Thursday 9 August 2018

Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age in Crisis

I was pleased to get my hands on this book as I frequently read Monbiot in The Guardian and follow his ideas. As well I was hoping for some insight into the spirit and direction behind spontaneous British protest movements such as the Extinction Rebellion protesters. Canadian Naomi Klein refers praisingly of George Monbiot on the dust-jacket as having "a dazzling command of science and relentless faith in people." Klein is right, Monbiot writes with fluency on a number of topics, and turns a keen eye to political science, in particular a cultural view of history, the rise of Neoliberalism, and solutions that tackle the crisis of democracy. The book is structured by first establishing historical context for Monbiot's fresh view, while the remainder of the book addresses our current situation. He opens the book with the relevant truism, "you cannot take away someone's story without giving them a new one," and talks about storytelling as "the means by which we navigate in the world" as we "all possess a narrative instinct."
Monbiot addresses our cultural familiarity with contemporary story themes under an introductory subtitle: Heroes and Villians, tearing down the Social Democrat "narrative," as a neat, complete package, but simplistic and failing to deliver a strong enough defense against the exploitation of the poor by under-restrained corporations that has resulted in climate crisis. I for one consider Social Democracy a flawed but fairly well-meaning philosophy for what it does, but I also agree with Monbiot's remedies in the last chapters, it's just that if he were not living in a Social Democracy, but under a Dictatorship, he would not even be able to write. However in terms of tone, it seems this whole book involves the taking down of sacred cows, allowing Monbiot to eloquently propose Proportional Representation among other certainly worthy ideas in the final chapters, and I do enjoy the radical way he writes.
Mobiot then introduces the Neoliberal story. In this story, "the world fell into disorder...and Stalinism and Nazism" exemplified this, something no person can argue with, however, on the tail of this universal opposition to fascism came the attached belief that "collectivism crushes freedom, individualism and opportunity," collectivism having represented itself through fascist regimes that collectively enslaved, ethnically cleansed and generally killed millions. "Freedom-seeking entrepreneurs" are intended to be the heroes in the Neoliberal story, who will conquer over the "enforced conformity" of collectivism, "freeing society from the enslavement of the state."
Both widely-accepted stories are in trouble, says Monbiot, who remarks that he has been listening for a new story to fix or radically modify these somewhat dysfunctional narratives, only to continually encounter "silence" that "creates disparity."
This failure, says Monbiot, also means a movement that does not know its values. "Know your values," says Monbiot in a not-very-veiled message to a contemporary protest movement addressing climate change, it is "the bedrock of effective politics." Monbiot remarks that to do this you must know your principles, and have "a description of the world as we would like it to be." Then, being Monbiot, he actually gets concrete and lists a statement of 16 principles.
These are great and include, "We want to live in a place in which everyone's needs are met, without harming the living world or the prosperity of future generations," and from there he develops upon the principles listed. He dips from cultural to psychological questions frequently, asking if readers might ponder why we remember a terrorist act more then the candle-lot march in solidarity with victims. "Our innate tendency is to stand together against threats to our well-being, to treat an attack on one as an attack on all," Monbiot asserts. Yet we are in an Orwellian epidemic of loneliness with consumerism as the cause, with "a price on everything and a value on nothing." The author proposes that we have heard the story of Homo Economicus so many times that we have accepted it and it has come to define us, "it has changed our perception of ourselves," and this in turn, "has changed the way we behave." The consequences are a self-generating crisis and the loss of common purpose.
Having addressed alienation, Monbiot then gets on a roll and dissects the last few years of politics and the rise of Neoliberalism and it is a pleasure to read his writing. His well-constructed history of corporate interference in democracy includes how Barack Obama failed to help victims of foreclosure, and instead protected the banks "at all costs." He reminds us that Obama pushed for trade deals that handed power from citizens to corporations such as the "Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TTIP, and The Trade in Service Agreement." Shattering any other illusions readers may have had about Obama, Monbiot points out that in Obama's first three years in office, "95% of income growth in the US was captured by the richest 1% of earners."
The book asserts that the result of this was the way only 36% voted in 2014, America's lowest voter turn-out since 1942. The author goes on to describe an American political climate of Hilary Clinton leaks, voter alienation and disappointment in a way that is eye-opening. Part of this no-sacred-cows set-up was to create a contrast to the political scene in the U.K. where the election was not looking promising for the Labour Party until a draft manifesto was leaked, "presumably with the intention of sabotaging the party."
The manifesto revealed that the Labour party intended to make privatized services public, increase public spending, restore free education at university, enhance the rights of workers and the unemployed, restrict landlord exploitation and strengthen environmental rules and other public protections.
The UK voted in droves, Labour won 40 percent of the vote, gained an extra 30 seats in Parliament, and Conservatives lost their majority. Labour had become "propositional" as Jeremy Corbyn connected with voters. However Monbiot feels that Labour failed to "consolidate" by actively embedding their policies within wider change. He then pursues a further still entertaining discussion of political corruption and takes on the "Think Tanks" posing as expert advisors to policy. "Overt political spending by the patrimonial elite is supplemented by truckloads of dark money: the undisclosed funding of organizations involved in public advocacy...as hundreds of groups purporting to be either independent think tanks or grassroots campaigns were founded and financed by billionaires and corporations." True and nicely said, Monbiot. Having dismantled Neoliberalism in various nations, he proceeds to propose the most obvious solutions accrued from his years of writing and larger analysis, the fresh narrative Monbiot has waited for and then felt pressed to provide. The combined ideas are intended to enrich democracy and rectify systemic failings. The new narrative revolves around "every nation" having "a constitutional convention once every twenty years, to take stock of its political system." Here Monbiot cites Stuart White, who teaches politics at Oxford University, who argues that conventions "should mostly consist of people who do not already have a formal role in politics." Monbiot further proposes implementation of a long-awaited system of proportional representation in the form of the Single Transferable Vote or STV. Not one to leave stones unturned, Monbiot exhaustively describes the issues and offers simple and workable solutions, fair referendums, even coming up with ideas for dealing with "dark money," a major harm to democracy which he had expounded upon in the second half. "Stop treating them as charities," says Monbiot, and instead make "any organization involved in public advocacy declare all donations of say, $1000.00 or more." Also a rule, the same transparency regulation should be applied in parliament requiring media as well members "to reveal any financial interests pertinent to the debates they join." There's more. There's a lot of great solutions in here. Monbiot addresses the IMF, World Bank and UN Security Council, remarking, "The United States, uniquely, has veto power over all three" which impose austerity in poorer nations and "deregulation on their governments." He also critically points out that as the WTO and UN general assembly "operate almost entirely on the basis of presumed consent," the WTO "should be replaced by a new body- a Fair Trade Organization- which...allows poorer nations to protect their infant industries from foreign competition until they are strong enough to fend for themselves," which was actually the security feature of noninterference wealthier nations rely upon. As a consequence, "The World Bank and the IMF...should be replaced by a body charged with preventing excessive trade surpluses and deficits from forming, and therefore international debt from accumulating...overseen by...a directly elected world parliament." Monbiot's conclusion is an inspiring summary of his ideas, including an offer of optimism based on a dose of reality in terms of majority interest. "The frustration that almost all those who want a kinder, better, more protective political experience is that we know we have, in theory at least, the numbers on our side."

Monbiot, G. (2018). Out of the wreckage: A new politics for an age of crisis. Verso.