A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING THE RULING ELITE...
A spectre is haunting
ruling elites across the world, from the Kremlin and the upper echelon’s of the
Chinese Communist Party, to The White House and Downing Street and the office of the French President. It is the
spectre of the Arab Spring, of street protest fuelled by the internet, Twitter
and Facebook.
At the core of this fear
in the west is the knowledge that neoliberal austerity has torn up the
post war contract between governments and governed. This contract involved an exchange,
for executive power and the right to rule, governments delivered ever rising
levels of prosperity and embourgeoisement, coupled with increasing leisure time
and early and prosperous retirement.
This breach of contract
has left governments and ruling elites exposed as naked monarchs, unable to offer anything
other than vague promises of jam tomorrow. For the young this scenario
represents a bitter pill that, across the western world, they are increasingly refusing
to swallow.
The prospect of discontented masses taking to
the streets, alongside the steady erosion of their electoral legitimacy, keeps
presidents, prime ministers and ministers awake at night. Their response
everywhere is to restrict civil liberties, increase surveillance and attack
organised labour. The use of law to restrict the right of protest is one
significant strand of this response, highlighted by Richard Seymour in last
weeks Guardian.[1] As
Seymour
The great mistake often
made in dystopian novels is to imagine totalitarian futures as grotesque
reconfigurations that bear little resemblance to the current order of things.
The reality is much more subtle and complex. Many of the liberties we now enjoy
are relatively recent, whilst many of the victories against censorship won as
recently as the 1960’s are now being reversed. Battles are never won for all
time, liberties never fully secure, victories like reversals are incremental.
Given this reality the slide away from an open society, democracy and freedom
of assembly happens slowly, sometimes barely noticed. At other times, driven by
panic or arrogance, freedoms are assaulted more directly. We are entering just
such a stage. From a steady incremental assault it has turned into a landslide.
At heart this is a
struggle for the very essence of democracy itself. Capitalism and democracy
have never been easy bedfellows, only social democracy and the mixed economy
allowed for the measure of accountability and control that politicians needed
to assure the electorate that it was indeed they who were steering the ship.
After Thatcher the link has become stretched
to breaking point as everything from basic utilities to the postal service and
the running of prisons has been ‘outsourced,’ and 'privatised.' These services are tendered on
contracts hidden from public scrutiny by agencies excluded from Freedom of
Information legislation. Profit and efficiency are now the only goals that define public
good, democracy, accountability, public engagement are all superfluous to this
model.
The model though is not working, services fail, wreaking social devastation whilst the elite who manage them are immune from responsibility or facing penalties, instead they pocket ever larger salaries and bonuses, whilst politicians bluster in parliament, impotent as shadows, engaged in the great game of performing the rites and rituals of government. devoid of substance.
The model though is not working, services fail, wreaking social devastation whilst the elite who manage them are immune from responsibility or facing penalties, instead they pocket ever larger salaries and bonuses, whilst politicians bluster in parliament, impotent as shadows, engaged in the great game of performing the rites and rituals of government. devoid of substance.
The people may accept this
and watch passively as what little power they still possess is taken from them.
Then again they might not. As I say this latter possibility haunts the ruling
elite, as indeed it should.*
*I began writing this before the events in Ukraine began to unfold. European governments watching these events must surely experience very mixed feelings indeed.
*I began writing this before the events in Ukraine began to unfold. European governments watching these events must surely experience very mixed feelings indeed.
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