There was a despondent mood around this blog yesterday. Even I suffer from that sometimes, and I am an optimist by nature. But optimism does require a basis. What might that be?
If there is despondency it has a cause. I will simplify my argument by suggesting just three.
The first is the concentration of wealth that is in turn increasing the power of a tiny elite. Trump's government is the perfect example of this.
Second is the sense that politics has ceased to represent most people in the face of this concentration of wealth and power. There is a feeling that politics has as no mechanism to respond to the carefully crafted narrative that the hired hands of this elite are willing to promote.
Third there is a resulting sense of hopelessness for many. They despair at their own thwarted prospects, and those of their children. They find it hard to comprehend how rapidly what once seemed reasonable aspirations now look like implausible pipe dreams: home ownership is one example; a reasonably secure pension another. What feels like survival is now an aspiration that has been unwillingly imposed.
Put it in three words: hopeless, powerless, poverty. It may be relative poverty, but that does not matter: perception is key here. And that's the condition that too many think they face. It's the condition that must be addressed if democracy is to survive. It's the condition to which the left needs an answer.
I will be working on it.
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Reasons to be optimistic?
I have lived through a time when the USSR seemed immovable and the Iron Curtain a permanent feature. Apartheid was set stay. Most countries were not even nominal democracies. China seemed backward. Not now.
We can communicate and build alliances of ideas across the world with the web. This blog has made me aware of new perspectives. These ideas will come together to power a new paradigm.
I can see my parish church from where I’m sitting. It and the people of the village have survived the Black Death, Reformation,Civil War, rise and fall of Empire, Agricultural and Industrial revolutions, two world wars and we are still here.
And yesterday I went to a pensioner’s party put on by my grandaughetr’s secondary school. The kids raised the money and entertained us with dance and music and were polite, cheerful and helpful.
as long as we have men and women of good will, we can improve this world.
I really appreciated that comment…..
On a train journey down to London on Monday I returned to reading Owen Jones’s ‘The Establishment’, a book I’ve been reading off and on for a while now. There’s not much in it that I wasn’t aware of, and much that has been discussed off and on on your blog over the years, Richard (and you are quoted often in a couple of chapters). But the range of interviews that Owen carried out with members of the establishement and their ‘outriders’ (as he refers to them) for the book and the insights they provide are impressive. The chapters ‘scrounging off the state’, in which he details how the establishment constantly lobby for a small state but massively benefit from much the state provides (in other words, corporate socialism), and ‘tycoons and tax dodgers’ in which he analyses what the title says and the affect this has on the state and thus the cost to the rest of us, are particularly powerful. In short, they contain all the evidence one needs to realise why it’s hopeless to believe other than that the citizenry of this country – indeed probably any country – is powerless to challenge big business and the 1%, the establishment that supports them and the hegemony of the neoliberal project that underpins their existence (despite what we may have read recently about the death of neoliberalism). One has to hope that there must surely come a point where people say ‘no more’. But my worry is that the opium of consumerism so dulled the souls of so many that they are willing to accept anything as long as their ability to consume stuff can be maintained.
Ivan
The book is good
I hope your day was
My belief is many people believe their consumer purchasing power is threatened
And to some degree the left has to have an answer to that
R
Watching Norwich City play Aston Villa last night there was little sense of poverty there, which might explain some of the poverty elsewhere. At one point the camera picked on Ed Balls, when not tripping the light fantastic apparently is Chairman of Norwich City. I wonder what his contribution might have been to the present state of affairs?
Generally, after each game, the following days newspaper report allocates a star rating in respect of the players performance. I would like to see the amount that the player was paid set alongside that rating along, with an analysis of the portion that was paid without taxible.
I suspect it would not really matter to the fans; a home win is more important than affordable social care.
Also I would like the payments made to newsreaders and commentators shown at the start and end of each broadcast ( ie £15,000 for presenting one edition of Question Time, £25,000 for hosting a conference, who knows how much for analysing the following days headlines).
There is no outrage at the extent of the prevailing disparities. Many people will pay anything to be “entertained”, reality shows proliferate whilst, in reality, the income gap widens.
The medium really is the message.
My response to your post can only be in the words of another genius but in a different sphere of operation than yourself:
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”.
“In the middle of adversity there is great opportunity”.
“Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them”
Albert Einstein
Voters are ready to rebel, they just need a new vision to replace the failed socialist, capitalist, Moaist… ones. Blended ones don’t cut it. e,g, Blairist of Thatcherist
There is always hope, but if we look for it in the wrong places then despondency is inevitable.
I think it turns on the definition of poverty which you, Richard, have articulated in the Courageous State. It is not just about material wealth. It is possible to have more money than one needs, yet still be deeply unhappy because of other unfulfilled areas in one’s life.
The victory of Trump is down to our focus on material wealth. If values change, then the parties attractive to an electorate will change. So we must change the values.
Politics has not ceased to represent ordinary people, but they are confused, not knowing who truly represents their interests. The way to win them over is with a positive message. Negative campaigning and personal attacks turn them off politics so they don’t vote for anyone at all, which in turn makes them think that politics is not relevant anymore.
Perhaps we have taken survival and freedom too much for granted. Our ancestors had to fight for it. Barring a major catastrophe, a global return to a barbaric age is not likely, but looking around at places like Syria neither is it an impossibility. So we must hope and believe we can build a better world, because without that hope we will never take the risks and initiatives that could bring it about.
Hope is not a psychological crutch, but should be an ever present auxiliary device ready to offset the encroaching, paralysing effect of despair.
Agreed
I hope that was implicit in what I wrote
Thanks Richard.
I think it was implicit, and hope you don’t mind me making it explicit!
There can be many contributions, yet a single, though complex, goal.
I am beginning to look at emigration; sort out the Irish passport, get my French and German up to conversational standard, make sure I’m on the radar (or supping a pint) once a week amongst acquaintances with hiring to do in Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam…
…Not an option open to all. Nor is it an optimistic thing to do: other countries’ problems in politics and economic inequality are less bad than Britain’s, but I cannot bring myself to say ‘better’.
Nevertheless, the alternatives open to me all offer economic growth, First-World living standards, and representative democracy.
We can argue about the first two, but the latter is off the table in the United Kingdom: my interests are not represented by any party in Parliament and if I feel powerless, it is because I really am unable to exert effective influence – or even make any appeal – to anyone wielding real power.