A weekend spent trying to avoid some of the discussion going on around the election was worthwhile. At the end of it I had done some serious thinking about new ideas to write about over the summer, albeit summarised in little more than a series of mathematically logical statements at present.
The process involved, of sitting back, reflecting, and trying to search for some truth in the midst of the plethora of noise to which we are subjected both now, and on a regular basis, was useful.
In part, that was simply because trying to avoid that noise made so much sense. It is easy to understand why those who are unexcited by politics are so turned off so much that is said by our politicians when so much of it is, to be candid, worse than total nonsense.
I am bored politicians who will not tell the truth. Tory politicians are paying the price for this at present but there can be no doubt that one of the reasons for the decline in their party's popularity has been its total inability to communicate anything that makes coherent sense to anyone for sometime. Boris Johnson might have tried to turn lying into an artform, but the curious side effect has been that vast numbers of people have rumbled that his colleagues have followed his example, and they will all be paying the price for that.
Labour are, however, no better. Whilst they may not be outright lying during the course of their election campaign, a refusal to tell the truth about anything that they plan to do hardly provides a convincing alternative to the Conservative's failings. Both parties are providing a choice of a leap in the dark. That is hardly a ringing endorsement of democracy. They can be little wonder that, as a consequence, it is expected that the combined number of votes to be cast for both of these parties will be lower in this election than in any in recent recorded history.
Some claim that this is the consequence of an increase in alternative political thinking amongst the electorate. To some extent, I accept that claim. But, at least as likely is the explanation that people have had enough of the entire system as it currently stands, not least because it is designed to ensure that they can never get what they want or need. The real question is for how long people can be persuaded to believe in what they are told is democracy when our two leading parties deliberately rig that system to make sure that people cannot be represented by those who they would really choose if only the system allowed them to?
There is another dimension to this though. Whilst most people do not spend an enormous amount of time thinking about politics, the majority of us have an inability to appraise what might best be called bullshit, since this also exists way beyond the obvious political sphere. It is this ability that lets people all too readily understand how thin are the political promises being made by all the major political parties in this election, in which category I would also include both the SNP and the Liberal Democrat's.
It is very obvious that none of these parties have any clear understanding of what they are about now. They obsess about detail, but people want to hear the big stuff. People know that neoliberalism has failed and that it deeply patronises them, even if that is not the way in which most people would express their understanding. What people want to know is what the alternative might be.
The obvious failure of these parties to have any such alternative is precisely why they are permitting Farage, Reform and the far right of the Tories to have a platform in this election. If the mainstream have nothing of consequence to say, as seems to be the case, it creates a vacuum that can only provide the far-right with a continuing opportunity.
So, is it that the absolute absence of ideas, and even the refusal of the mainstream body politic to think at all, that creates the political problem that we have, which is all about a lot of noise and absolutely nothing of substance being said?
And is that because those seeking political office really do think that there is no need at all for any new political thinking now, since they presume that intellectually neoliberalism is now the philosophy we must maintain in perpetuity, and that the idea of the person as a consumer is now so dominant a narrative that no further explanation of society is required?
And could it, in fact, be that the politician as consumer of neoliberal thinking believes that thought is, in any case, beyond them because in their role as a consumer of ideas they have accepted that their own role is entirely passive, which is what, intellectually, they now appear to be? Could this explain the origin of the politics of blandness, from which we are suffering?
I do not know the answers to these questions. But there is one thing of which I am certain, and that is that I will be thinking about them, whilst the likes of Streeting, Starmer and Reeves will not be. As purveyors of the politics of blandness thinking is the last thing that they want to do, or might be capable of.
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An interesting (IMO) blog post by Bruce Schneier https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/06/rethinking-democracy-for-the-age-of-ai.html suggests that with the ubiquitous instant communication technologies we have now, it is perhaps time to look at alternative ways of running a democracy.
Back when our democracy was created, it made sense to vote for a single person covering a roughly equal portion of the population, to send to Parliament to represent their constituency. This was back when travel from the North to the South of Britain was usually quicker by boat than horseback, and communication was around written documents slowly spread across the country.
Now though, most people have a device in their pocket that gives them instant access to information and services. Can we re-invent democracy that makes use of this capability? For example, there is an idea called Liquid Democracy – essentially everyone can choose to nominate a proxy to vote on their behalf, or vote themselves, and they can change their mind at any time. If you give your vote to a proxy, then they count as 2 if they vote, or they could proxy on to another. In this way, everyone can choose the level of involvement in politics that they wish – if they find someone who has the same thoughts about a particular policy area, and decides to trust them, then use them as a proxy. If you change your mind, just reallocate or reserve your vote back to yourself.
Yes it is blue sky thinking – and lots of technical barriers to work through – not least, how a policy question might be proposed for a vote.
The point of the blog though is to try and get people thinking, and making the point that there is no longer an obvious geographical reason for how our representative democracy works.
Interesting…
And certainy constituencies make no sense now – most especially in large rural areas
The smart phone has taken over the world, but it has delivered us into the hands of Big Tech. It is true that the defining technology of an age (the digital revolution, turned personal in our age) will dictate to us the way in which we live; almost without anyone noticing that we are not running it; it is running us. The idea we can follow it in politics, and decouple it from place is a dangerous idea, if you believe you can manage the wind. You have expressed one of our great problems, but not – I think – a solution. Place is important, because people have to live somewhere. People are far more fixed than devices, or ideas. The instant digital device is nowhere; it is only where the person pulling the strings wants it to be; and that is rarely the end user of the device. The manipulation of public opinion by the power of digital technology has already been shown to work, with Brexit. How easily we seduce ourselves into believing, in a transient, short-termist digital world, even that was transient. The manipulation of opinion has only just begun.
We are schooled to look at the upside of every technical business innovation; rarely the downside. Often the downside is far, far bigger, and far far worse than the upside beckons, and when it dawns; it is close to being too late. I give you – climate, and how we arrived here, behind the eight-ball.
John,
I completely agree that big tech are driving us, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Thinking blue sky alternatives, why couldn’t the Liquid Democracy app on your phone be open-source and free. Linux is a great example – it runs a majority of the web I believe, and is free as in speech and beer. A law could mandate that all mobile phones have to be able to install and run the LD app. The only data it needs to share is your vote or allocation of proxy, and this could be done in a verified but anonymous fashion.
As to your other point about separating voting from location – again we can imagine a solution to that. So local areas have their own forum on the LD app, where you can make local votes and/or assign local proxies.
Scaling up to nationwide forums – for example, what sense really does it make for a town to have its own national defence policy?
Currently we vote for a single person to represent about 70,000 people, all with their own nuances and opinions. PR could at least allow several people to represent the constituency, but you are still stuck waiting 5 years before you can give your vote to someone else.
What I like about the idea of an LD app, is that it allows everyone to choose just how much they want to be involved in decision making, from local to national level.
There is a democratic deficit in our country – although not quite as bad as in the US, where roughly half vote Democratic and half Republican, so ensuring roughly half the people are permanently unhappy!
Google began life as a group of high-ideals, open access committed digital specialists. They are long gone (read Zuboff, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’, if you want the story). The writing was on the wall, with the Dot.com bust (1995). It is now Big Tech, Big Corporate, Big Money up to its eyeballs and beyond.
That is how it works.
Here, in Scotland, where sovereignty lies with the people, there are moves to create a platform whereby the people’s sovereignty can be exercised far more directly than is possible under the present system.
https://www.scotlanddecides.org/
https://wecollect.scot/
Good luck with getting Westminster, or anyone else, to accept that
Our politics is a pretence. The language remains of left and right; but the distinction no longer applies, because the electorate is no longer binary; the terms denote empty classes. We are also foolish enough to think in Britain our thinking is sharp and relevant, when it is lazy, and rooted in a past that doesn’t exist. We laugh at the US, and dismiss it as Trumpist, without looking past Trump (and not understanding that Trump opportunistically seized on Obama’s failures in the Treasury, that led to the Tea Party, and exploited it). In fact some thinkers on the Right seem to have moved on from hostility to Washington, and populism as the answer. For example, the anti-trust lawyer Andrew Ferguson, Republican FTC Commissioner (nominated, apparently by Biden), a chief counsel to Mitch McConnell appears to be pursuing a more sophisticated, modern version of ‘Right’ politics, that recognises that it is not only government that cannot be trusted, but also private business. He appears to recognise that there are three interest groups here; big government, big business – and human beings.
In Britain we all know very well that you just cannot trust the private sector not to rip you off, unless it is regulated; and in Britain, either the private sector regulates itself (unregulated); or it is regulated, but the regulator is either the creature of the industry it regulates, or the Government ensures it has insufficient resources to do its job properly (i.e., unregulated).
In Britain, however the ‘Left’ still thinks you can trust them in government. You can’t. Starmer’s credibility problem is illustrative, but I offer a much more basic and enduring example. The Post Office Scandal is a Government scandal; and the Government is busy hoping nobody will notice (not me guv). That is government’s of both left and right – for twenty years. And they didn’t just rip the postmasters’ off; they prosecuted them, ruined them, sent them to jail – and stole their money. The Post Office is a 100% government owned institution, and for twenty years the government and even Parliament did absolutely nothing to stop the Post Office running amok. QED.
So, what replaces these faield instutions?
It’s not capital, you say
Or govcerbment, you say
Both have been rotted by the idea of ‘self’ as primal
So, what is it?
We can only do the best we can. We have politics, and democratic politics only because it is the only solution we have to an insoluble problem; the exercise of sovereign power. The single answer is eternal vigilance – and that falls on an electorate, because you really can’t trust politicians; or political parties. Politicians have to be used as an operational medium, but never, ever trusted; and carefully monitored and regulated.
I think the media, too, has a lot to answer for in reducing the important issues of the day to personality contests and who can condemn such and such a comment most vociferously! Look at the furore over Farage’s comments about the Russian invasion: where is the analysis of the recent history of Ukrainian politics – where has it ever been? No what we have is a sort of six-way tag team fight between the media and the main party leaders over who is the toughest. It’s pathetic. And even worse because I am in no way a supporter or sympathiser of Farage.
Your regular readers look to you for rigorous but cool (usually) analysis of the state of the world and how it could be different. Please don’t stop!
I agree that the media has a lot to answer for.
Typically, almost universally, interviewers do not know what they ask about (particularly economics). So they ask gotcha questions and demand yes or no answers. For example, will you abolish/keep/raise/lower this particular tax.There is no consideration that a party may restructure tax, rendering the question moot. So parties dig themselves into holes. There is very little strategic thinking because this can’t be answered with a yes or no.
Like them or loathe them, both Farage and Boris did more strategic thinking, e.g. Boris with levelling up. Even folks who loathe him probably think leveling up is a good idea. But, if you have strategic, not tactical, plans, then it is hard to answer yes/no/gotcha/how much will it cost question s. Hence “leaders” stick with known ideas, not strategic plan e.g. Starmer.
It’s difficult for a strategic politician to find a voice. But strategic politician are what we need (not tactical technocrats).
Perhaps the trouble with Boris is that, while he may have used strategic thinking, he did nothing to implement the strategy. Levelling up is a classic example of that. Actually I am not convinced that Boris did much thinking at all.
I would go further. I believe the likes of Starmer, Reeves, Streeting and their like, ie, the present day Labour Party, are vicious, uncaring individuals, totally lacking in empathy, only interested in power for power’s sake. Whilst they should be devoting their energies to making the U.K a better place to live, especially for those less fortunate, they will continue to pursue the stupid austerity dogma, which we have been subject to for the last fourteen years.
“no need at all for any new political thinking now, since they presume that intellectually neoliberalism is now the philosophy we must maintain in perpetuity”
How does neo-libism fix sewage filled rivers & seas, reduce NHS waiting lists, deliver fairly priced energy, deliver warm confortable homes, useable public transport…………
In the neo-lib utopia, these are impossible to deliver – because the utopia predicates less gov more private. And the delivery of the above societal goods requires more gov, not less.
The 44 year experiment continues, continues to fail and will keep doing so for as long as neo-lib is the mentality within the UK’s body politsick.
It’s always a good idea to follow the money. Who benefits from and therefore promotes the current state of affairs? The right wing mantra that we are being manipulated by elites is wrong only in its identification of who those elites are. And until we understand the power structures that are deelpy embedded in our societies, in the UK and the US (and the EU) we are fighting the wrong battles. The old ideas of class based conflict may have become unfashionable, but the the classes still exist. And they are better disguised than in Marx’s time. Here on this blog we probably know who is pulling the strings. But the general public is kept in the dark.
We are in danger of missing the point if we think our problems are down to greedy uncaring individuals, or a biased media, or the internet.
Slightly off topic but I have just come across this, entitled “I Have Been Disenfranchised”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yXmYAgLySqc
So mcuh for democracy…
“If you are not careful, the main stream media and big party politicians will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
(From Malcolm X)
nch.org/2024/06/21/firewalls-of-ignorance-and-disappearance-corporate-media-in-the-age-of-fascist-politics/
Aha ! Fukuyama’s “End of History” illiberal consensus rises phoenix like…
This blandness – which is a perfect description – is the classic merging of broadly corresponding centre left and right parties, identified by Gramsci as ‘hegemony’, with the institutional framework that encourages it being critiqued by Foucault.
This was described by Galbraith as ‘conditioned power’ and almost mourned, by Chantal Mouffe as a loss of ‘agonism’ or argument between broadly incompatible standpoints.
It was barely 50 years ago that the then post war Keynesian consensus dissolved with the rise of Thatcherite / Reaganism, but all we have seen emerge since then is a comparable neoliberal consensus, much further to the right, as the Chicago and Austrian Schools both represents more extreme forms of neoliberalism, and have been increasingly adopted by the right.
Mouffe’s warning is worth repeating, as she felt that coalescence in the centre would only facilitate emergence of populism, and worse. She was spot on imo.
“The growing success of populist parties provides an excellent illustration of ….. the absence of an agonistic debate among democratic parties, a confrontation between different politicaI projects, (so that) voters did (do) not have the possibility of identifying with a differentiated range of democratic political identities.
This created a void that was likely to be occupied by other forms of identifications which could become problematic for the working of the democratic system.”
” the strong appeal of ‘anti-establishment’ parties is due to the incapacity of established democratic parties to put forward significant alternatives and….can only be grasped within the context of the consensual mode of politics prevalent today.”
The interesting notion that Farage is the bastard offspring of Blair and Cameron, doesn’t really bear thinking about, but socalled liberal corporatism has spawned worse.
The seesawing of power between leftcentre and rightcentre has been dominated by rightcentre for 45 years in the UK, and there is no doubt that the 70% of MSM owned by the right, has strongly limited any discussions of what the 21stC left might offer as a coherent alternative to neoliberalism, with MMT being part of that debate..
The Greens will shortly experience their full wrath, as they have in Scotland, having got as far as minor roles in government.
Much to agree with
There are several major issues that neither of the main bland parties will talk about in any serious way, if at all. For example, Brexit, the state of the Union and the Constitution, the bland nature of parliamentary “democracy” and the concept of sovereignty, (FPTP every few years at the discretion of the PM is nothing like democracy) MP’s conduct, poverty, inequality…and more.
The sociopathy of neoliberal government has been going on for 50+ years, so it isn’t going to be fixed any time soon even if we had a government determined to make a difference.
The only thing that could set change in motion, PR (STV preferably), is the one thing neither of the bland parties will countenance since it would be against their interests.
However, there are several groups, such as the ERS, campaigning for such a change, and I think that has to be our No1 short term goal – along with promoting smaller more democratic parties committed to radical parliamentary change. Other goals may have to wait for the medium to long term.
A story for your blog on Jersey –
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/focus-balcony-jumping-money-launderers-jersey-connection/
So Jersey…..
It’s interesting to hear the ‘Beige’ epithet gaining wider currency.
Its originator (as far as I know) is Charlie Stross: an author with a rather unusual sense of humour.
Nevertheless, the essay in which he introduces the Beige political ‘movement’ is an interesting observation:
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/02/political-failure-modes-and-th.html
“…People know that neoliberalism has failed” ??
No they don’t !
I’d guess that at least 90% of the electorate haven’t even heard of neoliberalism, let alone know what it means.
But they can spot failure all around them