Those at the tax justice conference organised by the Joffe Trust were asked by a speaker last night why more of us were not 'in politics'? One present is a former MP, so the suggestion that there were no professional politicians present was not quite true. But the challenge was very clearly to ask why we apparently sit on the sidelines whilst MPs do the politics.
My response is to go back a long time. When I was in my teens I was fortunate to be mentored by a chap called Jack Ray, who had a big influence on me. Jack was born in 1917. These days he would have gone to university and flown high. That was not possible for him as the son of a clerk, and the war also changed the direction of his life: he served throughout it. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence that was under-appreciated by the class and money laden society in which he grew up.
Jack appreciated my interest in politics as a teenager, although we did not share opinions on the issue. His advice was, however, I think sound.
He thought the best politicians wrote poetry. I think he had Yeats in mind. If they could not do that then they wrote novels. I recall discussing Dickens, and many others. Then they wrote philosophy. And whatever happened, they always wrote. The best MPs read what those 'political' thinkers wrote. The rest of our MPs got the version that permeated the press. But they were all influenced by the poets, novelists, thinkers and writers, and rarely was a thought ever their own.
So, he told me to read. And write. And then write again. That was the way to create political change, he said. And so I have.
I remain ardently non-party political. There is no reason to be otherwise. To be so would constrain my thinking process.
And I do not see my work as being primarily political because it is not. It is about making systems work to best effect for society. But of course that has political impact. It could not be effective and not be so.
That is true of all tax justice campaigners. Just as it is true for those on the right who oppose tax justice.
So do we do politics? Yes, of course we do. But we don't do party politics, and that's just fine. And if anything we say is useful the politicians will follow along in due course. That's always been the way.
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If the country were a company you would be the marketing department giving the right information to the sales force (the politicians) so they can make the sale…
🙂
It’s all politics. If you join a club, sporting or social there is politics.
‘Politics’ in common parlance nearly always is used to mean party politics and understandably the vast majority of people find it repellent because it is shot through with hypocrisy and pragmatism that is essential for the party animal to remain in the fold. Some do manage it, but never get into the front bench positions. For Jeremy Corbyn to have become party leader is an extraordinary quirk, which sadly he failed to capitalise on.
I think what we’ve largely lost is the notion of political philosophy. Stephen Fry interviewing Steven Pinker introduces him as a ‘public intellectual’. Tony Benn is the last British ‘Public intellectual’ I can think of from the realms of politics. I struggle to think of one in the field currently. We seem to have only meretricious activists who thump their particular tubs and parade on their hobby horses.
Some on the right of politics lauded (the recently departed) Roger Scruton in this role. I have to admit that though the name is familiar, he was never a blip on my radar screen, so I don’t think he quite makes the category.
You might get there yet, Richard. The level of opprobrium might need to rise a notch or two first, but the trolling of your web page indicates beyond peradventure that that you are on the radar. 🙂
Kind of you
But unlikely, I suspect
John Gray? David Harvey? There are lots! (And I wouldn’t personally include Pinker as a public intellectual, more a bandwagon jumper but I guess that’s personal bias). I’d also include David Graeber, for example.
Because you’re right, it’s all politics.
And great that Richard stays away from party politics and can influence across the field.