{"id":88995,"date":"2026-01-07T07:30:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T07:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=88995"},"modified":"2026-01-07T07:44:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T07:44:40","slug":"a-polotics-of-care-will-be-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/07\/a-polotics-of-care-will-be-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"A politics of care will be needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RobertJ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/06\/january-6-and-the-power-of-inaction\/comment-page-1\/#comment-1061724\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote this<\/a> in a comment on the blog last night (I have edited only very slightly, for presentation purposes):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The problem [we have] is much bigger than Trump. It is the entire power structure:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The White House,<\/li>\n<li>Pentagon,<\/li>\n<li>Congress,<\/li>\n<li>Both US parties,<\/li>\n<li>Big finance,<\/li>\n<li>The Christian right,<\/li>\n<li>Zionism,<\/li>\n<li>A dysfunctional relationship between Federal and State governments,<\/li>\n<li>A dysfunctional press, and<\/li>\n<li>A long history of tolerated economic and racial injustice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If Trump got \u201c25th Amendmented\u201d by men in white coats tomorrow, or met his Maker, not a lot would change \u2013 unless J D Vance has a different plan, not involving the Koch empire, Musk, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Apple, Big Oil, Bezos, Thiel and money, money, money. And that\u2019s just considering the US domestic scene without Russia or China or the health of the planet.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s going to be up to the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p>On July 4th 1776, the American colonists decided they would challenge a long-dominant world super-power, itself ruled by a deranged autocrat, King George III.<\/p>\n<p>They succeeded. It needs to happen again, a quarter of a millennium later, in the reverse direction.<\/p>\n<p>History is full of stories about the collapse of empires. Hittites, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Medes, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Ottomans, Crusaders, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Incas, Aztecs, Moghuls, Genghis Khan, Chinese dynasties, the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, and many others that I\u2019ve never learned about. One thing they all share \u2013 they all were once thought to be invincible \u2013 then they FELL.<\/p>\n<p>By 1945, there were plans in the UK for something better. People had been planning it and building it since before the war, perhaps to prevent revolution. My home was part of that, built in 1934 as part of a beautiful and much-appreciated \u201cgarden suburb\u201d, now one of the most deprived parts of Bristol.<\/p>\n<p>It is time for us to deliberately turn away from the current neoliberal US-led tyranny. Unfortunately, our political leaders lack the courage, the integrity and the imagination to take us forward. So we will have to do it ourselve,s one step at a time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The sentiments are ones I share.<\/p>\n<p>The rotten neoliberal empires will fall because they gave the causes of their own failure built into them. They are unsustainable: ultimately, the simultaneous craving for more, coupled with the hatred of others, has always led to downfall, and both are in play now. These edifices will crumble as a result.<\/p>\n<p>That is why considering what should replace them matters now. Imagining what is possible is essential: the need for an alternative will arise. Although we might not yet know when a politics of care will be needed, we can be sure it will be.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Comments\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When commenting, please take note of this blog\u2019s comment policy,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/about\/comments\/\">which is available here<\/a>. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor\u2019s sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RobertJ wrote this in a comment on the blog last night (I have edited only very slightly, for presentation purposes): The problem [we have] is<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/01\/07\/a-polotics-of-care-will-be-needed\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,204,35,16,203,224,106,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89001,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88995\/revisions\/89001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}