I accused Rachael Reeves yesterday of finding it ‘really difficult to make any decisions when [she] lacks a moral compass, a political philosophy, and any rational explanation for why [she] seeks the power [she] so obviously craves.'
I am surprised that no one challenged me as a consequence to specify what my own success criteria might be for the role of Chancellor. The obvious answer overlaps with discussion, also on this site yesterday, on the thinking of John Rawls that has appealed to me for a very long time.
My suggestion is that the goal of a left-of-centre political economy is to create a state where anyone, whoever they might be, and whatever their origin, gender or orientation, or whatever their wealth or income, or age or education; should be able to live in a country and affirmatively answer the question ‘is this place fair to me?' If a reasonable person could always do so then political economic justice would have been delivered. If they could not then that would not be the case.
Saying that, I recognise that the word ‘reasonable' in that last sentence might be doing a lot of work, but if we presume that in practice a double reasonableness test is in use i.e. the test is that a reasonable person might reasonably believe that outcome to be true, or not, then I think that the test is fair. This is a now commonly used legal concept, close only approximating to the ‘person on the Clapham omnibus' test.
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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?
Extremist! #sarcasm
In what way is it ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’ to place an additional tax burden on private sector workers (on their pensions) whilst excluding public sector workers from the same charges?
Not least when public sector workers already benefit from a much bigger pension subsidy than private sector workers.
In what way is it fair to reasonable for you to have multiple identities here this morning?
Or do you always lie about who you are when accusing someone (me) of lying as you did in your Steve Carter persona?
Don’t know if there’s a precise point here, but the philosophy of the writer is clear.
I work in the private sector earning c. 5x what my sister earns, who works in the public sector. This despite her being much smarter and working much harder than me.
Appreciate that leads to a dubious generalisation, but in these circumstances (and I’m confident they’re common) I’d feel like a complete knob-end complaining about my sister’s modest benefits.
Evidently not everyone feels the same as me.
What reasonable person could disagree? I’m afraid that the ‘reasonably’ rich would start by finding their usual excuses that they were being ‘unfairly’ targeted …. because the tax bands didn’t recognise this or that special factor, while the immensely wealthy would complain that their freedom was being unreasonably restricted by inhibiting their capacity to ‘create wealth’ that ‘contributes’ to the economy. In short, the reasons of the advantaged seldom – or at any rate too seldom – accept the reasons of the disadvantaged.
That chap ‘on the Clapham omnibus’ is, like his means of transport, now long gone from the ‘reasonable’ centre of this polity and it will take more specifically egalitarian language and reasoning to see him revived. There is, I’m afraid, no polite way of calling for an end to our current state of economic decay and rampant greed. ‘Reasonable’ will no longer cut it.
If any pone can be asked to answer the question then reasonableness most definitely cuts it.
I think you have missed the whole point of what I wrote.
I’m really very sorry to say, Richard, that I haven’t missed your entirely (between the two of us anyway) ‘reasonable’ set of contentions in your post. The problem always is having agreed standards of ‘reasonableness’ by which your touchstone can be calibrated. My sense of an overall problem with your proposal – with which you and I might have no problem – was immediately illustrated, alas, by the contribution of ‘Steven Benjamin’. Unless such a touchstone can command overhwelming and widespread support (and, again alas – that currently means in the vitual ‘world’ of the MSM) your proposed aim will be buried under the competing roar of advantaged ‘reasonable’ voices. Unless you can exploit using a ‘modest’ Swiftian satyrrical narrative, your ‘reasonable’ proposal will be quickly perverted by all the forces which we both deplore.
As some of your feisty posts have declared, the gross nature of the neo-liberal and potentially fascistic ‘consensus’, and those interests that promote it, have to be called out for what they really are. By the same token it is no longer possible to couch the alternative in such mild terms as what is reasonable. The struggle is now more fundamental and it seems to me that only the language of an economic polity which enshrines all people’s rights to definite levels of economic well-being will do – and that will not be easy to frame either!
No, that is impossible
Absolutes cannot be specified and anyway tend to minimums and that will never do
I disagree with you
You are saying we are beyond agreeing what is fair. If so there is nothing left of value and I do but think that true
I believe reasonableness can win
Well yes, I agree, a Chancellor should aim to create a fair society. But the devil is in the detail.
It’s not just about current members of society, its also about fairness to future members of that society, something that is conspicuously absent at the moment. You could, perhaps, create a society that is fair to current members of society but, by failing to account for the future (e.g. ignoring climate issues), produce a society manifestly unfair to future generations.
I think that, within the fairness constraint, a Chancellor should also strive to improve the wellbeing of all current and future members of society. They might create a fair society, but if they fail to improve wellbeing, you might have a fair but impoverished society.
These are challenging criteria for success. Both the current Chancellor and the likely future Chancellor fail in both respects. But it would be possible to do much better.
I will address that issue
Some 15 years of so ago I helped organise a conference for Psychotherapists and Counsellors in Taunton, where the main speaker was one Martin Seager who had been asked to form a group of leaders in the therapy and psychology field for guidance in the psychological underpinning of public policy. In other words, joined up thinking for things like housing, health care -esp. mental health- education and welfare. We still Sure Start then. The minister moved on before it could be enacted and next minister was not interested.
The main idea was the Attachment Theory of John Bowlby would be concept to inform the work. I still have his paper somewhere and still think it was an excellent idea. Making sure people have adequate means and more equal access to health, special needs care and education may not, in some cases, be enough. We need to think about the impact on people’s emotional wellbeing. Without it some polices will only limited success. It needs to borne in mind.
I agree
That idea is in the Courageous State
You realise that you are advocating the most incredibly liberal immigration policy since the 19th century.
Would all the new people who would come to the UK have their visas stamped “Work Permitted – NRTPF” in this open border situation.
Did I mention migration?
Might you tell me how you reached that conclusion?
@ Michael,
“You realise that you are advocating the most incredibly liberal immigration policy since the 19th century…”
I don’t think there’s much of an alternative to relatively high levels of inward migration; at least not in the short-term.
We have the largest demographic the UK has known, the Boomers, either already beyond the state pension age, or soon will be. People are leaving the workforce faster than the nation’s younger people can replace them. Birthrates have been trending downwards for decades and are currently falling rapidly.
How do you propose we deal with the prospect of a rapidly aging population, which in itself will put pressure on the available workforce, in order to service their increasing care needs? How do you imagine an ever shrinking workforce will cope with the demands of a disproportionately large, older and predominantly economically inactive demographic?
Even if radical measures were introduced to encourage people to start families, it wouldn’t have an impact on the workforce for at least two decades; in the meantime, how do we fill jobs and service the needs (and state pensions) of the Boomer demographic?
I don’t think that expecting the nation’s younger people to shoulder all the burden is in any way fair; even if it were feasible, which I doubt.
This issue has been known about for a very long time and instead of planning for it, or taking steps to mitigate it, the Tories have done just about everything imaginable to make it worse. Which of the following do you think have made it easier for younger people to think about starting a family:-
Inability to get on the housing ladder, for all but the most fortunate; insecure tenancies; real terms reductions in wages; increased real terms living costs; the bedroom tax; two child benefit cap? Add to that, the fact that 30%, or more, of the nation’s children are growing up in poverty. There are known links between child poverty and both poor educational attainment and poor health; the latter with possible lifelong consequences.
Welcome to short-termism as long-term policy. Squeezing the the most put upon in society, for short-term political gain, has practically guaranteed the need for immigration.
I’ve a feeling you’ll disagree.
I think your last comment was not aimed at me.
You raise a real and relevant issue.
A solution is investment in productivity. Despite much sturm und drang the reality is that the Tories and Labour prefer the simpler solution of mass immigration. At the risk of being called a racist (and BTW I’m a fan of cultural cross pollination), I note that philosophy is the in tune with the short term interests of big business.
The whole logic of productivity is wrong
It assumes we can still increase material inout in proportion to labour
If we are toi be sustainable we cannot
@ Richard,
“…I think your last comment was not aimed at me.”
It certainly wasn’t; it was aimed firmly at Michael, whom I suspect is easily triggered by immigration. Otherwise, why would he start harrumphing about it, unprompted?
The appeal to “fairness” is very, very powerful.
The problem is we all have differing ideas of “fairness”….. but isn’t the democratic process supposed to establish some consensus on this thorny subject? And the unpalatable (to me, at least) truth is that most voters have, over time, become less empathetic to others.
The problem is that Thatcher unleashed the idea that your neighbour’s plight was not something to be concerned about… and even if it was then the best thing you could do is accumulate as much as you can and hope some might “trickle down”. Furthermore, it persuaded the nation that TINA.
There is…. and this blog shows that.
But there is still a normal distribution and a golden mean
And, I think, an element of decency
Plus my concept is a double test, deliberately: I is intended that the outliers be dismissed because they have to be
This works for me.
https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/097/139/original/5_Demands_Leaflet.pdf
The Peace and Justice Project.
We just need a chancellor to recognise that the money is available if the will is there.
I remember many years ago seeing an interview with the CEO of Hertz, in which he was asked what career advice he would give. His answer, which has always stuck with me, was “every couple of years, ask yourself ‘Am I appreciated’, and if the answer is ‘no’, move on.”
I want to live in a country where every citizen can ask themselves that question about their whole life, not just their work, and find the answer ‘yes’.
That is the essence of my test
As Kim SJ suggests… and me musing.
Maslow’s hierarchy. Is the individual surviving – or thriving? What would /could a working definition of thriving be?
“When I wake up tomorrow, will I have the opportunity to (begin to) change my life?”
Tomorrow = hope and promise
Opportunity = agency not coercion
Change = choice freely available
You are all giving me things to think about.
But that is what I asked for.
Yes. In the Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow end up with these three freedoms (my paraphrase):
The freedom to walk away, knowing that you will be taken in elsewhere by other people who see you as one of them.
The freedom to disobey, knowing that you can ‘vote with your feet’ and walk away.
The freedom to create new and different forms of social reality.
The third can’t happen without the first two. Not without becoming tyranny, anyway.
Very good
When deciding on what you want to do with your life I have advised my younger siblings, and others starting out, to follow the path that I chose. Try to ascertain what you feel genuinely passionate about and how that can be adapted into a means of supporting the lifestyle you want to achieve; for me that did not include motherhood. If you divide a 24 hour day into thirds, you will spend one third resting, one third working and hopefully a third doing whatever you please with your spare time, which for some will be devoted to raising children. If you choose an occupation that you are truly passionate about then two thirds of your life is spent engaged in fulfilling endeavors. At the worrying time of my cancer diagnosis, it was my ex-husband who reminded me that I had enjoyed “a very full life”.
For some people making money remains a desperate and unrelenting necessity, for some accumulating wealth is an obsession and for others it becomes an amusing ‘sport’ that does not always guarantee happiness. I didn’t make a great deal of money when I worked delivering sailing yachts across oceans, but I loved my job traveling all over the world. I enjoyed a massive ‘wealth’ of amazing experiences in my life. You cannot allow any jealous criticism over your chosen path to dictate what you should do with your life; it certainly did not motivate my career change. I was leading an all female challenge to enter the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race when Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida, providing me with a unique opportunity to pitch-in as a Medical Volunteer. This gratifying experience totally changed my priorities; I realized that I wanted to do a job that really mattered as a responsible contribution to society. I moved ashore to work in ‘overwhelmed public medical facilities’.
Working in US Hospitals I did a job I felt equally passionate about as an ETM in the ER at Jackson Memorial, and later on as a Surgical Tech in the OR at John Hopkins. The point is that if you find the role that is perfect for you, one that you perform with the enthusiasm of genuine passion, you will become very good at your job, which in itself is fulfilling. Predicated by increasing physical limitations, I think retirement should evolve into a gradual change of roles; working fewer hours, but focusing on the mentorship of younger staff. Now that I am ostensibly retired, I am free to indulge another passion: innovation. Especially after a battle with cancer, I now realize that I am in the ‘Leave a Legacy’ stage of my life and I hope that my concepts and innovations will reach fruition to fulfil that desire.
Thanks
Have you read “Free and Equal” by Daniel Chandler, economist and philosopher at the LSE, in which he tries to apply the ideas of John Rawls to create a “manifesto” for a fair society?
He uses Rawls principles to “define a humane and egalitarian liberalism” as the basis for renewal and rejection of the current paradigm of neoliberalism.
No – in a word
I am not sure many in our society would be convinced by the John Rawls argument. Likewise, the same can be said of utilitarianism or Kantism. I am not really sure that a theory of justice is what politics requires right now.
Right now my thinking is along the lines of Isaiah Berlin, Bernard Williams and Charles Taylor.
Might you elaborate?
Chandler makes this fundamental point about Rawls theory of Justice: “ at the heart of his theory of justice is a strikingly simple and powerful idea: that society should be fair. If we want to know what this would look like, he argued, we should ask ourselves what kind of world we would choose to live in if we didn’t know who we would be within it – rich or poor, Christian or Muslim, gay or straight. Rawls proposed that we could use this thought experiment, which he called the ‘original position’, to identify a clear set of principles that could guide us in designing our major social and political institutions. If we chose our principles in this way, he argued, as if behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, they would be fair, in the same way that someone might cut a cake more fairly if they didn’t know which piece they would end up getting“.
Some of us know from a very early age that they have got a very large piece, while others soon learn that at best they will have to make do with crumbs from the rich man’s table – trickle down cakeism.
Justice as “fairness” seems to me a good way forward and is something which has been trashed in favour of selfishness by current politics wherever you look.
Agreed
If you’re posing the question of what constitutes reasonableness how come if I can get a contract of rights for services I buy in the marketplace I can’t get one for the privatised public services I’d also like? It would appear that I just have to put up with the following crap quite literally:-
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/11/thames-water-absent-industry-anti-pollution-sewage
It would seem to me that the application of “market fundamentalism” being offered by the Starmer’s and Sunak’s of this world in regard to the delivery of public services is simply enabling political corruption! Where therefore can the “reasonableness” be enshrined in British life to ensure that I get the same contract of rights for both private and public services which will help to stamp out political corruption.
So the ideas of the Peace and Justice project are not worth putting on this thread?
Sorry?
I am not sure what you mean
Jenw:
If you mean your comment from 10.43am, it’s up there and currently has 9 likes (one of them from me.)
Thanks, Therese. It wasn’t when I wrote that comment. There were only 14 comments on the thread. I haven’t been following because I have been reading a book my son gave me on Monday evening. Finished it now, the fastest I’ve read a book in years.
It’s called Cuckooland, about the links between tory donors and Russian and other plutocrats. I don’t know if anyone else has read it, but I recommend it.
The worrying thing is that the main crook in it is now saying he will donate to the lebour party. Just hope they do not accept.
Written by Tom Burgis, who now writes for the Guardian, and if I were him I would have bodyguards and be looking over my shoulder all the time.
I seem to have spent my life reading about general statements that are going to guide society. They never do. They always prove to be ambiguous or contradictory in application, or become completely unusable and disappear as suddenly as they appear; like snow off a dyke.
The only usable test of fairness is to look at those who are treated badly (to say ‘unfairly’ begs the question, and sends us round in circles). We can see who is doing badly; if we actually wish to look. Usually we don’t. It is hard work. Harder work to fix. So we argue about definitions instead. An abstraction from reality. It is a particularly drab, hopeless and endemic failure that is prevalent, notably in what seems to me the tedium of left politics. So much mis-spent time is expended on it; they think they are being serious and philosophical, I suppose. It is merely unsound thinking; an excuse for failing to have usable methods of delivery. I have never thought of myself as especially ‘left’, because of this inadequacy; this failure of rigour. I prefer to focus on outcomes. Ideology is never much concerned with outcomes; because survival is the solitary aim, by any means. Outcomes are traps for ideology. There is always a way out. For left ideology socialism never worked because it was never really tried. For the right free markets haven’t worked because freem markets have never been tried. Both are just plain tripe.
It is outcomes that matter, not the ideology. Solve the problem rather than save the idea. Who is doing badly? if you still can’t even work it out you are probably an ideologist, or just plain unsuited to political problem solving. Devise a solution for the specific problem, once you know what it is. Then fix it. Most politics, however never moves past the ideology. Even if it does, and thinks it has found those who are doing badly, politicians are bad at reasoning out the specific nature of the problem, and therefore rarely devise a method to fix it that actually works.
Allow me to illustrate a general problem in political problem solving. We use legislation. Our statute book is full of well-intentioned legislation to fix problems. Most do not work. One obvious reason for failure is obvious. We legislate (often with very bad drafting, and bad consequences, but let that pass; another problem for another day). The legislation, typically does not have attached to it the resources provided to achieve its purpose. Too often the legisaltion then fails from the lack of adequate provision of resources.
It seems to me legislation designed to fix a specific problem should go through a fourth Parliamentary stage, perhaps in high-powered committee, to attach to the legislation a schedule of the provisions made to deliver the outcomes required in the legislation. You think this is a fantasy, requiring a wild, improbable revolution? Not so.
It was carried out in 1833, and following with the Slavery Emancipation Acts (3 and 4 William IV c 73 and 5 and 6 William IV c 45). £20m was embedded in the Act as compensation (for the slaveowners of course ….); and a four year Commission set up to execute it. It was a colossal bureaucratic operation (800,000 Caribbean slaves and 45,000 slave owners, located all over the world) on a scale of legislative execution in complex detail that Britain had rarely ever attempted. Whatever its many faults; it delivered what it said on the legislative tin. Legislation and the resources to deliver it were, a priori, locked together to solve a specific, clearly identified problem – of people doing very, very badly.
They still did badly, but it fixed the problem Parliament wanted to solve.
QED.
What an incisive post, @ John S Warren – thank you.
Regarding ideology, that is why I always say that, once you know how money is created, you simply have to decide whether you want to be cruel to people or kind to people…
No ideology required.
And perceptions of fairness are a measure of the success of that….
Reasonableness is a wonderful thing. It is question – what is reasonable in this case, and more importantly, what can we all agree on is reasonable. Even more important, what can we agree on that is NOT reasonable. In that case policy can be crafted to avoid the unreasonable. For example I think we can all agree that it is not reasonable that anyone in work full time cannot afford the basics of life. Therefore, policy could be framed out to avoid that situation. You don’t have to get into what is a reasonable wage thereby avoiding long pseudo intellectual arguments about standards, entitlements and what suffering is.
Nothing about the test I proposed required that people agree. It was specifically suggested to avoid that need.
The need for policy that is likely to achieve the outcome I suggested to be required – which clearly does not exist at present – is clear, but the test is not collective. It is individual and needs to be or oppression might result.
“Reasonable” is doing a great deal of heavy lifting here (but managing “reasonably” well in doing so). I am reminded of Lord Reed’s coments on the concept of “the man on the Clapham omnibus” in Healthcare at Home Limited v. The Common Services Agency (2014),[8]:
“1. The Clapham omnibus has many passengers. The most venerable is the reasonable man, who was born during the reign of Victoria but remains in vigorous health. Amongst the other passengers are the right-thinking member of society, familiar from the law of defamation, the officious bystander, the reasonable parent, the reasonable landlord, and the fair-minded and informed observer, all of whom have had season tickets for many years.
2. The horse-drawn bus between Knightsbridge and Clapham, which Lord Bowen is thought to have had in mind, was real enough. But its most famous passenger, and the others I have mentioned, are legal fictions. They belong to an intellectual tradition of defining a legal standard by reference to a hypothetical person, which stretches back to the creation by Roman jurists of the figure of the bonus paterfamilias…
3. It follows from the nature of the reasonable man, as a means of describing a standard applied by the court, that it would be misconceived for a party to seek to lead evidence from actual passengers on the Clapham omnibus as to how they would have acted in a given situation or what they would have foreseen, to establish how the reasonable man would have acted or what he would have foreseen. Even if the party offered to prove that his witnesses were reasonable men, the evidence would be beside the point. The behaviour of the reasonable man is not established by the evidence of witnesses, but by the application of a legal standard by the court. The court may require to be informed by evidence of circumstances which bear on its application of the standard of the reasonable man in any particular case; but it is then for the court to determine the outcome, in those circumstances, of applying that impersonal standard.”
I think this elucidation is perhaps more in keeping with your own usage here, rather than in the original in McQuire v. Western Morning News (1903)
Thank you
And relevant, as you suggest
Richard Murphy says:
“And perceptions of fairness are a measure of the success of that…. ”
Agreed entirely.
But I’m struggling, is that innate – or actually another ideology?
Innate
Ask three year olds and they always know what is fair
For what it’s worth, I doubt it. Fairness is a delicate flower in a hostile world. Fairness can be, and usually is ‘managed’ by hard-faced interests. Think Outcomes. What do we do together, to change them. Outcomes are the closest to “truth” for people in a hard and unforgiving world you are likely ever to see. All the rest is just talk.
My apologies that my intervention here in the discussion between you was not, perhaps intended; but to me this is a matter of the dissipation of good intentions into predictable failure. I do not doubt the intention, I dispute the effect.
A good test of reasonableness is given in the principle of risk needing to be ‘As Low As Reasonably Practicable’ or ‘ALARP’ as determined below (from the Health and Safety Executive website)
‘The definition set out by the Court of Appeal (in its judgment in Edwards v. National Coal Board, [1949] 1 All ER 743) is:
“‘Reasonably practicable’ is a narrower term than ‘physically possible’ … a computation must be made by the owner in which the quantum of risk is placed on one scale and the sacrifice involved in the measures necessary for averting the risk (whether in money, time or trouble) is placed in the other, and that, if it be shown that there is a gross disproportion between them – the risk being insignificant in relation to the sacrifice – the defendants discharge the onus on them.” ‘
I think the philosophy behind this can be interpreted quite generally…
Hope this contributes helpfully…
I think Rawls, and also Graeber and Wengrow would agree with this approach….
Thanks
Rawls proposes that any policy should be tested by asking: How does this affect the least well off in society? “The Difference Principle”
Rawls Difference Principle is not subject to ideological drift or to parliament creating a law which deliberately rules the concept of “the least well off” as non-existent.
Parliament has, and may do so again with the Extremism legislation, try to bypass “Reasonableness” as with the virtual strict liability placed on pilots of small boats bringing “illegal migrants” across the channel. In the recent case a reasonable person might have said that the pilot had little choice because, among other reasons brought up in Court, the UK Govt has deliberately blocked off all legal and safe routes for asylum seekers to enter the UK (other than for very special cases). I, as a reasonable man, would have found the pilot not guilty because of the Government’s total unreasonableness. But, it seems to me the Govt legislation has made the test of “reasonableness” almost impossible to apply.
Indeed
Perhaps the best way is to look at some form of change and relate it to the question you pose? Real examples therefore, of creating hardship.
Here’s one I can offer in your quest.
So, at only the last budget we found that the multiple dwellings relief (MDR) applied to Stamp Duty & Land Tax (SDLT) had from the day after the budget been withdrawn just like that, with no heads up whatsoever to the social housing providers (or at least to my organisation) who like us purchase new properties in bulk to meet the ever -increasing need for affordable homes to rent.
This added a £58K SDLT bill to each of our small schemes going forward that we are purchasing after that budget.
Implications?
Well, it’s a cost increase…
That will eat into the housing revenue account…
That will not be topped up by government and is the sole responsibility of councils..
That is already trying to cope with increased need as mortgages fail….
And rising private rents…
Losing stock to right to buy……………..
Losing rent to rent arrears because of the cost of living crises ……………..
Which are both losing us rent income………..
Which will reduce our ability to create surpluses that can be reinvested…..
To buy houses in bulk that will be more expensive now because of no MDR….
Which will result in fewer or no houses being purchased to meet need…
Which eventually means there will be no publically affordable housing.
Need I go on?
Anything a governance does to make life harder for people/orgs to meet people’s needs is simply unfair. If governance is not there as a buttress to the forces of nature then it can only be an enabler of those forces of nature. But since when?
To not buttress the harsh rules of nature is anti-‘societal’ – since societies – groups of human beings or other organisms link together to survive en masse because being an individual leaves you too vulnerable and being ‘societal’ gives you more protection.
So, for governance NOT to intervene in markets and equalise the benefits of the environment (economy, geography) is simply ‘anti-historic’ as far as human beings are concerned. It is not how the human race actually developed.
The human race developed society as a natural answer to the survival of being uncomfortable and death itself. This is not ideology – it was – is – purely pragmatic. As is kindness. The social is pragmatic. It is a survival strategy – an excellent one.
Those ancient kings who prescribed debt jubilees or the ancient Chinese rulers who intervened in certain commodity prices did not do so because they were weak or ‘soft’. They realised that their survival depended on the willingness of others to work with them to get things done or to protect themselves. So, reciprocity ruled – by giving, a debt was created – an obligation to return kindness, commitment. A circle of positive reinforcement.
This was perfectly rational. It’s not ideology. It’s natural.
Where ideology comes in is with Neo-liberalism which atomises/disaggregates obligation down to the individual only (with the obligation to be concerned over one’s own welfare and nothing else) at the expense of society. And has also created a new morality to justify it.
This new morality placed money at the centre of human life, foregoing and even denying any other sentiment and money – a utility – was deified, even being turned into debt itself. Wealth/money is now the new signifier of success and survival and also human worth. ‘Taking’ is the new methodology – not sharing.
Whereas society worked in a way that took mostly everyone with it (top to bottom) because everyone could contribute to everyone else’s survival, those with enough money/wealth can behave in a way that suggests that they need no one else. And this apparently is the new human paradigm to be worshipped and attained by any means possible.
The neo-liberal way is purely about opting out of society. Now that in itself is a choice – fair enough.
But the problem is that in order for those beings to reach escape velocity they have to gorge themselves on other people’s wealth and support mechanisms provided by society. And we have created and supported those means – markets, the financial sector, privatisation, central bank reserve accounts, false notions about tax, government debt etc., to enable individuals to gorge themselves on society at our expense.
An additional cruelty/ignorance is also neo-liberalism’s blindness to the fact that human motivation is extremely diverse. Rather than maximising our own lives, many of us choose to define our lives in the service or presence of others who are not even part of our families or communities.
This tells me that there is something more going on than what can be measured by ‘reasonableness’; I contend that humans are social beings who have rationalised the inclusion of others – distant and near – in our lives.
The distortion – the ‘irrationality’ factor – is wealth/money. And since neo-liberalism was enabled by existing wealth and money (the funding – say – of the Mont Pelerin Society amongst others, to the funding of political parties today and dodgy online messaging) it must be said that which is ‘unnatural’ is in charge and doing rather well but only because it outspends other more compelling and real narratives by being allowed to hoard and use a simple utility.
And what about this ‘simple utility’ – money? We’ve explored how mind altering drugs affect human behavior along with alcohol and other substances.
But has anyone really truly looked at what extreme wealth does to people’s social, societal instincts? Think about Tolkien’s’ Dragon Sickness’. And how a perverted version of humanity are being allowed – yes ALLOWED – to rule over us.
So, however we describe it – reasonable or rational – we must stay in the game.
But what of the future? I think that it is going to have to get a lot worse before we are able to turn the tables.
And the only thing we can take from all this is that this is not because progressives are wrong. It is because of the unequal distribution of resources we have allowed to come about. And that is the truth of our times.
A short story if you will to end………………………
My teenage son went through an ‘army’ phase like most boys do. We bought him a book about the Tiger Tank of WWII during this time – a really good one. I was reading it the other day (he’s at Uni now). Having seen a real working Tiger I at Bovington and feeling the hairs go up on the back of my neck when it turned and drove towards us – it was quite something. “How would one deal with it in a real fight? How would you overcome your fear? How could you win?” I wondered. Formidable.
Anyhow, this book told you everything you needed to know about the much vaunted Tiger tank including its weaknesses. The tanks were looked after like a cavalry unit would look after its horses. And they needed it.
It was not that reliable – maintenance intensive.
It was tactically difficult to move around.
It used to break certain bridges it had to cross and end up falling into rivers/ gorges.
It sank in mud and was very hard to recover – its own weight working against it.
It was thirsty with low mileage to the gallon, putting huge strain on supply chains.
The Russians also identified weak spots in battle and told their soldiers how to disable if not knock out the Tiger. They learned.
In many ways Neo-liberalism is a bit like the Tiger tank. It dominates the battlefield of human ideas right now. But in doing so it carries its weaknesses with it. We must exploit those weaknesses.
Progressives need to keep attacking its weak spots, prying, experimenting, scratching away at the lustre of its lies and deceits, digging out the authorised criminality and cutting off the money supply chain in particular.
That’s it.
Thanks
One thing that strikes me is the division between reasonable and acceptable. Most people here in the north of Sweden think going over to wind power from nuclear is a reasonable strategy. But so many of them don’t want it in their area.
This is the crap emanating from the Guardian today despite all your work on tax options:-
“But a tax cut worth £46bn is implausible, and Starmer’s question about whether this meant pension cuts or NHS cuts (see 2.11pm) was an inherently more persuasive proposition. Starmer’s ability to cite the £46bn figure also blunted Sunak’s point about Labour’s supposed commitment to an unfunded £28bn green energy plan (which hasn’t functioned well as a message anyway since Starmer said it was not happening).”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/mar/13/tory-donation-frank-hester-pmqs-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live
Here’s GIMM’s submission to the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee inquiry entitled “How sustainable is our National Debt?”
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/128254/pdf/
Starmer and Reeves need to get down to studying it instead of prattling on about how the government’s credit card is maxed out like a couple of know-nothing kids!