I don't know what the summer of 1939 was like. Worse than that of 2017, I am sure. But I can't help thinking that they must have features in common.
Wild optimists will have and do now, in both cases, think things will work out just fine, and what's all the fuss about?
Profound pessimists will have and do in contrast believe the end of the world is nigh.
In between realists will appreciate that things are very unlikely to be the same again and that there is nothing that can be done to prevent that.
Thankfully we are not facing war. I count blessings. But I do think we are in a Gramscian moment; the past is behind us and what will replace it has yet to emerge.
I was asked at the Tax Justice Network conference last week what I wanted to happen and I suggested we needed nothing less than a revolution. Not, of course, a bloody one. Nor a non-democratic one. But a revolution nonetheless in the attitude we have in our society to ensuring that all can partake, to delivering social and economic justice, and to ensuring we become sustainable.
This, of course, is not just true in the UK; it is true across Europe and beyond. I happen to see tax justice as being at the core of that but was certainly the most outspoken on the issue.
I happen to think that because the change that is needed is much more important than our relationships with the EU and could, I think, be effected within it, the whole Brexit debacle is a distraction, and maybe even a deliberate one, to push in the opposite direction and to reinforce the status quo when the change that is needed is European wide, and much more important. If, however, leave we must then I am quite sure the opportunity for real change must be grabbed.
Either way it feels like we're about to have a last summer of the old order, where we can pretend all is carrying on as before and we might with luck not face the discomfort change always brings for many. I think that view naive, and wrong. Change is now inevitable and because of the gross injustice in our society inevitable, whether that is to be eliminated, or forcibly maintained.
As school holidays appear on my planning horizon and with one son already in post exam mode I am very aware of it being summer. But it does not feel like a summer of ease. I will relax. But it will be in an atmosphere of disquiet before the emerging chaos that will proceed whatever comes next does really appear to unfold, as it surely will, from early autumn inwards.
We are in the lull before the storm.
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A million people showed up in London this weekend to show their Pride that we no longer live in a country where consenting adults being bandits is a crime.
That’s more than went to the all the recent protests combined against there not being enough government.
That certainly didn’t happen in 1939. And the outfits were better too. Cheer up.
Revolutions and political sea-changes, like 1945,happen when the middle classes lose their faith in the existing order.
The sale of the NHS, or the full effect of Brexit might do that; or might not. It may well be that tribalist campaigning and polluted media are the culmination of politics as we know it.
As Paul Mason pointed out recently in the Guardian the recent General Election was indeed a Gramscian moment . The result Mason wrote ‘…defies ” common sense ” . Gramsci was the first to understand that, for the working class and the left, almost the entire battle is to disrupt and defy this common sense . He understood that it is this accepted common sense – not MI5, special branch and the army generals – that really keeps the elite in power. ‘ I see this disruption taking place within my own family and friends : those who see nothing fundamentally wrong with the status quo on the one hand and those including myself who who recognise that the present set-up has run its course and something new has to replace it . It can be by turns both exciting and terrifying, but that it needs to happen I am in no doubt because the alternative – the maintenance of the status quo – would be far, far worse. As the great Dylan wrote all those years ago ” The Times they are a-changin’ “.
I too believe that we in the West are in a Gramscian moment of some historical importance. Let us hope that the transition is peaceful but one wouldn’t want to bet one’s life on it. When enough human beings feel threatened and scared they’re capable of irrational behaviour with unforeseen concequences. That said, I don’t sense there are the extreme circumstances existing now that did in the late 1930s. However, it’s what’s simmering beneath the surface that one needs to be aware of; and there certainly is an increasing level of social dissatisfaction. How close to a tipping point is anyone’s guess.
In any event – shift happens! So relax and enjoy the moment. You’ve earned some respite from the madness. It’ll still be here in September and forever thereafter.
Relaxing is writing for me…
I give up the academic stuff
But stopping writing is like stopping breathing….
Notting Hill Carnival is very likely to kick off this year.. Could get ugly
I hope not
I will always be for peaceful change
Yeah, I really hope it doesn’t kick off as that will not help anyone, least of all the carnival that the rich locals want to be cleansed out of the area.
But I think that there is such a bitter simmering resentment amongst many, and particularly amongst the ordinary people living in that area, that has been heightened since the Grenfell outrage, that it is highly likely to boil over into trouble. I’ve been to Carnival many times and absolutely love it (vintage roots and dub at Channel 1 soundsystem for me) but I definitely will not go this year.
Unless there is real change soon, in government policies, personnel and attitude (i.e. dropping the ‘screw you unless you’re rich’ attitude), then I fear riots will be inevitable.
Not a new situation.
In medieval times people belonged to the land and if the monarch granted an estate to an individual they owned the people on it. The modern version holds similar aspects to it. If you are a higher functioning economic unit you will be regarded as a citizen and given privileges but if you are a lower functioning economic unit you are a subject and deprived of rights. Wealthy people own poor people. The old feudal system produced Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and John Wrawe, do their modern equivalents exist? The roots of Tyler’s riots include an inequitable and poor economy, austerity and taxes on the poor resulting from the dispute with European neighbours.
In the 14th century statutes like the Ordinance of Labourers were introduced setting low wage levels and making one sided contracts of employment enforceable in the criminal courts. The rights to associate with like minded people in peaceful assembly were curtailed. Access to justice for the poor was not available (modern day equivalents exist). The Enclosures produced similar injustices.
You can probably tell I have a nerdy love of history but my point is we have been here before ,several times. It seems every now and then the powerful have to be reminded who grants that power. Tyler, and later the Tolpuddle martyrs held justification for their actions. The principle granting that justification is that Government loses the right to govern when it becomes tyrannical and governs only in the interests of an elite. I would agree with you Richard the time is ripe to remind our Government of our history.
Mother fetch my sickle I’m off to London.
Paragraph 5 – “we are not facing war”. Yet. I fear for the sort of world my children will live in.
The parallels between 1939 or even 1914 just keep coming. Historic levels of inequality, economic turmoil, migrant crisis, aggressive nationalist governments, conflict on the borders of Europe. Add climate change, and it is not looking good. Looking at 1929, I was worried in 2007/8 what might come along 10 years later.
My generation, and my parents, have enjoyed an enviable period of relative peace in Europe. Let us just hope we never have to face anything like the situation my grandparents and great-grandparents endured.
I was born around the time we joined the EU, just 27 years after the end of the Second World War, at a time when Europe was divided by an iron curtain between countries threatening each other with mutually assured destruction by nuclear weapons as a matter of course.
To put that in context, 27 years ago was 1990. Imagine if an enormous global conflict had ended just then: might we spend a bit more effort now trying to stop anything like that happening again?
Yes
I was born in 58
It was very clear as I grew up just how raw memories were, not least for my parents
The evidence of the conflict barely a decade before must have been all around you. How soon we forget.
There are echos certainly of 1939. As I have mentioned before my father was doing a PhD in Berlin at the time but he returned to Dublin in late July. He was certain that war was on its way and thought it absolutely obvious to anyone who understood the situation, despite propaganda and spin to the contrary. In a sense therefore the future then was certain in summer ’39, though the outcome of the war was obviously not.
Neoliberalism has been a failure and a dead man walking since 2008. Sadly however it is very deeply embedded in economics curricula and there some on the right wing of the Tory party who believe in it with a fanatical zeal. “If only we could privatise everything and shrink the state to the size of a bathtub then a Neoliberal Nirvana would be guaranteed”
I had the delight of visiting Charles Adams last week to discuss Economics 101 (the next installment on Fiat Currencies should appear tomorrow). He was pretty horrified by the totality of Neoliberal focus of the Harvard Economics curriculum to the exclusion of all others and likened it to a cult. Both Ed Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper have been indoctrinated so to speak. Until recently even if there were a change of government nothing fundamental would have changed.
Regarding Brexit, I have wondered for a long time whether the Tories actually believed their own rhetoric or were setting up to deliberately crash out of the EU with a hard Brexit. Ian Dunt (Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?) thinks that the Tories do believe their own rhetoric so it will come as a major shock that the rather than UK having an upper hand in the negotiations its position is extraordinarily weak.
Regarding Austerity (which I hope most readers of this blog realise is a nonsense) the Tories are in a bind as giving up before the “job is done” may blow their (totally undeserved) reputation for economic competence with many of their older voters.
I do hope a more sensible economic policy using MMT and Neo-Keynesian
economics will replace Neoliberalism soon; maybe the October Revolution (100th anniversary this year) might be a better analogy to the current time?
Sorry a bit rambling and train of consciousness.
Sean
That’s what blogs are for
I agree re Harvard / Valls / Cooper and doubt much is changing there soon
I also think Ian Dunt is right as you summarise him: it’s one reason why IO think this is the lull before the storm. They have no idea what is hitting them
And I am delighted you and Charles are plotting
Best
Richard
Whenever I see the word “neoliberalism” I am put in mind of the view expressed by Joseph Stiglitz, I quote (or perhaps paraphrase slightly) “Neoliberalism is a misnomer, it is neither new nor is it liberal”
Think of it as Thatcher / Reaganism
Flip Chart Fairy Tales is a blog worth keeping an eye on and this post “The End of the State Shrinking Dream”
https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/the-end-of-the-state-shrinking-dream/
published a few days ago (7th July) is interesting. It seems even the Libertarian wing of the Tory party is getting worried about leaving the EU as “Lexit” seems a possibility. Not sure if I agree but worth a read
Thanks Sean
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