The joyless polity

No, you can't. This is the mindset of our political class.

Labour has this week reneged on its promise to offer universal free childcare for children following Rachel Reeves' delaying of Labour's proposed £28bn of green investments on the spurious grounds of the need to observe fiscal rules.

At the same time, the government - with Labour's connivance - is further restricting our right to protest. Which fits a pattern of hostility to freedom seen recently in the proposed ban on "buy one get one free" offers on fatty foods; the call for cycling helmets to be compulsory; and the demand from Darren Rodwell, Labour leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, to evict families if their children do not snitch on people who commit knife crime.

All this adds up to a pattern. The kneejerk attitute of our ruling class - both main parties and the media - is to say no. Not just "no, you can't do that", but "no, you can't have freedom of movement in the EU"; "no, you can't trade freely with our neighbours"; "no you can't have decent cycling infrastructure": "no you can't have an adequate train service in the north"; "no you can't have decent public support for culture": "no you can't have clean rivers"; "no you can't have free broadband." No, no, no.

Historically, there has been a debate about the merits of collective versus individual action. Our political class has resolved this by declaring neither to be feasible or desirable.

We also see this naysaying attitude in local transport. Too often, the emphasis is upon making car travel harder and more expensive rather than making public transport or cycling easier or cheaper.

We also see it in Starmer's "contract with the British people", which echoes New Labour's emphasis upon people's responsibilities and valorization of "hardworking families":

You can expect the opportunity to acquire new skills but you will be expected to work hard and do your bit. You can expect better neighbourhood policing but you will be expected to behave like good neighbours in your own community too.

To highlight my point, just ask: in what ways are politicians offering an expansion of our opportunities or freedoms? Thatcher allowed tax-payers to keep more of their money; people to buy their houses; and companies to trade freely with the EU. New Labour offered Sure Start centres and more support for the low-paid. But what's the offer now? Where are our ruling class saying (to anyone other than the ultra-rich): "yes, you can do that", or "yes, we can have that"?

George Orwell was exaggerating when he wrote: 'if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever." What we have is something much more familiar to him, that of a petty officious jobsworth saying no.

Why are we in this mess?

Some of the reasons lie in the fact that politicians, like all professionals, are selected to have particular casts of mind. One of these is that they are - in Jaap Stam's beautiful phrase - "busy cunts"; they are toilers running from meeting to meeting and expect the rest of us to lead such monomanic joyless existences.

Also, politicians are selected to have excessive faith in top-down management and to be overconfident about their ability to prescribe what the rest of us should do. The flipside of this is a scepticism - and often even lack of awareness - about the merits of spontaneous order as promoted by Hayek or Ostrom. And so politicians have an inherent bias against freedom - a bias which has the same roots as their lack of interest in economic democracy.

But there's something else, which I regret is not confined to politicians - something pointed out back in 1970 by the great Richard Sennett. Many of us, he wrote, create for ourselves "purified identities":

The threat of being overwhelmed by difficult social interactions is dealt with by fixing a self-image in advance, by making oneself a fixed object rather than an open person liable to be touched by a social situation. (The Uses of Disorder, p6)

This is what Margaret Hodge was (maybe unwittingly) getting at when she said that different food in the shops or different faces in schools "creates fear". If you are a fixed object with a fixed idea of what faces or food should be, then different ones are a threat to that identity and so a cause of fear. Hence the demand for immigration controls.

Hence too demands for crackdowns on other people who aren't like us, be they cyclists, protestors, or poor people wanting cheap food. The outgroup is a threat to be repressed, rather than part of a complex, diverse society.

There's one final thing. Contrast the joyless unambitious naysaying of our political class to John F. Kennedy's 1962 speech promising to put a man on the moon:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

No British politician today could express such ambition: even Corbyn's modest social democratic proposals were decried as absurd.

Why the huge change? It's because capitalism has changed. In the 60s, the US's economic problem - described by Galbraith's The Affluent Society or Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital - was that it's vast productive potential threatened to exceed demand. Kennedy's response to this was to invest skills and capital in the space race.

Today, however, there is no such potential. Two decades of stagnant productivity mean that nobody is optimistic about what we can achieve through either market forces or state direction. Keynes was of course bang right to say: "Anything we can actually do, we can afford." Our problem is that we cannot actually do very much. Talk of fiscal responsibility as a reason to row back on green investments might be pure drivel, but there is a better reason to do so - that we simply lack the skills and management ability to implement big investments quickly.

In this sense, naysaying is a response to capitalist failure.

Of course, another possible response would be ask why capitalism has failed and whether we can do better. But of course, to do this would be to commit a grave political sin.

Comments

[Blissex]

«The kneejerk attitute of our ruling class - both main parties and the media - is to say no. Not just "no, you can't do that", but "no, you can't have»

I stand astonished: the "kneejerk attitute of our ruling class" is to say you can have an affluent and easy life full of comforts thanks to the hard work of renters and buyers, to their voters. Their voters want longer cruises in the Caribeean? A nicer car? Put an Aga in the kitchen? Have their lawns mowed and tree pruned cheaply? Fast and low cost home deliveries? All that can be had thanks to higher housing incomes and lower wage costs, which the main parties easily deliver.

Our blogger keep pushing the right-wing wing myth that "we are all in the same boat" and everybody is subject to "austerity", when instead the Conservative, New Labour, LibDem governments have pumped hundreds of billions to intervene in the markets to support finance and property interests.

«politicians, like all professionals, are selected to have particular casts of mind. One of these is that they are - in Jaap Stam's beautiful phrase - "busy cunts"; they are toilers running from meeting to meeting and expect the rest of us to lead such monomanic joyless existences.»

Ohhh the usual amazing argument that thatcherite politicians make the policies they do because of cognitive biases, not becase they pursue dilingently the class interests of their "sponsors", of themselves, of their party officials, of their voters.

[ltr]

No, you can't. This is the mindset of our political class.

Labour has this week reneged on its promise to offer universal free childcare for children following Rachel Reeves' delaying of Labour's proposed £28bn of green investments on the spurious grounds of the need to observe fiscal rules....

[ Perfectly and sadly described. The UK political class is crippling development now and for years to come. The lack of UK investment is shocking and appalling. ]

[ltr]

Two decades of stagnant productivity mean that nobody is optimistic about what we can achieve through either market forces or state direction. Keynes was of course bang right to say: "Anything we can actually do, we can afford." Our problem is that we cannot actually do very much. Talk of fiscal responsibility as a reason to row back on green investments might be pure drivel, but there is a better reason to do so - that we simply lack the skills and management ability to implement big investments quickly.

In this sense, naysaying is a response to capitalist failure....

[ A brilliant essay. ]

[Jan Wiklund]

Apparently there is one thing the political class thinks it can do - wage war.

[Blissex]

«there is one thing the political class thinks it can do - wage war.»

But only as an aide to gifting finance and property hundreds of billions of public funds, and ensuring that "their own" get hundreds of billions a year redistributed from the lower classes via higher housing costs.

[rsm]

What is the limit on public funds, given that current public debt has blasted through all the limits economists declared in the 1980s? What if Türkiye proves inflation is no political constraint, because indexation of lira deposits protects real purchasing power? So why not print a basic income and fully index to obviate potential inflation?

[Chris Purnell]

The concept of *Human Capital* seems to have been ditched. Education not as an investment but as part of the development of human creativity which has boundless frontiers. The grimly utilitarian attitude towards investment is myopic and self-destructive. Our politicians are clones of Johnson - just less overtly toxic.

[ltr]

The concept of *Human Capital* seems to have been ditched. Education not as an investment but as part of the development of human creativity which has boundless frontiers....

[ Wonderfully expressed. Do develop this passage further. ]

[Blissex]

«The concept of *Human Capital* seems to have been ditched. Education not as an investment but as part of the development of human creativity which has boundless frontiers.»

Perhaps in your country, but in southern England there is huge investment in human capital, with parents paying large fees for independent schools that offer not only easier access to "good jobs" but also useful connections plus a range of "finishing school" extracurricular activities, and other parents pay large premiums for houses near to successful grammar schools, and send their children to many extracurricular courses too. As David Camerson said, many parents are keen to give their own children a "leg up" by investing in their human capital.

https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/the-red-tory-moment/
«

Perhaps the question you wanted to ask is why the government of England is not spending he taxes extracted from the hard-waited income of "deserving" winners to invest in the human capital of the children of "undeserving" losers, and the answer is simply that England has a thatcherite democracy, and nobody wants their money to give a leg-up to other people's children.

[Blissex]

> > > OOOPS...
«The concept of *Human Capital* seems to have been ditched. Education not as an investment but as part of the development of human creativity which has boundless frontiers.»

Perhaps in your country, but in southern England there is huge investment in human capital, with parents paying large fees for independent schools that offer not only easier access to "good jobs" but also useful connections plus a range of "finishing school" extracurricular activities, and other parents pay large premiums for houses near to successful grammar schools, and send their children to many extracurricular courses too. As David Camerson said, many parents are keen to give their own children a "leg up" by investing in their human capital.

https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/the-red-tory-moment/
«I remember one MP who, as a member of the Shadow Cabinet, once said: “school reform is all very well but we must protect the great public schools, because we need to look after our own people.”»

Perhaps the question you wanted to ask is why the government of England is not spending he taxes extracted from the hard-waited income of "deserving" propertied winners to invest in the human capital of the children of "undeserving" scroungers, and the answer is simply that England has a thatcherite "democracy", and nobody wants their money to be taken to give a leg-up to other people's children.

Besides if human capital were lacking it is very easy and cheap to import it from free by boosting immigration of people already invested in at foreign taxpayer's expense.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/09/britain-needs-to-double-the-number-of-doctors-it-trains
“Britain needs to double the number of doctors it trains
Last year 59% of new registrations in England had been trained by other countries, writes Prof Rachel Jenkins [...] This should not be as expensive to Treasury as feared, as the current putative costs are artificially set and do not reflect actual expenditure incurred by student training, either in the universities or in the health service.”

[aragon]

What with the mortgage bomb, the fate of the German and Dutch Greens, and energy/inflation crisis.

And yes their needs to be much better work force planning in the NHS.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/14/ministers-refuse-fund-medical-school-uk-doctor-shortage

"The government is refusing to fund a single place at Three Counties Medical School, University of Worcester, despite health bosses in the area saying they are spending £70m a year on agency staff to plug a chronic shortage of doctors."

https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/healthcare/2023/06/medical-schools-junior-doctors-nhs-workforce-shortage

"Only a few weeks ago, 350 anaesthetists in training were left without training posts. All of these individuals are highly qualified postgraduate doctors with at least five years of postgraduate training, including three years’ specialist training for anaesthetics. This group provided a significant contribution on intensive care units during the darkest days of Covid-19 and yet they have been left without the ability to progress. Senior doctors such as Dr Fiona Donald, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, have pleaded for more training places in the UK for anaesthetists."

It needs to be better than Labours Energy planning.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-is-clueless-about-energy-security/

Did I mention the German Greens?

£20Bn for Cross Rail, another £20Bn Lower Thames Crossing, £30Bn for Crossrail2 all in London.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/17/a-tunnel-too-far-debate-intensifies-over-need-for-lower-thames-crossing

Rail Freight might be a better option and there is £20Bn in the pot for investment in a road.

"These questions remain unanswered, officially at least, though experts say only a small proportion of containers could be redirected to rail without significant investment. Also, most UK ports are in private hands, preventing ministers from dictating a greener trade policy."

People exist for the benefit of the economy and not the other way around therefore utilitarianism.

And the UK Economy lives in London. Everywhere else can stay at home in the dark, eating turnips.
While London enjoys it's justified rewards.

I'm glad could clarify that for you. :)

[aragon]

https://jacobin.com/2023/05/labour-party-uk-economic-problems-keir-starmer/

"Most people are led to believe that “the economy” is some abstract entity that goes up and down based on psychological patterns and random exogenous shocks. They believe, in other words, that the economy is an external force that controls their lives — not unlike the way ancient societies treated the whims of their gods."
his ideology is what allows our elites to consistently get away with imposing policies that clearly have a negative impact on the vast majority of people. Without ever providing any evidence, policymakers will state that “the economy” requires tax cuts, or public spending cuts, or deregulation. Experts will nod along and, without the ability to challenge them, most people will simply accept their word as gospel."

So people don't vote their economic interests, as the Overton window never opens that far...

See Fiscal Responsibility.

Of course I agree with the poster (about Human Capital) and the article.

[...]

"

[Blissex]

Two more quotes that demonstrate that the english political class are keen on human capital investment:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/new-labour-flounders/story-e6frg6ux-1225780935815
«A No10 aide admits that Brown does not have the natural empathy with the middle classes that Blair did. "The moment Tony sent his son to the Oratory those voters thought - 'he gets it',"»

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/05/labour.uk
«Labour MP Diane Abbott made a second attempt to defend her decision to send her son to a fee-paying school»

[Blissex]

«"Most people are led to believe that “the economy” is some abstract entity that goes up and down based on psychological patterns and random exogenous shocks."»

"The economy" is just an euphemism for "investors" (which is another euphemism foir "rentiers") and indeed most live in London (and the Home Counties).

«"They believe, in other words, that the economy is an external force that controls their lives — not unlike the way ancient societies treated the whims of their gods."»

There are several books that point out that "the markets" (another euphemism for "investors" and thus for "rentiers") are a new religion.

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Market_as_God/e6nrDAAAQBAJ
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Gods_that_Failed/wejiL2e_S4EC

«So people don't vote their economic interests, as the Overton window never opens that far...»

Those for which the Overton window does not open are those called "scroungers" and "shirkers", not "people" who matter. The people who matter ("investors" small and large) can vote their interests and consequently win big.

The thing that to me seems absurd is the argument that « Where are our ruling class saying (to anyone other than the ultra-rich): "yes, you can do that", or "yes, we can have that"?» because it implies that nearly all 14 million Conservative and a few million New Labour and LibDem voters are complete morons who zealously vote for against their own interests and for for becoming ever poorer, when most vote thatcherite because thathcerism has delivered to them booming wealth and incomes.

[aragon]

Most people have little choice but to accept the status quo. Just look at history. (If voting changed anything they would abolish it! See Brexit)
We have a two party system both neoliberal.

The standard answer to:

"when most vote thatcherite because thathcerism has delivered to them booming wealth and incomes."

Is that the rich control the organs of propaganda (just look at autocracies: Putin and Xi are proponents of improved economies).

Not incomes, for most people: Debt. Unless you used your house as a cash machine (increasing debt), or sold it, the wealth is paper wealth tied to housing, and we may not have to wait for long to find what schemes the 'plunge protection team' have left to protect their 'pets' including any Starmers (team) has.

It is technological change that has improved ordinary peoples lives.

Some saw crypto as the last chance to aquire wealth. HODL.

Flash (elites), have only six years to save the world (from heat death), plus critical race theory and trans activism give them authority (in their view) to dictate behaviour.

These are luxury beliefs.