I think people are frightened at the prospect of another crash, which is looking ever more likely.
Yesterday's video has had 156,000 views so far, and all it really does is summarise the Bank of England's position on this issue, in which they confirmed a crash is likely.
I also notice the continued viewing of one of my older videos, published in July:
This passed one million views yesterday, and seems to be watched at the rate of around 3,000 a day, more than five months after I published it. The original transcript is here.
Why is this happening? My suggestions are at least threefold.
Firstly, people hate uncertainty, and they recall the massive stress of 2008 and 2020, even if the majority of people in this country cannot now remember the successful actions taken to contain the stock market crash of 2000. They would really rather not live through such a crisis again, and the prospect that the government is going to create such an outcome through its own negligence is, to them, another reason for their alienation from the whole process of democracy.
Secondly, there is, without doubt, a morbid fascination with failure within the human psyche, and I think that part of this relates to that phenomenon. I cannot pretend otherwise. Watching things go wrong in real time is something that people do, and probably always will do.
Third, mixed with this fear and fascination, there is also a desire for something better. People realise that, to use the phrase created by Cory Doctorow, enshitification is not just happening, but it is happening by design, and deep down they want something better.
On Thursday evening, when speaking in Keele, I was asked why I remain optimistic that we can resolve the crisis we face, whether human, financial, or climate-related. It was, apparently, clear from my demeanour that I have such confidence, and that is true: I do.
All I can suggest is that I have a belief in this essential desire that people have to live in a better world, where they are not the stakes in someone else's poker game, but are respected for who they are, what they can do, how they can do it, where they can do it and when they can do it. They do, in other words, want their agency respected, because they are worth it. What that, then, means is that they are rejecting the system that denies them all these things, and we can see the very clear evidence of that all around us.
I am well aware that there is a toxic element to this. Stress can bring out both the very best and very worst in people, and Farage is exploiting that fact, but I very much doubt he can do so for long, because he is being rumbled.
So, against all the odds, I do think people will win this battle, and most especially, I think they will win the battle against the deliberate enshitification of the world precisely because at some point we will take the opportunity of a crisis to build something better.
We failed in 2008. We cannot afford to do so again. Surely, this time, we do not need to do what a senior civil servant told me in 2009, which, she said, was “We need to put neoliberal capitalism back on the wall because we haven't got anything else”. This time we have, but people are terrified that people like that senior civil servant, who now heads a major government agency, might do this all over again. This time, I hope we can make it clear that we cannot, and must not.
What I am frightened of is the possibility that we will fail at that task once more, at further cost to the human race that none of us can afford, but I live in hope, nonetheless. You might call me an optimist, but I do not care: I have to live with hope.
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While most of us hate uncertainty, it is something which neoliberals relish. It enables some businesses and governments to implement unpopular plans while everyone is looking the other way.
Recommended reading:
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
https://amzn.eu/d/fAmspcx
The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire (2024) by Matt Kennard
https://amzn.eu/d/6KsBdEl
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) (2024) by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
https://amzn.eu/d/hWvMzE6
Thank you.
The paradox is we cannot develop without taking risk and facing unccertainty. Entropy makes that clear. Simultaneously, we need to manage that for those least able to manage the consequences.
Only publish this if you want to. I said last week that my mother was at your Keele talk – she and dad having also been at your first one there which I think was about 2015 (ish). The state of the world and particularly the UK (economically and politically) is one my mother finds distressing. Largely because she fears what the future might hold for her two grandchildren who are in their early twenties so have much to potentially face up to.
I spoke to her about your Keele talk last week and she made two comments in particular that I would like to feed back to you. Firstly she said how much dad would have loved the talk – he certainly did your first one! Secondly she said she had found some potential glimmers of hope if more people could think the way you do and start to get some of your messages out more publicly.
I know you track your stats (as you should) but I don’t know how much other feedback you get outside comments here or your other channels. For my mum to have taken some hope from your talk must reflect how you provide that to people – for which I think you have the thanks of many – here and elsewhere.
As someone else regularly posts KUTGW please – the whole team – but take time for other important stuff like trains and birds.
Many thanks. Appreciated. We walked several miles along the Ouse this morning. And thanks to your Mum, too.
I think this time we need to put neoliberal capitalism against the wall.
After last night’s Trump Dump of bitcoin announcement, which more or less I believe says that bitcoin is to become tradeable against the dollar, and I would guess its next week inflation on the monetary market, confirms the end of the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency and some huge crash when it plays out and the billionaire/trillionaire bitcoiners sell up their holdings for dollars, I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’m not.
What announcement? I can’t find one.
There is no such thing.
A search limited to the last week reveals a plethora of headlines from 4 days ago along the lines of “Stock Price for Crypto Firm Founded By Trump’s Son Plummets” so – not surpisingly – Trump has kept his trap shut on the subject.
Agreed
I got a free FT yesterday with my Grauniad
well, I need something to light the fire with and line the cat litter tray
There was an article predicting that the FTSE 100 would rise
Que?
Why?
Based on this years harvest it may be possible to take a punt on Food prices but this seemed clearly bizarre
There is no reason why this should happen or go down or sideways
I noted one here. They have to flog the idea…..
Yes people are worried because we all know what will follow from the impending banking crisis.
The UK banks having lend badly will be bailed out, the bonuses will be not clawed back, if there is any criminal activity like last time only low expendable staff will be prosecuted, the UK government will sell the shares it takes over at a lose, badging it as a profit.
Nothing will change and we will get even more austerity.
Rachel must stop paying interest on capital reserves, stop the banking deregulation steps she proposes, stop forcing pension funds to invest in bank controlled investment funds.
I am optimistic when I look at the quality of the people on either side of this struggle for economic, social, civic, military and other types of long-awaited justice.
On the one side, we have very small people temporarily in posession of money and influence, but full of insecurities, and clearly with no strong inner vision, who are so obviously plagued by an inner darkness, a hollow emptiness within. I won’t name them, they don’t matter.
They think, like Belteshazzar, that they are running the world, then they realise how powerless they are as they are caught like rabbits in the headlights/headlines.
Then there are the big people. People with vision, with ideas, big hearts, with courage, determination, people enduring great suffering, people being oppressed, people sharing out of their own vulnerability, people facing horrible evil and darkness who face it with resilience and hope, people who let light shine through them to benefit and bless others, people who live in relationship and find significance in the happiness of others, people who are quietly, undramatically caring for friends relatives and neighbours. These people are giants, and they are invincible in their humble greatness, and they are found at all levels of our society, and especially amongst the materially weakest. People who slog away to make a difference.
History tells us that those small people pretending to be big people, who spread darkness, always self-destuct eventually and their empires collapse even if they die in their beds in time for a showy funeral. Of course they won’t win.
KUTGW!