Senator Bernie Sanders wrote this in the Guardian yesterday:
Taking on the greed of Wall Street, the power of gigantic multinational corporations and the influence of the global billionaire class is not only the moral thing to do — it is a strategic geopolitical imperative.
This is a pivotal moment in world history. With the explosion in advanced technology and the breakthroughs this has brought, we now have the capability to substantially increase global wealth fairly. The means are at our disposal to eliminate poverty, increase life expectancy and create an inexpensive and non-polluting global energy system.
This is what we can do if we have the courage to stand together and take on the powerful special interests who simply want more and more for themselves. This is what we must do for the sake of our children, grandchildren and the future of our planet.
I agree with him.
I am glad he put tax justice at the core of his demand.
But I have a problem, encapsulated in a single question, which is to ask if we have the politicians big enough to do this?
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I fear not.
Our political system is also rife with what I call ‘corporate sleeper agents’ – people who have been encouraged to stand for parliament with pre-agreed agendas to achieve the aims of certain interests.
To the right they are called Tories.
To the Left they are called ‘Centrists’.
Richard, surely you don’t believe nonsensical conspiracy theories about “corporate sleeper agents”?
If it is a metaphor – and it clearly is – and it refers to those trained to do the bidding of ceratyin interests then the metaphor works to explain a politcial caste that has been remarkably compliant with the wishes of big business and apparently in awe of it
To that extent of course I agree
Do I think they are recruited in the sense that they are ‘agents’: no, I don’t. Not until the paid consultancies come along.
Sorry – I have been purposefully provocative here I realise but it might be good idea to have a look at the resumes of certain MPs – particularly Tory ones perhaps who have spent time in the City and then reflect on the political damage done to manufacturing since 1979 and the rise of Finance in the City of London?
By using the term ‘sleeper agent’ I’m talking about a mind set – I’m not saying that there has ever such an operation.
The mind set being that once one gets into a position of power, an individual might choose to remember their loyalties to their hinterland, their origins or colleagues in their past life and surreptitiously seek to put the needs of that group first when involved in developing Government policy.
Is such behaviour really beyond our imaginations given phenomena such as cash for questions, MPs and civil servants appearing on the Boards of newly privatised public services or retained as ‘advisors’ and the undervaluing of public assets for sale?
An MP who suffers some form of indignity and campaigns in Parliament for better changes to the law that will benefit the wider public is one thing (a good thing).
An MP who pushes and supports a certain policy in Parliament to be rewarded later financially and career wise is another.
Have we not seen evidence of both? Yes we have. And the latter is something we should be very concerned about to the point that it should not be allowed at all.
Elizabeth
Conspiracy theories? Maybe?
Have you heard of the ‘Powell Memorandum’? This from the Independent website reviewing a book talked about in another post on this blog:
“The ascendancy of neoliberalism was such that its ideology became an all-pervasive atmosphere. ‘During the event, Mitchell asks how many in the audience have heard of the Powell memorandum. Only a couple of hands go up. Lewis Powell was an American lawyer — later appointed as a Supreme Court justice by Richard Nixon — now indelibly associated with his eponymous 1971 memorandum.
This outlined a blueprint for the American conservative movement and the network of think tanks funded by business interests. It recommended that the business class should close ranks in order to present a united front. It also stipulated that lobbyists would be needed to influence policy makers and legislators. And it suggested that infiltration of the media and academia would be necessary in order to achieve the goals of unshackling free enterprise from government interference’.
Also check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_Memorandum
This is what I mean when I talk about ‘sleeper agents’. Powell was from Virginia where James Buchanan – the public choice theorist and public sector hater – used to hang out. Coincidence?
Read Nancy Maclean’s book ‘Democracy in Chains’ about Buchanan. Conspiracy or not – it seems there was some sort of mobilisation here amongst the corporate sector the results of which we still live with today.
Elizabeth, reading ‘Democracy in Chains’ by Nancy MacLean may change your perspective on ‘conspiracy theories’.
Good point
Great book
I do, but I think of them as 5th columnists.
Elizabeth,
If there were no ‘conspiracy’ it would not be necessary to belittle those who are aware of it by calling them ‘conspiracy theorists’. What do you think the political lobbying industry is for?
Conspire means literally ‘breathe together’. And by extension as in the use of ‘inspiration’ (which literally also means take in breath) it has the meaning of thinking together. Much of the development of ‘groupthink’ is done in plain sight. In a democracy, control the mass media is an important element in making underlying intent the prevalent orthodoxy and thereby seem uncontroversial.
There is no committee that meets and formally sets an agenda to rule the world, but there is collusion amongst those who have vested interests and know the force of working together to further their own interests.
Where it is not screamingly obvious it is at its most powerful because then the demos thinks it is acing in its own best interests. Game, set and match. (There is considerable public support for ‘Austerity’, yet it is totally counterproductive. Austerity policy in the UK and across Europe is not something that just happens.)
The only viable alternative to controlling the agenda has been violent oppression or a combination of the two.
The Tudor court worked much the same way, and every power centre that ever existed works in much the the same way. Henry VIII did not dispose of his wives without considerable collusion and the control of the mechanisms of the state. Without those mechanisms Anne Boleyn would have had to be tried for witchcraft; that she was beheaded was a triumph of ‘civilised statecraft’.
Noam Chomsky’s ‘Understanding Power’ is a very thorough exposé of postwar US statecraft and comes with reference footnotes available online more extensive than the book itself.
It is perhaps indicative of the way in which US power is currently in decline that much of US foreign policy in the past thirty years has been overtly military in its execution. Military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria is a sign of weakness and loss of grip, rather than a sign of strength.
Nail on head.
Labour Party reform is key to everything, in the same way as nobbling of Labour structure was key to corporate interests controlling both government and opposition: enabling neoliberalism to thrive.
This is also true with the the Democrats. And the Third Way happened in both countries by design bevcause each success depended on the other.
That is why a breathrough for either Corbyn our Sander would help the other.
But the blunt truth remains: UK democratisation and progressiveness depends on it fully being achieved in Labour.
Enabling whole UK structure and media to change and other parties will have to reconstruct in order to comply.
Fully achievable and hopefully in a couple hours a clean sweep left-slate in current NEC election will signal the start.
My answer is: not yet but the early signs are there. The Corbyn phenomenon was quite unpredictable and the first chink in the neo-liberal armour but after 40 years of globalisation and states serving this globalised capital it will take time to change direction. The complicated bit is the language framing and a very divided electorate with those who have ‘done well’ out of the last 40 years white-knuckling fearfully what they have.
Witness poll after poll showing a 40% support for the Tories (largely over 55’s) this seems to clearly show that people don’t want anything rocking their boat rather than a liking for the Government -at least that’s what I suspect.
It will also take politicians who have the ability to communicate and be educative about the basics of the monetary system and what the real choices are; this will take time, again because of the language framing of the last 40 years ( Govt. Debt bad; agents maximising self-interest; money grows on the rich; private more efficient than public etc..etc..). The myths haven’t been dented yet.
There might be a tipping point soon but if not I suspect neo-liberalism still has some legs unfortunately and the sleeping sickness will continue for some time.
It will be interesting, and perhaps informative, to see what fallout follows the Carillion debacle.
The close cooperation of government ministers in awarding contracts to bail a teetering company should produce some degree of resetting the agenda of public service provision.
The Labour Party will not come out of this process squeaky clean, and in fact their espousal of similar policies, when last in power, will necessarily mute the uproar they should be making in parliament.
The scale of incompetence or corruption involved in the Carillion collapse ought in a sensible political and economic climate be sufficient to put this government out of office, but it is unlikely to be more than water off a duck’s back.
Any advance on zero for estimates of the number of ministerial resignations?
‘but it is unlikely to be more than water off a duck’s back.’
Unfortunately, Andy, this will be the case -I think the solid 40% of the polls that keeps showing for the Tories will not shift because you are talking about a group that don’t want change as their corner feels O.K (ish).
And the answer to that is a very short one: with few exceptions (Sanders being one, Elizabeth Warren another, to take US examples), no.
Second question: in that case how do we get them?
The bigger one….
Good to have you on here Ivan
A third question, Ivan, is do we have Parties with enough vision to enable such visionaries to emerge?
As regards your two American examples, a Democratic ticket of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would have been a near “dream” ticket, but the cautious, Wall-Street-worshipping official Democratic Party did everything it could – alas, successfully – to prevent such a thing happening.
Later examination of results has shown the Democratic Primaries were less than pukka, and then there’s the ludicrous “Super Delegate” system the Democrats use, which could overrule voters’ choices in the Primaries.
With such a system, it ill behoves the Democrats to criticise, justified though they may be, the voter suppression and downright corrupt gerrymandering of the vote by Republicans, which allowed them to win control of the House on far fewer votes than the Democrats in 2014.
And here in the UK, we have another version of this problem: few would doubt that Caroline Lucas is probably such a politician of vision and courage as is needed, but she’s shackled – willingly, I accept – to a Party that has zero chance of power.
Those of you who remember my support of PR will realise that I believe a proper electoral system is not only needed for the sake of fairness to every voter, by making every vote count, but also because it has the potential to shake up our current cosy, and incestuousl, Party system, to permit new currents of thought, and new advocates of such currents, among whom one might hope there could be an FDR or a Clem Atlee, without the need for the Great Depression, which propelled FDR to the top, or the Second World War, which did the same for Atlee.
Except, of course, the coming storm implied in the article quoted here by Bernie Sanders, and referred to elsewhere by Richard in another post on this Blog, has, because catastrophic climate change is in the mix, the potential to outdo both of those in destructive effect.
Agreed Andrew
‘PR will realise that I believe a proper electoral system is not only needed for the sake of fairness to every voter, by making every vote count, but also because it has the potential to shake up our current cosy, and incestuousl, Party system, to permit new currents of thought,’
Andrew – PR could do that but without the ‘new currents of thought’ even PR will be of little value and could allow ‘dodgy currents of thought’ to prosper. So I say yes to PR but look at Germany and the rise of Alternative fur Deutschland – we haven’t really got a well argued critique of neoliberalism out there yet so the dissatisfaction is channeled through Parties that offer bogus explanations -at present, the ‘new channels of thought’ are locked into small circles of people and not filtering to the wider population – although Richard is doing a great job!
I try….
I have to agree that a properly representative voting system is likely to be a key requirement of on-going democracy.
Our current two dominant (South British) parties are split to such a profound extent that they would make three or four parties easily. They are not so much Parties as coalitions in their current form which means that you can vote for your ‘tribe’ without knowing what they will deliver. The result is a form of disenfranchisement that means the rational vote is simply against the tribe you hate/distrust more.
PR allows the electorate to vote for what it wants not against what it doesn’t. And if that means we get some extremist hooligans in parliament, so be it; they represent a constituency of opinion which has a right to be heard. We should be able to trust our parliament to mitigate the damage by demolishing fatuous proposals and exposing them for what they are worth.
Ivan!!
Why hello there stranger!!
Good to see your name ‘in print’ again.
In my view the problem is easy to identify. The short answer is that we do, but the problem of the last thirty or so years still has a hold. Specifically, the 0.1% controlling both government and opposition, with 0.1-controlled media assistance.
In Labour, It presents itself currently (but not exclusively) as FBPE, contrived antisemitism, and anti-democratic mechanisms in party systems.
On those three fronts the real situations are: uncompromising neoliberal Remainers will not yield on blatant EU flaws and so risk Hard Brexit by confronting Corbyn’s EU position and therefore bat for the 0.1%; anti-Semitism is blown up to put a most around Israel government agenda ie. supporting foreign aims of the 0.1%; party democratisation is still hindered by shrewd strategies put in place to make it previously dependent on donations from rich capitalists (and more obliged through constructed debt).
The answer is to support the new direction in Labour without wobbling. In 2016 many progressives had a wobble, fuelled only IMO by media, and by regressives in the party – on behalf of the 0.1% – using media to bend the ear of progressives.
As Paul Mason said in 2015, the last line of establishment defence is in the Labour Party.
Standing up to ruse and contrivance will get the job done. Helping Labour to reform against institutional obligation to the 0.1% is essential and very achievable.
All we have to do is don’t wobble.
*most around should be moat around
We need to wobble about Labour
I retain all my concerns about a very small minded adviser core around Corbyn that a) have no experience b) are wholly out of touch with most members in that they are unambiguously hard left in a way that has nothing to say on today’s needs, not least because it is a fundamentally materialist ideology that they follow and c) has little apparent economic or tax undertsanding
‘not least because it is a fundamentally materialist ideology that they follow ‘
Could you expand on that Richard? As a fellow Quaker, this also concerns me but you might be making a different point here.
An ideology that focuses on material production alone – and socialism in its native forms does – does not address sufficiently the conditions in which we find ourselves in the twenty first century
Brain- Many of the ‘antisemitism accusations have been against Jewish ( or part Jewish) members:
Moshe Machover, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Jon Landsman is from a jewish background.
Yes, aware, Jewish opposition to and comprehension of Israel government agenda is very strong and articulate. Gerald Kauffman had it sussed.
On Richard’s general ‘wobble’ point, I understand his caution, though feel progressives throwing their weight behind Corbyn offers huge potential to diluting worries about extent, coupled with belief that some of the ‘extent’ fear is manufactured.
I have real concern whilst Seamus Milne remains
Let’s name the problem
His position on most issues and that of most Labour voters are, well, polls apart (pun and misspelling intended)
Simon Cohen says:
January 15 2018 at 1:14 pm
“Brain- Many of the ‘antisemitism accusations have been……”
I had assumed that anti semitism accusations were some form of smoke screen…I admit I have not followed the issue because I assumed it was ‘noise’ set up as a distraction.
Is it anti Jewish? Or is it anti Zionist? MSM loves to obfuscate by not making any differentiation. In the same way ‘Muslim’ and (political) ‘Islam’ are conflated, often quite inappropriately.
Even if one, or several, could be found there is the problem of PSR’s “certain interests” – the lobyists, corporates, money – who have captured so much of government, the media and including many of the electorate.
I believe in Corbyn
I think he’s a decent guy
But I can still have reservations
And I can also say he is way out of touch with Labour members
Brexit shows that
As I keep saying, I fear the Brexit issue will divide Labour and hand the neo-liberals a gift. Brexit should have been explained in Lexit terms -this is a major failure and could lead to another Tory victory in 2022.
But it has not been
And the membership will not be persuaded now
Corbyn is failing them as a result: nothing else can be said on that because it is true
Not in agreement on that one.
Remain offered a version of itself that was not palatable = neoliberal.
Soft voters of either persuasion can only get negotiation through Brexit to process, but still with potential to stop Hard Brexit.
Remain current stance threatens Hard Brexit because as in the Ref it would not compromise. I did vote Remain, but despaired at campaign not brave enough to reject even TTIP.
And they still want TTIP and a corporate ie.0.1% pandering EU.
I firmly believe the current debate is about anti-Corbyn intent to help the elite.
Nothing more.
Sorry, but that’s paranoia and obsession
The world does not revolve around Corbyn and I am remain and not in hock to the 0.1%
Get real: there are alternatives
Sorry to be in support of cynical politics here but Corbyn’s deliberate avoidance of Brexit has worked well for Labour.
As it is the Tories are in complete possession of an issue that can only bring them increased grief and difficulty. And they should own it as they created it in the first place. If Corbyn takes a decisive stand on Brexit at this point then that (whatever it may be) will create a target for the beleaguered Tories and their media cronies to aim at – a deflection if you will. He has patiently deprived them of that. Labour’s stance is solid in strategic terms if no other.
Remain wants to own Labour, you can’t blame them in a way, he knows that, its part of the game (unfortunately it has become a game) he can’t fully let that happen (due to the slowly dwindling contingent of Labour Brexiters) nor can decisively resist it.
At this point all the strategic value lies in watching Brexit unravel the Tories. You can see why some advisers would suggest patiently waiting to see how they unravel and how the EU reacts before committing to any decisive position. Nothing is yet clear and time is still on Labour’s side.
I feel bad saying that in a way. Its has nothing to do ideals or principle but sometimes the politics of winning just doesn’t. On top of that there’s the FPTP issues. The last GE showed Labour picking up a huge increase of vote share but not as much by way of seats in the HoC. Their vote is too deeply concentrated in certain areas. The Brexit issues that emerge will have relevance at local levels. Labour will be thinking about that now in terms of picking up the necessary marginal seats.
That’s got to be difficult. I am not surprised that they are still keeping their distance on this one. As yet they have no reason to do otherwise.
“It has nothing to do ideals or principle but sometimes the politics of winning just doesn’t.”
Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” That’s what gave us Blair and the New Labour Project – Tory Lite. So, we conclude that there is no politician big enough, big enough to start treating the electorate as “grown ups” who can be convinced by sound argument of the things that need to change and how they should be changed – because that’s hard work.
I suggest watching ‘The Darkest Hour’
I would love to know when Churchill really did decide he had to tell the truth
“So we conclude” no such bloody thing. Blair and Co. didn’t become Tory-lite for the purpose of winning. At their core they really are Tory-lite. The Tories have dug themselves into a big fat hole with their handing of Brexit and their pretence at being ‘decisive’. I don’t blame Corbyn for not wanting to jump in with them.
Nick H says:
January 15 2018 at 12:18 pm
“I believe in Corbyn”
I ‘believe’ in Corbyn to the extent that I think him sincere, and I have been impressed with his handling of smart-arse interviewers – he does that by understanding what he is saying rather than having to remember, and work from, a script. He has come badly unstuck in Scotland by exposing deep ignorance of what he seems to regard as an English ‘region’ and would be well advised to steer clear, he’s well behind the curve. He needs his support from England and he won’t get that from compromising his position by appealing to fickle middle class floating voters.
I reckon he underestimates the support that is rooting for him to succeed in demolishing the Blairite conservative-lite travesty years. That’s a constituency that ranges from a middle class intellectual left to the dispossessed multitude that is no longer meaningfully a ‘working’ class. It’s at that bottom end of the social/economic scale that he needs to win votes – from the people who don’t vote because they, quite reasonably, feel no-one represents them.
I think he has wasted a great deal of time in not making Labour neoliberals feel much more uncomfortable and perhaps encouraging them to join a Party where they might feel more at home (or spend more time with their families.) They won’t go hungry.
The 0.01% number, while statistically true, is misleading in that it infers 99.99% of the population are dissatisfied with the status quo. Judging by recent election results across Western so-called ‘democracies’ it would seem that a significant % of voters are prepared (knowingly or otherwise) to sign the Faustian Pact in exchange for protection against their (real or imagined) fears. Feudalism rukes OK!
The Neo-libs have been successfully shoring up their power base for the past 50 years. As Warren Buffett (allegedly) said “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” So it’s going to take a lot more than a ‘big enough’ politician to lead the progressive troops to victory, however charismatic they may be.
Understandably, such is the degree of inequality & injustice, progressives are impatient for a rapid reversal of current trends. But to effect change on the scale required is a complex long-term project. Was it ever thus. Ofc it’s always uplifting to rally behind ‘leaders’ who articulate publicly one’s chosen agenda but that’s not how radical change is secured. Additionally, without some form of real democracy (PR for starters) nothing short of a physical revolution will unseat the entrenched plutocratic élite.
To his credit Bernie Sanders (along with Noam Chomsky, Richard D Wolff, et al.) has always emphasised the necessity for grass-roots building blocks. To achieve change on this scale social and economic agendas must be symbiotic hence the direct relevance of MMT (ref. your earlier blogs).
The deadly attraction of the Neo-liberal message is it’s ‘framed’ simplicity (household budget, taxes in exchange for services, business knows best (inspite of the GFC and Carillon-style collapses), etc. etc. As has been stated repeatedly here and elsewhere, until progressives can successfully articulate a ‘vision’ for a better quality of life that’s both deliverable and understandable, without being counter-intuitive, political leadership is ineffective no matter how inspired.
In simplistic terms – we need a properly functioning cart before the horse. Though one can’t function without the other. As usual I’m not sure I’ve explained my take on the topic as coherently as I want – but hopefully you’ll get my main drift.
Best wishes for family recuperation.
But the alternative can only be counter-intuitive
That’s the fact of it
Your criteria guarantees playing to the Right’s tune
I knew I hadn’t explained myself staisfactorily!
I agree with you 100% that, according to the way the public’s subconscious is currently programmed (and has been for centuries), the progressive answer is counter-intuitive. Hence the challenge is to explain the alternative in ways that do not resonate as counter-intuitive. The Copernicus analogy always comes to mind. Because of the entrenched power of the Church it took a century or so to effect this intuitive change. Most of us now accept what was once counter-intuitive (incredibly there are still some flat-earthers).
(As an aside but in a similar vein, it’s now increasingly understood that low-fat foods are not the healthy slimming aids for which they have been promoted and accepted over the past 50 or so years. It’s still counter-intuitive for most people to accept the health benefits of good quality fat. We now know the original research supporting the billion $ low-fat industry was simultaneously scientifically incorrect and corrupt propaganda – as with Neo-liberalism).
As I’ve said, the prevailing paradigm is the result of decades of overt and covert Neo-liberal brain-washing. And it’s worked handsomely – for the few. So it’s going to take a very long time to reverse public ‘intuition’. The good news is it can, and must be, done. Otherwise peaceful democratic progress is impossible. The MMT experience is an example of how. It’s taken several decades to reach the current level of limited understanding which is still mainly restricted to academia and a few lay ‘truth-seekers’. However, available evidence suggests the message is slowly but surely seeping into the mainstream, thanks to people like yourself.
It’s possibly the most important issue for this century.
Thanks for the clarification, on which we agree
And bring on the butter!
I like your comment John and agree with most of what you have said except, perhaps, for the bit about “The deadly attraction of the Neo-liberal message”
Consider the possibility that it doesn’t actually have a popular attraction. That’s why Thatcher insisted that there was “no aIternative”. If enough people thought that there was an alternative, she knew they would take it. Neo-liberalism never had a grass roots following (unless you consider technocrats and corporate lawyers to be down-to-earth folk). Most people never really liked the race-to-the-bottom corporate rort that passed itself off as “free trade” nor did they particularly like privatisations. They certainly don’t now.
They didn’t have a choice because neoliberalism was never a popular movement. It was a conscensus among elites – and critical to that concensus was the connivance of social democrat traitors (for want of a better word) “New” Labour in the UK, “New” Democrats in the US, people that ensured the only alternative was a Tory-lite version of the same thing.
Early neolibs knew that they had no popular attraction economically and contrived popularity by fighting deadly enemies (both real and imaginary) – the “Evil Empire”, Dirty Argies, Muslim terrorists, whatever. By the time that any of those tricks wore off the Social Democrat parties were fully co-opted and the choices were nothing but illusory.
If anything has changed now it is that popular pressure has accumulated and the consensus has cracked. Social Democrats like Bernie and Corbyn have broken ranks. Even some on the right have broken ranks but that’s yet another story.
Anyhow, just something to consider.
Carillion*
Freudian slip, it’s called ‘Carillon’ because it plays the same neo-liberal tune!
Well, that’s my bad joke for the day sorted out!
🙂
Boom! Boom!