Keir Starmer’s determination to use his refusal to alleviate child poverty as the issue with which to demonstrate his macho Thatcherite credentials, has provided one of those moments when blurred perceptions crystallise.
A Labour government in the UK under Starmer will bring no significant changes in economic or foreign policy and will make no difference whatsoever to the lives of working class people.
If dividends were taxed at the same rate as wages, that alone would bring in very many times the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap. But that would hurt the owners of capital and be redistributive, so it is firmly off Starmer’s agenda.
Starmer, Reeves and Streeting have no intention of attempting to bridge society’s stunning and ever-growing wealth gap.
Rather they seek to emphasise “wealth creation” and return to trickledown theory. Alongside “wealth creation” they talk of “reform”, by which they mean more deregulation and more private, for profit provision of public services.
The Labour Party has not only abandoned all thought of securing a capital interest for the worker in the enterprise where they work. The Labour Party has also abandoned the ideas both of state intervention in the unequal dynamic between worker and employer, and of facilitating and supporting self-organisation of Labour.
Tory anti-union legislation is to remain, and who can forget Starmer banning Labour MPs from official union picket lines?
The Labour Party in power is also not going to repeal the hostile environment for immigrants legislation, or the Tory attacks on civil liberties and the right to protest.
What precisely therefore is the purpose of the Labour Party? An extension to which question is, what then is the purpose of the next UK general election?
To register disgust at the rule of the Tories by voting in an alternative set of Tories?
There has been an undercurrent of concern about the sprint to the right under Starmer, but somehow the two-child benefit cap has crystallised it in the public mind. The fact that there is no real choice on offer to the electorate has even broken into the mainstream media narrative (the embedded video, not the tweet, though I agree with that too).
The Labour Right are the most disgusting, duplicitous cvnts in British politics pic.twitter.com/bfJSLTphgg
— ian westell ?️??️⚧️? (@ianwestell) July 17, 2023
It is not just a Westminster thing. Famously, the SNP have won eight successive electoral mandates on Scottish Independence while their elected representatives have done absolutely zero about it. They have not even really pretended they intend to do anything about it.
Western democracy appears to have failed in the sense that elections can achieve nothing that makes any difference to the lives of ordinary people. They only make a difference to lives of members of the political class, who jump on or off the gravy train according to the result.
This is not an accident. Those who have threatened the neoliberal order have been destroyed by lies like Corbyn – lies which the billionaire- and state-controlled media were delighted to amplify – or cheated out of election like Bernie Sanders.
In the United States, the current lawfare attempts to remove Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate are an extraordinary denial of democracy. Trump is accused of paying off sexual partners and of retaining classified documents.
Bill Clinton paid off sexual partners in a much more egregious fashion and Hillary’s data-handling arrangements were much worse, with zero legal consequences for either, but that does not seem in the least to concern the “liberal” Establishment.
The role of the US security services in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the last Presidential election should have been a giant wake-up call. But liberals were more interested in stopping Trump than in preventing the security state from manipulating the result of elections.
There is an “end justifies the means” approach by supposedly liberal thinkers that supports any action against Trump, as it supports the banking ostracism of Farage, because their views are not entirely those of the neoliberal Establishment.
Neither Trump nor Farage are close to my own views, though I differ from them in different ways from, but no more than I differ from, Starmer and Biden. But what is happening to both of them should be put together with what happened to Corbyn and with the gutting of Labour by Starmer, and even (God help us) with what happened to Truss, as part of the same process of ensuring the political agenda does not offer any real choice.
It has become banal to note that concentration of media ownership between state and billionaires, and social media gatekeeping by billionaires’ corporations in cahoots with state security services, has contributed to the limitation of accepted “respectable” viewpoints.
I am less and less confident I see any solution.
In looking to start this chain of thought, I was thinking of saying that I no longer believe in the Western model of democracy, but can find no acceptable alternative. On writing I find that I do in fact believe in the western model of democracy, but that model no longer exists.
What we had from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not what we have now.
Voting for Clement Attlee made a difference. The Establishment won’t make that mistake again.
The concentration of media ownership is only one facet of the concentration of wealth and political power which appears irreversible by democratic means, in that we will never be given the opportunity to vote for anyone in official politics who opposes it, or to hear the arguments against it on any media platform with an equal access to the market for ideas.
We live in a post-democratic society. That is difficult to accept, but it is true.
————————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
Russia analyst Gordon Hahn, who I disagree with on several domestic political issues (but who is a great source and knowledgable person) wrote recently: “we have republics, not democracies”.
p.s. btw in Germany same topic right now: Cutting child care from 12bn Euros allocated in the new budget to 2 bn.
The gentleman responsible is leader of the liberal, freedom-loving FDP (Free Democratic Liberal Party), finance minister Mr. Lindner
(which childishly reminds me of some “Mr. Hilter” joke…)
Child poverty here is at 20%
25% of single female parents are at poverty level
But no worries: Womens Soccer World Cup is up!
oh and this here is new, Jacobin´s Luke Savage on Starrrrrmer:
“Keir Starmer Wants to Keep Children in Poverty”
https://jacobin.com/2023/07/keir-starmer-benefits-children-families-cuts
You have voiced here what I have been feeling for quite a while. It has made me feel very despondent, especially thinking about the sort of UK my grandchildren will grow up in. Centuries of protest and battle have taken place for what seem to be such little gains. Whenever we take a small step to something fair and democratic we get knock back half a mile. It’s not the time for despondency, it’s the time for (non-violent) battle, to keep battling. It is after all what people want – fairness and democracy. Look at Mayor Jamie Driscoll! Over £90,000 in 2 days towards his election campaign! Now that’s the way to go!
That was uplifting ?
Worst of all can not disagree in any significant way.
Craig you would be a marvellous guest on James A Smith’s The Popular Show – a political podcast that starts from a recognition that western democracy is just a sham.
PS It is Mandelson who is calling all the shots for Starmer. Exactly the person the Tories would have chosen to control ‘opposition’ to their agenda.
“Craig you would be a marvellous guest on James A Smith’s The Popular Show”
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s one of the best podcasts of its kind and Craig’s experience as an FCO insider and his intelligent perspectives on the current political moment would make an excellent episode. James is very laid back host and a great conversationalist and I’m sure he’d love to have Craig on.
” I no longer believe in the Western model of democracy, but can find no acceptable alternative. ”
That’s always been the problem. It might be badly flawed but compared to the dictatorships and one party states much of the world has to endure it’s probably the best we have.
“That’s always been the problem. It might be badly flawed but compared to the dictatorships and one party states much of the world has to endure it’s probably the best we have.”
Bollocks, we live in a dictatorship and one-partei state and always have.
I quite agree, Squeeth. It is a particularly popular and insidious fallacy to believe that every problem has a solution that we would find satisfactory – and that there even is a good way of governing millions or billions of people.
We evolved to live in groups of a few dozen at most, and we have no instincts that support the coherence of huge communities such as cities or states.
Bees, wasps, and ants do have such instincts – which is why they live orderly and fairly peaceful lives in their teeming hives and nests, and have thriven since the Jurassic.
It is another particularly popular and insidious fallacy to believe that voting, i.e. the ability for majorities to kick minorities in the teeth, is a panacea for all governmental ills, when actually the net result is always to leave an unhappy minority. Look at Brexit.
Way back in the past, before the Normans started the rot, decisions were taken by consensus. I am old enough to remember the last vestiges of this, in the jury system, before that, too was snuffed out, probably by Thatcher.
Impossible to compare the social insects with human society. The balance of instinctive behaviour and cognitive behaviour is entirely different. Some instinctive behaviour in humans but most of our behaviour (drives/urges/instincts) is mediated through the pre-frontal lobes, which results in the complexity of our activities.
Did you know that poor management of bee hives can result in ‘bee wars’ -completely ruthless elimination of one colony by another. I used to keep bees and made mistakes at first. It’s to do with resources (food) or access to food and management of the queens. I was powerless to stop the ‘war’ once it started.
The best attempt to define a viable human political system I have come across was in ‘The Ecology of Freedom’- by the late Murray Bookchin. It’s a difficult read. My abiding sense of its meaning was that his ideas were incompatible with capitalism/consumerism. I suspect humanity is too far down the neoliberal rabbit hole to adopt a more sustainable model. The impending climate calamity will settle matters.
“Impossible to compare the social insects with human society”.
Er, I just did.
tom welsh – not sure what you are suggesting. please expand.
What is wrong with one-party states? Much to better to have a variety of candidates all from the same party, but with different policies to vote for than a variety of candidates, all from different parties, but with the same policies, or do you assume that one party means no elections?
Here there is only one party that there is any point in voting for, the Tory Party. You can choose between the Conservatives (the Blue Tories, the originals and still the worst), Labour (the Red Tories), the Lib Dems (the Yellow Tories), or, if you are in Scotland, the SDP (the Tartan Tories). As Craig points out, they all have the same, Establishment approved, policies, whatever they might say at election time.
” On writing I find that I do in fact believe in the western model of democracy, but that model no longer exists.”
If all the parties are controlled from the same place that is effectively a one party state. Any new parties can be captured in the same way.
“the concentration of wealth and political power”, isn’t that roughly what Mussolini defined as fascism ?
Stevie, that is rather an understatement. It is the definition of government.
You wrote my words. I was happy Trump lost the election to Biden at the time, though I supported his wish not to have the country in lockdown and realised this sensible view was one factor in him losing. He is of course corrupt but were I a US voter and it came down to Biden vs Trump I would vote for Trump. I agree totally that a Starmer government will change nothing. If anything it will be more authoritarian than the Tory government. However, at some point people will rebel and there will be change for the better.
I do love how people who oppose lock down forget that there was no vaccine and no effective treatment at the beginning of the pandemic. without lockdown there would have been millions more dead. Do you think that somehow anyone that you care about would somehow all have escaped?
The fact you can state that you would have voted for a criminal, mysoginistic liar says everything about you that needs to be said. Biden or even Clinton may not have been perfect but there really is no comparison.
Bang on Craig, it would appear that voting for the Tories or Labour in England and Wales returns the voters similar governments both with the interests of the rich at heart.
In Scotland Labour and the Tories aren’t even Scottish parties they are just branch offices of London’s HQs, as for the SNP since Alex Salmond stood down becoming a SNP MSP/MP is now an exercise on jumping onto the gravy train and to not upset the status quo, by doing something that the voters elected them to achieve in dissolving the union.
At least in Scotland we have the Alba party to turn to.
I wonder if this is just a UK/US thing or are opposition parties all over Europe and beyond morphing into their opposition, giving the voter no real choice, but giving them the illusion of choice.
I’m sure it was Chomsky who said, that if voting made any real difference it would be made illegal to do so.
Maybe Chomsky said it too, but Kurt Tucholsky said it several decades before him: “Elections don’t change anything, otherwise they’d be forbidden.”
A more modern version is:
You can’t vote yourself out of a problem, you never voted yourself into.
Isn’t that quote Emma Goldman’s?
Till we get independence……
Mick Lynch for PM. Jeremy Corbyn as deputy? Vote now….
The indictment of Trump for hoarding documents, some classified, followed months of negotiation, entreaties, subpoenas and repeated duplicity and false statements on his part. Anyone else would have been indicted years ago in the U.S., and if Craig knew the practice of U.S. law better, he’d have the examples at hand. Five years of imprisonment for taking home a classified document, with no imputed ill intent, is not unusual.
And a conspirator in Trump’s tax fraud has already been to prison. You may not like the standard of justice in the U.S., but the system is not persecuting Trump.
And of course his truly serious violations of law haven’t yet been charged, but soon will be. In what country of laws is attempting to overthrow a duly elected government with conspiracy to commit fraud, incitement to violence and the promotion of phony “electors” not a crime?
Democracy may be done for, but these examples were poorly chosen.
I seem to remember FBI or someone finding a whole lot of classified documents in Biden’s De La Ware garage, but no actions seem to have followed that. As for Biden’s Burisma connections, total silence, and no action from the debunking of Russiagate, in which Hillary Clinton was deeply involved, and who killed Seth Rich? The list of potential cover ups involving the Democratic Party goes on, so how can one think that actions against Trump are otherwise totally politically motivated and corrupt in consequence. The problem is that political corruption is endemic in the USA as it is in the UK and democracies cannot thrive in such cesspits of corruption
Trump’s real crime is that he gave voice to those whom Hillary Clinton called “deplorables”, i.e., members of the working and middle class.
In what way did he give them a voice? Expressing racist , mysoginistic views? Cosying up to North Korea and Putin. Lying most of the time? Far from making America Great Again he made it the subject of pity and horror.
Do the working and middle class all want a dictatorship and a leader who is happy to encourage violent criminality.
America has so many guns and idiots that own them that encouraging these people could lead to a very bloody civil war. Is that a responsible thing for the leader of the country to do?
“Five years of imprisonment for taking home a classified document, with no imputed ill intent, is not unusual”.
That argument, if correct, merely proves conclusively that the US government is hopelessly corrupt. If someone gets five years imprisonment for taking home a document, why are those who deliberately and knowingly subverted the Constitution and launched unprovoked wars of aggression – the supreme crime – walking around free, rich, and adulated?
“That argument, if correct, merely proves conclusively that the US government is hopelessly corrupt.”
Yup, they all do it. If you step out of line they will get you for it. That’s how the Establishment works, here and in the US. One of the threats to the Establishment of a Corbyn prime ministership was that they had no dirt on him to keep him in line.
Proof if needed !
Biden, Trump, etc al. have taken home classified documents willy nilly and stashed them in their bathrooms and garages. No charges for these guys, one law for them, another for us.
In the UK civil servants, politicians, military staff, police, et al. take home classified documents, leave them on trains, in taxis. No charges for these guys, one law for them another for us.
They do what they want, we must do as we’re told. Corruption, QED.
You’re either thoroughly misinformed or intentionally duplicitous.
Biden and Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, both commissioned lawyers to search their private property for any classified documents. Both searches resulted in a few hits, among thousands of pages of personal records. Both reported the find immediately and turned over the material.
Trump, by contrast, refused to admit he was in possession of the documents, much less offer to return them. He defied subpoenas, actively concealed documents and directed his lawyers to make false statements. After months and months of this shell game, the FBI raided his premises, which also happens to be a “club”, open to the public, turning up *hundreds* of classified documents. Some months later, an indictment followed — which you doubtless haven’t read.
If you’re really this desperate to prove that Western civilization is doomed, I’d say the problem starts at home.
The Labour movement was early captured and stolen from its semi-radical progenitors by the English Elites, as Prof Carrol Quigley explained in his magnum opus Tragedy and Hope:
“Among Ruskin’s most devoted disciples at Oxford were a group of intimate friends including Arnold Toynbee, Alfred (later Lord) Milner, Arthur Glazebrook, George (later Sir George) Parkin, Philip Lyttelton Gell, and Henry (later Sir Henry) Birchenough. These were so moved by Ruskin that they devoted the rest of their lives to carrying out his ideas…. and devoted their lives to extension of the British Empire and uplift of England’s urban masses as two parts of one project which they called ‘extension of the English-speaking idea’. They were remarkably successful in these aims because England’s most sensational journalist William T. Stead (1849-1912), an ardent social reformer and imperialist, brought them into association with (Cecil) Rhodes. [Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (pp. 199-200).
Both Milner and Toynbee, among his devotees, were to become influential figures in channelling Ruskin ideas towards the nascent Labour movement, and to influence irrevocably what was to become the British Labour Party. This resulted in ‘Labourism’
Jeremy Gilbert professor of cultural and political theory at the University of East London) describes Labourism as follows:
“…a specific political ideology – a habit of political thought and action – that is almost unique to the British left….that there is only one true vehicle for progressive politics, the Labour party…(that) No other party can ever represent the working class, and …(that this) unique political virtue of the Labour party consistently prevents it from developing creative political strategies (for) Labour (which) has never come from opposition to win a convincing parliamentary majority and then gone on to implement a radical programme”.
Labourism is no accidental creed – indeed, as we shall see below, it was utterly premeditated and planned by the British Establishment as a means of restricting legitimate, ‘democratic’ political activity to the degenerate, semi-feudal, Establishment-controlled UK Parliament. This is now the singular purpose of the Labour Party. It is the principal mechanism to de-fang and de-radicalise any political movement that might effectively challenge establishment control. And it is the reason that Labour’s patron saints are RH Tawney, and John Ruskin – both ‘Christian Socialists’ and both Oxford men. Because the last thing Oxford men would have wanted, is a British Labour Party that was in any way radical, or serious about challenging the political and economic status quo which Oxford men were duty bound to defend – at all costs. So, the labour movement had to be infiltrated and neutralised at the earliest opportunity. And there can be no doubt about Labour’s Establishment credentials and approval.
“Labourism emerged at the start of the 20th century as a reformist mechanism for heading off working-class revolt. Thereafter Labour traded genuine radicalism for the pathetic right to be accepted within the archaic and oligarchic British state. A state which guards the interests of the big landowners (including the (Royal) Windsors), City of London spivs, and the great imperial trading and mining trusts”.
[George Kerevan, It’s easy to ignore (Gordon) Brown – but we must respond or cede ground
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23566770.easy-ignore-brown—must-respond-cede-ground/ The National, June 5 2023]
“…in 1884, acting under Ruskin’s inspiration, a group which included Arnold Toynbee, Milner, Gell, Grey, Seeley, and Michael Glazebrook founded the first “settlement house,” an organization by which educated, upper-class people could live in the slums in order to assist, instruct, and guide the poor, with particular emphasis on social welfare and adult education. The new enterprise, set up in East London with P. L. Gell as chairman, was named Toynbee Hall after Arnold Toynbee who died, aged 31, in 1883. [Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World In Our Time (p. 201). Dauphin Publications Inc.. Kindle Edition].
This begat the Fabian Society which has since been a major instrument of Establishment control of the Labour Movement.
Quigley again:
“Until the end of the nineteenth century the poverty-stricken masses in the cities of England lived in want, ignorance, and crime very much as they have been described by Charles Dickens. Ruskin spoke to the Oxford undergraduates as members of the privileged, ruling class. He told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved, and did not deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world. If this precious tradition were not extended to these two great majorities, the minority of upper-class Englishmen would ultimately be submerged by these majorities and the tradition lost. To prevent this, the tradition must be extended to the masses and to the empire”. [Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World In Our Time (p. 198).].
This was Ruskin’s (hardly) moral crusade. The second arm of the programme would be the ‘instruction’ of the masses – and their simultaneous political evisceration. Bring on the Fabians and the Great British Imperial Labour Party.
Sir Keir Starmer is the latest in a long line of those whose job is to control the unruly masses
Excellent analysis. Thank you.
Thanks – excellent post. the link stumbles on the National paywall – but no matter. Nothing bad can be said about Brown that I would disapprove of.
I do not think, that the western model is the best one can come up with. I would even go so far as to claim, that the belief in fixing it is what cements the status quo.
Representative democracy is no real democracy and was clearly designed to be open to manipulation from the rich and powerful.
In the very least elections should be replaced by a draw, to remove the process of corrupting individuals through years of ascending inside a party, only to make promises they never intend to keep anyway. Every adult must serve the public for some time if their name is drawn, after that period or if they die, they get replaced by another draw.
When i first heard that idea, it sounded outlandish to me, but by now, i think it would be the only emergency fix. For precisely that reason, it will never have a chance of being implemented.
Election by sortition has its own weaknesses of course: the power of the bureaucracy would probably increase and the scope to corrupt those elected would be no less than now.
However sortition works pretty well in selecting juries, albeit these are only empowered to make decisions in a single case. Can you imagine the conviction rate if we actually voted for persons who stood as candidates for jury service? It’s a horrific idea yet we seem quite relaxed to trust it when selecting those for political service.
“and the scope to corrupt those elected would be no less than now.”
There would be a lot less time to do it in. John Smith, elected by lot to serve the constituency of Great Snoring, will be unknown to the bureaucrats, the Establishment and the secret services. John Smith, elected Conservative Party candidate for Great Snoring, will already be known to the above, all his peccadilloes and vices and, if he had none, would probably not be representing Great Snoring for the Conservatives. Not only that, but unless he also subscribed to the aims and policies of the party he stood for, he would not be standing for them, so most of the corruption has already occurred, even before the election.
Wikipedia also disagrees with you: “Author James Wycliffe Headlam explains that the Athenian Council (500 administrators randomly selected), would commit occasional mistakes such as levying taxes that were too high. Additionally, from time to time, some in the council would improperly make small quantities of money from their civic positions. However, “systematic oppression and organized fraud were impossible.”[95] These Greeks recognized that sortition broke up factions, diluted power, and gave positions to such a large number of disparate people that they would all keep an eye on each other, making collusion fairly rare. Furthermore, power did not necessarily go to those who wanted it and had schemed for it.”
Point taken. I certainly would not dismiss sortition as an alternative to the system we endure at present.
Sortition is certainly an effective solution.
I’ve thought sortition to select the upper house would be effective. So people still vote for reprentatives or parties for the lower house and to form government. That government then proposes laws that the lower house vote on. If they pass they are sent to the upper house for review by a genuine cross-section of society.
Have those selected by sortition relatively well paid, so that for most people they are happy to serve. And have very strict laws around lobbying and so on.
A poll finds a plurality of Britons support an allotted House of Lords.
The SF writer Frank Herbert (author of “Dune” and many other excellent books), who spent some time in Washington DC working as a congressman’s assistant, put it this way in one of his novels:
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: [p]ower attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted”.
– “Chapterhouse Dune”
If true, this means that sortition would be much better than the current system. People chosen at random would be far less likely to be addicted to power or actually psychopathic. This point was not missed by Aristotle, who observed that all systems called “democratic” that rely on elections must be oligarchies, as the rich and powerful merely bribe the voters. Today they perhaps spend more money on TV and other forms of “opinion shaping”, which is effective because most of the voters are stupid, uneducated, or simply insouciant.
Douglas Adams called it “The Emperor of the Universe Problem”, which is that anyone who wants to be Emperor of the Universe thereby disqualifies themselves from the job.
Plato made the same point at the beginning of “Politeia” (“The Republic”).
It needn’t be an insuperable problem. Many people of good will do jobs they do not enjoy – I have known dozens of them.
Election by sortition worked pretty well in ancient Athens.
Athenian democracy “guided” by the aristocratic Pericles. After his death, the decline into the demagogic period in the Peloponnesian war, a period which recalls current politics. In the fourth century, government was more or less oligarchic, before the Macedonian conquest. Democracy didn’t last long in Athens.
To my mind, the main differences between Blair and Alcibiades are that Alcibiades was beautiful, brave, and led his men in battle. To be fair to Blair, he never had the advice of Socrates to restrain him.
The fourth century BC, the age of Demosthenes, was the heyday of Athenian democracy.
Extinction Rebellion have been campaigning for sortition since 2018. Demand number 3, after “tell the truth” and “act now”:
https://rebellion.global/blog/2021/01/05/citizens-assembly-climate-change/
Sir Kid Starver’s Labour Party is an exercise in unprincipled cynical manipulation of a voting system in which people are regarded as political sheep and will put their cross for it because it could not be any worse than the current hopeless Tories. Any remotely progressive policy such as overturning the two child benefit cap risks its cynical vote garnering calculations. It represents the politics of total cynicism, right off any democratic scale and is ultimately a threat to democracy.
same in the US, as you said. no real difference between mainstream Republican and mainstream democrats, though they voice different pieties. and they are assuming greater and greater control over society via social media.
The one and only reason for “What we had from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not what we have now.” – is USSR existence.
Without USSR, you will never have labor rights – it’s simple cheaper to kill or buy unions.
So obviously true. Western democracy has reverted to its natural pre-USSR form, striving to restore the grotesque level of inequality it had been delivering before the shock of 1917.
Brian c
I am pretty convinced that if not for the existence of The Soviet Union post war the Welfare States in all European countries (UK included) would not have happened.
Whether you or I as individuals and the electorate in general in geographical Europe liked or detested the Soviet Union the real rulers of The Western World decided that just for a period it was better to be a slightly less poorer capitalist than not be a capitalist at all in a possibly Socialist/Communist country.
There was a debate many years ago as to whether the introduction of social state or welfare state in the Western World was a normal political state in the history of capitalism and from memory the conclusion was that it was very unusual.
The latest version of austerity (or Class War as Chomsky correctly calls it) has been ongoing worldwide for years and as democracy has to be affordable in order to bribe enough voters to vote for it then we are witnessing the bribe money trickling away into the pockets of the real rulers and the politicians playing more of a role of protecting their employers and future employers to carry on as if there is no alternative to inflation targets and neo-liberal economics.
Unfortunately for the West there is a country which is much more dangerous to the old status quo and that is China, who surely have studied where the Soviet Union went wrong and will not make the same mistakes.
Russia is a danger militarily but they are pro-capitalist these days. But China is THE threat to the West’s capitalists who have lost a great proportion of capital and future capital to the Chinese.
The austerity programmes of all the Western Nations is to make up for that lost capital via the west’s workers and their Welfare State and of course from the poor of the world who have suffered since the very beginning.
The only other alternative to restore the ‘natural order of things’ for the West’s capitalists is of course going to war or nuclear war.
They will then be masters of all they survey – which will be cinders.
”The one and only reason for “What we had from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not what we have now.” – is USSR existence.”
There is some truth in that. The election of a socialist type government in the UK, 1945, was a bitter pill for those possessing inherited wealth to swallow but better than the alternatives in France and Italy where the Communist Parties held a large number of seats. The USA set about removing Communist influence from these governments (despite their role in confronting fascism) and the USSR mirrored this tactic by blocking capitalist parties in what we were brought up to call ‘the eastern bloc.’ When Aldo Moro was prepared to make his historic compromise with the Italian Communist Party in the late 1970s it was a question of which side would ambush him first.
I think ‘boomers’ like myself assumed that the concessions forced upon the ruling class were irrevocable. It was when the Thatcher government launched its attack on organised labour that I realised that the fights fought by my grandparents and parents would have to be fought all over again.
“The USA set about removing Communist influence from these governments (despite their role in confronting fascism)”
Or perhaps because of their role in confronting fascism.
The movie “Hidden Agenda” is about that.
The Soviet Union also helped the west in containing communist movements in France, Greece, Italy etc. Stalin was more concerned with not angering Western governments than supporting communists in those countries.
“The one and only reason for “What we had from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not what we have now.” – is USSR existence.”
Not the only reason. In 1918 and again in 1945 you had the unprecedented situation that a large proportion of the working class male population had not only been trained how to use lethal force, but used it. No longer were such people a minority under the control of the Establishment which latter were wise enough not to try anything on. By 1990 those men were all either dead, or too old and too few to make a difference politically.
Social advancements in the wake of war arise for a similar reason. Having armed the population – a dangerous tactic – it is necessary for governments to cajole the population into handing the weapons back.
The Chinese People’s Republic still exists, and the superiority of its system to Western ostensible democracy is pretty evident. So why doesn’t the Chinese People’s Republic serve the same function that the USSR once did?
Britain has never has a democratic general election, Liarbour has never been radical and the Attlee regime stifled the public’s desire for change; why do you think it kept the contributory principle for social and health services? How much new money went into hospitals etc 1945-1950? None.
The “Conservatives” are interested in conserving nothing but their (and their friends’) money and power. Labour couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the working man or woman. And the Liberals (pause to giggle crazily)… are about the most illiberal bunch you could ever hope to meet. They just know what’s right, and are prepared to make everyone else fit in with it.
To be fair, most “communist” regimes have been very little inclined to anything that could rightly be called communism – which is why it has got such a bad reputation.
When one reflects on the evils caused simply by lying politicians who call black white, and the worse the better case, one does hanker for good old Confucius.
“A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect”.
– (“The Rectification of Names”) Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4-7, translated by James Legge
For those very reasons, as the first Marquess of Halifax (1633-1695) sadly remarked, “A Man that should call every thing by its right Name, would hardly pass the Streets without being knock’d down as a common Enemy”.
Which, come to think of it, brings us right back to Messrs Assange and Murray…
Starmzy’s (in)famous ten pledges – ‘based on the moral case for socialism’ – are still up on his website. Pledge #2 to abolish Universal Credit might have a few people worried. I wonder what he plans to replace it with – the workhouse and gruel, most probably:
https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/
(Fun fact: Thanks to eye-watering rents in London town, if you have a couple kids or more, you can be a ****ing higher-rate taxpayer, earning more than 50 grand a year, and still qualify for UC.)
“We live in a post-democratic society”.
Nearly right! We live in a society that has never been even close to democracy – but for several decades a serious effort was made to present an appearance of democracy. Today that effort has been dropped.
Wherever you look in history, you find that the appearance of democracy was assiduously cultivated – but if the real thing ever threatened to happen, strong barriers were quickly thrown up to prevent it.
The US Constitution itself is clearly designed to prevent democracy; and the Founding Fathers who wrote and signed it said as much publicly, emphatically, and repeatedly. It’s all explained in Randolph Bourne’s “The State”, written just over a century ago. If it’s too long to read, at least scan the final six paragraphs. https://fair-use.org/randolph-bourne/the-state/
Something similar happened in the UK. Until the Civil War the sovereign was truly supreme, within limits. After the Civil War the propertied classes took over and ran things their way. When demands for more democracy arose in 1832 and later, various scraps were thrown to the people while steps were taken to make sure they could never even smell true power.
It’s not just the UK and the US. No country has anything approaching democracy because they can’t. The modern nation state is too complicated for either one person or a people to run. It has to be run by a number of people, so all states are oligarchies. What varies is whether the people who are ostensibly in charge are actually in charge, i.e. whether the oligarchs are visible or invisible, and the extent to which the people have any means of affecting how the oligarchs run the country. As far as I can see, the UK is a state of the invisible oligarchy/no effect type.
Well said!
“No country has anything approaching democracy because they can’t”
Switzerland approaches democracy. The key differences from the US/UK systems are:
1. Enough citizen signatures can force a referendum, and the result trumps politicians’ decisions
2. Proportional representation, so a multi-party system in which you can vote for someone you agree with (in a two-party system you vote against the party you dislike more)
3, It’s a smaller country, so profits from manipulating government spending are lower, so politics tends to be less corrupt
Somewhat true. But Switzerland’s population is less than 9 million. Far too much for any real democracy, but far less than the UK, the USA, or the EU.
“Switzerland approaches democracy.”
It does, but only in the sense that the people are able to assert some control over the oligarchs. They still don’t run the whole thing, they just have some influence on the people who do run it.
So you take Turgot’s theory as the last word, see Graber and Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything for a rebuttle.
It’s true that even the mainstream media is starting to question whether a Starmer-led opposition is an opposition in name only.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/19/climate-peril-keir-starmer-cautious-crisis-vision
Marginalia, yes, but also a suggestion that disillusionment is creeping in even at the graun?
Well said, Craig. I was going to ask “What is this ‘Western democracy’ of which you speak?” Bu then I got to the fifth paragraph from the end, and saw that you expressed the same notion.
Pitchfork time…
“We live in a post-democratic society. That is difficult to accept, but it is true.”
The UK was never a democracy. It is, and always has been, an oligarchy, it’s just that we don’t call our real rulers “oligarchs”, we call them “The Establishment”. We used to call them “the aristocracy”. Even in the Middle Ages, the kings ruled only with the support of the powerful aristocrats. Lose that support and you were lucky to stay alive, let alone on the throne, as several kings found out the hard way.
It’s all now happening because the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
With the Soviet Union gone, the capitalists had suddenly no need for any “democracy” any more that they had had need for it before the 1917 Russian revolution.
They only needed freedom of thought, democracy, workers’ rights, human rights, welfare states, public ownership and nationalization to counter Communism and Socialism and their appeal to the great unwashed, and to be able to compete with their achievements.
With the Soviet Union and the Socialist camp gone, it took them awhile to roll back everything they had introduced when they had to compete with the Socialist camp, but now they and you have arrived.
Now is where they like to be and it has always been the intention, to run the country like that, strictly for the elites, like it was prior to 1918.
As Jack London wrote in People of the Abyss about the miserable existence of Londoners
“The unfit and the unneeded! The miserable and despised and forgotten, dying in the social shambles. The progeny of prostitution – of the prostitution of men and women and children, of flesh and blood, and sparkle and spirit; in brief, the prostitution of labor. If this is the best that civilization can do for the human, then give us howling and naked savagery. Far better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss.”
There are also first hands accounts in My Secret Life by Walter.
It is now slowly but surely coming to the same situation.
However do not despair, I thinks it’s been established that societies last on average 300, give or take, years before revolutionary changes occur, the US is now at that point, and as for Britain, she has been in slogging in the same quagmire since the Cromwell revolution, and that’s 400 years, so something is gonna give soon.
Come to think of it, the current situation with Russia might become a catalyst, as wars usually do, as the West are denied resources that they don’t have at home at an increasing rate by China and generally by the Global South and East and will not be able to count on Russia to supply them for a long time to come because of their behavior…. and then it’s like Mr. Lenin said “the bottoms don’t want and the tops cannot live in the old way”… and bingo we have a revolutionary situation! At least there will be some action, of a direct variety.
Although, I must say, Comrade Craig, for someone so radical on Scottish Independence you seem to be surprising timid when it comes to opposing Capitalist regimes at home with deeds rather than words, not that I blame you – who wants to see the insides of a prison cell when you can avoid it.
Once you awake to how the world works it all makes sense. Everything. Wars, elections, sexual scandals, Assange, et al. The rich fuckers rule the world. It’s class war. Except the working class are not aware they are even in a war.
A tiny elite controlling and exploiting everyone else. Please don’t cloud the issue with talk of class.
It is you who is trying to confuse. The lib/con PMC and the asset rich responded to someone as mild as Corbyn with burning hatred and absurd lies. They are not allies in the fight for democracy.
I do not know what you mean by “PMC”.
However, I will risk suggesting that those of whom you complain are just as much victims of the elite’s divide and conquer techniques as your good self.
The working class (that’s really anyone on a salary, including debt-serfs with mortgages etc) are quite happy to “stand with” the blatant Nazis in the Ukraine. They have been trained to regard macho nationalism as a source of personal pride and a substitute for social justice. War as a means of securing social unity is a well-tried tactic of the ruling oligarchy, along with racism. Better for “them” and “us” thinking to be applied to foreigners.
The poorer and less secure a person is in his own individual life, the happier he is to feel part of some mass movement that promises him any kind of superiority or power. That’s one of the main advantages of demagogues.
Yes, Western democracy has failed. See the Iron Law of Oligarchy, proposed by the sociologist Robert Michels, which posits that all human organizations eventually evolve (devolve) into oligarchies. Just as the Western military machine has failed.
By “Western” do we not really mean “of the Anglosphere” in an Anglo- and US-centric way? It’s certainly not a geographical term in this context.
In my view Michels Iron Law is deterministic claptrap. Men make history, political decisions can be made to organise society in many different forms. The problem now is how to organise society to face the huge problems we face
“Men make history, political decisions can be made to organise society in many different forms.”
True, but what we observe is that all organisations tend to end up being run for the benefit of their senior management, which looks to me very like oligarchy.
A political unit running to millions of souls cannot be democratic. The degrees of separation between the governors and the typical governed are necessarily too great.
The governors quickly turn to serving their own interests, or, more commonly, the interests of an unrecognized elite who have the means to bribe and coerce them.
We must fragment into units sufficiently small that the collective mind can be made up, and the democratic will exercised, organically. Otherwise we shall remain enslaved, with some degree of obfuscation.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12280-the-illusion-of-freedom-will-continue-as-long-as-it-s
IMO.
The problem is that ‘the people ‘ misunderstand the foundations of democracy.
The democracy of the Greeks ‘of the people’ was never about the people, it was about how the powerful were going to rule. Same for the Romans, the Catholic Church and the Norman aristocracy which has all morphed into ‘the establishment ‘. Democracy is about how they will exercise their power over us. It cannot be fixed because it was never about giving us a voice or sharing of power. A new way is needed but first the old ways need to be removed and that will require force. But, there again, maybe the real problem is people !
A lot of the Athenian rich were most unhappy with their democratic system. Just read some Plato. Or pseudo-Xenophon aka The Old Oligarch.
“the Romans, the Catholic Church and the Norman aristocracy” never even pretended to be democratic. Greek democracy was a theory that didn’t last very long in practice.
Yes, Western democracy is certainly over. What comes next is a cage match between the “natives” and the “immigrants” as you all fight to the death amidst your crumbling infrastructure, dwindling energy and food resources, and rapidly deteriorating standards of living.
The rest of us (in reality-based world) will be doing fine. Just please disarm your nukes before you turn off the lights. Thanks.
The fact the Labour Party has arguably moved to the right of the Tories in many areas confirms that for Scotland the only path forward is independence. Humza and the troughers need to be harrassed and pressured relentlessly to live up to their raison d’etre. Likewise there needs to be a border poll without delay in the 6 counties where the old dominant forces of reaction are in terminal decline. It is time to seize back democratic control and leave the English to pick a side in the great ideological struggle between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Yes, we’re all boiled frogs now.
I clearly remember my very first school ‘civics’ lesson, circa 1955, in which the Headmaster (and proprietor) of my suburban prep school (whose ‘voting’ political views were I’m sure entirely what you would expect from this characterization) explained that ‘democracy’ did not mean 51%-winner-takes-all. The outcome of a democratic decision, he said, should be such that everyone concerned accepted that they were being treated fairly.
But how did we get here? One driver was the mid-1970’s idea that the best way to make the senior managers of a business act solely in the interests of the owners, was to transform them from employees into owners. Another was the Clinton approach to politics — ‘we all know what should be done: the point is to get to be the person who does it’. But the really big one, I think, is the idea that the objective of ‘politics’ is to to defend the citizen against the state: and I don’t really know when and how this took such an unshakable hold.
Although I have come to realise that my political views differ markedly from yours Craig I nevertheless find it hard to disagree with what you just wrote. The “meaninglessness” of democracy and elections is not lost on the ordinary person and any pretence of being a Labour or Tory voter usually disappears after a few pints.
Having said that, there is something I would like to add to the issue around the 2-child benefit cap. Think carefully as to why Starmer should backtrack on his previous statements and now decline to commit to lifting that cap. Why? Surely it is no skin off his scrotum? Indeed it would be to his advantage by allowing him to play his “protector of the downtrodden” act.
What Starmer knows is that there is no money to pay for it. I am surprised at some people’s general lack of awareness of the desperate state of UK’s economy. Poor historic economic policy combined with a major geopolitical shift has left us with real problems, out of which we cannot print ourselves without crashing our currency. Nor borrow our way out of it either with interest rates as they are.
Roughly half of the working age population is economically inactive and being supported by the other half. Those in work are crumbling under the strain of frozen tax allowances and spiralling prices. Unlike benefits, which are inflation-proof and tax-free, wages are not keeping up despite increasingly frequent strikes and similar.
How many times have you been somewhere such as a restaurant or cafe recently and been told sorry we cannot serve you because we cannot get staff? Why would anyone be motivated to continue working when entry-level jobs pay less than benefits after tax and travel costs?
Of course there is a valid point of view that if the huge majority of our country’s wealth was not already owned by a tiny percentage of our population then the rest of us would not have to fight over the scraps.
You agree with Craig, yet your big beef is that the neolib Uniparty has been too generous with “inflation-proof” benefits?
I do agree with Craig except for his point about child benefit cap. If you have a solution for how that and similar increased public spending might be funded then by all means let’s hear it.
Unless your solution is that as a working bloke I somehow get crushed with even more tax than the ridiculous amount I already pay. I don’t want to hear that one.
You saw Craig himself suggest one in the following sentence! Even if you somehow missed that, surely your own mind strayed independently to the possibility of increased tax on profits, capital gains etc? Even turning off the money tap provoking war with Russia?
In any case, wherever the source, the cost to the Exchequer over the long haul of starving and impoverishing children is many times more than these £15 weekly payments. So if there’s no economic sense to it why are the Uniparty and its apologists so eager for it?
Good point I overlooked his call for dividend tax – although that would hit pensions quite hard. Stopping wasting money in wars. Putting an end to rich people and corporate entities having the means to offshore their gains and avoid tax. There are all sorts of ways to raise public funds. Each of which of course in its own way pisses off some group of people.
I am not on a crusade to starve children. I just make the point that our decades-long ability to fund freebies through borrowing and printing has now run out and it is crunch time.
“If you have a solution for how that and similar increased public spending might be funded then by all means let’s hear it.”
Given that there’s always money available for the things that politicians like to spend it on, whether that is a Track and Trace system that doesn’t work or propping up a corrupt Eastern European regime, it is fairly obvious that there is money available to lift the two child cap, it’s just that the Tories don’t want to spend money on the poor.
Re: ‘Of course there is a valid point of view that if the huge majority of our country’s wealth was not already owned by a tiny percentage of our population’
Time for some facts, Funn3r:
As of 2019, around 70% of the UK’s wealth (a majority but not a huge majority) is owned by the wealthiest 20% of households (less than half, but not a tiny percentage) – which are for the most part pensioner households.
Source: ONS
Re: ‘Roughly half of the working age population is economically inactive and being supported by the other half.’
More facts:
As of 2022, about 78% of people in the UK aged 18-65 are in some form of gainful employment – and many of those who aren’t are studying at university or have full-time childcare or adult care responsibilities.
Source: UK labour market statistics
I think Jeremy Corbyn replies to this point pretty well.
“It’s a very strange supposition that you can’t win an election because you promised to try and do something about child poverty. Poor people have votes as well, you know” @jeremycorbyn tells #Peston
“I am surprised at some people’s general lack of awareness of the desperate state of UK’s economy.”
Unfortunately I am not surprised that 90-95 % of population and politicians do not understand the money creation process and Magic money Tree ( yes ,there is one guarded from the Prols and the useless eaters) but available to bankster’s and crony’s. Where did we get Trillions for the Banks or a half a Trillion for Covid?
Fifteen fatal fallacies of financial fundamentalism!!!!!.
(hopefully you will understand more than me)
Government is not a household and government spending is someone’s earning/investment/wage etc. What is hard to understand and accept is that government spending (money creation) comes first and than by taxing some of the money is removed from the economy.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.95.3.1340.
My only question is if this obfuscation is result of ignorance or deliberate manipulation.
Oh Yea
I forgot to mention the most successful slogan
“Tax payers money”!?
We are not in the Gold standard anymore!
In my view the more people who recognise that the systen is shamocracy the better.
Tories red, yellow and blue
try to make a fool out of you.
“Tories red, yellow, green and blue”