re voting to keep Labour out. The consequences of being governed by the Tories, actually far far worse, still elude them. This is a triumph of propaganda, not policy.”
This is one of the most succinct and accurate explanations I have heard as to why people actually vote Tory.
For a long time I have struggled to get my head round why people vote Tory, even in Scotland where their legacy is still apparent across the central belt.
[…] if they don’t this will be another step on the way to creating the rotten state that will need to be peacefully reformed in due […]
So is it reform or revolution, Richard? It’s a good turn of phrase, but I don’t think our state, parliamentary democracy, is, by nature, rotten. Blame the drivers not the car. But It does need reform, and, especially, I do think that somehow we need extra protections for our constitution so that governments cannot change laws that affect the structure of our democracy so easily.
PR
Abolishing the Lords
A constitution
A changed role for the monarch
Embedded rights
Thatr’s a revolution, I think
It bloody shouldn’t be, but from where we stand (or cower) at present it is.
What role for the monarchy do you envisage?
Hugh?
Symbolic only
Agree with everything apart from having a symbolic Monarchy – abolish that too alongside the House of Lords and have an elected head of state, or allow the Prime Minister to also fulfill this role
Symbolic would remove the head of state role
I just see them as a tourist attraction
With the power of lobbyists, donations to political parties – or should that more correctly really be to the Tory party, gagging of NGOs and academics, and moves from MP to private sector how you can suggest that our present system is not corrupt strikes me as being delightfully naive.
My worry is that revolutions come in pairs, the Russian and Iranian revolutions being examples. I have no faith Brexit will improve things particularly for ordinary people. There are going to be a lot of angry people out there. We need to steer that anger in the correct direction otherwise it is possible something much worse than UKIP will make a power grab.
“…..something much worse than UKIP will make a power grab…..”
Maybe that is the only sort of trigger that will make the point that all is not well.
We really OUGHT to be able to be able to do better than that. But it sure ain’t easy.
I agree with the sentiment but I worry that modern capitalism/neo-liberalism as like a bacterium that has become resistant to antibiotics.
So it will have to be cut out
“I worry that modern capitalism/neo-liberalism as like a bacterium that has become resistant to antibiotics.”
Reverse Dominance in human beings only gets held back temporarily by ignorance.
https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/boehm.pdf
https://fractalenlightenment.com/33122/issues/reverse-dominance-the-secret-to-a-healthy-tribe
https://now.tufts.edu/articles/mathematics-inequality
https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp210-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-summ-en_0.pdf
Great post but I would aadd one point. We vcan distinguish revolutions from ‘revolutionary acts’ As other posts have noted revolutions rarely work out well for the masses, even if you can avoid the inevitable counter-revolution. Revolutionary acts will mean taking power from those who already wield it and I think Richard is right, it can be done peaceably. I agree that the issuse of democracy is integral to social as well as economic justice. During the late 1830s/1840s the Chartists chafed against the petty pretensions of the property owning classes which aped the mores of the aristocracy, debasing workers socially as well as economically. Demands for a voice in Parliament had an egalitarian as well as an economic base. Society has has of course changed radically and deference to the aristocracy has declined, being replaced by the overt greed of owners such as Philip Green and Mike Ashley who debase their workers by flaunting knighthoods, peerages and gross conspicuous wealth.
Today we have a low-wage service and knowledge economy trapped within an oligarchic state. Simply manipulating the electoral system to pursue a supposed ideal of ‘fairness’ within a narrow definition will lead to further instances of protest which may make the Brexit vote appear a mere inconvenience by comparison.
I agree with all the points in the article = rotten state needs to be replaced and will be replaced. This leaves the question: with what? At the risk of sounding like a broken record I think some of the answers are contained in the book “Against Elections”. Depending only on elections, with no term limits will only result in a re-run of what we have now. Citizens need to be involved in government (local, regional, national) & that involvement must extend beyond elections. None of this seems to be under discussion within the UK’s various political parties – however, it needs to be. For any unemployed person reading this blog – I will be happy to send you, free, a copy of the book (disclaimer: I have zero connection with the author or the publisher).
Participation is, I agree key
But have no doubt it biases an already privileged group
Mike Parr,
Your offer of a free book is generous, but I will in the first place see if I can get it though the library that way somebody else might pick it up in an idle moment.
I guess I’m fortunate these days to still have access to a public Library.
Someone was explaining to me recently that elections were not part of the original Athenian model of democracy and that delegates were picked by lot.
Elections which operate like beauty contests expose the folly of our present system, but I must admit my initial thinking about government by lottery was not respectful of my fellow citizens and …well why not? They live here too. And perhaps the threat of having to take a seat on council would focus the attention of everyone on being at least a little clued up?
Mr Crow – thank you for your kind comments. Actually – let me extend the offer – if you are unable to obtain the book from your library – I will send you 5 copies. Please give 4 to other people & after you have read the book, the only request I would make is that: 1. you meet to discuss the book 2. you (& the others) then pass the books on to others . I’m re-reading it this evening – & I am reasonably convinced that it is heading in the right direction with respect to enhancing citizen participation in government.
Citizens are, of course, involved at every level of government already – even T May is a “citizen”.
The danger of localism, apart from Richard’s excellent point that the voice of local privilege usually prevails, is that affairs are in the hands of the users of the currency, not, as in the case of government, the creators.
Only the creators of the currency – ie central government – can really effect the radical changes that the country now so desperately needs, because only high powered vertical money can pay for it; local communities in the greatest need have no funds, either at council level or amongst their populations.
You hate the nil on the head
Local gov’t is only ever devolved administration, not policy
“— even T May is a “citizen””
Well, not as I recall. We are all Subjects. Not even Citizens, such is the beneficence of the Crown.
Are you typing with your gloves on again ,Richard?
If so apologies
Another good read is “The End of Politicians” by Brett Hennig, director of the Sortition Foundation. His thesis is that you choose Citizens by lot (as in Ancient Athens) to be legislators thereby getting rid of self-serving professional politicians, who have no special skills in running a country when they put themselves forward for election, and getting rid of parties and their political dogma which constrains their imaginations. By random selection you avoid the assembly being dominated by special interests, ideology, cults, or narcissistic yet dangerous buffoons, hallmarks of our present parliament.
If we want a revolution then it needs to be something like that, otherwise tinkering – such as PR (although that would be an improvement – in the sense that almost anything would be to FPTP) is likely to produce the same old careerists, like Darling who marched under a banner proclaiming “For a Workers’ Republic” in another universe and now wears the ermine and is a director of Morgan Stanley which I seem to remember had a bad year in 2008.
But maybe some think that’s just fine.
I knew somebody would know something more about the Athenian system than I did.
Thanks for that, G Hewitt. I had no source but conversation.
Staggering the member replacement means you always have two thirds (or half or even three quarters) of the parliament still sitting through a new selection process which provides a degree of continuity.
It’s often said that the desire to be a member of parliament should automatically disqualify a candidate. It isn’t nearly as stupid as it sounds on first hearing.
Of course the usual riposte to Athens is that the franchise was very select.
Re your final para, reminds me of Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
“Of course the usual riposte to Athens is that the franchise was very select”
‘Select’, or just small?
Was it socially selective to a class of citizen based on property ownership, wealth or ‘breeding’ etc.?
PS re Marx, I often think we pay too much heed to the wrong Marx 🙂
The franchise was basically, men, over the age of 30 who were citizens, i.e. no women, slaves, foreigners, children or men who had been disenfranchised by a court, having committed a crime or not paid a debt to the state. It’s discussed quite extensively in the two books referred to above.
Re Marx, another interesting read is “Why Marx was Right” by Terry Eagleton a professor of literature. Maybe you’ve read it?
Well the over thirty is perhaps not entirely unreasonable. (Particularly since the remotely attractive boys under thirty were probably doing service as toy boys. The Athenians I gather were of the opinion that women were for childbearing rather than frolicking with)
And the men-only rule would be typical of the qualification almost anywhere in the past six thousand years.
And obviously, if slavery is an acceptable social norm, you would no sooner allow your slave to vote than you would enfranchise your cattle. (Or poultry – Turkeys being proverbially reluctant to vote for Christmas)
Disenfranchisement by court order for unsocial or antisocial behaviour, which is one end of the criminal spectrum, doesn’t sound like an unreasonable sanction. (As long as the courts are trusted) I sometimes think we ought to impose a similar stricture on being eligible for a parliamentary seat. That would solve the problem of standing room only in the Commons PDQ.
In terms of practicality and accountability the smaller the population the better it would be likely to work as a system. The larger the state the greater the tendency towards centralisation seems a general rule of thumb.
Re Why Marx was Right; I’m intrigued. I always thought him to be very much the doyen of the left.
In general of the brothers, I always thought Groucho had the best lines (probably he wrote the scripts). Karl said a lot of funny things but never made me laugh, whereas Harpo said nothing and often had me in stitches.
Terry Eagleton now added to the list for the library. I can see my needing a wheelbarrow soon at this rate. I’m already wondering if I can persuade somebody to do some of the reading for me 🙂
How very droll. But look, this is supposed to be a serious site. Yes, get someone else to do the reading while you write some punchy scripts for Mrs May – I think she would appreciate some tasty bon mots, as her full English Brexit isn’t proving very palatable.
To paraphrase from Count Arthur Strong.
If Mrs May would like coffee with it, it would be a Full Brasilian Brexit.
Sorry though, you’re quite right this is supposed to be forum for serious discussion. I’ll try to be a better person in future. 😉