We mourn the death of democracy in the United States. George Monbiot writes that the same thing is happening in the United Kingdom:
Established power in this country is surrounded by a series of defensive rings. As soon as you begin to name them, you see that the UK is a democracy only in the weakest and shallowest sense.
Let’s begin with political funding. Our system permits billionaires and corporations to outspend and outmuscle the electorate. The great majority of money for the Conservative party comes from a small number of very rich people. Just five hedge fund managers have given it £18m over the past 10 years. The secretive Leader’s Group grants big donors special access to the prime minister and his frontbenchers in return for their money. Courting and cultivating rich people to win elections corrupts our politics, replacing democracy with plutocracy.
This grossly unfair system is supplemented by outright cheating, such as breaching spending limits and secretly funding mendacious online ads. The Electoral Commission, which is supposed to regulate the system, has deliberately been kept powerless. The maximum fine for winning an election (or a referendum) by fraud is £20,000 per offence. Democracy is cheap in this country.
Yet, despite all the financial firepower, the Tories can't win a majority:
Despite such assistance, the Conservatives still failed to win a majority of votes at the last election. But, thanks to our preposterous, outdated first-past-the-post electoral system, the 43.6% of the vote they won granted them a crushing majority. With proportional representation, we would have a hung parliament. Five years of unassailable power for Johnson’s Conservatives, even as popular support collapses, would have been impossible.
All of this sounds very familiar. It's happening in Britain, in the United States and in Canada:
Despite a vast array of new democratic techniques, pioneered in other countries, there has been a total failure to balance our supposedly representative system with participatory democracy. This failure grants the winning party a scarcely challenged power, on the grounds of presumed consent, to do as it pleases, for five years at a time. Even when public trust and consent collapse, as they have now done amid the coronavirus pandemic, there are no effective channels through which we can affect the decisions government makes.
These formal rings of power are supported by further defences beyond government, such as the print media, most of which is owned by billionaires or multimillionaires living offshore, and the network of opaquely funded thinktanks, that formulate and test the policies later adopted by government. Their personnel circulate in and out of the prime minister’s office.
Our political system has the outward appearance of democracy, but it is largely controlled by undemocratic forces. We find ourselves on the wrong side of the portcullis, watching helplessly as crucial decisions are taken about us, without us. If there’s one thing the coronavirus fiascos show, it’s the need for radical change.
How this will all play out is yet to be seen. But the coronavirus has made it impossible to claim that our democracies are healthy. If there is hope, it's with the people in the streets.
Image: rollingstone.com
14 comments:
I wrote a brief post this morning in which I describe people like Cornel West and Chris Hedges as modern-day prophets. Clearly, George Monbiot is another sterling example, Owen.
Monbiot understands what is happening, Lorne. And his purview is global.
The FPTP electoral systems in the UK and Canada, as well as the Electoral College in the US, were designed to keep control in the hands of wealthy elites and prevent interruptions to it. That worked well enough as long as there was a sense of noblesse oblige. We saw remarkable public works from the 1950s to the 1970s undertaken by governments of all stripes to expand higher education, healthcare and social supports, and to build the transportation and communication infrastructure we still rely on.
That all went out the window with Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney, and the collapse of communism. Neoliberalism became the order of the day, and IGMFU became the motto of the rich. "Greed is good!" announced Gordon Gecko in a popular movie of the day.
Since then, inequality has expanded dramatically and the rich are mercilessly robbing the middle and lower classes with the full support of the government. Infrastructure is left to rot and try getting any new stuff built without hosting a major athletic event. The failure to prepare for a pandemic is obvious to everyone, as is the undesirability of a return to "normal." The only way this ends is with people in the streets saying enough is enough.
Cap
The demonstrations are mostly peaceful, Cap. But the message is clear: We're changing things. And, if you won't change, get out of the way.
I was elated when, in 2015, the Liberal leader promised, if elected, that would be our last election conducted under FPTP. He got a solid majority, conventional wisdom at the time said he was a shoo-in for a second solid majority, and, with that, he issued apologies and bullshit justifications as he reneged on that promise.
In the UK, 46 per cent translates into a massive majority. In Canada, anything in the upper 30s will produce the same undemocratic result. Yet we wonder why young people are disenchanted with our version of democracy?
Just imagine how governance would change if every vote counted, if every voter's voice was represented? Liberal or Conservative, that is their worst nightmare. Yet Canadians are so inured to this scam that we let it continue. We know nothing else and human nature causes us to fear change.
We fear change until it is forced upon us. This may be one of those rare moments when change is imperative, Mound.
I sometimes wonder if young Trudeau ever ponders the weight of that Faux Pas with regards the promise of electoral reform? He clearly took everyone of us for fools. He set this country back years with that whopper. I for one will never take him seriously again and I can no longer vote Liberal, Conservative or N.D.P. and will vote Green in fashion. Even that vote is undeserving as far as I can tell. Call me indifferent but I will always cast a vote even in protest. By the way, I'm still gob smacked at his 21 second pause with the media. When he did speak he was talking about a country that is foreign to me. Talking about systemic racism in Canada is a bit of a stretch especially coming from a twat that puts on black face.
That would take far better leadership than anything on offer from either of the mainstream parties, Owen. Most Liberals and most Conservatives are all too comfortable with FPTP so long as they hold the whip hand. The Liberals only object when someone like Harper outstays his welcome. The Conservatives are fine with it until the Liberals form government, especially when the Grits come to power with fewer votes than the Tories.
Trudeau's shortcomings are manifest, zoombats. I must say, however, that I was impressed by the pause before he spoke. Most politicians speak before their brains are in gear. In fact, most of us talk before we think.
Politics has become a game of inches, Mound. Strategists calculate what they have to do to get them over the line. There are no grand visions -- just a narrow focus on the here and now.
True Owen about the pause supposedly showing reflection but I'm sure you noticed he didn't answer the question which is quite commonplace for him. He really is a talking head.
Worse, by far, Owen, is that they don't govern with the consent of the electorate. They "rule" us by an electoral scam. Nothing democratic in that. Except, like a country town ball team, we just instinctively cheer for one or the other without dwelling on what we're actually doing to our people, our country, and our future.
We have reached the point where rhetoric won't save us, zoombats. Wisdom might. But wisdom is hard to find these days.
Unfortunately, Mound, we are firmly ensconced in our tribes. And tribes don't think. They fight.
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