Question the Powerful

Re-enter the Dragon

2012-01-14T19:52:00.001Z

In the global age it’s not sufficient to learn just the history of one’s nation. We must deepen our knowledge of other countries, especially those with a major role to play on the world stage. So how well is China understood today?

China has an exceptionally long historical identity, and any snapshot analysis which takes in only the last 20 years, or even the last 200 years, could give rise to serious misunderstanding. This is a particular problem with those commentators who talk blithely about the ‘clash of civilizations’ and pit China against the West as an inherent antagonist.

From around 200 BC on when the Han Dynasty was established, China became one of the most prosperous and powerful countries in the world and remained so for the next two thousand years. Observers from across Europe, the Middle East, India and the rest of Asia marveled at its resilience, resourcefulness and longevity. Right down to the 18th century it was often cited as a model civilization: deeply moral without religious factionalism, culturally rich as well economically vibrant, and governed with a civil service to which the military was subordinate.

Yet the 19th century witnessed China’s eclipse as it came to be cowed by the guns and troops from Europe and Japan. Britain, embarking on one of the most extraordinary export drives, launched a war to secure the sale of narcotic drugs to a country which had sought to eradicate the spread of addictive opium. After losing the Opium Wars in the 1840s and 1850s, China’s decline was further exacerbated by protracted civil wars, heavy losses in the two World Wars, not to mention the disastrous social and economic experiments in the 1960s.

But the growing embrace of modernization and equality had by the 1980s shown signs that women as well as men could have new opportunities to attain a better quality of life. The rejuvenation of China at the beginning of the 21st century has brought two questions to the fore. First, should China’s economic power in relation to its trading partners be more directly constrained? Secondly, should China’s use of its political power within its own jurisdiction against those who dissent from the ruling regime be more openly challenged?

These questions can only be answered properly if one has thought through what kind of country China is and therefore what would be an optimum relationship to cultivate with such a global partner. China’s psyche is fixed on two perennial points: aspiration to peaceful prosperity, and aversion to violent divisions. It will pursue policies in support of worldwide economic stability, not because these are demanded by Western governments which have switched between free trade and protectionism as it suited them, but from its being treated as a key partner in securing a stable world order which is indispensable to China’s own peaceful prosperity.

It will accommodate dissent, not by being criticised by Western regimes which have to varying degrees supported regimes with atrocious human rights records all over the world for their own geo-political advantage, but from the constructive sharing of ideas between countries on how a diversity of views can, far from fueling violent divisions, strengthen civic solidarity.

It is not through the clash of civilizations but the cultivation of mutual understanding that our global future should be shaped.

[Note: Year of the Dragon begins on 23 Jan 2012]

Educating Fodder

2012-01-01T01:15:00.001Z

For those fearing feral youth behaviour (according to the November 2011 ICM poll conducted for Barnados, 44% of the UK population believe young people are “becoming feral”), fodder education can seem an attractive antidote.

Fodder education aims to secure a steady supply of thoroughly ‘domesticated’ workers who will do what is asked of them without question. It seeks to achieve this by sifting out the majority of each generation and processing them into submissive underlings who give up their own diverse potential so as to serve their masters.

When the political wing of the wealthy elite lament the failings of contemporary education, they are not saddened by the lost opportunities of countless children and adults to expand their intellectual, cultural and moral capacity to live a more fulfilled life. They are complaining that not enough of them have been turned into ready fodder to feed the corporate machines.

Advocates for fodder education do not want schools or lifelong learning providers to kindle the human spirit for uplifting endeavours. They dread the cultivation of a critical mindset which, instead of swallowing crass inefficiencies and gross injustice, would rationally demand a rethink of how productions are organised and resources distributed. All they want, in the name of ‘better education’, is a line of people who will accept their station in life, carry out whatever mind-numbing tasks are asked of them, and gratefully receive their low pay or the alternative stigma of being jobless.

It’s pertinent to point out that it was Adam Smith, so revered by ill-informed champions of unrestrained markets, who was amongst the first to attack the tendency of reducing workers to thoughtless automaton. According to Smith, habituating people into routine tasks which “give little exercise to the understanding” would render them “not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.” (Wealth of Nations).

Smith wanted to see publicly funded education develop the minds of people so they can think more broadly, cultivate understanding beyond routine work matters, learn to appreciate and pursue the common good rather than just obsess about individual advancement, and expand their imagination and sensitivity. Unfortunately, fodder education, combined with the incompetence of poorly regulated markets, have today left more and more young people with barely subsistent earnings, growing debts, and in many cases no job prospect at all. Instead of hope, all that is on offer is prolonged austerity for the poor, and bonus payment for the rich.

The majority of young people do not loot and riot like the irresponsible few any more than the majority of adults set about ruining the economy and people’s livelihood like the banking elite have done. What society really needs is education which not only equips us with basic skills, but nurtures our ability to uncover myths and dogmas, challenges the lies and iniquities perpetrated by the powerful, cooperate with others fairly in achieving shared goals, and exploring the potential we have in finding fulfilment in our own ways.

It should be the aim of education to produce, not fodder, but thoughtful citizens.

Santa & the City (Xmas Special)

2011-12-14T10:00:00.002Z

[Last December, Sir Reginald Pratt, one of the most celebrated entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the world, and widely known to his friends in the City as ‘Father Christmas’, kindly agreed to be interviewed by ‘Question the Powerful’ (An Interview with 'Father Christmas'). A year on, he’s here again to share with us his thoughts for Christmas.]

Q: Sir Reginald, how’s ‘Father Christmas’ doing in the City? It’s been a tough year.

R: On the contrary, it’s been a splendid year. I’ve just given my top team their biggest ever bonus. So everyone’s happy with Santa.

Q: But many people in the country have lost their job or had to take a pay cut. How do you feel about that?

R: Well, you hear people moaning about crisis this, crisis that, the world being turned upside down and all that nonsense. But the truth is, the world’s finally being turned right side up again. Life was sound for centuries with those of us at the top lording it over the rest. Then after the Second World War we had all that socialist and liberal welfare claptrap in Britain and America too. The gap between us and the great unwashed started to narrow. They began to have aspirations, about owning their homes, getting proper medical care, going to universities, eating in restaurants, even having holidays.

Q: You think that was a bad thing?

R: Of course! Before long, they were edging towards our standard of living, well, getting close to the level of our servants. So it couldn’t go on. And thank God, from the 1980s on, good old Maggie and Ronnie did us proud and changed the rules in every possible way. With their help we could at last return to our grand old traditions, siphoning off more for ourselves and screwing the rest with complete abandonment.

Q: That would be when the US and the UK started to lead the developed world in widening income inequalities?

R: I like your use of the word, ‘lead’, because that’s what we and our Anglo-Saxon cousins have been doing, leading the world back to sanity. As my grandfather used to say, “Those who have are meant to have; those who have not are meant to rot.”

Q: But when so many people are finding their real incomes cut while a few at the top get even more, that’s going to spell trouble, isn’t it?

R: Trouble indeed, because having had a tiny taste of the good life, the riff-raff wants to keep up with the Pratts and the Diamonds, and since they’re not clever enough to earn as much as we, they have to resort to borrowing. Now since we make even more money out of lending to these dimwits, we don’t mind. But ultimately, since their pay’s been cut to a pittance, the blighters can’t pay us back. That’s how we’ve ended up with this ludicrous debt problem. And given that we in the City can never be out of pocket, someone has to pick up the tab, and that would be the government.

Q: Are you surprised the government hasn’t tried to tax the top 1% more to help out the rest?

R: Not the slightest. The likes of Little Dave and Gideon know who their real friends are. Besides, my accountant can always find tax loopholes. I’d rather pay him the money than give it to the government to help degenerates. It’s a matter of principle. My accountant’s rich, I don’t mind giving him a handout.

Q: What about the 99% who are not wealthy like you?

R: Just blame them for anything you can think of. Call them benefit cheats, lazy public sector workers, Europhiles, or illegal immigrants. The media love it. After all, we own most of the media. Rupert’s been in a spot of trouble this year, but nothing money can’t fix.

Q: Don’t you think but for the grace of God you could be not so well-off yourself?

R: Spot on. It’s absolutely the grace of God that determines who will born into the right family, bet on the right hedge fund, or pick the right Lottery number. It alone decides who amongst the poor will be crucified, whose dreams for their children will be buried, so that bonus levels for the chosen ones can rise again and soar heaven high. We should accept it meekly. I do, and I’ve inherited my share of the earth. Merry Christmas!

Can Democracy Be Saved?

2011-12-01T00:24:00.002Z

Should we ever trust anyone with the power to make decisions affecting our lives without ever having to answer to us? ‘No’ is the resounding answer. To allow anyone to capture such power would risk being at best ruined by a misguided fool, or at worst subjugated by a shameless oppressor.

It is this simple recognition that drives people everywhere to clamour for a guarantee that they will have a say over how decisions affecting them are to be made. The dramatic struggles across the Middle East have reaffirmed this vital political fact. But even as the call for democracy is irresistibly made, its fragility in countries with relatively stronger democratic credentials is becoming alarmingly clear for all to see.

In Europe, the importance of placating financial markets trumps democratic engagement. ‘Technocrats’ are hailed as saviours while suggestions of holding any democratic referendum are quashed. In the UK, a party with a parliamentary minority is able to impose the vast burdens of cuts on the poor while protecting the interests of the rich, simply because it is supported by another party which jettisoned its most high profile pledge to the electorate in order to have a share of power. In Spain, the ‘indignados’ (the outraged) draw attention to the fact that in the recent election, there were 11 million spoiled ballots, more than the number voted for the victorious rightwing party. The upshot of course is that the people of Spain now have to suffer even more plutocratic policies that have outraged the majority. And in the US, the Republican Party is showing how democracy can be thoroughly abused by parading candidates who are ignorant of policies they criticise, or cynically distort Obama’s position by editing the President’s words in campaign ads designed solely to deceive.

The underlying cause of democracy being so easily usurped is twofold. First, the wealthy elite can buy more media outlets and pay PR (public relations/pseudo research) to fill the public domain with misleading information, resulting in many people accepting that they have to become poorer to help the rich. Secondly, even amongst those who see through the lies and want to have different policies, there is a lack of awareness as to how they can articulate, let alone achieve, a coherent alternative. Protests, strikes, electoral abstentions help to express disillusionment, but they do not by themselves lead to better outcomes for those in need.

So is democracy doomed? Only if we ignore the many initiatives and experiments which have been carried out all over the world in enabling citizens to come together to formulate and advance shared policy demands. We should learn from these and apply them to any political action we are organising. As a small contribution, in ‘Rejuvenating Democracy: lessons from a communitarian experiment’ (written for a special issue of the journal, Forum: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/FORUM/content/pdfs/53/issue53_3.asp), I outlined an experiment I carried out between 1995 and 2010, first at a local government level, then with the national government, to promote both innovative and tried and tested participatory practices so that more citizens could gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to exert their democratic influence over public policies.

The five key lessons I draw from this 15 year endeavour are as follows. Lesson 1: different people want different degrees of involvement, and organisers should give people the appropriate opportunities they seek rather than insist that everyone should participate in the same way. Often the ‘ladder of participation’ analogy is unhelpful when it is taken as downgrading less intense forms of engagement. Play to people’s strengths and personality preferences, and you get more people involved than just a small vanguard.

Lesson 2: the value of democratic participation is considerable in social, political and economic terms, and yet more often than not it is underestimated or overlooked completely. Even in narrow monetary terms, taking on board citizens’ views helped to save hundreds of thousands, even millions, in improving the effectiveness of individual policies and programmes. Consistently, where people are given meaningful opportunities to reflect and contribute their views on the development of public actions, it tends to lead to more satisfactory and cost-efficient outcomes.

Lesson 3: to be effective democratic engagement needs to begin with people being given structured opportunities to talk about the things that most concern them. This should be followed by facilitated discussions to examine the real causes of the problems. Participants should be enabled to share any proposal with others, while options put forward can be challenged, with a transparent process for agreeing the priority actions to be taken. Feedback is to be provided on implementation, and the impact of the agreed plan is to be kept under review. As a result of the communitarian experiment, there is now a wide range of excellent resources on engagement techniques which are available (as free downloads) from the National Empowerment Partnership/Community Development Foundation at http://www.cdf.org.uk/web/guest/nep.

Lesson 4: partnerships between state and citizens are not easy to build. It requires patience, skills and considerable emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, in addition to the risk of those in government shutting people out from their decisions, there is now a growing danger with the Conservative-led coalition government simply passing the buck to communities. Attempts to pass endless social and economic burdens to individuals who cannot cope without collective political support, are nothing more than an abdication of democratic responsibility. To do it under the pretense of building a ‘big society’ insults our civic intelligence, and betrays the citizenry who had assumed the state was there to serve them.

Lesson 5: the key to successful democratic renewal is leadership. For those who stress the importance of having a groundswell of active citizens in sustaining democratic vibrancy, this might sound paradoxical. But whether it is widespread sceptical disengagement from public bodies or mass protest degenerating into mindless violence, the pitfalls of random public action/inaction can only be avoided if there is dedicated energy in organising and sustaining the pursuit of inspiringly articulated goals. Positive results have rarely been achieved without the drive of committed civic-minded leaders. (Materials relating to civic leadership can be accessed at the Take Part website: www.takepart.org).

And above all, we need such leaders now. From young people, residents association, workers, teachers, the elderly, all diverse backgrounds, we need those who are prepared to show leadership in rallying, organising, and championing what the wider democratic public seeks to come forward and save democracy.

What Next for the WEA?

2011-11-15T18:10:00.001Z

The name ‘Workers Education Association’ (WEA) was formally adopted in 1905, three centuries on from the publication in 1605 of Francis Bacon’s epochal ‘The Advancement of Learning’. The historical trajectory is a significant one.

Against widespread scholastic dogmas and common superstitions, Bacon championed the idea that human understanding could only truly progress if social institutions and educators systematically supported the development of open and cooperative enquiry in relation to all subject matters. Instead of telling people that they must remain ignorant or blindly accept the words of venerated figures, he outlined the vision for an alternative where learning would steadily advance through collective efforts in experimenting, sharing and critically revising ideas and practices.

By the second half of the 17th century, Bacon’s philosophy had inspired the founding of the Royal Society which played a crucial role in embedding the scientific approach in the acquisition of new knowledge. In the 18th century, his ideas, along with those of John Locke, a member of the Royal Society and pioneering educationalist, fuelled the Enlightenment movement, which insisted that since none should be excluded from the process of deciding what was to be believed, how society was run should no longer be left to a powerful elite. Following the democratic revolutions in America and France, momentum grew in the 19th century for all men and women to be given equal respect in learning and deciding matters of interest to them. Social reformists, trade unionists, cooperative activists dedicated themselves to opening opportunities for all citizens to have more control over their lives.

At the dawn of the 20th century the founding of the WEA took up the Enlightenment challenge of empowering all citizens to participate in the quest for knowledge and power to shape their own lives. Indeed according to the Baconian insight, knowledge is power. The more people understand what causes natural and social problems, the more able they are to pick out the most promising solutions. As learning spread in the 20th century, income inequalities declined, public services improved, and exploitation by private interests was curbed. But all these trends were threatened by the rise of market fundamentalism in the 1970s. The Thatcherite gospel preached that the rich and powerful should be free to rig the market as they saw fit.

After decades of upside-down democracy with society increasingly made to serve the rich, the vast majority are now left with lower pay, job insecurity, public service cuts, and fear before the might of corporate juggernauts. What are people learning about this turn of event? What lifelong education is equipping them with the knowledge to find a better future? Where can they get help with unmasking plutocratic propaganda that disguises the hijacking of public policies for private gains?

These questions are of course particularly pertinent for the WEA. Now a century old, with the tide of inequalities sweeping back with a vengeance, threatening to wipe away the social progress made in the post-war years, what is the WEA to do? In this context, I’m greatly heartened to read a paper by Greg Coyne, WEA’s Regional Director (North West), written to stimulate discussions about the role of the WEA.

Greg’s paper, proposing a radical, action learning oriented educational approach for the WEA to deal with old challenges in new times, should be widely read by WEA members and all supporters of lifelong learning. In this age of hierarchical markets, where people are just mass commodities to inflate profits for the few, it reminds us that “contrary to the assertion about a high skills economy, we are actually preparing masses of young people to work in and accept low paid, low skilled, insecure employment in the service sector rather than the knowledge economy.”

In short, citizens are now being deprived of sufficient capacity and opportunity to attain the knowledge to function as equal members of a democratic society, and thus disempowered from recognising what changes are really necessary to pursue to counter injustice and exploitation. Greg’s proposed approach has five elements, each of which merits serious consideration. First, we are urged to shift “from the ‘sage on the stage’ towards the ‘guide at the side’.” Instead of presenting knowledge as a fixed package to be revealed to the uninitiated, people are to be engaged as active participants in exploring their shared concerns, and working with the help of a guide in discovering what should and could be done.

This leads to the second element which is to ensure the engagement of citizens in raising critical questions. Greg illustrates his point with the example of asking in a flower arranging class why flowers were being flown in from Africa with all the implications of pollution, and distortion of farming priorities. I would certainly like to see WEA classes raise questions in relation to economic issues such as why certain politicians are called ‘technocrats’, suggesting that they are somehow better equipped than ‘ordinary’ representatives of the people in solving problems, when in fact a key qualification for such an appellation seems to be their conformity to the market orthodoxy which has brought about financial instability across the world.

Linking classroom discussions to wider socio-economic issues is indeed the third element of Greg’s proposed approach. There are subject matters which lend themselves to being studied as an end in itself – and the Open University and other institutions cater well for such interests, but if learning is to serve the purpose of enhancing our ability to deal with social problems, then the WEA has a vital part to play in helping people connect what they learn to the broader challenges facing them and their communities. Exploitation of the masses depends on keeping citizens ignorant. To counter it, we need more socially aware learning.

Moreover, awareness is only superficial if it is not tested and strengthened through exploratory action. The fourth element of Greg’s proposal rightly maintains that action learning can help participants understand better the issues they are studying and also reinforce their comprehension by applying it to practical activities. There can be no detailed blueprint for how this will roll out, but it is essential for there to be constant review and refinement of course activities in the light of their impact on participant’s lives. This last element completes the proposed reorientation of WEA into a dedicated champion of active citizenship and community involvement.

The difference would be between a WEA that runs a motley collection of courses of interest to individuals without necessarily addressing the knowledge/power gap that is undermining our social cohesion; and a WEA that, to use Greg’s words, “brings the social and political into whatever we teach and develops an emancipatory, involved style of learning that fits with our ethos and mission.”

As corporate forces continue to expand their influence through their political acolytes, mass media outlets, and ‘research’ centres funded by them to undermine beliefs in inconvenient truths, it is more important than ever that the advancement of learning for all resumes its true course with the help of social educators. It is fitting that R H Tawney, one of the most outstanding social educators of the 20th century, eloquent defender of the cause of equality, was for many years President of the WEA. What better way to commemorate next year (2012) the fiftieth anniversary of his passing than to see WEA declare itself as the hub for radical action learning in the UK. It’s time we, workers and citizens, expand our shared learning and reclaim our power.

Corporate Flu

2011-11-01T09:15:00.001Z

Corporate Flu, a horrific disease originating in vampire bats, is now rapidly spreading through the human population. Anyone catching it develops an insatiable craving to suck the lifeblood out of other people.

Carriers of Corporate Flu can usually be identified by one or more of the following symptoms:
• Frothing of the mouth when holy items such as worker protection, fair pay for all, bonus restraints appear anywhere near them.
• Sudden onset of blindness when they come across the consequences of their destructive behaviour.
• Severe weakening of their spine when they smell the presence of someone who is stronger than them through having consumed more victims.
• Outbreak of an allergic rash whenever they hear that a vulnerable individual has been rescued by the public safety net.

Many of the approaches advocated so far for dealing with Corporate Flu have proven to be completely ineffective. Burying one’s head in the sand while pretending the epidemic would soon be over has only served to make one easier to be picked off. Talking endlessly about the disease without taking any concerted action has not given anyone the slightest extra protection. Insane attempts to sacrifice scapegoats such as asylum seekers and benefit claimants to placate the infected have only made the problem worse.

However, scientists have now confirmed that this grotesque disease is spread through gross inequalities, and swift action to narrow the gap would put an end to it. In the meantime, the government is being urged to target existing Corporate Flu carriers with a taxing treatment to remove the excess resources they have accumulated and transmute these into nutrients which can be injected back into those who really need them.

There have been reports that the mere threat of taxing Corporate Flu carriers has led some of them to flee the country vowing never to return. Unfortunately, stories are also coming in suggesting that the government is unlikely to take any action as many of its members have caught the virus via contaminated donations.

Debt or No Debt

2011-10-15T18:02:00.005+01:00

When the UK Prime Minister urges everyone to clear their debts and stop borrowing, AND pleas with the banks to lend more money, you have to wonder if David Cameron is clueless about the economy or he just assumes he can get away with spouting nonsense.

We need sensible borrowing
Borrowing when one has no way of ever paying the money back is never advisable. But borrowing to deal with pressing problems, to invest, to grow is a sensible course for individuals, businesses and governments. Without mortgage borrowing, only a tiny rich elite would own their own homes; without business loans, far fewer enterprises would be able to start up, let alone grow to expand their market share and turnover; and without government borrowing, countries would be stuck in the backwaters of under-development.

What is sensible borrowing?
The UK has for over three centuries borrowed substantially to ensure it has the capacity to grow as a strong country able to look after its citizens. In the last century, the national debt as a % of our GDP was continuously and often significantly over 50% from the First World War to the early 1970s, when it dropped and stayed below 50% through Conservative and Labour governments up until the global financial crisis in 2008. (http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html). When compared internationally, the UK debt (again as a % of GDP) was under the last Labour Government the lowest of all the other G7 leading industrial nations (ie lower than Germany, Japan, France, Canada, USA, Italy - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8415703.stm).

So what has been pushing borrowing up?
With government investment in health, education and economic growth, the quality of life in the UK improved, while the debt level remained below 50% of GDP up until 2008. Anyone who claims not to know what happened in 2008 is either the perpetrator or victim of a political con trick. Bankers around the world had by then gambled away so much of their savers’ money that there was a real risk they would collapse, and that could have led to businesses being unable to borrow enough funds to keep going, and countless people losing their lifesavings. The Labour Government had to step in to save the country. By July 2009, the UK debt level reached 59%. But £142 billion of this was the cost of rescuing the banks, which meant the debt level without the bankers-generated crisis was 47%. For all the talk of billions of pounds in debt, the government’s underlying borrowing strategy was hardly out of line by any historical and international standard.

Have things got better or worse?
When the banks started to cut back lending in 2008, businesses found it more difficult to finance their growth, people with insecure jobs and worries about getting loans cut back consumption. The result was the beginning of a recession with the economy fast stalling. The Labour Government invested public funds to stimulate growth and by the time they left office in 2010, the economy was expanding again at a rate approaching 2%. Politicians from all sides around the world praised the UK strategy for its combination of public investment and sensible debt management. The Tory-led Government, however, for its own ideological reasons insisted that borrowing must be drastically cut regardless of the consequences, and its policies have by 2011 brought us higher unemployment and rising poverty, with the growth rate of the economy plummeting back towards stagnation (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/britains-self-inflicted-misery.html).

Time to back responsible borrowing
In the face of the incessant scaremongering about the UK debt getting out of control, it is essential to remember that during times of crisis the British government has always in the past responded with leadership and responsible borrowing to steer the country out of the storm. After the First World War, the debt level shot up to 100% of GDP and rose up to and remained at 150% through the 1920s. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, the debt level went up to 200% of GDP. Furthermore, even at that level, the post-war Labour Government recognised that it was a priority to rebuild the UK and it invested in the creation of the NHS and other public services for the benefit of all. The debt level reached 240% before 1950, and then steadily dropped to below 100% of GDP after 1960 when private sector growth was by then robust enough to drive the economy forward. Past UK governments had the courage to take on a high level of responsible borrowing to save the country from the Kaiser, the Nazis, and post-war squalor. The present government should not be paralysed by cowardice.

Cut out irresponsible borrowing
Alongside a commitment to responsible borrowing, we should of course expect the Government not to increase the national debt by draining public resources irresponsibly. For example, £10 billion can be saved if the Government does not spend £2 billion to reorganise the NHS to make it more vulnerable to profiteering; £4.5 billion a year to keep troops in Afghanistan; £2.5 billion in tax handouts to the richest corporations and individuals; or £1 billion on bombing a country which poses no direct threat to the UK or its neighbours.

What should be done about the real causes of the banking crisis?
Many people are so angry with the last Labour Government for failing to prevent the banking crisis that they are prepared to jump out of the frying pan into the Tory fire of cuts and prolonged recession. What they need to realise is that Labour’s true failing was not rectifying when they had the chance the Tory policies of squeezing society for the benefit of the super rich minority. First, the Tory deregulation of the banks, which made it possible for them to gamble away billions of pounds of savers’ money, should be reversed. Secondly, financial transactions should be taxed to control otherwise disruptive speculation and help reduced public sector borrowing (this would raise £20 billion even if it is levied at just 0.05%). Thirdly, the Tory fantasy of leaving people with below-subsistence pay to get by through unsustainable borrowing must be pushed aside with a fairer distribution of wealth (something welcomed by many rich people with a social conscience). Fourthly, the integrity of the public sector must be protected to serve the interests of the whole country in good times and bad, and not be dismantled to feed ravenous corporate interests which prioritise private gains over public wellbeing. The Tories will never change their spots, let’s hope Labour has learnt their lessons – for all our sake.

The Politics of Cultural Inclinations

2011-10-01T10:35:00.002+01:00

Can we predict which countries in the world are more likely to embrace open, cooperative political arrangements, and which would more probably stick with rigid, hierarchical systems? It would appear so. I have looked at data compiled and analysed by Geert Hofstede and colleagues over the last forty years (see Hofstede, G., Hofstede, GJ, and Minov, M, Cultures and Organizations, New York: McGaw Hill, 2010), and I have detected an interesting correlation between a set of cultural inclinations and political manifestations.

On what I call the ‘Democratic Continuum’, countries range from those whose residents most ready to deal with problems by engaging others as equals in open, cooperative deliberations, through to countries least prepared to deviate from hierarchical or traditionally established arrangements in determining what should be done in society. These may be referred to as the ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ poles of the continuum.

To map countries’ cultural inclinations, I draw on Hofstede’s data under four sets of comparisons. These are based on contrasting the countries with the highest and lowest proportions of their populations who (assessed by their questionnaire responses) are inclined to favour:
1. Power Distance (those who prefer important decisions affecting them to be left to people higher up than them v those who prefer such decisions to be made by people who will listen to and discuss options with them)
2. Communal Bonds (those who strongly differentiate between members of exclusive communal groups and outsiders v those who view all those in their country as deserving equal respect)
3. Traditional Masculinity (those who believe that the ‘masculine’ approach of being assertive and dominant should prevail in society, while the ‘feminine’ caring approach should be reserved for females at home v those who believe that males and females should alike be caring and mutually supportive wherever they are)
4. Avoidance of Uncertainty (those who want to minimise uncertainty in responding to situations by having rigid arrangements indicating who or what procedures are in place for resolving problems v those who welcome uncertainty in situations as something they will explore on a case by case basis for a response)

Are there countries that cluster at either end of all or most of these four sets of comparisons (the top/bottom 15 countries in the world)? And can we deduce anything about their likely ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’ political status?

Five countries are found to be in the least favour end of most of the listed factors, and not in the most favour end of any of them. Sweden and Denmark are in all four, and Canada, Norway and the Netherlands are in three. A higher proportion of people in these countries reject ‘power distance’, ‘communal bonds’, ‘traditional masculinity’ and ‘avoidance of uncertainty’ as outlined above. And few would dispute that they are likely to be included on any list of the most open, democratic countries in the world.

The UK and Ireland curiously are in the least favour end in relation to ‘power distance’, ‘communal bonds’, and ‘avoidance of uncertainty’, but are both found in the most favour end of ‘traditional masculinity’. My hypothesis is that although the UK and Ireland have cultural tendencies that largely support their democratic institutions, they suffer from retaining a ‘macho’ outlook which holds them back from being as open and democratic as they should be. The first-past-the-post voting system, the unelected House of Lords, the infantile debates of Prime Minister Question Time are all oddities which, I believe, will one day vanish when the wider cultural attachment to ‘traditional masculinity’ declines.

What about the US? It only appears under the least favour end of ‘communal bonds’, and ‘avoidance of uncertainty’. A more revealing picture might be found if we had the Hofstede data segregated by states in the US. I suspect the predominantly Republican states would tend to favour three or all four of the listed factors, while the strongly Democrat states would be amongst the least favour in relation to all of them. And the political practices and institutions established in these states would be more ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’ depending on their cultural inclinations.

As for countries which feature in the most favour end of the different categories, none appeared in all four and only Guatemala and Venezuela featured on three. Both these countries have struggled for decades with dictatorial regimes, and like the rest of Latin America are only able to function with more democratic arrangements relatively recently. It remains to be seen if their prevailing cultural inclinations would make it more difficult for them to make the transition to a fully open and democratic society than their neighbours.

In conclusion I would stress that the relationship of cause and effect is never simple. We cannot say that cultural changes must precede political changes, or political reforms are necessary for cultural shifts. They affect and in time reinforce each other. But we can say that culture change can help to reshape politics.

To promote the cause of democracy, therefore, I think more should be done to alter people’s attitudes about key features of their daily working experience. For example, what’s it like when we can have more of a say about the decisions that affect us and not have them dictated to us; what’s it like to be excluded, overlooked, penalised at work just because one doesn’t belong to some closed communal group; what’s it like when we have less testosterone-fuelled lone wolves and more collaborative colleagues at work; what’s it like to learn through cooperation and experience how to cope with new situations rather than having everything prescribed, depriving us of the opportunity for initiative or innovation.

As more people become more averse to ‘power distance’, ‘communal bonds’, ‘traditional masculinity’ and ‘avoidance of uncertainty’, they will more likely back the advancement towards a more open and democratic society.

Poor Circulation & Economic Disorder

2011-09-14T10:53:00.001+01:00

Imagine as blood circulates through the body, a few parts that have become excessively rich in fat start to prevent sufficient blood from getting to the rest of the body. Not only has the heart got to work harder to keep the blood flowing, but as proper circulation is blocked by the fattened parts, others are deprived of the oxygen they need, and the whole body risks shutting down.

Unfortunately, that’s how the economy – at the national and global level – has been functioning. Those who become fat in wealth siphon off money for themselves and don’t put it back in the economy. And then we get dire warnings about insufficient spending to keep the economy going. Within nations, the corporate elite takes out an ever-larger proportion of the country’s wealth and leaves the rest increasingly starved of resources to make ends meet. Instead of letting workers have a fairer share of the proceeds from their labour, the rich pretends the problem can be solved by sinking people further into debt.

But debt-fuelled bubbles inevitably burst. With the majority left without money to spend – as their income has been shrunk while corporate bosses divert more of the revenue generated by shared enterprise into their own pockets – recession hits us. Plutocratic friends of the rich, through malice or sheer stupidity, proclaim the solution is to transfer even more money from the poor to the rich. Get rid of the minimum wage, they say, cut taxes for the minority who are paying themselves astronomical sums, cut public spending which has helped those with less to afford a decent life without falling into greater debt, and increase job insecurity for workers by undermining what employment rights they have left.

At the international level, deregulated financial institutions are able to move money around to satisfy those with the richest accounts. Fair trade is sacrificed for the interest of predatory trade, where the resources of the poorer countries are stripped to enhance the productive capacity and balance of payment of the rich ones. Countries accumulating wealth from the deficits of others are not placed under any obligation to act in a responsible way to sustain global economic wellbeing. Middle Eastern oil producers ignored the plight of the rest of the world in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the long term they reap the social and economic instability that comes back to haunt them. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Japan pursued a policy of wealth accumulation in relation to the rest of the world, gradually and inexorably weakening the purchasing powers of the latter, until in the 2000s, with demands dropping worldwide, it entered into the flatlining era of no growth. China and the other emerging economic powers will have to address a similar problem.

The UK and the US, instead of protecting the banking elite, and siding with global wealth hoarders, should work with other countries to establish international arrangements to promote fair trade, equitable distribution of surplus, and taxing unearned excesses to invest in the healthy functioning of our inter-connected world.

The problem of economic disorder will not go away. So long as some can persist in blocking a good circulation of wealth in society, causing vital arteries to clog up, depriving many of the share they need to lead a healthy existence, we will lurch from one economic crisis to another.

The Lopsided Playing Field

2011-09-01T10:26:00.001+01:00

The ‘transfer window’ for the new season of Premiership football has just closed. What a damning metaphor the once beautiful game has become for the wealthy-takes-all world beloved of plutocrats.

How does Premiership football work exactly? Last season’s results are instructive. If we rank the teams by the cost-effectiveness of the points they gained (ie the total number of points divided by their wage bill), Blackpool would have topped the league, followed by West Brom, Wolves and Birmingham. But of course Blackpool and Birmingham actually ended up being relegated under the money-can-buy-anything rules.

By the same token, the bottom three clubs for relegation last season would have been Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool. But these clubs stayed, spent millions more than anyone else over the summer, and are all sitting at the apex of the league. Much has been said (amongst us football fans at any rate) about the once formidable Arsenal losing their way – beaten by Liverpool, thrashed by Manchester United. But take a look at the money gap between Arsenal and the ‘top four’ (the net spend on player transfers – as of 22.00, 31 August 2011): Chelsea and Manchester United each spent over £60 million more than Arsenal; Liverpool spent £75 million more; and Manchester City spent almost £90 million more.

Success is not to be nurtured, but bought with money. Will any team other than those four with their substantially larger budgets for transfer fees and wage bills win the Premiership? Absolutely not. In the wider money-dominated society, success is also in the grip of the corporate elite. The top financiers make money for themselves out of devising money-making schemes, while others lose money and sink hopelessly into debt.

What happens to others who try to compete for investment and growth? The manufacturing industry, public healthcare, universal education, affordable housing, these all languish because they cannot make the fast and easy money the financial institutions can secure. Those with the most money write the rules: they scoop off the profit, they pass on the risks, and if things do not go their way, they just get everyone else to hand them more money (public bailout, private savings, contrived deals involving futures and derivatives).

For all the talk about the merits of a free market, with a level playing field where everyone can compete fairly on the basis of their relevant contributions – skills, innovation, organisation, commitment, responsiveness – what we get is a rigged market. The lopsided playing field favours the mega-rich who will take all titles, leaving the poor to survive if they can crawl through the eye of a needle.

But just as the football world is beginning to look at introducing rules to cut down the unfair advantages that money can buy, fiscal policies can help to bring about a fairer society overall. Encouragingly there are rich people in France, Germany, and Italy who have asked their government to tax the wealthy more so they can with their greater resources play a bigger part in meeting the challenges their countries face. Alas, in the UK, the Tories and the super rich are huddled together to talk about cutting the tax rate for those with the most, and relegating the poor to a lower level of existence.

It’s time to show this Blue Government the Red Card.

The Eton Redemption

2011-08-15T10:27:00.003+01:00

(The following excerpts are taken from the autobiography of Gideon ‘Blue’ Bluetit, a close friend of Dave Conman through all the years they spent together in Eton Penitentiary. The full version can be ordered from bullingdon.r.us.com)

“I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, even though he had been convicted of ruining millions of lives, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from everything. It would be fair to say, I liked Dave from the start.

Like everyone else here Dave told me, he was innocent. He was a man born to soar above culpability. The prosecutor had pinned riots, crumbling public services, rising poverty, deteriorating healthcare, and bucket loads of other things on him, just because he failed to control others he was supposed to be responsible for. Surely it’s everyone’s fault but his. For a long time, I wept thinking about it.

Eventually Dave settled in. He hugged a hoodie and then kicked his head in when the goings got tough. You could argue he'd done it to curry favour with those guarding the right wing of our prison. Or, maybe make a few friends among us Cons. Me, I think he did it just to feel smug again.

One day Dave came up with the idea of giving tax advice to the rich guards watching our every move. He told them to evade paying their tax, so the government would have to concede the tax on them was not worth collecting, and remove the tax altogether. They loved him for that. Well, I always said he was good. Shit, he’s a Rembrandt.

Through it all, he never doubted he would soon be back in the saddle. I told him hope was a dangerous thing; it could drive a man insane. After all, he had been found guilty of fulfilling his own prophecy in breaking the society he inherited. But with a smile he asked me if I knew what the Mexicans said about the Pacific. Apparently, they said it had no memory. And that's what it was like in Dave’s head: a warm place with no memory.

In time his parole with the electorate came up. They asked him if he was sorry for what he did. He looked deep into their eyes and said, ‘there's not a day goes by I don't feel regret, for not being tougher on poor people, disabled people scrounging benefits, young thugs, their parents, the police, and most of all, bloody Boris. I look back on the way I was then: a naïve, caring leader who committed the terrible crime of allowing some public services to survive. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That fool's long gone and this is all that's left. I got to live with that. Remorse? It's just a bullshit word. So you go and cast your vote, and stop wasting my time.’

That’s how Dave got another chance, this remarkable man who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. I have no idea to this day what his politics was about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think it was about something so beautiful, like stripping the poor of their dignity, it makes your heart sing because of it. Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Dave being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”

[Ed: Apologies to those not familiar with the lines from The Shawshank Redemption. Some readers thought the language was not what they would normally expect. But I can't take the credit for the genius that belongs to Darabont and King.]

The Know-Nothing Executives

2011-08-01T16:14:00.001+01:00

Who are the KNEs? The Know-Nothing Executives are a special breed who rise to the top of organisations by knowing nothing except the rewards from serving every whim and command of their masters.

They are not uncommon in the private sector. They carry out orders to increase consumption and sales while blanking out what risks those activities might involve, the harm they might cause, or whether alternatives should be considered. Polluting the environment, gambling away others' savings, hacking into the phones of crime victims, fueling addictions, they know and care nothing about them, so long as they can secure what they think is being sought by the top of the pyramid.

Unfortunately since the Thatcherite delusional worship of the private sector took hold, the KNEs have also been on the rise in the public sector. Public servants who have in-depth experience and understanding of particular policy areas, are deemed to know too much and potentially obstructive to what politicians desire. Thus KNEs with no background in healthcare are hired to run our health services; 'leaders' with no experience of working in a police force are sought for parachuting into key policing roles; and the development of public policies is entrusted to KNEs who have not even the most basic grasp of the policies they are in charge of.

This is damaging in at least four ways. First, KNEs don't question their political masters in what they seek to achieve overall. They carry out every requested initiative without pointing out how they might contradict each other or undermine broader objectives, resulting in short-term gratification but long-term incoherence.

Secondly, they shy away from issues of feasibility. Consequently, policies which cannot be delivered without an adequate budget, or won't work without other key components being in place, are left unexposed; and end up consuming precious resources while producing nothing of substance.

Thirdly, KNEs tend to ignore the prospect of negative side-effects. They see their career as solely dependent on the frequency of saying yes. So on their watch, orders are driven forward even if such initiatives risk costing more than any purported savings, being successfully challenged in the courts, damaging private or voluntary sector partners, or worst of all, ruining the lives of the most vulnerable people.

Last but not least, KNEs prefer their masters' approval to evidence-based analysis of policy efficacy. Analyses, surveys, evaluations, which could show up the feebleness of any proposed idea are to be brushed aside, if not scrapped outright. Instead reports are to be produced to validate claims of success. By the time the utter futility of the implemented policies has become obvious for all to see, the KNEs in question would have moved on to a higher rung of the corporate ladder.

Of course the more enlightened politicians are well aware that such obsequiousness would not actually serve them well. I've worked with many different Secretaries of State and Ministers in my time, and what they want is well informed advice, consistently given to them to help them achieve better outcomes for the country. But if politicians want to have this kind of support in the future, they need to make their expectations clear. Shun the KNEs, and place your trust in the public servants with real expertise and integrity to serve the public good.

The Nasty Media

2011-07-15T12:05:00.002+01:00

First came the confession of the Nasty Party (source: T. May, 2002), then the outcry over the Nasty Bankers, and now the exposure of the Nasty Media.

Connecting all these strands is the political agenda for the Nasty Society. Simply put, an elite wants to make sure it can accumulate wealth and power by whatever means, and remove any effective constraint by a democratic state. So it gives ‘donations’ and demands to politicians (usually those in their own ‘rich people first’ party but also anyone sufficiently craven); it exploits financial systems to make vast sums of money at other people’s expense; and it distorts public perception of what is really going on with the support of media manipulators.

Amidst all the shock and anger over the MEANS used by Murdock’s media operatives, attention should be directed at the ENDS that the Nasty Media seek to serve. They want people to think that the public realm is inherently inferior to unbridled corporate interests because individuals could then be alienated from those who are their true allies, while the injustice in society is routinely overlooked.

Instead of allowing the toxic ethos of the Murdoch press to seep into British broadcasting, the standards for impartiality and public responsibility of British broadcasting should be established for the British press and global media more widely. We cannot attain a fair society when the only effective protection of our dignity as equal citizens is systemically vilified.

Public funding, public servants, public provisions are the real enemies of the Nasty Media. Stories about the private lives of celebrities and intrusions into grieving families are just sensationalist sideshows to distract the public from what they should be concerned about, namely, the Nasty elite shifting more and more power away from those dedicated to safeguarding the good of all, and handing it to those who only care about making a profit for themselves.

Take a look at the press coverage. We are short of public funds, so let’s cut public services even more. Equality before the law? The rich can always lawyer up and hire private security services. Tough luck on the rest. Why don’t we raise taxes to cover the shortage? No, cut taxes and deplete public funds even more, it would benefit those with millions saved in tax avoided, and only harm the undeserving poor.

But surely those who pay themselves 100 times or more than most hardworking employees could afford to pay more taxes? No, that’s the politics of envy. These top corporate executives are greatly valued (by the Nasty Society) and should get an incomparably better deal than the rest. Who should be squeezed? Go for the public servants, most of them don’t earn much but get a moderately better pension (than those without the fairer terms offered by the public sector), so let’s stir up envy and hatred of their ‘gold-plated’ pensions. Shouldn’t the terms of their employment reflect how much they are valued? Yes, and the Nasty Party does not value them.

So under-funded, overworked public workers would not be able to sustain the vital services for our country. Good, more stories on failing public services. That’d lend support to the need for ‘reform’ (i.e., passing the potentially profitable bits to private businesses which will wash their hands of the rest). What about the many dreadful failings of the private sector, and the risk of letting profiteers take over even more of our public services? Leave that to the likes of the Guardian and the BBC. Who’ll pay attention to them when they haven’t got headlines about philandering celebrities or inside stories about families hit by tragedies? Who indeed.

The Big Con

2011-07-01T00:04:00.001+01:00

Just as everyday con merchants trick people into handing over their valuables for nothing, the Big Con in politics deceives people into thinking they would be better off without the power they derive from a strong, democratic state.

Centuries of misery have shown that businesses and voluntary organisations are not capable between them of guaranteeing people even the most basic means to cope with the iniquities of life or the fluctuations of arbitrary fortune. But the Big Con maintains that smaller the state, the better society would be. It does this by relentlessly promoting the myth of an ‘all powerful yet wasteful’ state that needs to be drastically cut down.

The reality should be made plain for all to see. The Con Party is cutting the state, not as a short-term measure to cope with the deficit created by the lack of strong government regulation of the banking sector, but as a way to cripple public services permanently. And while the burden of the cuts fall much more heavily on those with less resource, the wealthy few are getting extra help from the not so invisible hand of the Tories. Corporate profits are taxed less. Bankers’ bonuses are no longer taxed at all. The rich who already command many ways to evade taxes are rewarded with staffing cuts in HM Revenue and Customs so there is even less capacity to investigate them.

As public services for all are cut, support for the corporate elite to make profit for the few is increased at every turn. The BBC’s budget is cut by 20% but Murdock’s phone-hacking media empire is given the go-ahead to expand. The Competition Commission, which might stand in the way of such market distortions, is to be abolished, along with many other state bodies which have up to now defended public interests against attempted encroachment by commercial exploitation. Thus, the Food Standards Agency, which has been at the forefront of raising industry standards in tackling unsafe and unhealthy food, is being dismantled in favour of an advisory body dominated by representatives of big corporations with a vested interest in the food business; and the Gambling Commission, which has an independent regulatory role in keeping crime out of gambling, ensuring that it is conducted fairly and openly, and protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited, is to be closed down.

Public provision for everything from education, health to legal aid and care for the vulnerable are cut, undermined and fragmented so that private firms can pick off contracts that make them a handsome profit, while more and more people who cannot afford to pay fall through the widening cracks.

Remember what happened to hygiene in hospitals after they were forced to contract out their cleaning services to private companies. Remember what is unraveling as a consequence of the expansion of for-profit organisations in running care services without public accountability. Remember a small state serving only the wealthy elite is the ultimate pay-off for the Big Con – and the consequences for society would be absolutely dire. To stop the Con from succeeding, we must expose it.

(The full version of my dissection of the ‘Big Con’ is published in the PPR Journal March-May 2011, Volume 18, Issue 1; it can be accessed via:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291744-540X).

A Tale of Two Strategies

2011-06-15T09:59:00.000+01:00

As Obama plans his bid for a second Presidential term, there are two contrasting strategies he may wish to consider. On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Left has been making concessions to corporate elites for decades while becoming increasingly timid in standing up for the poor and vulnerable minorities. Its common strategy is to move right – embracing economic liberalism and social conservatism (i.e., soft on bankers and other billionaires; tough on the jobless and immigrants). South of Mexico, by contrast, the Left across Latin America has been bold in demanding that business powers must serve society, and those with the least should be given priority help as a matter of principle. Its strategic position is to stay true to leftwing political aspirations and engage the majority who are not super-rich to build a better future. What will President Obama make of these different approaches?

In Europe, the Left has not been doing too well. Between 1989 and 2010, looking at the ten most populous countries then in the European Union, social democratic parties took control of the most senior political office in their country 44% of the time while their opponents were in power 56% of the time. If we look at the most recent decade, coinciding with the rise of post-9/11 Islamophobia, the trend is even more disheartening – social democratic parties in power 40% of the time, their opponents 60%. Indeed in the five national elections which were held in these countries in 2010-11, the Left did not manage to win a single one.

By contrast, in Latin America, where plutocratic rule, often allied with the military, had for decades dominated, the Left took advantage of the growing democratisation in their countries in the 1980s and 1990s, and reached out to the general population in developing a vision of what a fairer society might look like – less exploitation by the rich, more investment to help the poor. The Left went on to win the majority of elections they contested, with Leftist parties or coalitions coming to power in Venezuela (1998), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2004), Bolivia (2005), Chile (2006), Ecuador (2007), Peru (2007), and Paraguay (2009).) In the latest electoral battle on that continent, the Left won again (in Peru).

Of course there are many factors we can examine in more detail in comparing the different electoral fortunes of the Latin American and European Left. But it is notable that whereas the Left in Europe have steered to the Right on the assumption that the only viable redistribution has to be from the poor to the rich (because the rich would buy enough influence – via the media, lobbying, campaign donations – to scupper any other political move), the Left in Latin America makes a public virtue of redistribution from the rich to the poor, and they counter the plutocratic influence of the wealthy through widespread direct engagement with their citizens in dissecting the socio-economic problems they needed to solve together.

While the European Left stays behind closed doors plotting how to deal with public opinions manipulated by the corporate elite and their media allies, their Latin American counterpart actively goes out to the country and involves citizens in shaping public opinion and policies. Participatory budgeting, a technique which has subsequently spread across the world as a citizens-led approach to prioritising the spending of public funds, began in Brazil in 1989. Other practices which emphasised the use of dialogue and deliberation took roots in Uruguay, Venezuela, and other countries on the continent.

Obama, with his background in community organising, should be no stranger to the participatory politics of the Latin American Left. Hopefully, he will embrace it and avoid the mistake of the ‘Right mess’ the European Left has got itself into.

Left Disorientated?

2011-06-01T00:30:00.001+01:00

After the parliamentary elections in May 2010, with more Labour, Lib Dem, Green, SNP MPs than Tory ones, it appeared that the UK had leaned left rather than right. But the left was fragmented, and the Lib Dems even decided to form a coalition with the Tories. At that point, the left went from being a political rallying point to becoming a vortex of disorientation – though, admittedly, a most colourful one.

Red Labour was served up as the bogeyman to be avoided. Green Labour was suggested as the hope for the future. Purple Labour was promised as a nicely revamped form of New Labour. And then there’s Blue Labour – now with its own book of essays published with a supportive foreword from Ed Miliband himself.

So maybe ‘Blue Labour’ is going to be the new brand to be stocked in the supermarket of politics. Or, as its proponents would probably prefer to put it, a Labour Party deeply appreciative of people’s conservative feelings would be reconnecting with the British public. A key strand of Blue Labour is to distance itself from the obsessive market-speak of New Labour and cultivate instead a more tradition-based language and relationship with the voters.

In the book, ‘The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox’, edited by
Maurice Glasman, Jonathan Rutherford, Marc Stears, and Stuart White, the contributors (including David Miliband, Hazel Blears, and Jon Cruddas) discuss what this approach might mean. There is a broad consensus on what to reject: obsequious worship of the market system; unrestrained dominance by capital over everyday lives; policies driven by abstract language and statistics which do not connect with people’s experiences; constant obsession with changing public services without appreciating communities’ yearning for security and stability; and a top-down approach that ignores the importance of relationships built from the bottom-up.

Many on the left – especially those of us who as progressive communitarians or eco-socialists have made similar points for many years – would agree with these suggestions of what Labour should jettison. There will also be broad support for the collaborative leadership approach outlined by Marc Stears so that politicians, community activities and concerned citizens can develop closer relationships in devising campaigns and policies for the common good. The challenge comes with what should form the agenda for the future. Here ‘Blue Labour’ provides less of a vision than a debating platform. There are at least four critical issues to consider.

First, it’s all very well invoking the value of traditions, but much depends on what self-image we want to link to the past being reconstructed. Contributors to the book are themselves divided between those who, like Maurice Glasman and Jonathan Rutherford, keep glancing back to what appears to be a predominantly white, patriarchal Englishness, and those who insist that cosmopolitan, multicultural, feminist, values are important elements of the Labour tradition. Of course there are good traditions associated with “flag, faith and family”, but they should not be embraced without a clear stand also taken against jingoism, fundamentalism, and chauvinism.

Secondly, while there is agreement that we must defend ourselves against the “destructive impact of financial power and unaccountable corporate power”, some contributors stress that this should be done with less emphasis on redistribution by the state. Yet however much community organising can achieve in curtailing the excesses of irresponsible business executives, all the evidence points to the power gap between the corporate elite and the rest of society widening without adequate state intervention. It is worth noting that a number of contributors believe inequalities have to be actively tackled by the state. For David Miliband, “relationships of reciprocity and equality are helped or hindered by the equality, or lack of, between the participants (legal rights, income, wealth, social and cultural capital).” And Stuart White made it clear he could not subscribe to downgrading the redistributive role of the state. After all, it’s a role any Labour government should be proud and not ashamed of fulfilling.

Thirdly, it is said that Labour handled a number of major policies badly. In backing the US attack on Iraq and sustaining Tory deregulation of the financial sector, it certainly made two terrible mistakes. But two other key ‘failures’ cited by ‘Blue Labour’ proponents are over crime and immigration. What exactly were Labour’s errors? It brought crime down and it had a tight regime to control immigration. But for the conservative-minded, criminals are never punished enough, and there are always too many immigrants. Labour should certainly do more to engage with the public in cultivating a shared understanding of how best to deal with criminals and manage immigration, but if ‘Blue Labour’ is code for getting tougher in dehumanizing convicts and demonizing immigrants, then it must not go unchallenged.

Fourthly, apart from helping to grab a few headlines, how helpful – or not – is it to hoist the banner of ‘Blue Labour’, trumpeting the pursuit of conservatism? If what is being promoted is more extensive and effective community development to help build up citizen involvement in tackling the excesses of corporate powers, then as Andrea Westall observed, it would be better to talk about bottom-up socialism. And as Hazel Blears pointed out, Labour’s historical mission has often been to stop the oppressive arrangements in society being conserved, and to press for changes to improve life for ordinary people. Positioning itself as conservative in protecting the status quo would either be misguided if true or misleading otherwise.

Worryingly, Glasman regards Labour’s 1945 victory as “the trigger for its long term decline” as though it was regrettable that a political party had been so successful in using the state to help people who would on their own have suffered severe squalor and neglect. This did not escape the critical notice of other contributors such as Ben Jackson. The NHS and the welfare state did not emerge out of conserving any prevailing social arrangements or long established traditions, but were founded to enable people – old and young, men and women – to live in communities not afflicted by disease and poverty.

It is curious that Blue Labour advocates should accuse the last Labour government of forgetting about the values of community and mutuality, when they themselves are gripped with amnesia about what that government actually achieved: investment in community organisations, promotion of community development, New Deal for Communities, Participatory Budgeting, Community Shares, Guide Neighbourhoods (run by local people), Community Ownership of Assets, Neighbourhood Policing, and many other community empowerment initiatives which were greatly valued by local residents and community activists across the country. Apart from a few tokenistic gestures, the Conservatives have largely shut down such support. To intimate that Labour has to reclaim the community agenda from the Tories is to seriously confuse rhetoric with reality.

The Joker to the Right

2011-05-15T11:17:00.001+01:00

To commemorate the victims in the first year of the Coalition Government’s cuts, there should be wall-to-wall screening of the scene in ‘Reservoir Dogs’ when Mr. Blonde was about to display his own fondness for cuts. Cue the music:

“Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.”

Much has been already said about those Lib Dem clowns who volunteered themselves as human shields for the Tories. They are not so much left of centre as left behind, on every major policy issue, on every cut inflicted on the vulnerable, their antics merely deflecting attention from the real villains.

And it is the villains we need to focus on – those jokers to the right. Chief amongst them is of course THE JOKER himself: Cameron with his deceptive grin, his superficial charm, and his cold determination to make a mockery of everything a decent society should stand for.

Whereas Thatcher assumed, and the American Right still believes, that the best way for the wealthy elite to trample on the rest is to trumpet their attack on social justice with aggressive verbal onslaught at every turn, Cameron’s more devious and potent strategy is to pour nice words onto everything with a social value as a prelude to his minions slashing it with their sugarcoated butcher knife.

Cameron talks of fairness for everyone – so he lessens the burden for the rich and piles on the pressures for the poor. He pledges his support for the NHS – while he plans to tear it apart and replace it with a profit-orientated service. He says he cares about vulnerable people – but he decimates benefit support for people with disabilities. He claims to value family – yet for families on low income, he hacks away their housing benefit so they cannot even afford to stay at their home and have a stable family life. He praises the work of voluntary organisations – and he cuts their funding so they end up with less capacity to help those in need. He speaks warmly of education for all – in reality he cuts billions of pounds off state schools’ budgets while spending billions more on optional extras for aircraft carriers which may not even have aircrafts to carry.

In many ways, Cameron has perfected the very opposite of the ‘dog whistle’ approach. The Right was accustomed to saying things to stir up the emotions of their supporters even if in practice they did not intend to do anything quite so extreme. But the Joker has shown how by saying things to soothe potential opponents, he could get away with doing even more extreme things than Thatcher ever thought of.

Concerted opposition is what we need to stop the Joker getting away with hurting so many innocent people. His real agenda is to help the rich and powerful – defence contractors, media moguls, private healthcare providers, the wealthy who are not the least bothered about tuition fees, bankers who can keep their bonuses, etc. Until he’s seen for what he really is, the last laugh would be on us.

Royal Family Values: a historical fact sheet

2011-05-01T12:12:00.001+01:00

In response to those who are worried that children are not taught enough about family values, monarchical traditions, and, above all, key dates from our history, I have compiled the following fact sheet to be distributed to all schools to help with the education of future generations:

1028
Birth of the English Royal Family’s progenitor, William the Bastard, as he was known in his native France for being the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy.

1066
William learnt that the Anglo-Saxon chiefs of England had by their custom discussed and agreed that Harold Godwinson should become their next king. So he invaded England, had Harold killed, proclaimed himself king, and seized land across the country to build up his family’s fortunes.

1135-1154
William’s grandchildren, Stephen and Matilda, contested the family will, and ruined the country as they fought for the crown. The throne would eventually go to Matilda’s son, Henry Plantagenet, who would continue the family tradition of speaking in French to the English natives.

1189-1199
Having inherited the crown from Henry II, Richard decided to spend his time fighting relatives on the continent and terrorising infidels in the Middle East, rather than stay with his family in England. For that, he would be revered as ‘Richard the Lionheart’.

1215
John’s grip on the family business slipped when he was forced to sign the Magna Carta as a promise that he would consult the local barons before he took any key decision. He did not keep his promise.

1216-1377
Henry III and the three Edwards who came after him dedicated themselves to crushing the insolent barons, exploiting and then expelling the Jews, defeating the Welsh, challenging the King of France, and invading the Scots.

1377-1485
Family arguments got out of hand. Richard II was ‘removed’ by one of the Lancastrians who proclaimed himself Henry IV, but the usurper’s grandson, Henry VI was in turn eliminated by a Yorkist – Edward IV, who passed on the throne to his beloved son (Edward V) not knowing that his beloved brother would soon ‘take care of’ the 13 year old king and crowned himself Richard III. But Richard III reigned for just over two years before another Lancastrian killed him and became Henry VII.

1533
Henry VIII wanted to divorce and marry as he pleased without interference from the Catholic Church. The Pope would not agree, so Henry set up his own Protestant Church, and transferred Catholic lands and buildings to his family property portfolio.

1547-1603
The family was torn between Catholics and Protestants, and supporters for either side were frequently imprisoned or burnt to death. The Protestant Elizabeth had her Catholic cousin Mary (Queen of Scots) held in custody for 19 years before finally ordering her execution. But she was content to pass the family throne to Mary’s son, James, because he was a Protestant.

1642-60
James I’s son, Charles I provoked a civil war with Parliament and lost not only his throne, but his head. Yet after Cromwell failed to establish a stable republic, it was family business as usual and Charles II triumphantly returned from exile.

1688
Forgetting that illegitimacy did not stop the first William from taking the throne, Charles II agreed not to pass the crown to any of the children he had with his many mistresses, but to hand it to his brother, James, a devout Catholic. This led Parliament to ask another foreigner called William – a Dutchman who was not only a nephew of James II but married to his daughter, Mary – to bring his troops to England to claim the throne. The invasion was a success and James II fled.

1714-1837
More infusion of foreign blood was added to the ruling family in Britain with the Hanoverian intake from Germany. The four Georges and William IV stopped family rows from escalating to murders and wars, and apart from George III losing the family’s entire American inheritance, they did not do too badly overall.

1837-1901
Under Victoria, the United Kingdom became an empire eclipsing that of the Romans, and British gunboats, opium, colonists moved freely around the world.

1936
Victoria’s great grandson, Edward VIII, put his family under great strain. He befriended the Nazis, for which he was forgiven. But when he dared to suggest that he wanted to marry a divorced woman, he was asked to abdicate the throne in favour of his younger brother, Albert, who became George VI.

1952
George VI’s daughter ascended to the throne as Elizabeth II. She would pass on to her children and grandchildren the important family name, not of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (from her father’s side) or Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (from her husband’s side), but of Windsor.

2011
The Windsor family business diversified into tourism, with a global PR campaign launched through the broadcast of the wedding between Elizabeth II’s grandson, William, and Kate Middleton, to billions of people around the world.

Memento Tory

2011-04-16T13:35:00.001+01:00

I was watching Christopher Nolan’s ingenious film, ‘Memento’, again but with the sequences edited so I could see them in the actual chronological order. As those of you who know the film (for those who don’t but hope to watch it one day, beware of spoilers), we thought Leonard had managed to shoot the person who murdered his wife, until it was finally revealed that the person he shot had nothing to do with the death of his wife at all. Leonard’s inability to retain new memory meant that however much he tried to make notes to remind himself of potential friends and foes, he would often be confused, manipulated by others, and even deceived by himself when he was in a vindictive mood.

The most significant discovery in re-watching ‘Memento’ was that Leonard was ultimately his own worst enemy. Unable to form any coherent view of what had happened to him and others, he devised a self-deluding process to give himself a meaningful mission – to kill the man who took his wife away. But since it was Leonard whose memory lapses led to his wife’s death from insulin overdose, this mission was in fact a pointless endeavour in self-destruction. Seen in the correct order, all the characters who on first viewing appeared to be nasty in one way or another, turned out to be imperfect souls who nonetheless tried in their different ways to help Leonard find closure to his tragic predicament, and move on to something which had real meaning. But Leonard, repeatedly forgetting what he had learnt from painful experiences not so long ago, would embark over and over again on a futile quest.

Sadly, for our country, the Tory Party under Cameron is not unlike Leonard. It fixates on some hated enemy to be blamed for seriously harming the economy and damaging people’s lives, but it forgets that it was its own Thatcherite obsession with deregulation that brought about the financial crisis; and there was no other cause other than its unshakable addiction to cutting down the state that led to the rise in poverty which wrecked so many families. With no memory or any sense of culpability, it launches into making more of the same mistakes.

Perhaps deep down, the Tory Party could not face up to what it had done in the past. So it projects its unforgivable guilt onto others to whom it could direct its indignant scorn. But all the while, it’s out there hurting more and more victims totally innocent of the dreadful misdeed that it alone has perpetrated.

Don’t forget that the Tories, having allowed their banker friends to destroy the economy, are letting them off the hook again. They widened income inequalities in the 1980s and 1990s, and are embarking on exactly the same pernicious course once more. Where Rousseau had long ago warned of the danger of the wealth gap, their motto seems to be the exact reverse, namely: “the rich should get so powerful that they can buy the servility of other people, and the poor should have so little until they have to sell themselves into perpetual exploitation.”

So come 5 May, hold on to your memory. Cameron wants his Tory brigade to keep control of local authorities so they would do his bidding in cutting public services as fast and as deep as possible; and he wants to keep the first-past-the-post electoral system to continue to run the country with a minority of the votes. In the local elections, vote Labour, the Greens, even the Lib Dems if that would end Tory control. And in the referendum on the electoral system, vote for the Alternative Vote.

68 Places to Change the Government's Mind

2011-04-02T11:01:00.003+01:00

After our 26/3/11 March in London to rally resistance against the decimation of public services, it’s time to turn our attention to targeting key constituencies so that enough MPs rethink their support for the Conservative-led coalition.

We need to persuade voters in those constituencies (where the incumbent Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs could not take for granted the retention of their seats at the next election) that Cameron is savagely cutting down the capacity of a supportive state, and its net effect would be more leeway for the rich and powerful to do as they please, while the rest of us bear the burden of their callous irresponsibilities.

So how would it work?

Discounting the effectively neutral Speaker and Deputy Speakers in the House of Commons, Cameron and Clegg currently rely on 362 of their MPs to give them a majority of 83 against the other 279 MPs who might vote against them. Thus we need at least 42 of the Con/Lib MPs to help stop the Government over their massive programme to incapacitate public services or hand them over to the profit-led sector as they are planning with the NHS.

These MPs would probably put their Party loyalty first, but if they fear the loss of their seat, they would think twice.

I have drawn up a list of 68 constituencies below where the Conservative or Lib Dem MPs would be particularly receptive to citizens’ reminder that their refusal to vote down damaging policies would cost them their seat. Others may have a slightly shorter or longer list with a number of different names, but the purpose of putting forward my list is to encourage protest coordinators to target their efforts where they are most likely to put real pressure on MPs and get them to engage with the deep suffering caused by the Government they have hitherto been backing. This could then begin to turn the tide against Cameron’s phoney majority.

Here’s my suggested list of 68 places where peaceful protest and persuasion could change enough MPs’ minds to help prevent the destruction of the backbone of our decent society:

Aberconwy (Con)
Amber Valley (Con)

Bedford (Con)
Bermondsey & Old Southwark (Lib)
Birmingham Yardley (Lib)
Bradford East (Lib)
Brent Central (Lib)
Brentford & Isleworth (Con)
Brighton Kemptown (Con)
Bristol West (Lib)
Broxtowe (Con)
Burnley (Lib)
Bury North (Con)

Cambridge (Lib)
Cannock Chase (Con)
Cardiff Central (Lib)
Cardiff North (Con)
Carlisle (Con)
Chester, City of (Con)
Corby (Con)
Croydon Central (Con)

Dewsbury (Con)
Dunbartonshire East (Lib)

Ealing Central & Acton (Con)
Edinburgh West (Lib)
Enfield North (Con)
Erewash (Con)

Gloucester (Con)

Halesowen & Rowley Regis (Con)
Harrow East (Con)
Hastings & Rye (Con)
Hendon (Con)
High Peak (Con)
Hornsey & Wood Green (Lib)
Hove (Con)

Ipswich (Con)

Keighley (Con)
Kingswood (Con)

Lancaster & Fleetwood (Con)
Leeds North West (Lib)
Lincoln (Con)
Loughborough (Con)

Manchester Withington (Lib)
Morecambe & Lunesdale (Con)

Northampton North (Con)
Norwich North (Con)
Norwich South (Lib)
Nuneaton (Con)

Pendle (Con)
Plymouth Sutton & Devonport (Con)
Pudsey (Con)

Redcar (Lib)
Rossendale & Darwen (Con)

Sherwood (Con)
Stevenage (Con)
Stockton South (Con)
Stroud (Con)
Swindon South (Con)

Thurrock (Con)

Warrington South (Con)
Warwick & Leamington (Con)
Warwickshire North (Con)
Watford (Con)
Waveney (Con)
Weaver Vale (Con)
Wirral West (Con)
Wolverhampton South West (Con)
Worcester (Con)

Long live the spirit of '68.

From Wisconsin, With Love

2011-03-15T16:55:00.002Z

007, this is for your eyes only.

We have been reliably informed that SPECTRE (Supreme Plutocratic Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is planting a union-busting bomb in Wisconsin. If detonated, it would eliminate all collective bargaining powers of that state’s workers, and leave its victims with no hope of ever having their plunging wages resuscitated. The fallout from that explosion would then spread to other states where a similar level of devastation could follow.

Your mission is to unmask the SPECTRE operatives who have infiltrated the highest political offices in Wisconsin and ensure their hold on power is terminated through Project Recall (http://www.actblue.com/page/recallrepublican8).

This is not an isolated incident. SPECTRE has been planning for some time to secure world domination by an elite of the rich and powerful, with resistance at all levels systematically eliminated. Having successfully removed regulatory protection in the finance sector, it helped its banking partners extort trillions from the British and American governments to fund their casino racket. Through its vast media network, it is daily spreading misinformation about Mexicans, Muslims, and moderate politicians, making out that they are the enemies when in reality it continued to amass more power for the wealthy few to dictate terms to the rest of the population.

While in Wisconsin, you should also investigate the related SPECTRE conspiracy to undermine environmental protection efforts in the US which would substantially increase the risk of damages to the rest of the world. Wisconsin has been targeted for green measures to be removed, in line with moves in other states to blow up the barriers holding back corporate polluters. This is part of SPECTRE’s plan to degrade the living conditions of all those who cannot afford to retreat to privileged locations, and put a premium on the ‘clean’ air and water it would then sell through its exclusive outlets.

Once you have completed your mission in Wisconsin, you should report to our Washington office for your next assignment – concerning one of SPECTRE’s American subsidiaries plotting to replace our National Health Service with a market system designed to serve only those who could help it make a handsome profit.

Good luck, 007.

The Murdoch Empire Strikes Back

2011-03-03T15:09:00.001Z

Long, long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Murdoch extended his media empire to cover the Sun, the Sky, and much else besides.

He had a simple vision: rich and powerful people like him would be praised, poor and vulnerable people like the jobless and refugees would be condemned, and any politician who doesn’t support him would be vilified. One part of his empire was even known for hacking into the phones of public figures, including politicians, to dig up information which could be used against them.

But many were beginning to get fed up with the imperious arrogance of the emperor, and when he plotted to take even greater control of the few media outlets outside his clutches, an opposition was formed to stop him. It could be a new dawn – people might once again find truth in the media and not be battered by the insidious propaganda onslaught launched by Murdoch and his henchmen.

Alas, Cameron has come to the emperor’s rescue. A great admirer of Murdoch’s vision of the world, he learnt from the master by hiring one of his most trusted lieutenants, the one who presided over the phone-hacking division of the empire, and then met with the emperor’s son to talk about what would be in their mutual interest to discuss (we cannot tell you what exactly they discussed because in case evidence should come forth about any gross impropriety, Cameron has refused to disclose the contents of their conversation ahead of the Government’s decision to refer or not Murdoch’s latest takeover bid to the Competition Commission).

Now all the promise of halting Murdoch’s latest bid to expand his media empire even further, of giving it scrutiny and tight controls, has vanished. There will be no referral to the Competition Commission. Murdoch, with Cameron’s connivance, can do whatever he wants. In return, Murdoch’s media will no doubt praise Cameron to the sky.

The only ‘concession’ is that while Murdoch will continue to fund Sky News, he would not be ‘personally’ directing its editorial policy. Sky News will tell its audience whatever it wants to regardless of its paymaster. Cameron is very satisfied with this. It is a very good step forward for everyone. If you don’t believe it, you can tune into Sky News, or read the Sun, or the News of the World, or if you want to follow the story about why pigs can fly thanks to the latest Republican Party policies, there’s always Fox News.

SOS: Save Our NHS

2011-02-10T18:41:00.002Z

Are you aware of the Government’s plan to turn our NHS into a marketplace for profit, where your health needs and those of your family will increasingly be buried deep under contracts and deals involving private businesses whose prime concern is to make money? If more money is to be made from someone else, you might just find yourself slipping further towards the back of the queue.

The Conservatives said they would protect the NHS and claimed explicitly that under their watch, to avoid any unnecessary chaos, there would be “no more top down reorganisations”. But the Health & Social Care Bill, now being pushed through Parliament by the Conservative Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, would pile on a vast amount of extra management and financial responsibilities on groups of hard pressed GPs, deflecting them from giving the best care possible to their patients.

What’s more, in addition to bringing about unnecessary chaos, creating another centralised Quango, and wasting public money on management consultants, this Bill would ‘open up’ the NHS as a giant market for profit-driven businesses to exploit for their own gains. It’s no secret that Lansley was “bankrolled by the head of one of the biggest private health providers to the NHS” (as reported by the Daily Telegraph, 14 Jan 2010). Now these private companies could be given unprecedented opportunities to make money out of the NHS.

Lansley’s Bill would establish that the first and foremost duty of the health service regulator is to “promote competition”. It could provide extra incentives to bring new private operators into a market by insisting that GPs pay them a preferential price. Private companies would in turn be allowed to offer “loss leaders” to gain a foothold in the market before squeezing out not-for-profit NHS providers.

If Lansley gets his way, the current cap on the amount of private healthcare work an NHS trust can take on would be removed. Forced to compete with private businesses in making money to survive, more and more NHS trusts, staffed by doctors and nurses trained through the public purse, would have to look to increasing their income by prioritising private patients. They would also have to get business consultants in to help them make more money in the market system.

The Government has already given the go-ahead for NHS money to be spent on “commissioning support” from organisations such as United Healthcare (an American multinational) and management consultants KPMG. It also wants any surplus generated by NHS trusts to be available to pay out to GPs as bonuses instead of it being all ploughed back into patient care. This is at a time when the NHS budget already cannot even keep pace with inflation, and without any plan for reinvestment in the near future to build up the NHS, the new market system will determine which patient will lose out.

What Lansley has in store for us is nothing short of the profitisation of the NHS. If you’re not happy with this development, you should ask your local MP what their position is in relation to the Health and Social Care Bill. Their response should inform how you vote come the next election, which may happen sooner rather than later if the Government refuses to change the course of this stealth bomber against the NHS.

Beyond the Matrix

2011-02-01T17:48:00.001Z

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. It’s a make belief world in which everything works perfectly without any need for regulation or publicly funded services. In this world, there is not a budget deficit because a previous government had to spend billions to protect savers, the economy and jobs when irresponsible bankers gambled away so much of other people’s money that they were at risk of going under and taking everyone else with them.

No, in the Matrix, it is not the deregulated bankers but the old wicked government which caused all the problems – squandering money on helping the sick, supporting the poor, nurturing the young, comforting the old, investing in jobs and preventing economic meltdown.

To protect the reign of the profit-makers, renegade champions of the common good (teachers, nurses, community development workers, or anyone with a name like Neo) are hunted down, privatised, and made to serve commercial masters. Public services will wither away, and every aspect of life will just get better and better in this big fat fabricated society.

But the Matrix can only be sustained by the false consciousness created by those who want us to remain subservient to the corporate machine. If you look carefully at this so-called reality where public value must be relentlessly sacrificed for private gains, you will begin to see the cracks appearing in their lies.

Of course it is in their interest to stop you scrutinising their dodgy projections. They want you to believe that there is no alternative, that everything will fall apart if they do not slash the life out of the public sector. They want you to accept without reservation that the only way forward is to count on the mercies of rich executives and beg for private charities.

And do you believe them?

As an old friend once said, the choice is simple. You take the blue option – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red option – you join us in seeing the Matrix for what it truly is, a monstrous deception that must be exposed and eradicated.

This is your last chance. Pledge your vote to those who will end this charade. And get others to do the same. Time is running out. There is no turning back.

Our Bacon Needs Saving

2011-01-22T17:41:00.003Z

For anyone keen to debate what key historical dates and figures we should all learn about, one great thinker deserves the most serious consideration – Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, pioneer of experimentalist philosophy, author of ‘The Advancement of Learning’ which inspired the founding of the Royal Society (for science) and the progressive outlook of the Enlightenment movement, and the earliest political figure to champion state-funded research and education.

Born 450 years ago today (22 January 1561), Bacon was a pivotal figure in challenging the dominant attitude of his times which insisted that a few authoritative figures in the establishment (the church, universities, or the royal court) could be left to determine what everyone else must believe. Instead, he put forward the revolutionary idea that knowledge could only be pursued through the continuous questioning, experimenting and reviewing of evidence, involving all who could contribute their testimony and critical reflections to test the robustness of any claim made.

Through his extensive writings, Bacon made the case that dogmatic assertions of ‘facts and figures’ were flawed because they were inherently unreliable. If society would not embrace systematic investigation and experimental testing to build up a body of knowledge which could always be further revised and improved in the light of future evidence, he argued, we would be stuck with dubious beliefs which were at best useless, or at worst dangerously misleading.

Although King James I, whom he loyally served as Chancellor, dismissed his ideas, reformists of subsequent generations followed Bacon’s lead and moved British, European, and ultimately global culture away from the grip of arbitrary dogmas towards a far greater reliance on experimentally grounded learning, supported by a sustained investment of collective resources to raise the quality of research and the accessibility of education.

However, after nearly four centuries of progress, resistance is increasingly being mounted by many who could see their interests served by shielding particular dogmas from empirical criticisms. Plutocrats, who want their profit-making to trump all else, are backing the cut back of public investment in the advancement of objective knowledge. It would leave them to propagate their own claims in defence of how their socially irresponsible actions would have no detrimental impact at all on the environment, people’s health, economic stability, or the vitality of family and community life. As educators are faced with reduced resources to carry out impartial research, while the public have to bear increased burdens to acquire the skills to learn and question, the Baconian maxim of ‘Knowledge is Power’ is being turned on its head – disempower citizens by depriving them of real knowledge.

Political and business leaders who value the cultivation of unbiased knowledge for the wellbeing of society should unite to reverse this trend. More, not less, private funding should be channeled through the state to public research and educational institutions with no strings attached, save the fulfilment by the latter of the commitment to expand our shared knowledge through the most vigorous and objective examination, and learning opportunities open to all regardless of their socio-economic status.

Deep Freeze Alert

2011-01-01T17:33:00.002Z

In the last few years, a pair of frogs had chosen the pond behind our house as their annual breeding ground. But there’s not going to be any happy new year for them in 2011. Last December, the pair went into the pond, assuming perhaps they would once again secure their favourite location ahead of spring’s arrival. Unfortunately, with their insensitivity to gradual changes in temperature, the two frogs stayed put in the water as it cooled degree by degree, until they were literally frozen to death.

Are we going to be any better at spotting and dealing with imminent danger? As the civic temperature continues to fall around us, why do the majority of people still look on passively, seemingly unaware that the collective infrastructure, which has taken decades to build up to protect us, is now at risk of disintegration?

Every gauge of the conditions for public wellbeing is showing an alarming drop. Job security is plummeting; the safety net for the vulnerable is lowered and made less effective in cushioning those in freefall; privatized utilities (from energy to railways) deliver less value for much higher charges; all public funding for university teaching (except for a small minority of science subjects) has vanished; the provision of not-for-profit health service is not keeping pace with growing demands; and people seeking to redress unjust treatment are increasingly left to their own impoverished devices.

Perhaps some people don’t yet connect the signs of deterioration with a sense of personal peril. They see and hear about radical changes in the abstract, but think that they would somehow escape unscathed. Others may recognise the threat against them and their communities, but are numbed by the assumption that there is nothing they could do about any of it. What is certain, however, is that if we remain adrift in a state of inaction, life for those of us outside the privileged realm of the corporate elite is going to get very bad indeed.

So while we still have the chance, let’s make this our collective resolution for 2011. We are not to let fear or apathy overwhelm us. Spread the word, sound the alarm, and unite in defence of our common good. It’s time we raise the temperature.

An Interview with 'Father Christmas'

2010-12-01T19:46:00.001Z

Q: Sir Reginald, you’re one of the most celebrated entrepreneurs and philanthropists in the world. Your renowned generosity has led your friends in the City to call you ‘Father Christmas’. That must make you proud?

R: Well, we should all do what we can. I haven’t given that much. On the latest count, maybe I’ve given about £40 million to charities.

Q: That’s a huge sum. Some have estimated that to be almost 0.005% of your personal fortune.

R: Yes, I think my children sometimes worry that I’m getting too generous. But how many more mansions and companies can I buy them! It’s so important to think about other people. When I look at my vast art collection, for example, I don’t think about myself, I think about the people who might be deprived of a chance to view these masterpieces. So I’ve donated millions to galleries and museums to enable them to display my precious collection to the masses.

Q: And you give substantial sums to political parties too?

R: ‘Parties’, as you rightly noted, not ‘party’. I’m totally non-partisan. Political parties seek to gain power to run our country, and I give them the support they need to do that well.

Q: Isn’t it true that in return your tax bill has been drastically reduced under all the different governments?

R: Not just my tax bill, all my friends have had to pay less tax as well, and most of them haven’t donated a penny to any political party. So once again, others benefit from my generosity, which is fine by me.

Q: Your giving is not limited to this country either, is it?

R: I’m a complete cosmopolitan. We live in a splendidly inter-connected world. And I give to countless overseas projects.

Q: Like the one with the princes in the Middle East where your gifts helped them build up the world’s finest fleet of Rolls Royce cars?

R: Absolutely, and in return, we got a contract for supplying their government with some of the deadliest weapons in the world. I’m very proud of contributing so much to the peace and stability of this volatile region.

Q: Finally, Sir Reginald, what about the people who work for you? What are you most proud of in giving to them?

R: So many things come to mind. I give them all a good income. Some of them complain it’s not enough to live on, but what do they know about the cost of living! They should try the upkeep I have to cope with. I give them a straightforward working environment, with none of these health and safety complications tripping everyone up every second of the day. But above all, I give them that rare opportunity – to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, because every quarter to increase our overall profitability and share values, I give a good number of them the sack.

Q: That must be quite hard to do?

R: You’ve got to think about the big picture. The more people I make unemployed, the lower the pressure is on wage demands. That keeps inflation down, which helps the economy, and all my friends are happy.

Q: No wonder they call you Father Christmas.

On Strikers and Own Goals

2010-11-01T20:29:00.000Z

Strikers attract headlines. They are a focused and determined bunch. Nothing will deflect them from their goal – scoring in a cup final, smashing home that last minute equaliser, or moaning about one’s club to get one’s pay doubled.

The trouble is when you need them to help you defend your vulnerable position, their impetuosity could cost you a few serious own goals.

Public services are going to be drastically cut back. There will be reductions to the level of support for people, old and young, who would not otherwise be helped; to the number of jobs needed by families and communities; to the resources required for maintaining a basic decent quality of life.

For some, the time has come to bring on the strikers. This would get everyone’s attention, they say. They will score against the opposition, for sure. But how do they think they will actually achieve that. Have they really got a coherent strategy? Have they thought through their tactics?

It has to be said that in these kinds of clashes, the strikers don’t exactly have an enviable track record. They tend to come on and draw attention to the widespread inconvenience they will cause, and away from the problems heaped on society.
That’s 0-1 down.

Every strike from then on, far from raising awareness of the consequences of cuts to jobs and services, just strengthens the hand of those who present themselves as the true custodian of the public good, standing firm against reckless strike action.
That’s 0-2 down.

As the contest goes on, if the strikes continue, the public loses patience completely with what they see as purely self-interested actions, and throws its support behind the shrinking of public provisions, with little sympathy left for those who try to resist it.
That’s 0-3 and the final whistle.

Of course, under the right circumstances, strikes could deliver for social justice. They’ve even made a film - 'Made in Dagenham' – celebrating how strikes helped to further the cause of equal pay for women. But horses for courses, and blind deployment of strikers would just lose everyone the one match they desperately need to win.

Some may say that unless one has a better suggestion, striking is the only way forward. But we don’t always have to know the right solution to be sure what would be a very wrong answer. I have no idea how to carry out brain surgery to help someone regain consciousness, but I have no doubt that you’re not going to bring someone out of a coma by cutting off his head.

Paint It Red

2010-10-02T13:42:00.002+01:00

I was in the middle of reading Drew Westen’s The Political Brain when I saw a white rabbit running past me muttering, “I’m late, I’m late.” I followed him but soon fell into a hole which turned out to have a very long drop. By the time I landed, ever so gently, at the bottom, the rabbit was already heading out to an open field where a large crowd had gathered. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but all the people listened to him attentively. Then suddenly a pack of human-sized playing cards appeared from nowhere. The Jack of Clubs pointed at the rabbit and solemnly declared, “Paint it red”. The cards diligently carried out the order. The now red rabbit was dumb-founded. In the next moment, everyone had turned on him. They shouted abuse, threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at him, and chased him away.

Curious as to what had happened, I walked over to what appeared to be a family picnic by a river to see if they could enlighten me. The father wore a very big hat and was totally absorbed in dishing out the food, except he was piling it all on the plate of this one ginormously fat boy. The other ten or so children were frankly emaciated. Before I could say anything, the smallest of the kids, a little girl of four or five, raised her hand and asked, “Why can’t we all have a share?” The father stared at her and replied in a low voice, “Because it’s my food, Alice, and I can do what I want with it.” “But,” said Alice, “that’s not fair.” She had barely finished speaking when those strange playing cards popped up and surrounded her. Contemptuously, the Jack of Clubs uttered as he looked down at Alice – “Paint it red”. The other children glared at red Alice and in an inexplicable rage they pushed her into the river, and the little girl was never seen again.

I wanted to report this awful incident and found my way to the nearest courthouse. As I approached, a huge egg loomed into view. The judge, it transpired, was none other than Humpty Dumpty. I had to wait because he was in the middle of a very serious case. A walrus and a turtle had both been accused of drugging all the King’s horses, a crime punishable by death. In support of his defence, the turtle offered a cast iron alibi. By contrast, the walrus offered a large bag of gold. The turtle was outraged, “That’s a bribe!” But Judge Humpty Dumpty disagreed, “No, no, no, words should be chosen carefully, especially when they mean whatever I want them to mean. And what the walrus offers me is a generous donation. So he can be set free.” The turtle turned to the jury and pleaded with them, “this is madness, you cannot let this happen. You mustn’t let wealth overrule justice.” In an instant, the pack of cards whizzed by and the turtle was painted red. The jurors fixed their gaze upon him and shouted in unison, “Guilty! Guilty!” Humpty Dumpty nodded in approval, “Excellent decision. It just leaves me to record his guilt and give the order for, oh, I never get tired of this part, Off with his head!”

Shocked at what I was witnessing in this topsy-turvy world, I went to the highest authority in the land – the ruling twins of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. At their palace, in front of their subjects, I asked them if they were aware of what was going on under their reign, and if so, what they intended to do about it. Tweedledum replied with a smile, “Those who have can go on having”, and Tweedledee continued, “and those who have not are not going to have”. As they clapped each other, I said there must be a better, fairer way. Even as the assembled masses showed signs of agreement, the pack of cards flew by me and left me painted in red. At that point, the mood of the crowd changed. They started running towards me chanting, “He’s red, he’s red, off with his head!” And then I woke up from the nightmare. Or so I thought.

Anger Mismanagement

2010-09-01T23:32:00.001+01:00

A woman was recently caught on CCTV picking up an apparently healthy cat which didn’t belong to her and putting it into a wheelie bin, where it remained trapped for fifteen hours before it was fortunately found by its owners. That footage was put on the Internet, and outrage against the woman’s behaviour spread in no time. Death threats were made. The local police had to consider giving her protection in case her location became known.

Rage is so easily triggered these days. But often it explodes without any sense of proportionality. There are people who almost foam at the mouth when they hear about the small minority of poor people who try to cheat the benefits system. Yet they barely whimper about rich people manipulating tax arrangements to take billions more pounds out of the public purse (£50 billion more on one cautious estimate). Similarly, there are people who are incensed with thoughtless young people vandalising their neighbourhoods, and want the entire police force out to rein them in, though their fury is not summoned when the broader fate of their neighbourhoods is sealed by corporate bosses who moved their business out of the areas, knowing full well that would devastate the communities for years, if not decades to come. And there’s the vengeful rage directed at any drunk driver for getting only a few years in jail for killing one person, but nothing remotely comparable expressed against business directors who knowingly, through deadly pollution or life-shortening products, bring about the untimely deaths of thousands of innocent people.

In fact, when we look more closely, the corporate elites who cause the most harm to the population are the ones least exposed to angry recriminations. Aided by the media, litigation and lobbying tools they have at their disposal, they can sit back while others whose offences are much smaller than theirs are served up for public ire to consume. Furthermore, where the daily reporting of crime and misdemeanor is not enough, the corporate interest-driven media line up scapegoats who, though they are actually more victims than perpetrators of human cruelty, are vilified for the sole purpose of being made into lightning conductors for the thunderous temper of other people. The public, instead of seeing, for example, refugees seeking to escape persecution, workers resorting to strikes to save their livelihood, or public servants taking the blame for everything, as fellow sufferers plunged into fear and uncertainty by a system which looks after the plutocratic few, are goaded into bitter resentment against them.

It does not end there. The deliberate deflection of anger away from corporate manipulators takes its most formidable form when the public are tricked into venting their spleen at the people who are most genuine about helping them get a fairer deal in society. America has shown most dramatically how this works in practice. John Kerry, a true war hero, was portrayed as unpatriotic as opposed to his rival for the Presidential race, G W Bush, who avoided being drafted for the war. The more Obama wants to help his fellow Americans with healthcare reform and economic recovery, the more he is attacked for being ‘Un-American’ (in some cases, literally). Even social reform-minded Republicans are now subject to anger offensive to dislodge them in congressional primaries in favour of candidates who “really connect” with ordinary people (i.e., the candidates most dedicated to protecting the corporate status quo and committed to bringing their righteous wrath upon the likes of gay people, Muslims, feminist advocates, Latino immigrants, and of course, liberal politicians).

Sometimes, in the face of oppression and injustice, anger may have a place to fuel resistance. But we need to direct it, not at innocent scapegoats, but the real culprits.

Another Coup on Animal Farm

2010-08-01T15:23:00.001+01:00

There has been yet another revolution on the old Manor Farm. The last grand pig leader was removed from the farm house, and the new occupant, Porkie, and his trusted friends, told all the animals that things were to be completely transformed.

It was entirely the fault of the old pig leader who was always trying to help everyone and ended up wasting so much of their resources that they were in heavy debt. There were even rumours that some of their neighbouring farms might take them over. Porkie declared he would not make the same mistake. He would leave animals to sort things out. He had faith in their ability to make life better for themselves. All animals would thrive, he declared.

In time, some animals did thrive. The fat cats, who actually caused all the problems in the first place by gambling most of the farm’s money away and begged the old pig leader to help them out, had got away with not having to pay their own debt while continuing to squeeze everyone else. They got fatter by the day, and they were a shining example, said Porkie, of how animals did best when they were left alone to make their own living.

The big (“but we’re not bad”) wolves grew even bigger by renting out shelter to many wretched animals that no longer had anywhere decent to live on the farm. As more homes were mysteriously blown away by, what some secretly suspected were wolf-induced, violent storms, the big ‘nice’ wolves stepped in with an offer no one could refuse.

Down in the gutter where the latest stories about Manor Farm were spread, the rats were doing splendidly well with lots of feel-good tales about the rich and famous, and snippets about how lazy, scrounging creatures were getting their comeuppance. Together with the crocodiles and the vultures, they even set up a Weeping Fund for fluffy animals that had become destitute. The Fund raised a microscopic portion of what the Farm used to raise routinely through a collective levy, and was greatly appreciated by those few cute bunnies and guinea pigs whose ‘saved from the brink’ life story rendered them eligible for this kindly aid.

For the rest, the hardworking horses, the fatigued donkeys, the obedient sheep, the redundant goats, and many others, life sank deeper and deeper into misery. There was no hope for anything better – unless you count Rev Ron Raven III’s sermons about the wonderful Sugarcandy Mountain which would one day be reached by all who believed in his words. Some fat cats donated generously to Rev Raven to set up Sugarcandy Mountain Schools where animals were taught that blessed were those who knew how to make lots of money.

The old owl, Socrates, did not like what he saw. He warned that the farm was degenerating into a most appalling state. He urged the animals to do something before it was too late. The wolves wanted to tear the outspoken owl to shreds, but Porkie was more forgiving. Socrates, he said, was a fool and couldn’t help being dissatisfied about everything. What was important was whether he, Porkie, and his good friends, were satisfied. And they most certainly were.

Against Power Inequalities

2010-07-03T19:44:00.002+01:00

The Cooperative Movement in the UK has been organising a fortnight of activities to promote awareness and understanding of the cooperative model, in the run-up to the UN International Day of Cooperatives (3 July 2010).

Under the banner of ‘There is an alternative’, it showcases the numerous examples of cooperative enterprise. There are over 4,800 independent cooperatives in the UK, operating successfully in diverse fields, from healthcare to housing, farms to football clubs, food retailing to funeral service, credit unions to community owned shops, pubs to public relations, wind farms to web design. Most importantly it draws attention to cooperation as a different, vibrant, inclusive way of life which shuns exploitation, and takes as its foundation the voluntary collaboration of equals in achieving common goals.

Many individuals and organisations still maintain that it is not viable for people to run businesses, the economy, or society on a cooperative basis where everyone has equal power in shaping the key decisions. These anti-egalitarians come up with endless excuses for why power has to be concentrated in some (usually them) for the world to work as it should. Without deference, fear, submissive compliance, they decry, chaos would prevail.

I have studied these enemies of the cooperative ethos and examined how for centuries they have deployed a variety of tactics to frighten and deceive people into accepting power inequalities as the necessary social norm. My book, Against Power Inequalities, recounting their ideological manoeuvres and how progressive-minded activists have throughout history sought to counter them is now published and aptly launched as part of the Cooperative Movement’s celebration of the International Day of Cooperatives (http://www.thereisanalternative.coop/power)

The theme of this year’s International Day is on how cooperatives empower women to participate as equals when in so many parts of the world, and certainly in all too many business organisations, women still have less say than men. Cooperatives show that decision making by people as equals, regardless of your gender, ethnicity, your parents’ wealth, or any other factors which should have no bearing on the respect for you as a person, can lead to positive and sustainable outcomes for all concerned. They also demonstrate that the wealth generated by the efforts of everyone does not have to be distributed disproportionately in favour of the few powerful men and their exclusive network of elites. Instead, a fair distribution considered and agreed by every member of the enterprise – one member, one vote – is not only do-able, but engenders a real spirit of mutual help and respect.

But as with every democratic form of co-existence, even the most effective cooperatives have to cope with individuals and organisations which persist in rejecting their ethos. Until cooperatives become the standard model for joint enterprise everywhere, they will have to hold their own, stay true to their principle, and keep persuading others to embrace the cooperation of equals as the foundation of all human activities.

A Mad Tea Party's Brewing

2010-06-01T13:32:00.002+01:00

The so-called ‘Tea Party’ movement in America is at first glance a curious brew. It appears to be a coming together of individuals who want more freedom, and the way they go about it is to demand less intervention from government. Mark Lilla, writing in the New York Review of Books, connected it to the shift towards greater social freedom in the 1960s and economic freedom in the 1980s. It was, he suggested, a long term trend of people wanting to get on with their own lives without government telling them what to do.

But one man’s freedom can easily be another’s enslavement – if there were no fair rules, and no impartial system to enforce them. In the 1960s, the freedom of Blacks, women, homosexuals, and other people disadvantaged by prevailing social conditions and prejudices only expanded because successive governments intervened to end the discriminatory actions of many in the general population, and in so doing helped to engender a more progressive culture. Reagan, who opposed these reforms, tellingly spoke in favour of white people retaining their freedom to refuse to sell houses to Blacks.

The economic freedom championed by Reagan and friends through the 1980s was precisely the freedom of those with the economic muscle to do as they pleased at the expense of those with little power. What the advocates of such ‘gangster’ freedom wanted was to make people think that they would all be better off with a much reduced government, when in fact the common good would just get trampled on by those with the most formidable weapons in their corporate arsenal.

It was of course a direct consequence of the deregulation of the 1980s/1990s which allowed financial businesses to wreck the world’s economy. The Tea Party movement is now trying to blame the government for doing too much when the problem is that the government had done too little in recent decades. Having pushed government’s control back, financial institutions used their greater freedom to put millions of people’s life savings at risk. The Tea Party proponents attacked the government for spending billions to prevent the financial system from meltdown, but what would they prefer instead? Let countless ordinary citizens lose everything they had because the banks had recklessly gambled their money away?

When the evocative ‘Tea Party’ label is peeled away, what we have is actually the same old ‘Let’s Help the Powerful Help Themselves’ sleight-of-hand. Look closely at what they are agitating for: tax the powerful less; don’t help the vulnerable, especially with their healthcare needs; stop interfering with what energy companies want to do; and generally reduce the capacity of public institutions to hold commercial interests to account. And if bank failures, massive oil leaks, destructive climate fluctuations, helplessness amongst the sick and poor, widespread unemployment should bring millions to their knees and at the mercy of those who are by now more powerful than ever, then all the better as far as they’re concerned.

The madness and deceit of it all are summed up by George Monbiot’s splendid indictment of Matt Ridley (Guardian 1 June 2010) – a classic cheerleader for the ‘Tea Party’ cause – government, accordingly to Ridley, is “a self-seeking flea on the backs of the more productive people of this world”, it undermines market freedom through taxes, regulations and bailouts. Ridley became the chairman of Northern Rock Building Society, which exploited deregulation to lend recklessly and ended up on the brink of collapse risking a total wipeout of their customers’ savings. The government had to bailout Northern Rock with a public rescue package worth £27 billion. For once the true parasite is unmasked.

The Ultimate Horror Show

2010-05-01T19:36:00.002+01:00

Ever thought about our fascination with vampires, werewolves and zombies? They strike a visceral fear into us, far deeper than any other kind of monsters, because they threaten the loss of what many of us regard as the essence of our humanity – our capacity for thoughtful connection with others. What makes it so precious to be human is that we can deliberately cultivate caring relationships: empathise with other people, think through the consequences our actions could have for them, and choose with due care what should therefore be done.

Unlike other monsters, which can at best destroy us physically, these creatures can rob us of our moral thoughtfulness. Once bitten by them, one would be condemned to become like them - consumed by a mindless and destructive craving, discarding any consideration of how others’ lives could be ruined by one’s reckless behaviour. Vampires, on some interpretation, might still in some instances struggle to reclaim their humanity. Werewolves, in between their ghastly transformation, might try to use their temporary rationality to lock themselves away. But unless the process is reversed, they would ultimately slide towards a similar fate to the zombies’ – losing all sense of reason and sympathy.

What makes it all the more horrific is that these are not alien entities from another planet or dimension, they are/were humans who had become thoughtless beings, and they would infectiously turn us into replicas of them. And the most frightening thing about this is that beyond the fiction of vampires and zombies lies the reality of the contagious spread of thoughtless behaviour.

Every day there are people who promote the cult of thoughtlessness. They tell people who have the most to lose from irresponsible business practices, pollution-driven climate change, oil-related environmental destruction, redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, and countless other harmful activities, that they should switch off their minds and go with the flow. Question not what these practices are inflicting on the world, the mantra goes, but embrace the wrecking of lives as the norm. The venom passes to a few, a few more, and soon enough, the zombies are everywhere threatening to wipe out any sign of thoughtful independence.

Look at poor John McCain. A decent man who once stood out in a deranged crowd which included one President who joked about bombing Russia out of existence, another one who actually ordered the large-scale bombing of a country when he had no reliable evidence that it was necessary, and now a presidential-hopeful who’s proud of her all-round ignorance. John was thoughtful once, reminding those who had not yet succumbed to the horror that climate change had human causes and needed to be tackled by collective action, that campaign finances must be reformed if democracy was to be saved from dominance by the rich and powerful, that immigrants should be treated as human beings too.

But like so many others who had been overwhelmed before him, that John McCain is gone. Forget about climate change, never mind using collective resources to save the vulnerable from losing all their savings with the irresponsible banks, but demonise immigrants instead, and blame the powerless for their own plight.

Every minute of the day, this is happening. For every McCain, there are hundreds, thousands of Tom, Dick and Mary, surrounded by beings hell-bent on eradicating every last trace of thoughtfulness in them. This is the ultimate horror show.

In Praise of Mo Tze (墨子)

2010-04-02T13:45:00.000+01:00

If the US is looking to cultivate a ‘special relationship’ with any single nation in the world, few will now deny, it is China. It is sometimes forgotten that for over two millennia, with the exceptions of the 19th and 20th centuries, China was the most prosperous and powerful country bar none. In the 21st century, its economic, military, and cultural strengths are propelling it back to the top of the global league. And just as it has in the past co-existed with other Empires like the Roman in Europe, the Mogul in India, or the Ottoman in the Middle East, which at different times came and went, it is perfectly capable of getting along with, indeed collaborating productively with, other powerful regimes. Far from being rivals, the US and China can be partners.

However, one of the key ingredients for successful partnership is mutual understanding, and while China can access a multitude of resources reviewing in depth the American cultural and political psyche, the support for better comprehension of Chinese civilization is still all too limited.

Take the blinkered focus on China as a Confucian country. Of course Confucius (551-479 BC) has a pivotal place in Chinese history. His teaching on securing harmony through people fulfilling their traditionally assigned roles in society has been one of the most influential doctrines through the centuries. But he was not the only moral teacher to have a lasting impact on China, and his ideas did not go unchallenged. For a start, we should take a closer look at Mo Tze (c. 479-399 BC), who studied under Confucian scholars but came to the conclusion that their philosophy was fundamentally flawed. People – and for him, that term denoted the general population, not the privileged few – did not have a better life when they meekly carried out the roles laid down by the powerful: the ruler over the ruled, husbands over wives, fathers over children, masters over servants. On the contrary, lives improved only in so far as people genuinely cared for others as they would wish others to care for them. He explained that, for example, if we wanted other people to help look out for our parents or children when our abilities to do so were limited by circumstances beyond our control, we needed to be ready to offer our support to other people’s parents and children.

Mo Tze’s doctrine of Universal Love was not an idealistic entreaty to give the same care and attention to everyone when no one could afford to stretch one’s time and resources in such a manner, but a pragmatic proposal to promote social solidarity so that together people could be confident of attaining a decent quality of life which would be denied to many if they were left to struggle on their own.

Unlike Confucius who looked exclusively to ancient aristocratic texts he favoured to justify his ideas, Mo Tze maintained that any policy proposition should be subject to three tests. First came the test of past experience. He found that many of the proposals on elaborate rituals championed by the Confucians were not in fact always valued. For example, the people of the earlier age of Hsia recorded favourable accounts of much simpler rites which allowed people to show respect without having to use up scarce resources, especially amongst the poor, on showy ceremony. The second test consisted of current testimony. What people said, regardless of their social background, should be considered in deciding if any proposal was beneficial or not overall. To allow someone to declare any policy or custom as indisputable solely on account of their status would distort the truth. Finally, the third test built in checks from future experience. Even if past records and current testimony suggested that a particular policy or practice would deliver improvements for people, it still would not rule it out from being changed if its impact in the future should prove to be negative. For Mo Tze, policies must be adaptable in the light of their actual consequences.

Within a single generation, Mo Tze’s school had become the main rival to the Confucians. Mohist adherents travelled extensively in China to spread their reform message. The Confucians detested them for suggesting the needs of all should be responded to with equal respect, instead of bowing down to the hierarchical establishment. Leaders of competing states found much to irritate them in the Mohist practice of providing armed protection where necessary to defend the weak from attempted invasions by the strong.

In time, Mo Tze was acknowledged even by his Confucian critics as someone who was honourably dedicated to pursuing the goal of a better life for all. They admired his courage in standing up to princes and their armies, and recognised the potency of his arguments – even if they ultimately disagreed with them. Mo Tze’s teachings have remained alongside Confucianism in Chinese intellectual and political history. Dissuading people from wasting resources so that none would be deprived. Reining in the powerful so the weak would not be at their mercy. Exposing the selfish so that real cooperation could be promoted for the common good. These are Mohist motifs which have been weaved into China’s heritage. To understand China, you need to appreciate Mo Tze’s place in it.

Ever Tried Homeopathic Democracy?

2010-03-01T13:01:00.000Z

What distinguishes a proper medicinal cure from, say, a piece of lard? At a minimum, it should have certain active ingredients which are known to have an effect on what it is intended to cure or at least ameliorate. If it has no such ingredient, or has them in extremely diluted form that they could have as much impact as a feather landing on the Great Wall of China, then you might as well go and swallow some lard.

The more you think about it, the more curious it is that public money should be used to purchase any placebo substance which by design is diluted so that it could have no active ingredient. Hence the current outcry about state funding for homeopathic ‘medicine’. Better late than never in recognising their ineffectual nature and focus our energy and resources on what can really improve our health.

It’s no different with our civic health. Democracy was devised to help society fight off the ills of oppression and anarchy. To counter decisions made with no meaningful involvement of those affected by such decisions, it was proposed long ago that the power to decide the fate of all must be grounded on the participation of everyone concerned. Dignified citizens, not pitiful supplicants, would determine what is to be done for their common good. It follows that for democracy to work, it must have active ingredients in the form of engaged citizens – participating, reflecting, deliberating, and acting collectively to shape their shared destiny.

But what we have in practice is very diluted indeed. How many citizens form opinions, not on the basis of informed deliberations, but through reading tabloid headlines? How many in America would oppose reforms to improve access to healthcare, fight climate change, or curb the powers of irresponsible banking institutions, just because their deepest prejudices are fanned by the enemies of the public good? How few are confident that citizens can band together to rein in the influence of large corporations? How few believe that by investing their time in looking into public issues and discussing these with decision makers, they could make a difference?

It is often said that time is in short supply, and people cannot be bothered with all the democratic responsibilities citizens are meant to take on. Allegedly, they just want to leave it to others, and the ratio between citizens and the ‘others’ becomes so great that the civic ingredient needed for a vibrant democracy approaches vanishing point. But people do act on the things they care about. The difference between a mother fighting for better medical care for her child, and a hundred mothers conceding defeat to a developer ruining their neighbourhood is often the overwhelming sense of powerlessness in the latter case. When that is multiplied many times over, we have thousands, millions of citizens assuming – wrongly – that democracy is a lost cause.

Democracy can of course make a huge difference. The key is to revive its active ingredient – citizens who will come together, deliberate critically, place the common good above private gains, and pursue their objectives with confidence and determination. Many networks and organisations are doing precisely that in their efforts to develop active citizens: Take Part, Democracy Matters, the Community Sector Coalition, the Citizen Organising Foundation, Unlock Democracy, the Community Development Foundation, the Citizenship Foundation, to name just a few. They have the know-how and commitment between them to restore democracy’s potency. Separately they might find it difficult to achieve, but working together – with strategic unity and tactical collaboration – they will undoubtedly attain their common goal.

Begging the Charity Question

2010-02-02T00:11:00.000Z

Another natural disaster, another prompt to donate money to help those in need. That’s absolutely right. And decent people – i.e., most of the human race minus hate-warped evangelists – respond. Not all as generously as the likes of Sandra Bullock ($1 million cheque to the Haiti appeal - never mind the Oscars, she should be given an award for her lead role in generosity), but we did our bit. The problem is that we all know this still leaves the much bigger question unanswered: how can we stop people from being so wretchedly vulnerable to the disasters to come?

Earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods, extreme heat and cold, and more will keep coming. Charity will supplement the resources to deal with the immediate crisis, but the underlying weaknesses are still there. Hurricane Katrina infamously hit New Orleans when the rich had been able to leave the city behind, killing the poor stuck behind with no protection. Across the world, excepting where people have been able through the use of their democratic power to take collective action to look after themselves, the powerless are left to be crushed whenever the next catastrophe strikes.

Charity is a useful top-up, drawing on the generosity of the kind, adding to relief for the stricken, but only fools and charlatans would suggest it holds the key to combating human suffering. For all the moralising about Victorian values of charity, the one vital legacy of the Victorian era was to highlight the squalor, degradation, and utter repugnance of a laissez faire society, where people, old and young were left to suffer and die whenever misfortune should befall them. Successive governments in Britain, other European countries, and even America learnt in the early twentieth century that state funded public actions were ultimately indispensable to improving people’s life chances significantly.

So let us not succumb to global amnesia and forget the necessity of democratic public institutions to secure better protection, fairly and reliably, for all. Alongside the most valuable charitable work, there must be real political foundations for long term housing, development, law and order, education, and health provisions if those with the least power to protect themselves are to have any future.

And it is not just countries like Haiti that need strong democratic governance to bring about improvements for the people, their American neighbours are also experiencing a growing incapacity to develop public solutions beyond the acts of private charity in meeting desperate needs. With over 45 million US citizens lacking health insurance cover, and a life expectancy rate lagging behind all other major developed countries (and not so developed ones like Cuba), it beggars belief that the idea of collective government action to guarantee protection for all citizens should be vehemently rejected by so many. Perhaps those who are fortunate enough to have insurance themselves can’t bear to pay a few dollars more in taxes to help others, and they shield their conscience by pointing to charity as the safety net.

But make no mistake, in America, in Haiti, across the world, individual acts of charity can never substitute for universal support secured for all citizens with contributions from all citizens. So give generously to charities, and if you really care about minimising avoidable suffering, give your backing to collective action to secure better protection for all, at home and abroad.

The Denial Industry

2010-01-01T17:22:00.001Z

People don’t take too kindly to injustice. They react against attempts to exploit their weakness, and are more than willing to press for fairer outcomes if their concerns were persistently ignored. But this can only happen, or happen with the correct consequences, if people knew what was really going on. Sadly, this means that those in powerful positions can protect themselves by covering up the truth. And the more they need to cover up, the more deception they have to spread.

The Denial Industry is now one of the most formidable businesses – with its hired agents to manufacture false and misleading information, its legion of public relations specialists and lobbyists, funded by corporations who have the most to gain by undermining the credibility of their critics. Climate change is the most obvious example – to spin out stories to cast doubt on the scientific evidence on the correlation between industrial increase in CO2 emission and global warming. Why? So that companies can go on making their profits while causing more and more long term problems which the poorest in the world will have to bear disproportionately. The same trend has been going on for decades with the arms trade – the denial of the utter destructive futility of increasing the military capability of oppressive governments and ruthless rebel groups all over the world. Millions of people are injured, killed or displaced. We read about the refugees who need to be turned back, and not the weapons sold to the people who make lives hell for them back at home.

The way to counter the workings of the Denial Industry is for those who are engaged in genuine scientific research, investigative examination and objective reporting to pursue their activities, with the support of public funding untainted by private interests. The battle against the tobacco business and its deployment of the Denial Industry has demonstrated that even the most heavily invested lies can be exposed.

However, the fact that cigarette companies have maintained their growth and profits by increasing their export sales has shown that cutting off a few heads of this Hydra of deception is not enough. The lies must be contested and extinguished everywhere.

In the midst of all this, watch out for the most insidious tactic of all of the Denial Industry – namely, to undermine science itself. Creation myths about who created what are harmless enough in themselves. But the reason why significant finance is given to support the teaching of creationism in schools, to discredit Darwinist ideas which are paradigmatic in scientific reasoning, and to conflate empirical hypotheses with groundless assertions, is to attack the basis of legitimate reasoning itself. If scientific reasoning and evidential assessment were lumped with myths, and their distinct role in validating beliefs could be denied, then happily for the sponsors of the Denial Industry, every criticism of their actions could be dismissed as unfounded.

Mill, Dewey & Me

2009-12-02T00:12:00.001Z

In a year when the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origins of Species has been rightly celebrated, we should remember that 1859 was also the year John Stuart Mill’s seminal On Liberty was published and the great progressive philosopher, John Dewey, was born.

Mill’s ideas on expanding human understanding through experimental science and the freedom to explore knowledge claims without being constrained by prejudices or arbitrary authority paved the way for contested theories like Darwin’s to get a fair and rational hearing. Consequently, societies more prepared to consider new thinking with a genuinely open mind are the ones more likely to advance their abilities to solve the problems which would otherwise hold people back from having a happy and fulfilled life.

As for the accusation that experimental knowledge could only deliver technical tools without enriching our moral understanding, Dewey made the case that ethical dilemmas arose from having to choose between options, where the appropriateness of one’s choices could only be judged with the help of experimental knowledge. What should one teach the next generation? In what practices and institutions should we invest our resources? How to balance the needs of one group against the claims of another? For Dewey, the answers to these questions were not to be found in some transcendental realm beyond human experiences, but have to be worked out like any other challenges in life through systematic and responsible experimentation.

Unless we are prepared to review diverse options, take into account the actual experiences of the people who were involved, and adapt to changing circumstances, we would not learn how to make life better. For Mill and Dewey, human beings share the goal of overcoming suffering, frustration and missed opportunities, and they stand the best chance of attaining that goal if they cooperate in developing arrangements which enable everyone to explore and reflect critically on what practices would bring improved results. Dogmas, superstitions, the whims of the rich and powerful, must all be held in check so unhindered enquiries can continuously deepen our understanding as to the ends and means for how we should live.

In recent decades, as the progressive cause has so often been at risk of splintering through the contrasting political emphasis put forward by liberals, communitarians, civic republicans, deliberative democrats, mass action activists, feminists, trade unionists, localists, and global federalists, Mill and Dewey have provided the one consistent basis for a unifying approach. Thinkers and advocates who draw on their writings, whatever other differences they may have, tend to have important outlooks in common, making it possible to connect what they advocate into a coherent whole. In short, leaving aside divisive labels, intellectual empathy with Mill and Dewey is the surest pointer to a shared agenda for building more inclusive communities.

These two philosophers have been a constant source of inspiration to me. By a fitting coincidence, it was in 1959 – the centenary of Mill’s On Liberty and Dewey’s birth – that my own sojourn in life began.

A Simple Equation

2009-11-01T08:25:00.001Z

You don’t need to be Einstein to work it out.

Power x Arrogance = Oppression

Yes, it is as simple as that. You allow a system to concentrate power in some at the expense of others, then even the slightest arrogance would bring about oppression.

Give the Post Office management the power to make cuts to the frontline workforce while increasing their workload, and on the basis of such changes reward themselves with more money while the postal workers get nothing – and sure enough, the postal workers are left with no choice but to take strike action. What do you expect them to do? Say “thank you for reducing our numbers and making work more difficult so that you can get a better pay packet while we get zilch”?

Give the police a system which, according to the latest newspaper report, has just appointed a senior police officer who was “personally criticised for failings in the Jean Charles Menezes shootings” onto the management board of the Independent Police Complaints Commission – and are we now more or less confident that wrongful police actions against us would get a fair hearing?

Meanwhile in America, give the insurance and pharmaceutical companies so much power, and they protect their astronomical profits by leaning on enough politicians to stop them approving anything near a system which provides universal healthcare for what is supposedly the richest nation on earth. In the meantime, those without cover just go on suffering and dying quietly.

Isn’t the ‘arrogance’ part of the equation the bit we can do something about? Remind people of their ‘corporate social responsibility’, their ‘conscience’, the ‘respect’ they ought to show their fellow human beings … but that is the problem with arrogance, people afflicted with it don’t give a damn what you say to them. If they were convinced they could get away with trampling over you, they wouldn’t give it a second thought. You see them everywhere – in organisations large and small, some paying lip service about consulting those their decisions would affect, some not even bothering with the superficial niceties.

The only thing we can do anything about is the power part. Do not let power be concentrated in the few who will owe us no accountability whatsoever. Do not acquiesce in a structure of oppression. Do not forget that even if we as separate individuals lack the influence to correct unjust distribution of power, we could organise ourselves to take a collective stand.

It is often said that a true test of a civilized society is how well it treats its weakest members. An equally important test is whether even the most arrogant cannot get away with pushing others over to achieve their own ends. We can never get rid of arrogance, but we can put a limit on the accumulation of power and thus end oppression.

Interdependence Day

2009-10-01T00:01:00.001+01:00

24 October – the designated United Nations Day – should from now on be celebrated as Interdependence Day. The establishment of the United Nations was a momentous step forward away from the anarchic nation-state politics which brought us countless continental conflicts and two World Wars. And underlying the institutional development of the UN was a principle with deep emotional and moral resonance, namely, that we are mutually dependent on each other. We thrive when we respect and respond to one another’s needs, but we are weakened by every attempt to dismiss the concerns of others as insignificant.

So what does appreciating our Interdependence entail? For a start, we should redouble our efforts to challenge those who want to split the world into separate groups with one-way dependencies. They must not be allowed, for example, to get away with dividing people into the ‘well off’ who hand over money with nothing in return, and the ‘poor’ whose lives are dependent on state benefits or philanthropic donations. We are, in fact, equal as citizens and we all depend on each other’s cooperation and good will. We should contribute to the protection of each and everyone of us through our ability to help, and draw on universal benefits we are entitled to count on.

Similarly, attempts to segregate society into the ‘wealth creating’ private sector and the ‘resource draining’ public sector have to countered. The private sector has its economic role but left to its own devices, it is quite capable of losing control and destroying people’s livelihood, whole communities and the environment. The public sector needs to be scrutinised democratically, but unless it is strong enough to take collective action in our common interest, the ruthless and irresponsible would get away with ruining the lives of countless others. When the private financial sector has exploited weak regulations to behave utterly irresponsibly, wiping out people’s savings and jobs, it is not time to be duped into jumping on the ‘slash the public sector’ bandwagon.

As such divisiveness is spreading globally, a worldwide sense of interdependence is even more urgently needed. Jobs cannot be protected for one country if other countries are starved of employment opportunities. We cannot turn a blind eye to the biggest polluters just because they are backed by regimes more powerful than any other single country acting on it own. We have to join forces to stop the climate change deniers make matters even worse.

And we certainly cannot have a small elite of nations which can deploy troops all over the world and bomb others at will, and expect the vulnerable countries to ignore chances to increase their military capability. A world with a few super protectors on whose mercy the rest depend for their security will neither be safe nor peaceful.

Democratic public institutions at the national and global levels hold the key to translating our moral interdependence into mutually supportive arrangements to secure our wellbeing. Total independence from others is not only unrealistic, but it breeds a self-deceiving arrogance that ignores the dire consequences one’s actions could have for others. We need each other’s support, and in this thoroughly inter-connected world, that means we need to work through strong and resourceful democratic governments within our respective state, and at the global level, through the United Nations. If the UN is not robust enough as it stands, the answer is not to weaken it further, but to boost its resources and democratic responsiveness.

The Fox and the BBC

2009-09-03T21:27:00.000+01:00

One of the oldest tricks used by powerful commercial interests to undermine any public service institution which gets in their way is to accuse the latter of being over-bearing, costly, and harmful. Their propaganda has one not-so-subtle core message: if you dismantle, or at least considerably weaken, such institutions, then the kindly free market will look after everyone much more effectively.

That’s what private health care and insurance companies have tried to do in undermining the NHS in the UK, and blocking the development of anything remotely resembling it in the US. And where have they been given the platform to give utterly distorted views about public health provisions? None other than Fox News of course. Here, with the generous backing of rich corporations, you can always count on ‘experts’ being lined up to criticise any individual or organisation working for the public good. Typically, when Obama was running for President, Fox would routinely have a panel of exclusively pro-Republican commentators to help viewers understand the ‘flaws’ in the Democrats’ arguments. On any contested issue, the views of those more in tune with corporate interests would be presented in a better light, given a more favourable hearing.

In the UK, Fox could not so easily get away with such blatant plutocratic bias. Standing in the way of Fox’s owners are the British requirement on balanced reporting in broadcasting, and the existence of a publicly funded, impartial provider of news, the BBC. So it is hardly surprising that we are being lectured by the Fox-News Corporation junta about the terrible inadequacies of the British broadcasting system.

What would the cunning fox have us do? First of all, as usual, we should cut back on the ‘excessive’ regulations. The requirement on balanced broadcast reporting unhelpfully prevents corporate interests from using commercial channels to dominate the airwaves with pro-corporate messages and shut out everything else. Without such a requirement, we would have broadcast news as fair and instructive as we already get with the Sun and the News of the World, with their fearless reporting digging into the private lives of anyone, except for those running large and irresponsible businesses.

Secondly, we are asked to stop getting in the way of Sky’s attempt to secure a monopoly over coverage of popular sports events. This is very upsetting because the consumer may end up having to pay more to get all the coverage when it is divided between different providers. But we shouldn’t forget that before Sky came along to bid and charge people for their exclusive coverage, the consumer did not have to pay anything extra at all to view all the main sports events on terrestrial channels.

Thirdly, the BBC should be reprimanded for its ability to invest in new technology, its programming to reach a wide audience, and its world-respected quality because these all make it very difficult for those who want to squeeze more profit out of the public by giving them plutocratically soaked news and cheaper programmes. Yet if the BBC were to lack innovations, cater only for a small minority, or have low quality output, you know who would be first in line to lambast them for not offering value for money.

It doesn’t take Aesop to tell us that when the fox pleas with us to follow it into the jungle of deregulated competition, the last thing we should do is to mistake its deceit for sincerity.

An Alliance to Promote Democracy

2009-08-07T19:00:00.001+01:00

Why should we worry about promoting democracy? What is it that democracy brings about that we so desperately need? Knowing that is actually half the battle as all too many people think of democracy as little more than a multi-party voting system, and cannot see anything lacking so long as some such system is in place.

The real value of democracy lies in its aim to secure reciprocity amongst people who live and work together. The ethical golden rule of behaving towards others as one would have others behave towards one, can only be sustained if no one could in practice get away with behaving regardless of the consequences for other people. For all the moral entreaty to be kind and considerate, if power in society is so distributed that some can routinely get away with ignoring the views and concerns of those affected by their actions – across the country, in the workplace, at home – then those less powerful would indeed have to rely on the mercy of the strong.

The problem goes even deeper because without the discipline of having to check what one intends to do against the reasons and experiences of other people, one is liable to overlook ideas for improvement, and prone to persist with one’s errors. No voting system can by itself guarantee that those with the power to make decisions affecting others will properly take into account what others think before making their decisions. Indeed some systems even make it possible for groups with only minority support to continue to rule over the majority year in, year out. Such systems are anything but democratic.

It is therefore imperative to promote democracy so that everyone – irrespective of their race, gender, income, age – can have the ability and opportunities to have a meaningful say about decisions that affect their lives. None should be marginalised and all must be given equal respect before the law. This will necessitate, above all, a relentless drive to ensure that gaps in power inequalities are cut back; those entrusted with the exercise of power are really made answerable for their actions; people can develop informed views and make them count; and those with the least power are given the confidence and support to get their voices heard.

Despite resistance from the sceptical and apathy of the complacent, support for strengthening our democratic culture and practices has been gathering momentum. With initiatives such as the rolling out of the national Take Part programme to help citizens become involved in public policy decisions, the introduction of a Duty to Promote Democracy for all local authorities, the implementation of the Sustainable Communities Act to enable communities to redirect government spending, and the establishment of LINks (Local Involvement Networks) across the country, it is an opportune moment for civil society organisations to join forces to help widen and deepen democracy. The challenge is to move from ad hoc project partnerships to form a broad base alliance which will keep democratic development centre-stage.

Some Like it Thick

2009-07-05T21:46:00.001+01:00

By contrasting a ‘thick’ ethos, which is allegedly needed to glue society together, with the ‘thinness’ of what people actually have in common, a number of political theorists have over recent decades created a powerful impression that the solution to social fragmentation is increasing the number of customs and beliefs we share. On this view, Americans or Brits, for example, are engaging more and more in pursuit of their own interests instead of the good of their country, because they are not sufficiently bound together by a thick set of ‘values’ which would underpin their patriotic pride.

This is misconceived as an idea and most unhelpful as a guide to policy. First of all, people love their country for different reasons, and whether they collaborate with or oppose each other depends on the availability of opportunities for them to work for their mutual benefits in a fair manner. People with different outlooks, religious beliefs, or cultural traditions have nonetheless cooperated effectively when they can openly consider how they can be supportive to one another. It is when one side deceives or exploits some power advantage they possess to undermine the other that cooperation breaks down. And deceit and exploitation are practised by members of all faiths and races on their own kind as well as on others. If instead of developing people’s, especially children’s, capacity to understand and reason with each other as people deserving of equal respect, we focus on imposing a set of customs which do not in fact command universal following, we would only breed resentment, not cooperation.

Secondly, ‘thickness’ implies some inherent quantitative measure which by itself can determine what custom we should demand acceptance by all those to be given formal citizenship. It suggests that the more we put into this portfolio of national values, the better it would be – the more we insist on what people should wear or not to wear (e.g., the Burkha or hooded jacket), what they can joke about in relation to religions, what festivals they should celebrate, what symbols they must respect, the better we would function as a united society. But the worthiness of values or customs cannot be validated by the mere fact that they are held by a majority of people. The acceptability of the Burkha or hooded clothing should be judged on the practical implications of their wearer’s identity being concealed. The value of symbols and customs are best left to their beholders, while the proposal for the universal adoption or banning of any practice should be critically examined in the context of the effects they would have on people.

Finally, people’s relationships are enhanced by their differences as well as their similarities. Although members of a large group may have many things in common with some others in the group, what they all have in common may be few in total. But that does not matter so long as they can count on a shared approach or system which enables them to use reason and evidence through reflective deliberations to navigate their way through conflicting courses of action. Such an approach, often dismissed as ‘thin’, liberal, and procedurally-based, is actually what makes cooperation possible whether people have many values or customs in common, or they have serious differences requiring mediation and conflict-resolution in family, school, the workplace, community disputes or international tensions.

If we really want to stop society falling apart, we should rid ourselves of this ‘thick’ metaphor once and for all, and concentrate on the educational and institutional support for inclusive rational deliberations. And the biggest barrier to that is the prevalence of unequal power relations which are still all too often defended in the name of business or religious autonomy.

Pride & Tiananmen

2009-06-04T19:06:00.000+01:00

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged, that a society in possession of political prisoners, must be in want of justice and improvement.

However, many people in China do not want to talk about repression and injustice, but only what makes them proud of their country. They are not keen to dwell on the past, least of all events like the Tiananmen incident when, on June 4 1989, hundreds of unarmed civilians in a peaceful protest at the centre of Beijing were killed when the army was sent in. Many others were imprisoned for voicing their demands for democratic reforms. Politicians sympathetic to such demands were removed from office, and in the case of the former Premier Zhao Ziyang, put under house arrest until the day he died.

To ignore atrocities of the past tends to be a recipe for being ill prepared for their recurrence in the future. But talk of the Tiananmen Massacre – especially when coming from foreign political figures who have responsibilities for ensuring their countries’ interests are not eclipsed by China’s – tends to provoke a reaction against what are viewed as attempts to belittle China. Since 1989, many in China would like to believe, their country has moved on. The humiliations heaped on their motherland for much of the 19th and 20th centuries have at long last been eradicated. They are now one of the most powerful nations on earth. Economic strength and military might are joined by achievements such as the spectacular 2008 Olympics hosted by Beijing which fittingly witnessed China topping the medals table for the first time.

Yet with all the indisputable progress, what about basic quality of life issues such as being able to question how the decisions of the powerful in society may affect one and one’s family? Being able to obtain information and contest proposals without having to bribe corrupt officials? Being able to air reservations without fear of being arrested and imprisoned? Why shouldn’t Chinese people be able to do these things?

One answer is that these are Western notions which distort what life should be like for China. It was the spread of such ideas – allegedly alien to Chinese culture – that led students to assemble in Tiananmen Square, demand reforms from their government, and stay defiant in the face of approaching soldiers and tanks, forcing a showdown which could easily have been avoided if they had been more submissive. And it is the persistence of such an outlook that prompts questions about the lack of basic freedom when quiet obedience is the best guarantee of prosperity.

But what has something being Western or non-Western got to do with any of this? Western dictatorships long pioneered repressive measures, ordering troops to fire on their own citizens, and locking civilians up for questioning their government. So China would therefore never adopt such ‘Western’ methods? Western critics of liberal reformists have led the way in condemning them by invoking patriotic sentiments. So China would not substitute ‘anti-American’ by ‘anti-China’ in deploying such ‘Western’ style anti-liberal propaganda?

Ultimately, the Western/non-Western distinction is just a smokescreen. Whether something originated in the West has no bearing on whether it should inherently be adopted or rejected in China or anywhere else in the world. All those who protested in Tiananmen twenty years ago wanted was to have a peaceful system of accountability so there could be a stable and responsive state. China could be justly proud, when that day eventually arrives.

Know Thy Goal

2009-05-02T19:45:00.001+01:00

Being a progressive can be like being a member of a lost tribe. You wander around with others, all yearning for that moment when the foundation can be laid for a new just society. But one false turn after another, and you begin to doubt if you would ever get to where you will truly belong.

It doesn’t help when those claiming to have the skills and vision to lead the way so often end up being disorientated themselves. If you follow them unquestionably, you could find yourself stuck in a cul-de-sac handing even more power to those who already dominate society through their corporate networks; pushed together near a pit of quicksand where the unlucky victims are left to sink to the bottom; or marched towards a cliff edge with cries of courage in your ear and echoes of madness all around.

Is this the avoidable fate for those who want to build more inclusive communities? No, not if we hold on to what we should really bring about – a relentless reduction of power inequalities in every sphere of life. That is the essence of a better world. People being able to interact and cooperate with mutual respect and without fear of intimidation from anyone amassing sufficient power to subjugate them. Take a step forward only where that would lead to a retreat of power imbalance, and that would surely guide you to making the right progress.

If you use this as your moral compass, you would not allow the police to hurt innocent people in the midst of peaceful demonstrations; you would not hand power to the meat industries so that they could create the repulsive conditions leading to BSE, bird flu, swine flu and much besides; you would not deregulate financial institutions so they could take more and more irresponsible risks at the expense of ordinary people’s savings and livelihood; and you would not embrace the arms manufacturers as esteemed exporters of fear and death.

Instead, you would map out where the balance of power has shifted too far towards one side in any significant form of social or economic relationship, and rally support for rectifying it. In some cases, this could mean that despite their protest that they have been too tied up with red tape, corporations are to be regulated more tightly and their offshore havens closed off. In other cases, for all the talk of parental right, aggressive parents who are abusive to teachers would need to be prevented from doing so in the future.

Our journey is not about tracking populist hotspots which the media would favour, nor is it about hoisting a few symbolic flags of defiance for its own sake. It is about changing power relations. Find out where conditions give rise to some being able to use their power disadvantage to deprive others of a fair chance to share in and contribute to the common good, and transform them.

There is a saying that at 50 one reaches the age when one can fully grasp one’s mission in life. The progressive struggle – as a deliberate challenge to unjust power distribution – has been going on for not just 50, or 500, but 2500 years since the Chinese Mohists and Athenian democrats systematically started pressing for more inclusive power structures back in the 5th century BC. Anyone who hasn’t grasped the goal of rolling back power inequalities is perhaps not meant to be a progressive after all.

King John’s Lesson for the G20

2009-04-04T12:09:00.001+01:00

In the early 13th century, King John sat on the English throne and thought nothing of deciding what was to be done in his domain without consulting anyone. After all, that’s what rulers were supposed to do – they acquire power and exercise it as they see fit. What he didn’t pick up was that the mood of the people was changing. They were increasingly agitated by their ruler taking decisions which took little account of their concerns. They were not prepared to put up with it anymore.

Those who had no chance of getting King John to hear them out took direct action. Some, such as those who came to be immortalised as Robin Hood and his followers, robbed from the powerful, fought their local Sheriff, and handed money to the poor. Others ambushed and confronted defenders of the establishment just to express their anger.

Higher up the social hierarchy, the barons were getting fed up with John’s ‘know it all’ hubris too. In 1215, they forced their King to sign the Magna Carta – a charter which would limit the powers of the ruler and make his right to take decisions on a wide range of issues conditional on proper consultation with the leading aristocrats in the land. Two vital consequences followed from this. First, once it was conceded that no ruler had any special power or wisdom to lead infallibly, there was no going back. Anyone trying ever again to reclaim the right to rule without letting others have a say would be overthrown by an implacable opposition.

Secondly, and even more importantly, the principle of engagement in decision making – it would come to be increasingly recognised – could not be ring-fenced to apply to just a few aristocrats. Each declaration that the ruling group could not possibly allow anyone else to join in was to be met with resistance until, eventually, everyone, regardless of race, gender, income or creed could vote, scrutinise, and stand for office.

The G20 is no King John. But in a globalised world, people can see that there are transnational institutions like the banks and energy suppliers whose actions have caused havoc and distress everywhere. Any international political grouping, be it the G20, G8 or any other combination, positioning itself as the vehicle to deal with these institutions and tackle other worldwide problems, will inevitably draw to itself the questions, “who do you speak for? And how have you given them a say?”

When the world’s most powerful people gather together to decide what is best for the world, the people who have not been given a say would be concerned with their interests being ignored by those decisions. What will be the investment priorities to revive the world economy? Why should the call for an independent global reserve currency be dismissed out of hand? What actions will actually be taken to close the offshore tax havens? Will more be done to tackle climate change? These are important issues which only a global authority can help to address, but no one individual or group can assume that authority without recognising that it has to be grounded on a global democracy to make it sustainable.

Sending the Sheriff out to catch Robin and the hoodies is not a long-term solution. Some day those in control of the world’s fate would have to face up to the need for a global Magna Carta which sets out transparently how people everywhere, regardless of their nationalities or socio-economic status, can vote, scrutinise, and stand for office in relation to the global authority acting in their name.

Powerlessness can damage your health

2009-03-01T18:25:00.001Z

How power is distributed in society can put innocent lives at risk. The less powerful you are in relation to others, the more likely you are to suffer ill health. We are not talking here about how the powerful may abuse their positions and inflict harm on those who cannot stand up to them. It is the mere fact that by virtue of being in a subordinate position that one becomes more prone to sickness and deterioration.

A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology study found those having to take more overtime tended to develop signs of cognitive impairment known to be a risk factor for dementia. Members of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health carried out the study by tracking more than 2,000 workers in the UK since the 1980s, and cross-referenced their scores on a range of brain function tests against their overtime records. Those who had done the most overtime had lower scores than others in terms of their reasoning and word-use ability.

Why would anyone keep working long hours with all the associated stress and exhaustion? They may be desperate to earn more to make ends meet, or they are simply not in a position to say no. In either case, they have to endure it because no other option is open to them.

The study did not differentiate between the seniority of the workers concerned, but anyone wondering if this has any bearing on the power-health relationship can refer to the study by Rose and Marmot (published in ‘British Heart Journal’) which looked at 17,000 workers with the same employer and found that death rates from heart disease were four times as high amongst the most junior workers as amongst the most senior administrators working in the same offices.

The reality is that the higher up you are in an organisation, the more control you would have over what you would spend your time doing, and how you would deal with the issues you face. By contrast, the lower down you are, the more you have to take orders you may not agree with, the less say you have over what hours you work, and any influence you have over key decisions dwindles unless you work for a very progressive employer.

This is mirrored by the impact of power distribution across society more widely. According to the study by Donkin, Goldblatt and Lynch (published in ‘Health Statistics Quarterly’), those with lower socio-economic status have shorter life expectancy than those with higher status – indeed by a margin of almost seven and a half years shorter for men (in England and Wales in the late 1990s).

So next time someone tells you that it is up to powerful people to amass resources and control for themselves and it’s nobody else’s business, remind them that any act of power distribution which intrinsically cuts down the life chances of other people is everyone’s business. We have a common interest in getting it right.

Year of the Invisible Ox

2009-02-01T13:24:00.001Z

The third largest minority ethnic group in Britain have just started celebrating the Chinese New Year. It’s the Year of the Ox, an animal that embodies many of the characteristics often ascribed to the Chinese: quiet, hard-working, high on productivity and low on maintenance. You can let them get on with laboring to get things done, and you don’t really need to pay too much attention to them.

Not surprisingly, in the struggle between the white establishment and the champions for the ‘black’ minorities, the Chinese have been cloaked with invisibility. It is notable that in professional or entrepreneurial roles where a practitioner’s skills and commitment are directly rewarded by appreciative clients or customers, many Chinese have achieved success for themselves. But where progress depends on getting through a large organisational hierarchy, few make it up the corporate ladder. Culturally disinclined to blow their own trumpet, they seldom if ever question being overlooked.

On the other side of the fence, ‘Black & Minority Ethnic’ consciousness hardly stretches to the Chinese either. Black (covering African and Afro-Caribbean) and Asian (covering those from the Indian sub-continent) groups are the ones to be given more support. Though the Chinese are the ones with the lowest participation rate in civic engagement and voting – and let’s not forget, there is not a single MP of Chinese descent in the House of Commons – little is done to rectify that anomaly. Indeed one highly influential advocate of BME rights had been quoted as saying that more must be done to increase the representation of Black and Asian – not Chinese or any other group – in public life.

There are two possible lessons here. One is that the Chinese should learn to adapt. They must stop cultivating in their children outmoded deferential attitudes, and all the meek and mild nonsense of getting on with their responsibilities quietly. Instead, they should teach them to be far more assertive, make their presence felt, sell themselves to those in senior positions to get on.

The other lesson is for the champions of equality and diversity to open their eyes and see what needs to be done to counter the neglect of Chinese people. No, they are not all successful business leaders. Many live in poverty. A large number have to put up with dreadful working conditions. They suffer the slings of prejudice and arrows of discrimination, but their ill fortune is seldom if ever covered by the media. Many have no prospect of career progression because their cultural diffidence is interpreted as signs of limited abilities. They have no political role model, because Parliament has no place for a single one of them.

So what is going to be the way forward? As we know, on Animal Farm, not all animals are equal. Between pigs and human, black and white, the ox will have to speak out before others take it seriously.

Happy New Year.

Unite or Perish

2009-01-01T12:08:00.001Z

Why do you think the old British American colonies declared in 1776 that they would act in unison to build a new independent nation? Many feared being subsumed into a united America could cause its own problems. In the end, they were persuaded by the succinct eloquence of Benjamin Franklin: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Today the citizens of the world don’t have mad George (the eighteenth century monarch or his contemporary namesake – not after the end of his term of office anyway) sending troops all over the globe demanding submission. But the threat we’re having to face is no less daunting.

For decades now business giants have made themselves the ruler of the seven seas. Their plutocratic regime has a wider span and firmer grip than the British Empire ever attained. In pursuit of their own short-term profit, they have pressed ahead regardless of the dire problems they cause for others. Unions can no longer protect workers when corporate bosses can cut pay or move jobs abroad at will. The media fuel a consumerist culture so that parents not endlessly buying new products risk being seen as failures by their own children. Allies in governments help to block environmental action and allow pollution to reach ever more dangerous levels. And to cap it all, financial transactions became so deregulated that irresponsible lending plunged the world into a deep recession.

What the plutocrats fear is concerted democratic action – citizens of the world acting together through a global government capable of challenging the cynical hegemony of powerful corporations. And that is precisely what we must press for above all else.

Of course you will be told that there are many more urgent issues governments have to turn their attention to. But none of them acting alone stands any chance of delivering the solutions we need. To have real long term employment prospects (instead of the ‘hired today, fired tomorrow’ flexible jobs), to replace destructive consumerism by a sustainable planetary future, and to stop the senseless recurrence of economic crises, we must have a government with worldwide jurisdiction and accountability to all citizens to stop business powers from trampling on us.

What about the threat posed by a world government? In truth, decisions affecting the entire world have been made by an unaccountable elite for decades. Arms sold to oppressive regimes, carbon emission increased, tax havens protected, these things happen because the people giving the go-ahead do not have to account for them to the global public, or think about losing their positions of power at the next election.

Ultimately, the United States were stronger and prospered because the separate colonies decided to join forces. Democratic arrangements made sure the federal government would on the whole act in the interests of all. A democratic global government would likewise safeguard the interests of citizens around the world. Time is running out. The world must learn to unite, or most assuredly, it will fall apart.

The Pension Pirates

2008-12-01T20:52:00.000Z

The pirates are out again, leading their followers to attack all that serves the public good. Their latest target is public sector workers and their pensions. Their strategy is simple: make working for the public sector as unattractive as possible, state institutions will be weakened, and piracy can flourish on the high sea of laissez faire.

For decades public sector workers were told to put up with lower pay than their private sector counterparts because they had better job security. Then with privatization and outsourcing, job security plummeted. They were then told that they still had their reliable pension scheme. In any case, they should not complain about being paid less than private sector people who were the real wealth creators of society through their devotion to peddling cigarettes, weapons, alcohol, gambling, vacuous status symbols, and environmentally destructive products. They should accept that as mere teachers, nurses, social workers, police, and servants of democratic institutions, it was their duty to lead a modest life. To obsessively point to the gap between themselves and the better rewarded commercial class would only lead to the politics of envy.

How the politics of envy has been turned. Now the pirates want to destroy the pension scheme of public sector workers by inciting private sector’s jealousy and resentment. By using preposterous language like ‘pension apartheid’, they want to stir up enmity against the one distinct benefit left to public sector workers. They know that if they could sink the public sector pension scheme, it would go a long way to cut down the recruitment package for public sector workers. And the more difficult it is to attract good candidates for public service, the more they can deride the quality of public sector workers. The vicious vortex would drown all belief in the values of public service, leaving the pirates to raid and plunder for private profit.

What is to be done? A counter-attack has to be launched. These pirates thrive on people’s fear. Barely concealing their nasty vindictiveness, they seek to put their intended victims on the defensive. If they were allowed to press on unchallenged, they would grow bolder until they come within striking distance and the public realm would be blown out of the water.

A key tactic is to expose their intentions. They have always despised public servants upholding the public good. If only the ruthless could roam freely, without being taxed, without being regulated, without being prevented from exploiting the weak, without being prosecuted for their thoughtless transgression, they could have complete control over the world. If they were able to undermine the public sector, they would then say that everyone should turn to the private sector for medical care, good education, basic security, decent housing, and all else that matters. Those on low income would have to suffer in silence, and hope at best the odd charity might just about keep them afloat.

So don’t just look on in despondency as the pirates approach. Speak up and tell the wider world that society would truly be broken if these scoundrels get their way. Ring out the alarm bells to warn of the consequences of deprecating people who serve the public good.

But remember, these pirates won’t be found sailing around in battle-weary ships with ‘skull and bones’ flapping in the wind. They are more likely to be spotted on billionaires yachts, flanked by champagne and caviar.

The Anatomy of Change

2008-11-08T18:05:00.001Z

Progressives want to change the world. Make it a more rational and inclusive place, where intelligent cooperation displaces superstitions, bigotry, and injustice. No wonder the election of Barrack Obama has been so joyously greeted by fair-minded people everywhere.

The opening decade of the 21st century has so far been shrouded by a superpower regime resolute about helping the rich at the expense of the poor, deregulating the powerful to the point of global economic anarchy, bombing the weak and locking up the innocent, and accelerating the demise of the planet whatever other nations tried to do to the contrary. Now there is a real opportunity for change. But let’s be clear about what progress is being made and what obstacles remain.

The biggest transformation has to be the reassertion of progressive values. Obama’s courage and integrity mean that the politics of reason and justice can stand tall again. The Democrats put forward as their candidate the Senator with the most liberal voting record. He did not flinch from attacks for putting forward socialist policies of taxing the rich to help the rest. He did not pander to fundamentalist nonsense. He put diplomacy before military responses without compromising his patriotic credentials. He did not need some ‘third way’ to sell his vision. His triumph has proven that progressives can win by being true to their cause.

Obama’s readiness to put the case for giving all citizens a decent level of support, without watering down his message for fear of offending the powerful, led to the other big change. Many amongst the blacks, Latinos, the young, the working poor, who were previously unconvinced that the Democrats had anything positively different from the Republicans to offer them, responded by flexing their electoral muscle. At the same time, demographic changes also helped. With the urban cosmopolitan outlook receptive embrace progressive reforms, the influx of city dwellers into states with hitherto large rural populations has further tipped the balance.

Yet for all the talk of an overwhelming win of the electoral college votes, of a seismic change in the mindset of America, the US is still broadly divided between those who are well disposed towards progressive change and those who are all too easily misled by the ‘God is a Stars & Stripes waving champion of moral conservatism and market freedom’ rhetoric. The latter are still around in large numbers. They are as obsessed as ever with their guns at home and their military might abroad (http://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2007/04/weapons-of-mass-confusion.html). They care more about having scapegoats (minorities, gay, liberals, feminists) to pick on than securing social justice for all. When McCain, gracious in defeat, asked them to show their respect to the new president-elect, they booed.

Remember also that many former Republican supporters switched to Obama not because they now embrace the inclusive ideal, but because they belatedly came to see that refusing to support a social safety net for everyone (when they thought they were OK) turned out to be a bad idea when there was an economic downturn. These people’s concern is not with the common good, but only their personal position. And just as virtues and talents transcend race, so do greed and bigotry. When more minorities become part of the establishment, there is no guarantee that some of them would not in time seek to protect their own privileged positions against others.

Amidst all the euphoria, the line between progressive change and a return to the Reagan-Bush model of government by prejudice, plutocracy and pseudo-patriotism is still a very fine one. The smallest swing in just half a dozen marginal states (say, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Colorado) could hand power back to the Republicans. Change must not be taken for granted.

Axis of Stupidity

2008-10-04T16:04:00.001+01:00

The really critical question for the 2008 Presidential election is this: will enough people be duped once again into voting for the Party which is least concerned with their wellbeing? Ever since Reagan led the Republicans to a new dawn of fools’ politics – where the poor and vulnerable are routinely deceived into handing more control to the rich and powerful – the odds have stacked up against those who want people to choose wisely what would improve their lives.

Obama, like Kerry, Gore, Dukakis before him, has to deal with endless distortions in the face of a formidable axis of stupidity. They want the poor who work hard without job security, struggle without health insurance, to have a fairer share of the nation’s wealth. Yet they are portrayed as uncaring ‘elites’ who do not understand ordinary people by Republicans who repeatedly shift more money to the wealthy elite through tax cuts for the rich. They want people who are discriminated against – women, blacks, homosexuals – to be given equal respect and support. But they are projected as giving in to ‘special’ interests by Republicans who are bankrolled by the real special interests of big corporations. They want to deploy armed forces only where it is truly necessary to protect the country. However, they are presented as muddled, or even cowardly, by Republicans who have few qualms about sending troops drawn largely from poor families to risk their lives for dubious objectives set by the powerful few.

So will the American people fall for it again? Will they turn their backs on candidates who have dedicated themselves to bringing about a better quality of life for all, especially for those with the least? Or will they actually vote instead for people whose only consistent policy is to help those with the most?

It is too close to call. America is too evenly divided between those who know what is good for their collective wellbeing and those too stupid to distinguish right from ‘Right’. It is a great country with outstanding innovators, selfless campaigners for the disadvantaged, hard working families, and noble defenders of justice. But it is also populated in depressingly large numbers by people who think that since “guns don’t kill people”, it is safe, indeed honorable, to hand them over to people (who apparently do kill people); who believe climate change has nothing to do with human activities because corporate polluters fund reports which deny any causal links; who take pride in having no social safety net even though they are about to be let go by their employer; who are anxious that not enough notice is being taken of the never-ending arrival of aliens (from outer space as well as Mexico); and above all, who will gladly give their vote to charlatans with little competence apart from the charming ability to deliver a timely wink and a smile.

Republicans have for decades exploited this font of stupidity to the full. To paraphrase John Stuart Mill: while Republicans are not generally stupid, stupid people are generally Republican. There is a dense solid force in sheer stupidity – such, that an able few, with that force pressing behind them, are assured of victory in many a struggle; and many a victory the Republican Party have owed to that force.

We can only hope that on 4 November, despite all the attempts to spread lies about Obama, all the folksy repackaging of McCain – a dear friend of the corporate establishment – as a maverick ‘outsider’, and all the other tricks of the trade, wisdom will prevail.

The Freedom to Crash

2008-09-06T11:47:00.000+01:00

Let’s rewind and replay the mantra: leave the powerful businesses to do as they see fit, especially those in the financial sector because in deciding what would make the most money for themselves they are deciding what would generate the greatest prosperity for the whole economy. Remove regulations from them so that they are free to make us all richer.

And what happened next? Share prices went up to unrealistically high levels on the back of people spending money they had been encouraged to borrow beyond their means of paying back. Share prices dived, confidence dwindled, lenders cut back lending, less spending, less production, more unemployment, and the depression began.

We rewound too far. That was the Great Crash of 1932. The crass embrace of market freedom allowed businesses to behave as selfishly and irresponsibly as they liked until they brought the whole economy crashing down on everyone. Lessons were learnt. Out of the revulsion against unrestrained corporate power, state intervention to curb the excesses of business behaviour, to protect workers and those losing their jobs, and provide social and economic stability became the norm.

But if we fast forward to the 1970s and 1980s, the market mantra was in full flow again. All good was to come from powerful businesses being given more freedom to act. Reduce regulations controlling them. Enable them to take over functions of the state. Weaken the unions which might get in their way. Above all, tax them less and less so that the rich could get richer, and the poor would be more desperate than ever to borrow money from the deregulated lenders.

Throughout the 1990s, commentators warned that the greater freedom of the corporate sector was not leading to greater responsibility. In the financial world in particular, with taxes minimised, bonuses unlimited, the common practice was to make as much money as possible by lending to people, even if they were already heavily in debt. The bigger the debt, the higher the returns on the forecast sheet, the more those who raised the lending levels would be rewarded. So they all celebrated the escalation of their wealth until someone realised that if people were unable to pay their debts, there would be no profit at all. Panic set in. Credit started to dry up. What if the people we’ve entrusted our money with don’t have enough cash flow themselves? More panic? No, that can’t happen, the people who for decades have demanded more and more deregulation knew what they must do – turn to the government and asked for public money to bail them out. Yes, these people who want to be left alone by government, who successfully got their wish of contributing less to the public purse as taxpayers, they now want the government to rescue them by drawing on funds which others less well-off have had to help sustain.

After 1932, President Roosevelt tried to persuade the business sector that they needed to work with the government to put an end to their irresponsible wrecking of the economy. Corporate leaders were interested in the government clearing up the mess they had made, but they had no intention of surrendering their power to make money as they saw fit, regardless of the suffering it would cause others. To his eternal credit, Roosevelt did not get scared off by the corporate barons. Instead he put his weight behind a series of legislation to bring businesses under tighter control by the government. When he famously spoke about the four essential freedoms, the freedom to crash was decidedly not one of them.

Talk about Slavery

2008-08-02T22:50:00.003+01:00

According to the walking quote machine, Sepp Blatter, footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo who earned millions of pounds from their job were being treated like slaves. Sepp was deeply concerned that football millionaires could not just tear up the contracts they had freely entered into, and move to organisations willing to pay them even more money.

In reality, of course, footballers could leave their employment at any time they want. If they have signed a contract to say that in return for whatever salary they have negotiated they would stay for at least X years, and they leave before those years are up, they (or their new employer) would have to pay compensation. So far, so little sign of slavery in sight.

However, the ability of the top players to command astronomical fees does have a significant bearing on the power structure of the sporting industry and society more generally. What we now have is a tiny minority of people who take the largest share of money out of football. For most people, their passion for playing the game, even if backed by a good level of skills, would be doomed to frustration as at best they could cling on to a precarious job with a club away from the summit of the super-rich. Calls for a fairer distribution of the money generated by football are ignored as even more is concentrated with the powerful few.

The argument is always that you have to reward talent, or talent will be wasted. But this is to conflate the need for differentiation with a craving for exaggerated superiority. Take a thousand footballers, it would be demotivating if they would all get the same payment regardless of their abilities and talents. So we could differentiate them into pay bands with the widest gap set at ten, twenty, or even fifty times between top and bottom. Would that not be enough to motivate everyone to get as high as possible while giving all those who meet the basic requirements a decent security and respectability for the work they do? After all, Geoff Hirst did not need to be offered double the payment of his teammates for him to score a hat-trick in the World Cup Final.

It is sensible to have reasonable differentials. But once you go beyond that and allow a few individuals to have such concentrated wealth and power to dictate terms to others, to have the audacity to criticise what little contractual constraints there are left on them as a form of slavery, you would have replaced what was a fair sporting contest by a plutocratic competition between organisations which could borrow or, if they had billionaire benefactors, obtain enough money to recruit the most skillful players from the world.

A society which accepts this – even celebrates it as a sign of success – will allow its corrosive ethos to spread. To those who could demand better terms, more and more would be granted, while less and less is available for everyone else. Differentials would come to have no relevance at all to secure motivation to be a better player, but simply to boost one’s ego and control over others. With the top getting just about whatever they asked for, all those lower down would have to accept the few crumbs left behind. In sport, and in everywhere else, the lowest paid end up having to put up with the most disgusting conditions, the most disrespectful terms, and the most humiliating treatment. Now that’s slavery.

Thou Shall Make Money

2008-07-06T00:33:00.001+01:00

If instead of Moses, the CEO of a multinational corporation had gone up to meet the Almighty, he would probably have returned with just one commandment – thou shall make money. In any case, that’s the only one that seems to have prevailed above all else. In the name of enabling businesses to make money, anything goes.

What about all the other commandments? Well, the notion that there should be no other gods went out the window long ago when Mammon arrived on the scene in his private jet. As for idols, America has got lots of them, and so have Britain, singing, dancing, sporting, acting, all neatly quantified by the size of their contracts, the appearance fees they command, and their sponsorship deals.

Turning to the limit on the use of the name of God, it would seem that money buys you the right to invoke God in anyway you want. If you were rich, you could thank God as often as you’d like for the precious gift of money making granted to you. If you were poor, you would be blaspheming should you blame God in any way for your wretched position. If your country was wealthy and possessed enough weapons to blow up the rest of the world, you would be entitled to say God bless your country routinely.

The Sabbath should of course be kept holy, except when you want to make more money by opening shops throughout the weekend so that people who were busy earning their wage throughout the week could get their shopping done, and people who didn’t work enough to make ends meet might just earn a little bit more to stay afloat.

Fathers and mothers should be honoured to the extent they bring their children up to respect money making as the key to a successful life. Cursed are they who divert their sons and daughters to questioning social injustice or pursuing alternatives to a wealth-generating consumption lifestyle.

As for lying, stealing, or killing, it depends very much on your corporate strategy. Your products can damage people’s health seriously? They might give them ruinous addictions? But if they could expand your turnover and profit, it would be your duty to keep misleading the public. You look at the money brought into the company, and you think because you are high up enough to give yourself a larger share of it and force people below you to take what would in effect be a pay cut because of inflation, don’t worry about the blatant theft. And if the guns and missiles you sell would almost certainly take the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, so long as you are making lots of money, no one would dare excommunicate you.

And if lying, stealing and killing are not going to get you in trouble, then your wealth, the lawyers it can buy you, and the charity donations you can make to religious organisations would guarantee that adultery (so long as it is of a heterosexual nature), coveting your neighbour’s house, spouse or anything else, would not even be noticed.

So go forth and multiply what’s in your bank account is pretty much all that matters. If you can make money by lending it irresponsibly to others who cannot really afford another loan, carry on. Blessed are those who ruin the lives of others, and still get away with another hefty bonus.

The Gene Code Lottery

2008-06-01T11:57:00.001+01:00

People in Britain are outraged any time they hear about the National Health Service agreeing to cover the costs of certain medical prescriptions in one region but not others. They denounce the injustice of “postcode lottery”. After all, it is supposed to be a ‘national’ health service. It was established to ensure no citizen, rich or poor, would have to worry about having enough money to cope with sickness. But now budget constraints are increasingly leading to talk of rationing. How are we to decide who should get what when there is not enough to go round?

I have just learnt from a friend in America that Oregon has earlier in 2008 adopted, of all things, the lottery as the mechanism to deal with their healthcare crisis. 600,000 people in that state – 17% of the population – have no health insurance. The state wants to help them but due to ‘budget constraints’, it can only afford to cover the health insurance of 24,000 of its citizens. So all those without health insurance are invited to enter a lottery draw and a lucky 4% of them would be given a lifeline. The rest would have to accept their fate.

But budget constraints on government spending are always the results of decisions on what are to be prioritised. This is not just about decisions around building more bombs and fewer hospitals, but about how much revenue should be raised for the public good and how much should remain in the hands of private individuals. Those who subscribe to meritocracy would maintain that individuals who have the skills and drive to make money for themselves deserve to keep their hard earned wealth. The state’s role is to remove any barriers from people from realising their potential, and the rest should be left to individuals who apparently always know better than society’s collective wisdom regarding what to do with their money – be it about smoking, alcohol abuse, funding for medical research, or neglect of vulnerable children.

The problem with meritocracy is that it is not so easy to define anyone’s potential or what constitutes a barrier for the state to remove. Your genes, the upbringing received from your parents, your family’s socio-economic position, the neighbourhood/country in which you’re born, any serious sickness or disability you have to contend with, the quality and commitment of your teachers, the restrictions on your mobility to find better opportunities to flourish, all these can enhance your potential, or place virtually insurmountable barriers to success.

We actually have a choice. We could leave everything as it is. There will always be those born with multiple advantages, and those trapped by one misfortune or another. Let them get to the top, or sink to the bottom as events unfold, and from time to time let the state step in and offer the unlucky ones, or say 4% of them a helping hand to ease their burden a little. But overall we should not interfere with the Lottery of Life.

Or we could put an end to this gambling culture. Why deceive people into thinking they all have a fair chance to get on in life when the odds are stacked against many of them, with only a very few winners taking home the entire jackpot. Instead we should be honest and let people know that the only responsible way of living together is to have a system whereby those who have already handsomely won the gene code lottery and many besides should contribute a sufficient share to help deliver what is necessary for the public good. Those who have the misfortune to seek medical or other help through no fault of their own could then count on getting the support they need without undue constraints.

The S Word

2008-05-03T13:46:00.000+01:00

You can tell a lot from people’s reactions to a single word. Take subsidiarity. For many people, this is an awkward, complicated word. It seems to suggest that things should not be as they are. It is almost subversive in implying that those with power should think about giving some of it up. You can see why some people feel uncomfortable about it. However, for others, this one word beautifully captures the essence of empowerment, devolved governance and participatory democracy. Power is to be exercised at the lowest possible level where it can be effectively exercised. The question of delegation is neatly turned upside down. It is not about what should be passed down to the more local level, but what should be passed up.

In any structure of governance, it is inevitable that the precise of location of power is contested. Those who don’t like the S word tend to focus on cost efficiencies as the key reason why power should be concentrated in bigger and more centralised bodies, while those who take subsidiarity seriously would argue for more power to rest with smaller, more local bodies such as neighbourhood or parish councils. So can these divergent views ever be coherently reconciled?

The first question to ask ourselves is why powers should not be taken away from people who are perfectly capable of exercising them. To answer this question, we cannot get away from taking a position on the notion of democratic citizenship. We either subscribe to the view that people in general can and should never be more than recipients of public decisions made by a ruling elite, or we embrace the concept that we are all self-governing citizens who will entrust others further removed from us to make decisions for us only when we are not so well placed to deal with those decisions.

It was John Stuart Mill who pointed out that unless we want to have a nation of sheep, blindly obedient and submissive, we must cultivate wider engagement by citizens in municipal decision-making. Once we accept the premise that citizens must be enabled to have their say as much as possible over their own governance, the rest follows. Not only should more powers be accessible to them at the most local level, but even when powers need to be exercised at a higher level – for the sake of efficiencies, strategic coordination, or whatever other reason – it is essential for citizens to be made aware of how their views can help to inform and shape those decisions.

This means that it is in fact a false dichotomy to suppose we must choose between ever larger units of governance and a proliferation of smaller units. The way forward is to reconnect units of governance at every level to make them accessible to varying degrees to citizens themselves. On matters where citizens can work directly with the most local, neighbourhood level bodies to prioritise improvement to their environment, power should rest with those very local organisations. On other matters, the focus needs to be on how the citizens working through the most local units can influence and hold to account the larger units of governance. This is the way to develop an empowering framework of governance, and achieve real subsidiarity.

The Good, the Bad & the Foreign

2008-04-05T15:42:00.000+01:00

“Our laws and customs must be preserved,” so say many ‘descendants’ of the distant Anglo-Saxon tribes, fearing that the British or the American way of life would be altered by ‘outside’ influences. Despite their alleged adoration of their cultural heritage, they seem genuinely ignorant of how Franco-Normans, Germans, Dutch, Arabs, Jews, Huguenots, Hindus, Chinese, not to mention those from Africa and the Caribbean, have over a thousand years shaped the ideas and practices of Britain and her North American kin. If the old Anglo-Saxon way of life had been shielded from the rich and stimulating input from ‘outside’, it would have left us with a dull, primitive tribal existence.

But if automatically rejecting all things new to arrive from abroad is sure to lead to a stultifying dead-end, it would be no wiser to try to incorporate every belief or practice brought to these shores. Curiously, that’s exactly what the multi-cultural relativists want. Without making any distinction between good and bad ideas, so long as someone holds it dear, they want to find a place for it. “So where you come from, women have to take orders without question from men; homosexuals are routinely beaten up; children are prevented from learning about empirical reasoning; hatred of those who do not share your religious creed is normal; let us see how we can accommodate your precious cultural practices.” Anyone who challenges this mind-numbing crassness risks being charged with being intolerant.

Of course anyone not consumed by terminal irrationality can see that whether our laws and customs at any time should change or not depends solely on the legitimacy of the proposed changes. Would the changes correct prevailing injustice? Give help to people whose suffering has been neglected? Stop abuse of power which has gone on too long unchecked? Facilitate the objective enquiry for knowledge and tackle superstitions? Prevent the domination of vulnerable groups by an unaccountable elite? Enable more people to learn to appreciate each other as fellow citizens and not be blinded by prejudices? Proposed changes which, on the evidence available, are likely to deliver such tangible improvements should be considered for adoption, and those which are not, should be put aside. Whether the proposed changes originated from people who have long settled, or newly arrived, in the country concerned is neither here nor there.

Some may say that this progressive outlook on the basis for reforming society is precisely what characterizes Anglo-American culture, and should not be undermined by ‘foreign’ ideas. But while it is true that the progressive ethos has strong roots in the democratic development of both Britain and America, it is far from the case that it pervades all aspects of our intellectual, social and political life. Ideas which are dangerously reactionary, pro-exploitation of the weak, opposed to the fairer distribution of power, come not just from abroad but are sadly found amongst many native advocates who just as fervently detest the prospect of more progressive communities.

Furthermore, progressive ideas have long been embraced by individuals, groups, and countries outside Britain and America, and when they offer suggestions or criticisms in the spirit of helping us live up to the progressive vision, the geographical or ethnic origins of those proposals are irrelevant in considering their merits. It also follows that apart from our progressive heritage, and the development of laws and customs it favours, how any other aspects of our culture – music, cuisine, sports, festivals – mingle and change over time is something best kept away from any form of legal or political intervention. The worst fate to befall Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, or indeed any form of life, is for it to be arbitrarily frozen in time.

Between Nader and the Plastic Sea

2008-03-02T17:06:00.004Z

There is now more plastic in the oceans than plankton. Six times more in fact. And who’s producing all this stuff to choke our marine life to death, or any of the other environmentally damaging materials endlessly spewed into the seas and the atmosphere? It’s none other than the corporate giants who put their own profits above the interests of all who have to suffer the consequences of their irresponsible behaviour.

So when they think they can get away with the excessive packaging, energy consumption, and addictive consumerism they generate simply by planting a few trees or charging customers for the use of their plastic bags, it is not surprising that there is a surge of desire to call for someone to lead the charge against shameless corporate powers. Someone with a deep understanding of the harm they inflict on the public, a track record in challenging them to change their ways, and an inspiring resoluteness in standing up to them. Someone like, well, Ralph Nader.

Nader would not be deflected by tokenistic PR gestures, intimidated by the legal machines at the disposal of plutocrats, and certainly not bought off by potential corporate donors. So why, when he said he would stand in yet another Presidential race, have so many truly progressive-minded people shaken their heads in sadness?

The critical issue here is how we must avoid the dream of an ideal outcome getting in the way of something better ever coming to pass. Of course corporate business is now far too powerful in relation to workers and citizens in general. Whatever proposal to restrain them is put forward, it is always possible to suggest that more could be done, and faster. More regulations, tax deterrent, fines, and so on, but none of this would take effect if the public positions for deciding on such issues were always occupied by those least prepared to do anything about them.

Nader is not alone in thinking that the Democratic candidates for the Presidency have tended to be too cautious in challenging corporate hegemony. But to change that, we should make the case more effectively, more widely that political leadership to curb corporate irresponsibility is urgently needed. If we have yet to persuade enough of our fellow citizens to demand the leadership we believe is needed, it would be counter-productive to embark on a course of action which would only increase the probability of the Presidential contest being won by the most pro-corporate candidate there is.

Why jeopardize what reforms we could realistically secure by taking votes away from the candidate who would indisputably do more than whoever the standard-bearer for the corporate establishment is? What would a futile gesture do, except leaving people worse off than they otherwise would? Radical agitators once believed that it was better to hamper moderate reformers so that their failures would usher in much more unbearable conditions, and the people would rise up to demand revolutionary changes. History has taught us that it was a fool’s dream.

None of us wants to see our oceans turned into a global corporate cesspool. To clean up this mess, we must forget futile gestures and PR exercises – especially when they would only weaken our closest allies and lend false legitimacy to the polluters. We should concentrate on raising public awareness of the need to reform so that those with a real chance of winning public office can count on a widening base of support to rein in the corporate abuse of power.

The Minorities Myth

2008-02-02T17:59:00.000Z

One of my father’s favourite proverbs was “Enough ants can bring down an elephant”. He was keen to point out that unfavourable odds against even the biggest opponent could be turned by lining up more support. He wanted me never to give up as a lost cause what in fact was the just cause. In a way it is fitting that the mammoth animal has come to symbolize the Party of plutocratic righteousness in America, because more than ever we need to consider the fate of those modern day ants otherwise known as ‘minorities’.

Countless people who have to labour to make ends meet day in, day out, have for decades been parceled out into distinct minority packages. The poor who are despised for drawing on benefits which could otherwise boost the tax breaks of the rich. The workers whose share of their organisations’ earnings shrink as their bosses pay themselves ever larger bonuses. The non-white ethnic groups who are splintered into smaller and smaller sub-groups with their own ‘culturally unique’ problems. The women struggling to bring up children on their own. The young men whose inability to be responsible figures of their families leads them to drop out of society. The people whose disabilities prevent them from earning enough to support themselves. Their concerns are labeled as the interests of minorities, registered as fringe issues on the margins of society.

Whenever political representatives are to be elected, the two main contestants – whether they are competing for their parties’ nomination, or on behalf of their party for the vacant position in question – inevitably fight on the ‘mainstream’ issues, leaving the third candidate to reach out to the minorities, the poor, the unorganized, because those are territories destined to be covered by the losers in such campaigns.

If you want to win, you want to appeal to the majority underpinning the establishment – Middle England, Middle America – that substantial core which is meant to be where the hearts and minds of any given country is located. But strip away the rhetoric and what are these appeals really directed at? They are directed not at a majority at all, but at a tiny minority – the rich and powerful. These plutocrats amass power to themselves and will facilitate the elections – through campaign donations, strategic endorsements, media influence, etc. – of those keenest to strengthen their powerbase further, or at least unlikely to rock their hierarchical boat.

The truth is that the multiple ‘minorities’ disadvantaged by their lack of socio-economic power constitute the real majority. This perverse situation is increasingly taking hold across the world. Indeed according to the UN’s World Institute for Development Economics Research, a minority comprising merely 2% of adults in the world possess more than half of all household wealth, while the poorer half of the world's population own less than 1% of it.

We must not let the myth of minorities go on anymore. All ants – underpaid, undercut, discriminated against, marginalised, deprived, despised – should stand together and face up to the corporate elephants trampling on our hopes for a fairer society. Throw away those ‘minorities’ labels and embrace a deeper solidarity. Don’t let them stamp their feet and frighten everyone into running for cover. Show them that when the civic majority rally together to call for a more just distribution of power, they will have to listen. Whatever single-issue campaigns you want to fight, forget not the greater cause – it shall not be lost, for there’s definitely enough of us to make a difference.

Wheat from the Chav

2008-01-01T13:55:00.000Z

Our collective consciousness has been struggling for awhile. Our ‘Right’ brain tells us it is essential to apply selection vigorously – keep separating out the worthy from the undeserving, those with potential from the hopeless – start the process from the earliest possible age, and carry on for the rest of their lives so we are continuously sifting out the just-not-good-enough from the most able. This way society rewards those who will make the greatest achievements. Meanwhile, our ‘Left’ brain is troubled by the presence of the disconnected – those who care little for social values, they think they get nothing out of society and certainly don’t want to put anything in. We wonder what has gone wrong.

A complete schizophrenic flip to the Right would suggest that those who drop out at the bottom of the relentless selection processes should not be left to act as they please. If they could not comply with the basic requirements of decent behaviour, they should be locked away in prison. On the other hand, an excessive surge from the Left could start a call for the abolition of all selections, leaving everyone to be treated in exactly the same way regardless of their attitudes or talents.

To regain our common sanity, we had better rethink how we got here. In many ways, it began with a neurosis about not allowing people to flourish enough. We had become obsessed that people were held back from fully unleashing their potential. If only they were told that the more they demonstrated how good they could be, the more they would be singled out for greater rewards, then we would see many more of them coming to the fore, improving life along the way for everyone.

But that was the critical point. What kind of potential unleashed would really improve life for everyone? Where do we most need improvements? Well, we need more nurses, teachers, carers, youth workers, we need them with more skills, more confidence to help all of us, young and old, to lead the most fulfilling lives we’re capable of. Yet these are the people who are now told that they must accept wage constraints, that however hard they are already working, they cannot be paid anywhere near as much as people who do far less than they to help their fellow citizens.

So who are the people who have been separated out for encouragement, praise, and ever-growing rewards? They are the ones who are blessed with the skills to navigate their way up the corporate ladder, come up with ideas to hook consumers into buying worthless, harmful or addictive goods and services which serve only to make their companies more money, and convince their board and the share market that they are the leaders to be trusted. They are the ones who are handed the tax break, the hundred-times-higher-than-their-employees salaries, multiple bonuses, and share options to smooth their rise to the top of the plutocracy.

Maybe we can begin to heal our cerebral disorientation by recognizing that selection and reward have their use only if we direct them to where we need more people to take up socially valuable vocations. Misdirecting them to promote the narrow class of business climbers and consumerist peddlers does little to help society, and breeds distrust and resentment amongst those brushed aside as unworthy. Worst of all, it concentrates power more and more in the hands of corporate chavs who have little connection with the rest of society apart from their determination to display their distinct and frankly unimpressive identity.

Where's our American vote?

2007-12-01T15:33:00.000Z

Back in the 18th century, our cousins in America were extremely unhappy that one of Hanover’s Georges, sitting on the British throne, surrounded by his Ministers in Whitehall, was making insane decisions that affected numerous lives on the other side of the Atlantic. Yet they had no say. They could not vote in their own representatives for Parliament, and they could certainly not vote out the man whose every executive decision they despised. So they issued an ultimatum – give us representation or we would rid our land of your political control.

Now the table has been turned. One of Texas’ Georges is sitting in the Whitehouse, firing off one senseless decision after another, jeopardising the entire world. As President of the US, Bush has destablised the Middle East with a military campaign against non-existing weapons of mass destruction; opposed efforts by the rest of the world to tackle carbon emission; disrupted plans to prevent AIDS by putting religious dogma against the use of contraceptives above the saving of innocent lives; and fuelled an unsustainable credit expansion strategy with irresponsible tax cuts for the rich, and growing insolvency risk for everyone else.

Since the Americans founded their country on the principle that no political institution should be allowed to impact on the lives of those who could not democratically hold it to account, they ought to be sympathetic to the plight of those who now find the decisions of Washington all too often adversely affecting their lives. This applies not just to their British kin, but to virtually everyone around the world living in the shadow of the one global superpower.

All of us come under the de facto jurisdiction of America, and none of us without formal US citizenship can have any say about who in America gets to make the critical world-shaping decisions. Our wellbeing and patience are indeed daily taxed without any kind of representation offered in return.

Alas we are not in a position to issue a similar ultimatum. There is no prospect of us getting rid of the vast influence American Presidents and Congressmen will continue to have over the entire world. The only alternative is to press for proper representation. We should all be given a vote in all the American elections which have significant consequences for us.

US foreign policy has frequently led it to seek to limit the powers of the United Nations. It does not want to be subject to checks and balances from people who reside abroad even though their lives could be transformed – for better or worse – in so many ways by US policy decisions. Like the old Hanoverian George, delirious with power, it wants to do as it pleases without having to persuade or bargain with minor figures in a distant land.

But the spotlight should shift from the UN to the US. Never mind trying to get the UN to be more effective in helping to hold the US to account for its unilateral actions. Let us ask the most powerful nation on earth directly, make yourself democratically accountable to the rest of us. It's time to give us all a vote.

Let them eat bullets

2007-11-04T18:36:00.000Z

Do you know how far the spiritual descendants of Marie Antoinette have developed the art of pacifying the poor?

Take a look at the richest nation on earth, where they also happen to have the widest gulf between the wealthy and the poor in the developed world. What do the powerful in America do when they see millions of their fellow citizens left far behind with no prospect of any improvement? They offer them a way out. Join the military. In one stroke, those who do not have any hope of getting a good education, a well-paid job, health care, or any of the things the privileged can take for granted, are given a highly attractive option.

And when in large numbers they take up that option, it means that the country can afford to give up on conscripting a citizens’ army. In the days of the Vietnam War, every American family (except for the super rich who can use their influence to ensure their sons stay well away from military action) stood an equal chance of bearing the responsibility of fighting their country’s war abroad, and they watched the development of the conflict with intense personal as well as civic interest. When a growing number felt that the risks and sacrifices demanded of them far outweighed the alleged gains to be made from the war, they vocally called for an end to America’s military role in Vietnam. When their own were killed day after day, the body politic spoke with one voice to call off the misadventure.

Now predominantly the poor make up America’s cannon fodder. They voluntarily sign up for a career their better-off fellow citizens gladly leave to them. They are patriotically saluted off to fight in a distant land. Should they be killed in action, no publicity is allowed when their bodies are returned to America. The civic minded do not want them to be forgotten, but those who only really care about their own families, and those who advocate violent actions against others so long as the repercussions are to be borne by less fortunate souls, barely register their loss.

So today the poor, instead of congregating outside the mansions and palaces of the upper class, shouting for bread and justice, wait quietly in line to join the establishment which has reserved for them a special place. Here, in return for support which progressive reformists of the last century tried to secure for everyone without prejudice, they, and they alone, would have to take their turn to face snipers and shrapnel, brain damage and death.

Imagine what Louis VI would have done in the face of the angry crowd calling for a fairer society, if he could simply point them to form an orderly queue over at the military registration office. With offers of decent pay, special discounts, scholarships, helpful mentors, loans, plus numerous other benefits, not to mention a wide selection of cakes, the revolution would never have even got started. Rather than threatening the powerful with militant confrontation, they would march off and get themselves killed instead. It’s a lesson the present day George II has learnt well.

The Alpha Male Syndrome

2007-10-07T20:11:00.001+01:00

Natural selection has left animals with a wide variety of survival instincts. The alpha male tendency is common amongst predators that hunt in a pack as well as primates. But domination by an authoritarian male is not the only route to biological success. From the social cooperative nature of emperor penguins and dolphins to the individualist behaviour of foxes and squirrels, it is clear that one does not need to submit unreservedly to a snarling leader to make something of one’s life. Without the cerebral capacity to examine and compare, it is not surprising that once a species has developed a way of being, it sticks to it. Human beings, however, have no such excuse.

For thousands of years the alpha male instinct directed human interactions. In return for order, an allotted place in the group, and protection from ‘outside’ threat, one surrenders oneself to control by the most determined and aggressive in taking charge. This mindset is projected ‘upwards’ in the theological representation of ‘God’ as an absolute ruler who will punish dissent with eternal suffering, and ‘downwards’ in the social validation of oppression through the lower rungs of the hierarchy. The lord could treat his peasants as he pleased, the head servant could treat his subordinates likewise, and similarly with the priest and his underlings, the man with his wife and children.

It was only when the right conditions for related intellectual and political development converged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the movement towards a democratic as opposed to an authoritarian way of life began. It has been a long and hard struggle. And what remains the most challenging aspect of the struggle is to expose the grip the alpha male syndrome retains to this day.

Alpha male authoritarianism is not displaced just by opening the door to women, people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, or lower socio-economic classes, especially when those who take control are no less ‘alpha male’ in their power disposition.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have been fed stories that authoritarianism has been roundly defeated by democracy. But if that is the case, why is power at almost every level still concentrated in the hands of those most ruthless in securing and exercising power? Why are corporate barons able to sell arms, destroy the environment, or promote addictive consumerist behaviour when these are blatantly against the interests of the vast majority of people? Why are only those capable of destroying their enemies through the modern weapons of mass communication and subtle (or not so subtle) character assassination in line to compete for the most important political offices? Why can the wealthiest go on rewarding themselves more while subjecting their employees to pay restraints and perpetual job insecurity? Why is domestic violence still a blot on our moral landscape? Why are human beings, including young children, exploited as mere cogs in faceless production lines?

We need to ask ourselves who get to wield power in the world around us. Democracy has won many battles in the last few centuries, but it still has a long way to go. The alpha male psyche is deep in our evolutionary make-up. The aggressive few are inclined to push their way to the top. The silent majority are all too ready to acquiesce for fear of a backlash. But if authoritarianism is to be combated, we have to start unmasking the alpha male holders of power in every sphere of society. The legitimacy of power does not come from defeating their competitors, but only from engaging with us as equals in pursuit of our common good.

Variations on a theme of ransom

2007-09-08T13:46:00.000+01:00

What do you do when an entire city’s transport system is totally disrupted because there is another all-out strike? You stress, you curse, and you wish someone would end this nonsense.

Then you hear about others, baggage handlers at airports, even prison officers, going on strike, causing so many problems for other people. And you think it’s the unions. You don’t see those without a strong unionized workforce going on strike. They just get on with it. Whereas those backed by the power of their unions are quite ready to hold the rest of society to ransom. Meet our demands, they declare, or else there will be unpleasant consequences for you all.

So when the leaders of society stand firm and pronounce such actions irresponsible, if not outright contemptible, people look up and welcome their intervention. At last someone to protect us from those who use their power to secure what they want at our expense. It is outrageous that some people can keep playing the “or else” card to force us to comply with their preferred scheme of things.

But what protection are we getting? Let us take a closer look. When those who are in fact the most economically powerful proclaim that in their scheme of things, they must have an utterly disproportionate share of what they in conjunction with numerous others produce, what happens? Do we hear resounding condemnation of these corporate barons? Do we hear revulsion that they are getting away with establishing a society where they can pay themselves millions, and further year on year increases of 10%, 20%, 30% and more above the rate of inflation, when many ordinary workers find that their pay does not even keep pace with inflation, their jobs are constantly under threat as management might sacrifice them to boost share prices, and whose pension terms are deteriorating when their bosses are getting extra benefits in every conceivable way?

What we do hear is this: “we must accept this, because …” wait for it, “or else”, yes, that’s the crunch point, “or else, they would leave and take their skills elsewhere, and we would all lose out”. In other words, out of fear that these corporate barons would do a walk-out – which of course is precisely what they threaten to do every time someone questions the absurd benefits they award themselves – nobody dares to challenge them.

This is mistaken on two counts. First, it is a myth that people, even the most greed-soaked ones, are only motivated by getting hugely more money all the time to do what they love doing anyway. Look at the top footballers’ contracts. None of them seriously thinks that they could not be bothered to fight hard to win a competition because they are not paid another million pounds on top of the X millions they are getting already. But it does become a problem if a few super elite are getting another million, then they want it too. What’s the driver here? A need to minimize differentials – not to maximize.

Secondly, when the powerful at the top are left unchallenged, vulnerable individuals have no choice but to band together to protect themselves. Unions are to workers as Robin Hood and his followers are to the exploited folks of old Nottingham. And there is a crucial difference between the Sheriff of Nottingham holding wretched peasants to ransom lest they allowed him to grab his grossly unfair share of what the people had produced, and Robin Hood holding the good Sheriff to ransom lest he agreed to let them live a decent life. It can be summed up in one word. Justice.

The Crisis of Civic Disengagement

2007-08-25T13:50:00.000+01:00

So what if people are less inclined to band together to shape the decisions that affect them? Fewer and fewer people join political parties or trade unions, organise themselves in deliberating and questioning public policies, vote or stand for public office. Some embrace this phenomenon as a minor side effect of the spread of consumerism. But for those of us who have not forgotten how throughout history the powerful few get away with exploiting the many when the latter give up on collective action, it is a serious crisis indeed.

The Roman Republic and the early days of America witnessed citizens who were similar in status, working to achieve comparable rewards for their families, and were thus willing to take action through their public institutions on terms of mutual respect. But when those with the military strength and corporate muscle started to amass power in themselves at the expense of others, republican virtues gave way to irresponsibility, inequalities, and imperialist hubris. Powerful elites know that by fragmenting the public into strangers separated by widening gaps of wealth and social standing – from those too rich to have to worry about being accountable to anyone else, to those pushed so far down the hierarchy that they feel they have nothing to lose however self-destructively they behave – they can dissolve the citizenry into a multitude of disconnected individuals.

For too long, society’s readiness to allow those at the top to secure better and better terms for themselves while making lives for those at the bottom more precarious and insignificant, has left those lower down the towering pyramid with dwindling self-worth and deepening alienation. Not surprisingly, rights for workers to seek better treatment are now branded costly red tape to be cut, while rights for employers to exploit the weak bargaining position of others are celebrated as essential freedom to be enhanced.

The problem of civic disengagement we have today is not going to be solved by encouraging a few young people to volunteer to help run the odd charitable projects, or enticing a few more rich philanthropists to donate to good causes. It is a manifestation of the onslaught on civic cohesion at the heart of the rise of global plutocracy. We need to stir our democratic conscience and challenge the hegemony of the so-called ‘wealth creators’ – the corporate elites who between them dominate the private media, the lobbying of lawmakers, the consumerist industries, the arms and surveillance business, and much else besides. To adapt Niemöller’s observations, doing nothing is not a sustainable option:

First they came to strip the trade unions of their power,
One did nothing,
One was not a trade unionist.

Next they came to halt state bodies from interfering with their ‘wealth creation’,
One did nothing,
One was not a member of a state body.

Then they came to undermine the authority of public broadcasters,
One did nothing,
One was not a public broadcaster.

Finally they will come for the rest of us,
If one still has not done anything by then,
It would all be too late.

What’s wrong with being all-powerful?

2007-07-07T20:34:00.000+01:00

Take a house with a dozen people, a neighbourhood with a few hundred, or a country with a few million, would it be better if in each case one single person is all powerful and everyone else is to live or die depending wholly on this person’s mercy, or if power is more evenly and fairly spread so that no one has to bow down to the commands of any almighty despot, regardless of how benevolent the latter is supposed to be?

Anyone who has any historical knowledge of the exploitation, oppression and injustice which come from power being concentrated in the hands of someone who is not accountable to anyone else will have no doubt which is preferable. Absolute power does not only corrupt its holder, it enslaves those subject to its exercise. If this observation holds for a house, a neighbourhood, a country, then surely it holds for the entire universe.

The world would always be better if there isn’t a single person who possesses limitless power to dominate everyone else. If God is the embodiment of perfection, it would follow that God cannot be an all-powerful entity unaccountable to no one else. As power is better distributed in a progressively more equitable manner amongst all those who can be affected by that power, perfection is reached when power is shared out so evenly that all can decide for the good of all, and none can arbitrarily dictate to the detriment of any single one.

The primitive infantile mind craved for a powerful parental figure to look after everything and projected God as an all-powerful being. Fixated on this naïve premise, theologians and their critics, for centuries argued about whether there is proof that an all-powerful being rules the universe. But what they have in fact arguing about is the likelihood of, not God’s existence, but cosmic tyranny. Perhaps all concerned can now wake from their intellectual slumber and recognise that what moral goodness calls for is not the absolute concentration of power in a single being, but its very opposite – the fair dispersion of power to everyone on equal terms.

The erroneous conception of God as all-powerful has for centuries lent itself to be exploited as a justification for papal, monarchical, patriarchal, fundamentalist oppression at every turn. Only a ‘God’ so twisted in its core meaning can be invoked to back wars, tortures, and suppression of love and free-thinking. God, properly understood as the ideal state of power shared by all in a just commonwealth with no boundaries, is real in so far as it is the guiding principle for life.

So it’s time to put aside flawed theology and invite the religious minded to embrace God as the path to a fairer society. Forget about worshiping all-powerful tyrants disguised as saviours. The only future worth striving for is the one where the gap between the powerful and the powerless is finally closed.

Together We Can

2007-06-02T20:56:00.000+01:00

Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ continues to resonate down the age. It is so true that when citizens give up striving to hold the powerful to account, and allow themselves to be tricked or bribed into leaving those in command of their fate to act without due public constraint, they end up weak and vulnerable. Without a collective platform to challenge, and if necessary, halt those with power from charging forward, they become mere pawns in someone else’s game plan.

And tyranny adapts with time. If the first half of the twentieth century was still stirred by rallying calls to band together against Caesar-like dictators, the contemporary world is seeing a multiplicity of social, political and corporate leaders who seek to control others by fostering fundamentalist beliefs, handing the public realm to creeping private interest, and promoting addictive consumerism. There is no single imperial figure to confront, but a shifting alliance of the rich, the irresponsible, and the ‘let’s invoke God when it suits us’ brigade.

Against this chameleon axis of oppression, what can we do? In England, an initiative which began in 2005, is proving that solidarity can be cultivated through the focused collaboration of both the state and citizens. The Together We Can campaign, developed to encourage and support active citizens and public servants to cooperate in finding solutions to public problems, brought 12 Government Departments together with a shared commitment to improve citizens engagement with the development of their policies and services. The annual review of 2006 featured the Secretaries of State of all those departments reflecting on the diverse achievements, from citizenship education for all pupils, through greater local say in setting policing priorities, to wider adoption of deliberative engagement in developing environmental policies (see http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1502653).

Now an interactive resource on the web has been launched to enable all those, who believe that citizens can together exert far greater influence than acting alone, to utilise, contribute to, and promote ideas and practices which will strengthen that influence (http://togetherwecan.direct.gov.uk).

Together We Can cultivates a robust civic culture, to give citizens, from an early age, the skills, confidence and opportunities to work together in raising issues with and getting answers from with public institutions. Of course, this will not by itself prevent democratic life from being damaged by those who want to infect the public realm with their brand of ‘spiritual’ or commercial values, but it is an important inoculation against civic atrophy.

For example, approaches like participatory budgeting are spreading and people who had previously been sceptical about the prospect of civic solidarity have not just witnessed, but deeply moved by young people changing their minds and switching support to back projects which were to benefit primarily the elderly, and ethnic groups voting on spending priorities irrespective of racial factors. Women who had been marginalized, and people with learning disabilities had acquired new skills and confidence to make their voices heard.

Without fanfare, but with quiet determination, a new generation of civic-minded activists are coming through. Together they will stand up to any modern Caesars, in whatever guise they may appear, who threaten the precious solidarity of democratic citizenship.

Long live the Con

2007-05-20T19:11:00.000+01:00

When so many commentators in Britain and America are queuing up to congratulate France for electing a President who’s prepared to drive through ‘reforms’, take the ‘tough decisions’, and bring about ‘greater flexibility’, you have to start worrying for the French people. What have they done?

They have for decades struck a nice balance between work and life – producing sought after designs and goods all round the world, and enjoying a decent quality of life sustained by economic security. What exactly went wrong? In short, they began to be undercut by corporations which made more money by squeezing their employees dry. Corporations which are celebrated by Anglo-American pundits for ‘thriving’ in the global marketplace by being utterly committed to cutting back on employment protection, demanding longer hours, polarising between the bosses who could do more and more as they please, and the dispensable workers. The message to France and other socially minded countries in Western Europe has been simple: embrace this style of governance or perish.

But why would the citizens of any democracy, in France or anywhere else, give up the power they have through their state and let new leaders dismantle the precious apparatus for securing liberty and equality for all? Well, you have to use the old divide-and-rule trick, but give it a contemporary twist.

Here’s the new con – a compassionate one as some like to put it, for it hinges on showing how caring you are – challenge people to choose between trusting themselves or some faceless public institution. Put this to them bluntly: Wouldn’t you rather trust yourself than somebody else? To keep your destiny in your own hands, you must distrust, nay, reject anyone trying to regulate things on your behalf. Keep these meddlers away, and what happens in life would be down to your own efforts. You can’t get fairer than that.

Once the gullible bites, you can feed them the rest. Why pay ever more taxes to the state when you know better how to spend your own money? Why let anyone dictate to you how many hours you can work, or indeed what conditions are acceptable for you to work under, when all that would do is to hamper you from earning what you deserve? Why allow busy bodies to interfere with what can be sold to you, or how it should be sold to you when it would just add to the costs of what you want to buy? Why do we have to pool our resources to invest in schools and hospitals for everyone, when we should be able to choose the health and education services we want from successful private companies?

Con artists at the service of plutocratic barons have refined their message with a reference to globalization here, and a nod to post-modernity there. But their intent is the same as it ever was – ensure those who have amassed wealth and power over others can take the fullest advantage of them without any intervention from collective forces acting in the public good. They want people to see taxes, civic institutions, public standards, state inspection regimes, regulations and controls as all inherently bad. They invite to us to cut them right back, so that we can be more free, more flexible, more ready – to be picked off one by one. They are counting on each and everyone of us to be foolish enough to be tricked into enslavement in the name of individual freedom. Vive le con.

Give restorative justice a chance

2007-04-29T19:32:00.000+01:00

I have heard so many people say that the youths of today are getting out of control. They cannot be made to behave and they ruin the lives of others, old and young. The ‘tough’ proponents argue that the only solution is to target those who are threatening others with much more stringent measures. Punish them, and possibly their parents too if they are to be found, with eviction from public housing, cuts to their benefits, and prison sentences. Hit them hard until they submit.

The ‘soft’ advocates, on the other hand, maintain that more support should be given to parents and children to help them cope with living in a society with relentlessly growing income inequalities. More supervised time for out of school hour activities, more play facilities, more leisure events which are affordable without being branded as second class, and generally better response to the unmet needs of the marginalized.

But between the tiny minority of young people who really require the most punitive treatment to prevent them from harming others, and the general needs of young people who would otherwise be made to feel neglected and insignificant, there is a substantial group of youngsters who deal with their own deficiencies and low self-esteem by being unpleasant to others. There is no evidence whatsoever that either the tough or soft approach is necessary or sufficient in changing their behaviour.

The only evidence that anything would make a real difference is that gathered by the Youth Justice Board of England and Wales on the impact of restorative justice in schools. Schools in many different areas were introduced to the practice of restorative justice where teachers, and in some cases pupils, were trained as facilitators to bring perpetrators of undesirable behaviour and their victims together to talk through the problems. Crucially the process was to guide the perpetrators to see the hurt they have caused, make a sincere apology, and offer to behave differently. At the same time, it would give the victims an opportunity to have their say, and secure for themselves the assurance they needed.

Apart from the most serious, though thankfully few, cases of violent behaviour, all forms of insulting, bullying, teasing, aggravating behaviour were picked up by the restorative justice approach, and in 93% of the cases across the participating schools a resolution was reached with an agreement signed up to by the perpetrator. But are these agreements worth the paper they were written on? Does anyone take them seriously, you ask. Well, 96% of the agreements were honoured. No wonder, pupils and teachers alike were delighted with the improvement to their schools and confident that they would be sustained. In some schools, the pupils who had trained and practised as facilitators asked their head teachers if they could offer their support to other schools as the problem of abusive and bullying had virtually vanished from their own schools.

So why shouldn’t we have restorative justice practices in every school? Apparently some of those who favour the tough approach believe that they absolved the perpetrators of blame for their bad behaviour and should therefore be rejected as a legitimate way to deal with wrongdoing. But the essence of restorative justice is the recognition of blame and the embrace of personal responsibility to rectify past wrong. Let’s cast dogma aside and give restorative justice a chance.

Weapons of mass confusion

2007-04-22T13:32:00.000+01:00

What is it about America and weapons? Why does this country stockpile more weapons of mass destruction than anyone else and yet is permanently poised to strike at any country thinking of acquiring a few of their own? The biggest threat to its own citizens in terms of being injured or killed by gunfire comes not from abroad but their fellow Americans. And what is the American response when the umpteenth tragedy strikes with more of their own slain by some gun-obsessed shooter? That it is a fundamental right of the American people to bear arms.

But why should this peculiar right be so important in America, when it is utterly alien in every other civilized country in the world? It may have something to do with the culture of distrust that goes right back to the origins of the USA. People who did not want to live under various European regimes migrated to America, and when the British government tried to retain control over their affairs, they took up arms and declared themselves independent. But once their own system of government was put in place, the American people were not prepared to surrender their weapons. Even with one of the most elaborate checks and balance form of governance, individuals wanted to have ready access to their own guns should they fell out with those they put in temporary charge of their collective affairs.

To this day, the deal remains that whoever runs the American government has to acknowledge that its own citizens rightly cannot trust it with sole possession of weapons. It is odd then that it should expect the rest of the world to trust it with having the most powerful weapons imaginable. Is it because feeling impotent in relation to its own arms-loving citizens, it wants to exert control over people outside its borders? Or is it trying to translate the historical belief of American people that only they can be trusted with weapons into a global policy of preventing non-Americans from having powerful weapons of their own?

Yet, just when one thinks any of this might make sense after all, we are reminded of the fact that the world’s leading exporter of arms is none other than the United States. Not only do American weapon makers dominate the international market for destructive instruments, their government faithfully supports them by cultivating new buyers in its tireless sales pitch to foreign states. So whatever their rhetoric may be about weapon proliferation posing too great a risk to peace and security to be tolerated, they in practice do more than everyone else combined in arming the world.

Logic of course cannot by itself make sense of the actions of people who are seriously disorientated. A symptom of persistent distrust is the spread of paranoia eroding the capacity to work with others collectively to find sensible solutions. Why sit down with others to seek to reach an agreement on a way forward when one can shoot down any opposition (real or perceived). The infantile American colonies of the 1770s, feeling in turn neglected and repressed by the father figure of a deranged monarch, grew up into a 21st century superpower who celebrates the freedom to wield weapons everywhere so long as the deadliest weapons of all stay in their own hands.

To be fair, a significant number of people in America – derided as liberal or progressive – have over recent decades developed a much more mature outlook which recognises that juvenile macho obsession with weapons has to be displaced by proper controls nationally and internationally, and pressed for reining in arms sales at every level. But until they become the majority, America and the rest of the world can expect many more innocent people to pay the price of this armed mayhem.

Of frogs and men

2007-03-31T19:51:00.001+01:00

A sign by the road along the stream nearby warns drivers of frogs crossing in the breeding season. It was put up in the early 1990s when every year a large number of frogs headed towards the stream to spawn. But in the last few years the sign is largely redundant. The common frog (Rana temporaria) has become very uncommon indeed around these parts.

Changing land use, scarcity of ponds, sharply fluctuating ‘spring’ weather, have all cut down the survival rates of these amphibian creatures. Their decline may not be as visually dramatic as that of the polar bears, but it provides us with yet another reminder that the irresponsible use of resources is wreaking havoc with life on earth. There is no escape. However much large corporations commission researchers on their payroll to deny that there is any problem, the damages are everywhere to be seen.

So in spite of all the objective evidence piling up, can it be that the corporate sponsors of relentless pollution really believe nothing is going wrong with our planet? Or is it more likely that they take the view that when the proverbial hits the fan, they would as usual be able to buy their way out of trouble, and leave the poor to bear the brunt of it all. Isn’t that what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, where the rich got themselves safely out of the city, leaving those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder to literally drown? Isn’t that what they expect that when tobacco induced illnesses push up the costs of healthcare for the state, they can rely on their private clinics to look after themselves? Or when dangerous waste is generated from their industrial plants, they simply ship them off to poor countries which see it as a means to make some desperately needed foreign currencies?

Yes, they are convinced that their harmful drive for profits will make them rich enough to enjoy themselves while the harm is all pushed down to the poor, powerless lot around the world. And what response to this aggressively greedy strategy is being developed? Those who are truly progressive minded would have expected perhaps a call for genuine solidarity – a commitment to share out the control and utilization of limited resources more equitably. After all, when the Second World War threatened all, rationing for all was the progressive strategy to unite people to fight the common threat together.

But rationing, solidarity, economic justice are not on the agenda it seems. What we are presented with are more variations of the rich man’s game – environmental protection through market mechanisms. Introduce tax incentives to shift people away from damaging activities. Establish carbon trading so the responsible can sell their shares to those willing to buy rather than behave more responsibly.

What will this bring? Those who are at the bottom of society already are penalised with taxes when they have little choice over their daily routines (whatever happened to the investment to improve their public transport system?), whereas the rich are assured that they can indeed buy their way out of any sticky situation. If they are rich enough, they can buy their way to legitimately pollute even more.

Life for those without a fat wallet, frogs or men, is looking more ominous by the day.

What exactly is pro-family?

2007-03-11T18:52:00.000Z

On the whole, children having to grow up in unstable, dysfunctional families tend to suffer more problems than children brought up by loving, dependable adults with a steady relationship. The more parental figures there are – biological, adoptive, grandparents, guardians – the more support there is likely to be compared with a single individual with no help. For the sake of all children, it is fairly obvious that we should all be in favour of strong, happy, caring families everywhere.

But if you think that means ‘pro-family’ ideas must be about identifying and countering what undermines flourishing families, you’d be in for a surprise. Many of the self-styled champions of the sacred, precious institution of family are actually fixated about the legal protection of heterosexual marriage as the respected norm in society. They want to give people in that form of relationship more rights, more tax benefits, more dignity than anyone else. Whatever causes them to think like that has very little to do with the parental capacity of different forms of family arrangements.

There is no evidence that married heterosexual couples raise children more effectively than an aunt and her companion, two devoted dads, a loving mother supported by her mother, or any other combination. The only constant factor is sufficient attention being paid to the needs of the children by adults who share a deep concern for the wellbeing of those children without being torn apart by stresses and strains placed on their own relationship.

So anyone whose real interest is in the upbringing of children would focus on the factors which prevent those with a parental role from carrying it out effectively. And it is here that we come upon the obstacles about which many ‘pro-family’ advocates are so resolutely silent. The long hour work culture that keeps parents from their children, the work pressures that spill into destructive stresses that pull apart parental partners, the diminishing job security that creates uncertainty at home, the expectations to uproot families or leave them behind to get work, the consumerist measure of parents’ ability to buy things for their children linked to their level of earnings, the substitution of time with one’s parents by the acquisition of status symbols (from toys through to cars) via their purchasing power.

These factors are of course inter-connected. They are all related to the socio-economic changes which have been accelerating since the second half of the twentieth century. It is not some mindless defiance against the moral duty of being good parents that suddenly erupted and destroyed the capacity of families to bring up intelligent and responsible children. The Anglo-American market model which values above all economic growth as an engine to drive the plutocratic concentration of wealth in the few has been growing in strength from the late 1970s, when its political sympathizers on both sides of the Atlantic won the power to roll back the checks and balances against corporate greed.

Now we see the consequences of this relentless expansion of the commercial hierarchy – the top rejecting taxation and regulations as fettering their golden ability to generate wealth (for themselves), the middle perpetually anxious that they would be ejected as inadequate and must therefore work harder than ever to prove themselves, and the bottom convinced that they (and their children) have no future, no respect from anyone else.

Anyone wanting to stand up and claim they are pro-family had better from now on start by explaining how they are going to tackle corporate irresponsibility.

Why single out the freedom of discussion

2007-02-25T17:47:00.000Z

It’s exasperating when quite distinct ideas are conflated to make a mockery of a crucial principle. Just look at how the important case made for the freedom of discussion has been thrown into confusion by interpreting it as a license for every kind of irresponsible behaviour imaginable.

You start by defending the value of allowing people to exchange ideas and evidence, then suddenly someone pulls along a bandwagon and on to it jumps advocates for the unrestricted freedom to do just about anything. The essential freedom to discuss the merits of any given claim – so that its justifiability can be openly and rationally tested – is in no time stretched beyond all recognition to cover the freedom to insult, deceive, provoke, threaten etc. But why should anyone be free to ‘express’ oneself irrespective of the harm that could cause to others?

It is vital to remember that the very specific freedom of discussion came to be championed as part of the 17th century intellectual and political movement against authoritarian attempts to stamp out rival claims to knowledge. On the one hand there were the monarchs and religious leaders who had for centuries invoked what they claimed to be indisputable truths to justify their authority over all around them. On the other hand there were the new breed of philosophers and political activists who dared to challenge the veracity of these ‘truths’. What made the latter revolutionary was that they declined to back their own claims by the traditional ‘might is right’ route of scaring people (through the sight of amassed troops or threats of eternal damnation) into submission. Instead they pointed out that the only reliable way for intelligent people to assess if any given claims deserved to be believed was through an open, calm, rational process of evidence-based discussions.

To the extent that what one has to say, how one collaborates with a wider group to decide what to say, or when a group gathers together to give their views, contributes to the quality of the discussion, then it was paramount that people should have the freedom to participate accordingly. Without this foundational freedom to discuss contested claims, there would no non-arbitrary basis to show up the groundless assertions of the powerful and pave the way to overthrow them.

However, this precious freedom must not be perverted into a license for abuse and exploitation which have nothing to do with the rational examination of contested claims. All too many people who have forgotten why the freedom for discussion is really uniquely important have already acquiesced in its mutation into a catch-all freedom of expression whereby individuals can confront others with nasty and hurtful language and symbols, media barons can propagate misleading views to suit their own corporate interests, businesses can promote addictive craving for their products, dogmatists who loathe the freedom of discussion can set up their own schools to instruct children to believe untenable claims, and extremist groups can circulate vile fabrications.

To safeguard the freedom of discussion, we must re-focus on why it needs to be protected in any society which values democratic openness and continuous learning, and weed out the irresponsible behaviour which undermines rather than supports the public and reasoned examination of claims to truth.

Belief is not enough

2007-02-03T19:48:00.000Z

If someone said he wanted someone locked away because he believed the person posed a threat to him, would we allow him to do that, or even help him just because that was his belief? Of course not. And in anticipation of those raging cries of “Are you calling me a liar!”, we can calmly remind them everyone can make an honest mistake. People can sincerely hold a belief but nonetheless get it wrong. There is nothing problematic with that unless someone starts to behave as if his belief is all that matters in how he behaves.

If we permit people to do whatever they want on the basis of what they happen to believe – regardless of the evidence available – then chaos beckons. Beliefs can be spectacularly wrong. People can believe utterly harmless individuals to be the most dangerous enemies who must be struck down. People can believe that they have a uniquely correct view of what the social order must be and others must conform to it or face retribution. People can believe the deranged voices in their heads to be divine commands to bring misery or even death to others.

Sadly when a few rhetorical speeches about the pride and glory of someone’s unshakeable belief ring out, all too many people start to hesitate about challenging the behaviour of the believer and his followers. Worse still, they even fall backwards and concede that their sincere belief gives them a right to act in accordance with their beliefs.

For centuries, women, children, those in poverty, racial minorities, have been mistreated by others who hide behind their self-righteous belief that they have God, tradition, or whatever else they want to invoke on their side. But the stupidity, nastiness, callousness, in how they deal with those weaker than themselves are as real as their deeply held beliefs are erroneous.

The post-modern anti-enlightenment culture which embraces any kind of groundless belief totally beyond the validation of objective evidence, so long as the belief is held faithfully has enabled people to brush aside restrictions to their actions, however misguided and harmful these may be.

Children can be taught that human babies first arrived on earth courtesy of a few mysterious storks or created through any equally absurd means with no reference to actual biological processes. Girls and women can be instructed to be submissive and let the men folks take charge of the public as well as the private domains. People who resent the aggressive stance of groups who pick on their appearances or private behaviour can be told to accept their lot. All this can go on so long as someone says “In good faith, that is what I believe.”

No, no, and no again. Belief is not enough. Beliefs which cannot be justified – and let’s not forget, the grander the claims contained in a belief, the higher the critical threshold should be set for its validation, not lower – have no place in paving the way for ill-conceived and hurtful activities in society. And the next time you hear people try to hide behind “But my belief transcends evidence”, tell them they can indulge in their groundless belief so long as they do not try to ruin other people’s lives in its name.

Who's against the Enlightenment?

2007-01-21T19:49:00.000Z

Although the Enlightenment is usually depicted as an intellectual movement of 18th century Europe, its ideas were embraced and developed by thinkers and reformists across the world throughout the succeeding centuries. Today the Enlightenment ethos of promoting free enquiry – based on empirical reasoning – to improve social, political and technological practices for the benefit of human wellbeing in general, remains a source of inspiration to many in overcoming reactionary forces.

Yet far from being universally welcome as a decent and positive philosophy of life to be widely disseminated, the Enlightenment outlook is fiercely attacked by a mix of people. But what have they really got against the advocacy for rationality, tolerance and progress? There are at least three different camps.

First, there are the romantic tribalists, people on the authoritarian right who look back fondly to a time when they could be in charge and flaunt their primitive passions without having to seek to understand the needs of the ‘others’ – be these women, non-whites, the poor or any other group which was in those days utterly excluded or ignored. They see the Enlightenment as a bringer of soulless reason wiping away the ties and values which bound people (or their particular sub-set) together. They resent being told to engage with others in reasonable and respectful terms when they want to be left to their long held prejudices to view others as inferior or alien. They think this eradicates what stirs their pride and cultural heritage, when all it does is to facilitate the growth of broader and deeper emotional bonds beyond the flawed ties of inherited bigotry.

Secondly, there are the repressed people on the puritanical extremes of both the right and the left. You can spot them easily by their tendency to rant against the 1960s precisely because that decade embodies the modern flowering of the Enlightenment rejection of false self-denial. The leading Enlightenment figures stressed cordiality in relationships and a sensible exercise of self-control to function as an effective human being, but they refused to accept arbitrary limits handed down to stop people exploring new ways of making life more bearable, indeed enjoyable. And what the Enlightenment celebrated – the liberation of natural and harmless human desires for comfort, excitement and fulfillment – is what repressed puritans detest as mindless craving for pleasures which should be locked away lest civilization collapses under the weight of irresponsibility.

Thirdly, we have those, whose perspective is basically of the anarchic left, complaining incessantly that proponents of the Enlightenment philosophy try to impose a narrow Western-centric viewpoint on the rest of the world. But what is being put forward for universalising is a set of practices which have found to be better for human existence – tolerance for differences, respect for the law, equal treatment of citizens, prevention of torture, etc. It is odd that while these strident relativists should oppose the promotion of these practices (from which they themselves benefit) across the world as a kind of objectionable cultural imperialism, they stay silent about the undeniable desirability of the other fruits of Enlightenment thinking – such as experimental-based medical advancement.

Some critics even randomly select a few features of the Enlightenment and link it to Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism as a way to secure condemnation by partial association. But anyone who views the Enlightenment ethos as a whole will see that it is not about cold reason displacing all emotional ties, allowing desires to run wild without any constraint, or forcing strange Western practices on other cultures in a damaging way. Least of all, its central concern for human decency and free enquiry renders it the firmest opponent of any form of totalitarianism. It is supportive of greater liberty for people to pursue happiness, within a framework of cooperative empirical reasoning, so that all can get a better chance for a good life, and none gets victimized for the class, race or gender they were born into.

People who hate what the Enlightenment stands for have serious difficulties in accepting attempts to break down the barriers in every part of organisation hierarchies, every family, every country, every aspect of social and political life, which still block individuals from developing their capacity to reason, love, and build a better life in partnership with others. They may appear in different guises, but they share a common contempt for the mission to secure human progress through continuous and open learning. At every turn, the Enlightenment outlook must be defended against them.

Aren’t they all Human Values?

2007-01-04T20:44:00.000Z

Why do people persist in trying to ascribe certain values to particular nations or religions? Decency, honesty, respect, compassion, love of freedom, commitment – can anyone really seriously say that these are found exclusively in a particular country or faith, implying they are not present in others?

It’s obnoxiously erroneous to claim that the propensities to hate, injure, lie, murder, etc. are to be associated with the people who have nothing in common except a geographical commonality or historical link with an established religion. Every country or faith has had its share of shameful deeds perpetrated by some of its members, but it does not condemn for all time every single person growing up in its confines. By the same token, it would be absurd to suggest that because some people have championed good human values, that should be used to trumpet the moral greatness of the nationality or religion of those individuals.

There are Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus who hurt others as well as those who devote themselves to helping others. How can any deduction be made to designate some of the religions concerned here as embodying good values as if others were by comparison evil! The only coherent line is between the good humans and the bad. The same is true of patriotic celebration of great national values as if the people of America, Britain, France, or anywhere else wanting to hoist their flag, somehow reflect a range of positive human values in a deeper, more significant way than the people of distant shores. Can this really be accepted as simple, wholesome national pride? Or should it be exposed as barely disguised prejudice which looks down on other countries and cultures as morally inferior?

The golden rule of treating others as one would have others treat oneself is found in all cultures, religions, basic moral teachings in every country on earth. Ideological interpretations or personal inclinations which move some towards self-centred individualism, some towards oppressive collectivism, and yet others towards fair and sincere mutualism, occur in every part of the world with no one having a monopoly over sound ethical dispositions.

Is it not time to recognise that there is in fact a considerable consensus over the positive values associated with the human race? Compassion, fairness, honesty, defiance against tyranny, the pursuit of happiness, care for dependents, these are not values of any single country or religion. They are human values, and they set the standard by which we judge ourselves. Of course we don’t all succeed in living up to them consistently, but the failure is a personal one. Our race, country, religion, may through the long course of history have been associated with deeds, good and bad, but each of us has our own responsibility to live up to the best moral aspirations of our times.

If we want to strengthen the moral character of individual citizens, or enable them to live in harmony and cooperation with each other, the last thing we should do is to single out one country or religion and celebrate it as the torch bearer of good values. What we should do is remind everyone that we all – regardless of our national, ethnic, religious roots – share an inspiring range of human values. And to live in accordance with these values is the basis of our true moral solidarity.

Why tolerate the Power Gap?

2007-01-02T19:11:00.000Z

In every sphere of life, if some become too powerful in relation to others, the risk of injustice and oppression surges to intolerably high levels. In international relations, once the balance of powers is lost, hegemony and aggression show their ambitions. For centuries, nations have known the importance of not allowing a small minority to attain the capacity to invade others at will. In the privacy of our homes, exclusive male domination of households has for a long time put women and children at the mercy of many arbitrary domestic rulers. Across the world, the rebalancing of power in families has a long way to go.

But even though an increasing number of people recognise the need to close the gap between those with too much power and others who stand in their shadow, our global economy is built around a widening power gap between those with ever accelerating wealth accumulation and those who drop by comparison to growing insignificance.

Richard G. Wilkinson has shown the indisputable correlation between income inequalities and social problems such as violence, poor health and discrimination (see his book, ‘The Impact of Inequality’). There is mounting evidence that the greater the gap between those who are richer by the day and those left behind, the more likely the quality of life will sink. For those pushed down the hierarchy, there is the loss of self-esteem, loss of efficacy to control their destiny, fermenting resentment against being marginalized. For those climbing to the top, there is dwindling sensitivity to the needs of others, naïve embrace of ‘equal opportunity to climb’ as a bridge to a fair society, and obsession with pushing their own agenda as the only respectable one in the world.

Hurricane Katrina illustrated all too vividly how in the most unequal city in the most unequal developed country in the world, a rich nation could so readily see the wealthy escape while the poor drown.

We’re not asking for everyone to earn the same, just to close the insanely widening gap. Do people really need to earn 1,000 times more than others to be motivated to do things which benefit society? For many doctors, engineers, scientists, teachers, their readiness to help others is not limited by the desire to be richer than everyone else within a hundred mile radius. A world in which the richest is no more than 100 times wealthier than the poorest is not going to implode – only deranged modern descendants of Midas might think that.

The power imbalance between countries, regions, households, and individuals is all inextricably linked with the power gap fuelled by the obsession to attain superiority through wealth accumulation. There is nothing more urgent now than to begin to reverse the growth of the power gap.

Is Redemption Possible?

2007-01-01T20:09:00.000Z

The media have fed on the death of Saddam. A tyrant has been executed. & the world should rejoice?

Is it ever possible for people, whatever evil deeds they have committed, to attain a deeper realisation that they have been wrong and that they should repent so as to change their ways? Except for those who believe that no evil-doer can ever sincerely embrace repentance, it has to be acknowledged that a change of heart is a possibility.

And with that possibility in place, what could justify its removal? Of course, when faced with an imminent threat, and we have to strike back to save the life of oneself or others, we can say that killing the perpetrator is a necessary option. But in many cases, the wrongdoer is in custody already. The crime, once established, can be granted as horrific and beyond excuse. In time though, if the spirit of humanity engages with the convicted, enables him to face up to his guilt, to initiate a change in his moral constitution so that he craves for nothing more than a transformation of his character, can we not allow that he may reach a point where his journey on the path to redemption is beyond doubt.

Some may say that there are villains so vile that they will never change. Let us not argue if Saddam is one of those - but in general, how do we tell those who may change, who indeed are changing, from those whose soul is rotten to the core? One argument would be to say that only those who beg others NEVER to forgive them, who demand to be executed or never to be released, can be truly regarded as having genuinely repented. Thus we have the eternal condemnation paradox - only those who can convince us that they must be condemned for all time deserve to be condemned no more.

Most of us do not want to forgive evil people. We want to see them punished - nay, suffer. But if we can choose between redemption for the wicked and their persistent suffering, which one should we choose? At least those who concede that the precise choice would have to be informed by the exact circumstances have moved from retributive hatred to restorative empathy. Let those who feel no remorse suffer - but respond to those who are capable of being redeemed accordingly too. And how can we tell if there is a chance of redemption if there is no reaching out to them.

Lord Longford was criticised and ridiculed for his concern for Myra Hindley. But if the door is forever shut on the possibility of redemption, no one could ever come through from the other side.

To save the good is a moral imperative. To reach out to those who could yet be good is no less so. But can we ever learn to differentiate when the bad can and should be given a second chance to amend for the evil they have done? Just because not everyone is redeemable (some may dispute that), it does not follow that none is.