It's silly season. I reviewed the news this morning and nothing jumped out as requiring comment, in itself. At the same time the whole news agenda appeared to be part of a continuum that was deeply depressing.
Boris Johnson appears to have lied about new funding for the NHS. The £1.8 billion he's announced was already the property of NHS Trusts: they'd just not previously been allowed to spend it. The ‘new money' claim looks like a distortion of the truth.
The claim that Johnson is working to get a deal with the EU is clearly news to them. They think that claim is another distortion of the truth.
The possibility that the government is planning to simply ignore parliament in its dash for Brexit looks to be high. A crisis is being manufactured where none is needed, and none should exist since parliament is sovereign.
The cost of UK government borrowing hit a record low as investors fled from shares in the light of Brexit risk. For once the markets have this right: they know that the country is nowhere near ready for a No Deal departure from the EU.
They're also worried that Trump is creating trouble without reason with China.
And that he is promoting internal racial, social and political tension in the US for his own political gain.
It's a claim I could replicate many times over around the world. Start with Brazil and just keep moving onwards.
All round what is clear is that we face a common enemy. That enemy to wellbeing, peace and good order is populist politicians manufacturing crises.
The economic downturn that is now a very real risk is not much about fundamentals. Most has been created by Trump.
Brexit fits the same bill. It is a wholly unnecessary crisis created solely to cause disruption.
The increased risk of racism in the US, the UK, the Netherlands and in so many other places is not because that tension has risen of its own accord: it has been politically manufactured.
And dogmatism is creating real risks of national and international violence, again by choice, where negotiation might be so much more successful.
This is not by chance. This is all by conscious decision. There are those who want discord. That is because they wish to exploit it for their own gain.
Naomi Klein spotted the trend and called it disaster capitalism, but it is so much more than that now. Many of those promoting the current wave of what they call ‘creative destruction' are not capitalists as such. Most of them would not know one end of a business from another. They are instead best called revolutionaries. And the revolution is against democracy itself.
Johnson makes that clear, daily at present. He has no time at all for Parliament, or accountability.
Trump holds Congress and many of those in it in contempt. How else can so many of his comments be interpreted?
The populist revolution wants to sweep away checks and balances. In their place it wants control by a few, for a few, whatever the cost.
This is the revolution we are seeing. It is real. It is phenomenally dangerous. It requires concerted action to challenge it. And we're not seeing any awareness of that amongst politicians stuck in their old ways.
And that may be the biggest reason to worry.
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Right-wing Revolutionaries? I acknowledge the Right is thriving on disorder, but I see disaster capitalism, surveillance capitalism, Brexit, Johnson and Trump as patterns suggesting the Right is now embracing outright anarchism. What these different players have in common is a desire to demolish the existing order, embossed with new media communications savvy to give them the suave look of ‘knowing’; without possessing any plan at all, or any interest in having one. I suspect this is part strategy (albeit the hubris of the genuinely incompetent), and part profound, unsalvageable ignorance (even more dangerous because there is no mind involved – no Carl Schmitt or Martin Heidegger to worry the rest of us about the thought behind the actions; there is none).
I would agree: the revolution they are taking part in promotes anarchy
It’s not knocking down the social order to build up something better based on vision and principles, it’s destruction for destruction’s sake. Just look at Brexit.
I think there is a sake: but it’s purely personal gain
I’m not seeing ‘populism’ as the problem. I’m seeing elitism as the problem.
What we curiously call populism (an almost meaningless term these days) is simply a reaction to the neoliberal domination of the global economy (heaps of pretend money). So on that logic (if it has any validity) populism is a symptom not the disease.
I also suspect that what we call ‘disaster capitalism’ is merely ‘financialisation’; therefore “The economic downturn that is now a very real risk is not much about fundamentals. ” …… is probably entirely down to ‘fundamentals’. A fundamental failure of capitalism to provide for other than a small minority and especially so when it has been captured by those interested only in making profit (narrowly defined as money) with no consideration of what a society’s real needs are.
It’s why I’ve been off-line for so long. My (former) telecoms provider thinks I should pay them money even while they are providing me with no service. They can eff-off. I’m not having it ……any more than I’m prepared to accept a 30% hike in my subscription to their shareholders benevolent society.
Eventually ‘Can’t pay. Won’t pay.’ will bring the current fantasy world of finance to it’s knees again. It is only a matter of time.
I don’t see anything in current events that indicates the will of Parliament is being ignored.
MPs have voted on the UK no longer being a member and extending that status until the end of October.
The public on aggregate would like to be half in and half out of EU membership, but MPs have rejected all the off the shelf versions of that.
I suggest you stop being so stupid when commenting here
To Donald,
Perhaps you’d like to invite people to look at the data in the annual death statistics just published for England and Wales and make a stupid comment on them – perhaps a comment on the fact that 23000 more women than men have their deaths registered here in the last 3 years.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregistrationsummarytables/2018
Richard, you and John S Warren are clearly working to a different definition of anarchism to myself, Carne Ross, Murray Bookchin and others.
I think the word is chaos!
I`ve spent what feels like years trying to explain the difference between anarchy and anarchism. Like capitalism, communism, socialism (you name it) once meaningful words are routinely usurped by self-interested parties to add to the general confusion – which is then exploited by carpetbaggers, `populists` and the whole shoddy bunch of crooks that we know so well.
An alernative definition involves self-government. It may be we’re already seeing an expression of that via the spontaneous convergence movement. There was an article on examples of this in the FT aout a week ago but I regret i never kept it as it was paywalled, however, the Schumacher Centre have written this on the philosophy which some might find useful
https://centerforneweconomics.org/newsletters/spontaneous-convergence/
Sounds a little like something dreamt up by Hayek!
Mr Cragg,
You make a fair point; up to a point. I may not have qualified this acknowedgement if you had referred to Pyotr Kropotkin; you didn’t. Bookchin? Defining anarchism? Anarchism comes in many guises, and I doubt if you have covered the ground adequately. If I understand ‘post-scarcity anarchism’ (and I may not), Bookchin had the notable foresight to see the significance of information technology. At least, this is what is interesting to me. I am not claiming to possess any expertise in anarchism, but in making the link to ‘anarchism’ (not merely anarchy) I am giving the idea some ideological leverage; fixing on the accomplished way the contemporary right-wing has exploited social media and the internet with explosively powerful political effect. To what end is this effect? I would tie an exploitative desire to use what Zuboff terms ‘surveillance capitalism’ with elements drawn from the ideology of individualist libertarianism, with its exaggereated emphasis on the freedom of the individual from all state control or regulation (itself potentially dangerously close to anarchism): to posit a proposition that I am roughly defining as Rightist Anarchism.
I concede that while the Right knows how to exploit modern media (they know where to go, and have the resources to buy the expertise), I am not sure they have the intellectual resources to think it through; so perhaps it is anarchy and not anarchism, or perhaps unconscious anarchism: but, hey, this is anarchism: who really knows?
The flaw in your response seems to me an over-pedantic obsession with definition and classification, over understanding, or responding to the threat. “Oh, good, technically that isn’t anarchism, it is all a muddle with terms; problem solved” – doesn’t begin to cut the mustard.
But hey, I wrote my original comment off-the-cuff; what do I know?
Mark Cragg says:
“Richard, you and John S Warren are clearly working to a different definition of anarchism to myself,….”
I’ve met a couple of people who claimed to take the political system of ‘Anarchy’ seriously.
My conclusion at the time was that it was the ideal political system for a nation or society structured rather like a hermitage with a population of one. (And absolutely no immigration 🙂 )
How nice to see that the Lib-Dems have decided to support the Conservatives in Scotland at the next GE…as they did at the last GE…as did Labour.
I don’t quite get your logic….but…..I presume you have one
Seems to me that what unites most of them is that they don’t have any vision or values, and then as you said a bit above it means everything is about power – acquiring power and maintaining it. And they are willing to lie and manipulate to further that.
It also seems to me that one problem is the demise of the centre right in the UK, US and other countries as a credible political force with something like a coherent ideology and vision. If if I might have disagreed with their vision and values, at least they had values which they would need to consciously or subconsciously corrupt.
I’m not that optimistic that the centre right will regain any integrity any time soon. Certainly in the US it has lost it, but perhaps in the UK it might return post Brexit. But one thing that the left is doing wrong I believe is thinking that they need to mirror the right. Instead it should be occupying the centre ground rather than seeking to move further to the left.
Adam C says:
“Instead it [Labour] should be occupying the centre ground rather than seeking to move further to the left.”
The problem with that is deciding where you think the ‘centre’ lies. I see considerable disagreement and my own feeling is that the impressive support for Corbyn at the time of his election to the Party Leadership (twice) indicates that there was a lot of ‘grassroots’ support for the ‘centre’ to be shifted well to the left. The PLP doesn’t show much enthusiasm ………
;./I agree with Andy Crow.
We are so deep in right wing territory now that any move to the centre would be rather like that scene in the Blackadder Goes Forth when General Melchett is confronted with a small piece of turf representing how much territory his army has just taken after years of sacrifice on the front line!! In other words it would not mean a thing to find some sort of centre where we are now. It does not exist.
The art to this is to realise that MMT, GND, PQE are actually new ideas devoid of any ideology other than common sense, rooted in the reality of how money actually works to the point that any political party could use them (look at Johnson’s cod attempts at ‘new money’).
As for the Centre – it is an illusion, a place that tries to co-opt both Left and Right and in doing so actually snuffs the Left out and over empowers the Right. I contend that it does not work after having read Chantal Mouffe. Politics works when different ideas pull against each other from opposing sides whilst at the same time accommodating/realising what is reasonable as an outcome.
That idea of politics was kicked into the long grass with Thatcher and Reagan where it still resides. The only hope for the Left says Mouffe is that it revitalises democracy – we know that the Right are actually undermining democracy with funny money and underhand tactics on the web.
My worry there is that Seamus Milne is building a citadel in Corbyn’s Labour that itself is anti-democratic.
Labour has not contested the the lack of democracy in the BREXIT fiasco nor the last GE. It is all too silent on these issues. And also its lukewarm response to MMT, PQE and GND is bloody frustrating but as we know, it is not just the Tory party that has been infected by Thatcher. The old crone still lives on I’m afraid.
But until Labour starts to highlight the lack of democracy in BREXIT, things will go on as they are. BREXIT is illegitimate. It’s about time Parliament and even the Labour Party said so. That is what is missing.
Thanks for writing this, Richard. I agree with everything you are saying.
Wrt to the discussion on populism in the comments, I don’t think that populism as such is the problem. There can be good and bad populism. Both Roosevelt and Hitler were populists. The problem is that we mostly have bad populism at the moment.
Much to agree with in your post Richard.
As a working class lad, all I see is good old fashioned British divide and conquer tactics at play by a Tory party who have known since 2008 that the game is up. So desperate are they to retain power since their first bad idea (Thatcherism) has not worked and now their second bad idea (austerity) has not worked either, they are now intent on clinging on for as long as possible so that their third bad idea (BREXIT) gets its day in the sun.
The same for America really. Trump is a symptom too of a political ideology that has died but does not yet want to submit to logic.
Both the Republicans and the Tories are playing with fascistic fire and they will be burnt. Tories I speak to think Johnson is ghastly and hold their heads in shame. Methinks that the Toxies (Tories) may well not have it all their own way.
For Trump and Johnson I give hope in saying it is only a matter of time my dears, only a matter of time.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“… their first bad idea (Thatcherism) has not worked and now their second bad idea (austerity) has not worked either,…..”
Hmmmm….. that I suggest depends on what you believe the objective was. In their terms I think both were massively successful and large swathes of the voting populace have been prepared to support the exponential enrichment of the vanishingly small winning elite.
‘Little people’ (by which mean folk without much power or control who just get on with their lives….’ordinary’ folk) like to associate themselves with what they perceive as success and take vicarious pleasure in this. It’s the basis of tribalism and is manifest in the buying of, for example, season tickets for football teams at eye-watering prices so owners and players can make personal fortunes….and the supporters don’t seem to mind. Political parties, particularly those of the right, monarchies, military dictatorships etc… thrive on this sort of vicarious delight and the worship of their supporters and can’t bank the monetary rewards fast enough.
Humanity is a strange species…….
Andy
I know what you are getting at but you are giving credence or emphasis to a different output of the same thing.
Yes – people have been won over by Neo-liberalism which is in itself a success of sorts. But lets be clear – it has not worked economically at all.
And what gets in the way of some sort epiphany in the populace? The fact that we can blame the public, sector, British workers, the unemployed, immigrants, the disabled, the Jews, Muslims, the EU.
All distractions from where the real problem is.
At the time of the 2008 financial crisis, I thought of my grandparents who had been through the Great Depression and had described to me how it affected their life then, and how, within a few years, as discontent and humiliation was being used as fuel by the political and financial elites, it lead to a second WW.
Profiteering was on the rise again, big time. Huge amounts of money can be made by a few as wars get prepared. Authoritarian regimes ensured people could be controlled to put up and shut up. They even convinced them all was done in their best interests, and to this day, some believe it.
The financial world is still terribly badly regulated, 11 years later. Its profiteers don’t want it to be. It came through that Great Recession…or rather people did. So reinless they go. Why the hell not. And why not use a few rotten politicians to help out, since democracies are so flawed, so easy to hijack.
All this was so predictable, yet here we are. And hardly a reaction from those who should attempt to stop the crash. Leaders failing to lead.
Too weak, too tribal, too dogmatic, too limited.
Call it what you like if you need to name the enemy, whether it is anarchy or populism or fascism. It is chaos. It will serve a few very well to have us debate about political theories while they get away with murder.
They don’t do theory, they just do grab and run.
Thanks
Can anyone tell me where the sane philanthropists are?
The extreme right seem to have an unlimited amount of funding to lobby, propagandize and manipulate public opinion.
Whatever the ultimate agenda or label it is so incredible how one sideded the available funding/resources seems to be considering what is at stake.
Send them my way, please…..
Lots and lots of Arts-funding ones…strange that they don’t go for politics…
Money laundering is so much easier when you support the Alt-Right though, have you noticed?
@ Marie Thomas:
What is the connection between money laundering and the Alt-Right?
i have found many of the comments here provoke much thought and interest.
Could any of you knowlegable people please enlighten me on where the EU and the UK presently stand on the subject of tax avoidance and such things.
Not that I need such devices !
In view of some of the commentary flying about regarding the financial meanderings of some prominent politicians , I cannot believe they have anyone, other than their own interests, at heart.
regards
I suggest you start with the Tax Justice Network
The EU also has a whole website on these issues
“This is not by chance. This is all by conscious decision. There are those who want discord. That is because they wish to exploit it for their own gain.”
Totally agree with this point… The question I have is “Who are ‘they’ in the final sentence…?
The killer question
Ian Sanderson says:
“The question I have is “Who are ‘they’ in the final sentence…?”
Remember ‘All the President’s Men’ ? What ‘Deep Throat’ told Woodstein?
Follow the money.
It’s usually a good starting place, but there are many fellow travellers and scavengers in the same way that there were on medieval battlefields; they profit from the carnage but didn’t themselves orchestrate it. When it all goes pear-shaped the orchestrators have taken to horse and are miles away.
It is small compensation that sometimes the ‘nobs’ cop for it too. It’s a dangerous game. It always was. Especially when alliances are fluid and coats so easily turned.
It’s easy for a government to create anarchy. Propaganda, fake news, legislation and false flag operations are some of the techniques that have been used by governments in the past. The resulting anarchy can then be used to justify extreme authoritarianism. Extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing policies are difficult to impose upon a population without extreme authoritarianism. History demonstrates this.
By engineering a state of anarchy, the necessary authoritarian laws can be justified and imposed. Industrial unrest and then terrorism were used to justify many of the UK’s authoritarian laws but they have been significantly augmented and can now be used to suppress any and all civic opposition to government policies and actions.
In order to keep the population onside requires control of the mainstream media. In an extreme left-wing state the government controls the media. In an extreme right-wing state, the government and/or a small number of like-minded individuals control the media. The bulk of the mainstream media in the UK is already part of the necessary propaganda campaign. As Peter Oborne, the former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, pointed out after resigning, the mainstream media’s news agenda is significantly affected by advertisers i.e. big businesses and wealthy individuals i.e. the British Establishment. Most of our mainstream media is controlled by the Conservatives (who appoint the leaders of the BBC) or owned by a handful of wealthy non-doms.
Successive Westminster governments of every colour have been steadily legislating, for four decades, to suppress the ability of civic organisations and individuals to campaign against government policies.
Trade union legislation has been used to significantly weaken the rights of workers. Enacted by Thatcher, it was retained by New Labour and then further strengthened by the ConDem coalition.
Anti-lobbying legislation that was supposed to control big businesses, instead gags civic organisations like charities, churches, unions, campaign groups etc for twelve month before any election unless they register with the Electoral Commission as a campaign organisation. This is something that most civic organisations or individuals find it very difficult to do because of their constitutions and / or because of the costs and legal / administrative complexities.
Legislation now allows the government to legally spy on every citizen, including political opponents, without requiring a court order and without having any cause to suspect criminality. Surveillance powers such as these are things that Amnesty International and others have campaigned against around the world for decades. They are occurring here and now in the UK and people just accept it.
We have anti-terrorism legislation which classifies anyone who disagrees with government ideologies (a definition so broad that it includes any and all opposition to the government such as this Tax Research UK blog) as an extremist and susceptible to imprisonment for up to ten years and imprisonment without trial. We even have a Tory politician suggesting that laws should be changed so that anyone who opposes Brexit can be charged with treason. He obviously hasn’t realised that legislation already enables the government to imprison any and all opponents without trial and without amending the Treason Act.
That such authoritarian measures have been enacted in a supposed democracy is frankly incredible but propaganda has been successfully used to justify the measures and suppress opposition.
It’s been obvious to me since 2010 the direction that the UK has been following. The trajectory was begun by Thatcher and continued by New Labour. This emboldened Cameron, May and now Johnson to accelerate the journey. That the Labour Party under Blair and Brown, then the LibDems in coalition with the Conservatives, enabled much of this authoritarian legislation does not inspire confidence for the future.
If the current Tory cabinet gets its way, the UK looks likely, whether by accident or design, to become an extreme right-wing, ultra-authoritarian state. Martial law and existing legislation can be used to suppress any civic opposition and parliament can be increasingly sidelined using Henry VIII powers amongst other things. Once these measures are activated, they could be maintained for a very long time. In the meantime, the wealthiest individuals and businesses can continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us.
I’m not convinced that a change of government would make much difference. New Labour, which is effectively controlled by their wealthy donors, still controls the Labour Party despite grass roots support for Corbyn. Wealthy donors also effectively control the Conservatives, LibDems, the Brexit Party and UKIP. Donors to political parties mostly have the same objectives. Personal enrichment. They probably don’t care who is in government because they effectively control all the main UK political parties and the mainstream media. Democracy in the UK is a sham.
If Brexit supporters vote tactically for the Conservatives in any upcoming general election, the Conservatives will win a huge majority of seats in Parliament and will be able to legislate for whatever they choose. The UK has been an elective dictatorship for a very long time but have we ever had such extreme right-wing politicians at the helm with such an array of authoritarian laws at their disposal?
The question now is whether the people and parliament will belatedly realise what’s really happening (and I don’t mean Brexit) in time to do something about it. There’s so much legislation already in place, and the mainstream media is so complicit with the objectives of the “British Establishment” (for want of a better term to describe those who control the UK), that it may already be too late.
The UK needs a political revolution. None of the existing political parties are fit for purpose and neither is our electoral system, parliament or constitution (such as it is). We have a first-past-the-post electoral system that has perpetuated a political duopoly for generations so it looks incredibly unlikely that change is possible. No wonder support for Scottish independence is rising.
There is plenty to be concerned about re China.
Teflon Don says:
“There is plenty to be concerned about re China.”
Team Trump is making sure of that. And Brexit will ensure we are implicated, tied and committed up to the oxters.
Yes, indeed. Plenty to be concerned about.