As Western politics descends into populism, it’s time to take responsibility for the world we have created and our faltering position in it
Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, Marine Le Pen and the Front National, UKIP, ultranationalists in Hungary and Poland, the Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria, Podemos in Spain, Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement, Syriza, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, and a total of nine European countries with a populist or authoritarian party in government or as part of a ruling coalition. In different ways all of these individuals and parties represent the nosedive into populist rhetoric that has characterised political debate recently. They all share two common traits: laying blame for complex issues on external factors, and proposing that the solutions are simple. In short, they tell people what they want to hear.
Right-wingers blame immigrants for taking their jobs and using services, while left-wingers blame the rich and the corrupt institutions that benefit them. Right wingers want to keep the foreign invaders out and skewer political correctness, the left want to restrict the free markets that enable the rich to make money and re-distribute more of their wealth. Or at least that’s how it always used to be. The new populism has gone beyond the traditional boundaries of left and right and into the realms of ‘in’ and ‘out’. The link between open trade and open borders has been brought into sharp focus, as have the benefits of immigration to big business. So now the political question is less about right or left, and more about whether you want to be open or closed. But what is really driving this and why now?
The world is a changin’
Economic, social and technological progress are all intimately linked, and the political realm is where the results are often expressed. Globally, this progress has led to us entering a new phase of globalisation and also seen a dramatic increase in technology driven inequality. Both of these factors have been relevant drivers of change since humans first started to roam the earth, but both have made dramatic step changes in the past 20 years.
The basis of globalisation is the movement of people and goods across borders. It’s been going on since the first exchanges between tribes and has grown as people colonised new areas and travelled greater distances. But it was the industrial revolution that really pushed trade to another level as machinery enabled the production of large surpluses of processed goods which steam powered ships and trains could transport over long distances. Originally this worked well for the West as, through colonialism and the development of their empires, they stripped resources from colonised countries, while creating new markets for their own goods. They also gained from the movement of people through their dominance over the slave trade and their ability to remotely govern their colonial cohorts.
Through the 20th century this advantage maintained even as the original approach of colonisation and slavery became ethically unacceptable. The gains Western countries had already created for themselves were persistent as they developed and evolved their manufacturing and service sectors at a pace that always left developing countries two or three steps behind. This ensured a positive Western view of global trade as necessary raw materials came in at a good rate, now through legal and corporate frameworks, while finished goods went out at a healthy profit. The movement of people was also difficult to complain about (though some tried with their visions of ‘rivers of blood’) as most immigrants were invited or actively courted to fill job vacancies.
But the last 30 years has seen a more significant shift, from the West being a clear net beneficiary of globalisation to it becoming a vehicle on which people from other countries are riding to prosperity. Excluding Germany, the movement of goods now primarily means the flow from the Far-East westwards as countries like China, Japan and South Korea have come to dominate mass-manufacturing. Western countries have become a victim of their own success as their high wages and even higher expectations have made them uncompetitive on the world stage.
Similarly, formerly developing countries are now developed to the point that their standard of education (and their ability to piggyback on the educational institutions of Western countries) means that many of their people are now able to compete on a level playing field with their western peers. When combined with the work ethic and energy that comes from knowing what it is not to have, and the lower expectations of what they can expect to be given, it is easy to see why the West might struggle to compete.
In short, the entrenched advantages that Western economies have had for the past century are coming to an end. The political angst we are currently experiencing is in large part a sign of our struggle to come to terms with this.
Rise of the geeks
Complementing this is the increasing inequality that results when mass labour becomes less and less important in creating value. Ever since the principles of capitalism came to prominence in the 19th century, the complaint has been that it diminishes the value of people’s labour as investing in machines creates a surplus beyond labour’s natural exchange. This allows profit to be made and the capitalist who has made the investment to get richer, enabling a virtuous cycle (for the capitalist) as he is now even better placed to make further investments to make more profit. Meanwhile the value of the worker diminishes as machines take over his tasks. The demand for skilled workers increases as machines need to be built and operated, while the unskilled find fewer opportunities to add value beyond the machine. These principles have set up the fundamental conflict between owners of capital and those who work for them over the past century.
The counter-argument is that while machines take over some existing jobs in the short term, in the longer term this opens up new jobs that people can do so that there is still work for everyone. While this may be true, the other impact is the rise in inequality as owners of capital, and the providers of skilled labour, get increasingly rich.
The rise of computers, and in particular the internet, has taken this principle to a new level. The ability to create software that can be instantly and widely disseminated removes the need for much of the traditional infrastructure of companies. Instead, very valuable and impactful businesses can be built on the back of a few smart people developing software and algorithms without the need to manufacture anything physical or even provide any physical service. Even sales and marketing functions have become largely redundant as the internet provides a universal route to market. This is compounded by the huge impact of network effects in an interconnected world, which allows a small group of companies and people to completely dominate their respective areas. Software and algorithms are the new capital, and a small group of people are getting seriously rich off the back of it. But the wealth doesn’t trickle down.
To illustrate, just consider the differences in the number of employees at traditional companies versus new internet-enabled ones. The New Statesman made an interesting comparison between Instagram and Kodak, the latter a company that employed 145,300 people at its peak, the former was valued at $1bn with only 13 employees. Whatsapp was bought for £19bn by Facebook when it had just 55 employees, British Telecom, a more traditional communications firm, is valued at ~$50bn but has 88,500 employees. Even Google, the giant in the field only has 57,000 employees to create a valuation of $527bn. Compare that to Walmart (2.2m employees, value of $482bn), or Toyota (333,500 employees and a value of $192bn). And it’s not just companies but individuals too. Network effects allow social media stars to monopolise their markets, just look at the Kardashians.
The differences are stark and point to one result, inequality.
Furthermore, this innate fluidity in technology services means that, not only do fewer people benefit from ever increasing returns, they are also better able to game a tax system structured for a physical world and arguably no longer fit for purpose. This further increases the regressive nature of this evolving system, and the resulting anger and resentment as people feel, but cannot fully explain or understand, a fundamental unfairness in the rules of the game.
Meritocracy getting its comeuppance?
Western societies have long prided themselves on their meritocratic approach, preaching to less developed countries the benefits of open competition and opportunity for all so that the cream can rise to the top. In actual fact the term was originally coined in 1958 by Michael Young with negative connotations. It described a new ruling class that was nastier than an aristocracy or plutocracy because of its belief that it deserves everything it has based on merit, but does not see logical cause for any associated responsibility to look after others.
He would certainly appreciate the irony in how this much lauded principle now seems to be biting Western democracies on their collective backside. Meritocracy as a political philosophy is tightly bound to capitalism as an economic one. ‘To the winner the spoils’ is justified by the belief that the winner is also the most talented and the hardest working, and therefore most deserving. There is no doubt that less developed countries would view this perspective with a wry smile for its perceived self-serving arrogance. So, what if the most talented and hardest working are not in your country? In a meritocratic globalised society the spoils will start moving in a different direction. And what if the distribution of spoils becomes tightly confined to an ever smaller portion of the most talented? Then inequality looks less like a gradual scale and more like a steep drop off from a very high peak.
Suddenly the principles of meritocracy look less appealing.
The upshot is a complexity and uncertainty that strikes at the very core of our beliefs about society and how it should be governed. Once, we could secure ourselves to a clear, and apparently morally-justified, political approach based on rewarding merit and hard work and offering equality of opportunity. This aligned nicely with positive outcomes and became self-reinforcing. Now, we live in an era of low growth with stagnant wages and living standards. Now, we are no longer guaranteed to have more than our parents. Now, the principles of openness and competition are being questioned. Now we are struggling to accept the natural outcomes of our approach.
But do we really expect Western democracies to always and forever hold the higher ground? And, more importantly, does our collective belief in meritocracy only hold if this is the case? Why should we maintain a position of dominance and growth if other countries are hungrier, prepared to work harder, have a lower sense of entitlement, and have access to similar education and opportunities?
These are the very difficult questions we now need to ask ourselves.
The blame game
So, what to do? Well, look for someone to blame of course.
These are dangerous times as the populism of left and right looks to exploit people’s concerns. The combination of providing easy targets for blame and seemingly easy solutions (“build a wall”, “nationalise the banks”, “leave Europe”, “protect local jobs”, “go back to the 70s”) distract from the real issues and any discussion of constructive approaches to dealing with them.
Populist politicians provide comfort to voters, tapping into their basest instincts to create division and encouraging their preference not to take any personal responsibility. This is now ably supported by the rise of the echo chamber of social media. It is now easier than ever for people to have endless discussions with others that agree with them, egging each other on, without ever hearing a dissenting voice. The resulting extreme polarisation of views makes compromise impossible. Political debate now resembles the comments box, this is the discussion of strawmen and conspiracy theories.
Many populists also provide comfort through their strongman approach, showing nothing but complete conviction in their beliefs even in the absence of a shred of evidence. Political debate becomes more akin to a playground scuffle than a reasoned debate, and voters look to align themselves with the biggest bully. This can result in previously unthinkable alliances, such as US Republicans wearing Putin t-shirts.
Link this with a growing cultural desire for instant gratification and excitement and you have a volatile cocktail of factors that could have horrible consequences of the like few Westerners can still remember. There has long been criticism of politics being dull and not engaging people. What has been less well recognised is that this is a good thing. Politics is dull when all sides agree on basic principles, like due process, openness, mutual respect and human rights. Politics is interesting when these common beliefs are undermined, fermenting division and allowing extreme views to gain ground. Politics should be boring, it is the considered and logical development of policy that weighs up trade-offs and develops through compromises. Entertainment is for reality TV and YouTube clips.
Our collective responsibility
It seems we are not as enlightened as we like to think once circumstances turn against us. It’s easy to be magnanimous when you’re winning, but what about when times are tough and others are prospering? Basic Western assumptions and expectations of our own superiority are being questioned. We are happy for other countries to develop while they are weaker than us and can serve our own purpose as trading partners (on our terms), but struggle to understand a world where they start to compete more directly or want to share in our success through migration.
Populists take advantage of this to paint the establishment as an untrustworthy third party working against our interests, rather than something we all create and are a part of. They misappropriate history to manipulate already strong emotions. These emotions have some justification as problems exist and circumstances mean that new solutions are needed, including institutional change. But we all have a responsibility and a stake in that change. We each need to show the maturity to take that responsibility rather than allowing ourselves to regress into the simple-minded and lazy thought processes of laying external blame and breeding a hate based on ignorance and anti-intellectualism. There are countless examples of authoritarian leaders who have taken this route with disastrous consequences, from Mao and Stalin, to Franco and Mussolini.
Taking responsibility means challenging yourself with the next question. Fine, you want to keep immigrants out, but then what? There are five million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The number in Lebanon alone is now a quarter of that country’s population. What do you want to happen to these people? Each one a mother or a father, a daughter or a son, a brother or a sister. Who has the responsibility for these people? Or do we simply say they are not one of us so we don’t care? What if everyone says that?
Where are the leaders?
The West’s states and peoples are blindly following a one-way path to isolationism at a time when working together has never been more important. What is required is vision, simplicity and decisiveness of approach, while understanding different people’s opinions and concerns. Not an easy task. Instead the centre is dominated by the mealy-mouthed who lack any conviction or positive ideas, afraid that populist opinion will eat away at their voter base. Their most common utterance is “please don’t put words in my mouth” while skirting issues without providing any answers, and an audience is left wondering why they didn’t put the words there themselves.
We look at other countries, poorly run and riven by strife, as different from us in some fundamental way. But they are not. Our current actions leave us open to a conclusion much like theirs. Yes our institutions are strong, but nothing is stronger than the emotional, thoughtless and self-interested responses we are all capable of when our own interests are threatened. And that is the route to division and autocratic upheaval.
So where is the positive vision for tolerant and liberal values? Leaders such as Canada’s Justin Trudeau and the new French challenger Emmanuel Macron are showing the way, with optimistic visions of the future couched in a realistic appreciation of the major challenges ahead. The new leaders need to demonstrate an understanding of the negative outcomes that people complain about, and show how the benefits of a modern and open approach can be maintained while alleviating the side-effects. They need to ignore traditional divisions of left and right to formulate a new social and economic liberalism worthy of a modern and open society.
In the meantime, like feeble background music, far more important things are happening in the world. Women and children are being slaughtered in Syria each day as Assad and Russia calculate (correctly) that the West is so pre-occupied with its first world problems of party infighting, trade disputes, immigration and social media mud-slinging, that it cannot even begin to formulate a response to the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians. In the mid-90s NATO and the UN intervened to end the siege of Sarajevo as the international community came together to prevent further atrocities. Around 5,000 civilians had been killed. Already around 15,000 children are estimated to have been killed in the war in Syria, while over 30,000 civilians and rebel fighters have been killed in Aleppo alone. Where is the international community? Examining its collective navel.
Self-interest and self-indulgence have seldom been so painfully exposed in the heart and soul of our societies and ourselves; it reflects poorly on all of us. History will not forget.
intellideb 