Why is the "west" so broken?

[Uncle Ethan]

UK (England?), USA, Australia all in the hands of morons voted in by the people. Where do we go wrong? Is it the electoral systems?

Different voting systems in each country of course, but a common factor appears to be the popular vote doesn't matter. It is only a small number of seats (or electoral colleges) that actually decide elections.

In Australia at the federal level (with compulsory voting) you only have to shift 2 or 3 % at most in five or six seats and that decides the outcome.

So what's the answer? Even in New Zealand you have to rely on someone like Winston Peters to form government.

[Hot Pepsi]

Because “they” have rigged it that way.

There’s no such thing as “the west.” It’s a made up idea to let rich white guys pretend to have some connection to Plato and Aristotle, who weren’t “western” at all and are kind of overrated anyway.

[Uncle Ethan]

Agreed, which is why I had quote marks around "west".

[ursus arctos]

I obviously am most familiar with the situation here in the US, but I see some common threads

1). Money. Politics has become exponentially more expensive in my lifetime, largely, but not entirely, because of the move from in person campaigning and organising to television and now digital centric strategies. This is very evident in campaigns, but equally true in all kinds of legislative and policy debates.

The need to generate the required sums has resulted in candidates, office holders and parties to be obsessed with find-raising. The average member of the US Congress spends several hours a day on fundraising in one form or another and the political ffund raising industry has become massive.

The focus on money and the runaway growth in inequality fueled by lax regulation and insane tax policy have allowed for the emergence of a caste of super donors who see politics as completely transactional. This class have been getting a much better rate of return on their political "investments" than any of their other bets. The Trump tax cuts alone saved many GOP mega donors ten to a hundred times their contributions. And that's before one calculates the massive gains from deregulation, sweetheart contracts and outright corruption as we are beginning to see from Mnuchin's secret handouts of COVID money.

Vote Leave and the Tories pursued similar strategies, as have the Aussie right, with local adaptions (e.g. flight capital in the UK and resource extraction in Oz).

2). Lies. Politicians have always lied, but the level of mendacity that now characterises politics in the US and UK is off the charts. The combination of a highly complicit media and the absolute inability of regulators or the legal system to provide any brake have allowed it to run rampant. And it works.

3) Nihilism. The lesson of neo-liberalism is that communitarianism is for suckers and that he who dies with the most toys wins. That has translated to the hyper cynical transactional politics of the Kochs and Mercers on the one hand to poorer Trumpers' obsession with "owning the libs" as a primary policy goal. Even if you don't personally get something off the gravy train, you see yourself as winning if you deny any benefit to those you have demonised. In the US and Australia, there is a particularly twisted version of this associated with Evangelicalism, which sees the Apocalypse as something to be welcomed and accelerated, and anything approaching a medium to long term vision as therefore irrelevant,

4) Technological improvements in the Dark Arts. The revolution in computing power and data collection has allowed for infinitely more effective gerrymandering and much more efficient voter targeting (including in voter suppression). Minoritarian strategies were first tested and proven through enhanced modeling, well before they became basic strategy for major parties.

This isn't intended to be exhaustive, and none of the things I've mentioned are completely new.

They have, however, all been turned up to 11 in recent years, which helps explain how we find ourselves where we are.

[scratchmonkey]

I think (3) is older and a little different, I think that there's been an overall anti-communitarian bent building in these countries for quite some time, largely driven by free-market, Chicago-school economic thought as well as the branding of "freedom" and "liberty" as rampant individualism as opposed to actual protections from authority. It could be stated as "fuck you, I got mine", I think the emphasis is less on the "fuck you" and more on the "I got mine".

[ad hoc]

I know that this isn't going to lighten the conversation exactly but I think it's not unique to "the West". Other "democracies" that also have elected far right authoritarians who've learned how to game the system include : Hungary, Poland, Brazil, India, Russia, Israel, Turkey.

[ursus arctos]

I agree with both of those points. Countries that have elected authoritarians also exhibit at least some of things I mentioned, though it is often the case that a virulent and exclusionary form of nationalism is at least equally important.

scratchmonkey is absolutely right that my 3 is older. It is in fact a major source of much of the money in my first point.

[Nefertiti2]

UK (England?), USA, Australia all in the hands of morons voted in by the people. Where do we go wrong? Is it the electoral systems?

Different voting systems in each country of course, but a common factor appears to be the popular vote doesn't matter. It is only a small number of seats (or electoral colleges) that actually decide elections.

In Australia at the federal level (with compulsory voting) you only have to shift 2 or 3 % at most in five or six seats and that decides the outcome.

So what's the answer? Even in New Zealand you have to rely on someone like Winston Peters to form government.

Rupert Murdoch is a common factor

[Sporting]

Does this forum think that PR lessens some of the problems mentioned above?

[ad hoc]

I think one of the biggest problems is that we have to rediscover democracy. We've become tricked into believing that democracy is just about having the right to cast a vote every 4 or 5 years. But actual democracy is so much deeper than that. Civil society, access to information, a genuinely open media, loads of other rights. Until we relearn this we're fucked.

Edit: we also really really need to do something about social media. I mean probably some form of global regulation

[HeavyDracula]

The division of the underclass by the illusion of social mobility through aspiration, and a healthy dose of the "other".

[sw2borshch]

The success of social democracy carrying within it the seeds of its own destruction and the slipping of the lessons of mass warfare from public memory.

[Gert from the Well]

Or are we experiencing the death-throes of liberal democracies, both as an ideal and reality? The post end of history thesis proudly stated that the era of political turmoil was over as the marriage of liberal democratic politics and free markets would provide a future of freedom, prosperity and growth for all. Socialism, one party states. nationalism and theocracies were now as redundant as feudalism and mercantilism. Inherent in this paradigm is the belief in the march of human history to a pre-ordained utopia, there can be no other route other than liberal democracy, a mode of belief rooted in monotheists religions like Christianity. During the post 1989 euphoria we were led to believe that the new Jerusalem of freedom for all was being established before our eyes.

All absolute fundamentalist bullshit, we kidded ourselves during the breakup of Yugoslavia that we were witnessing nothing more that a childish tantrum, the impotent tears of a child that refused to accepted the wisdom of its elders, Then came 9-11 and the abject failure of the First world to export, or even evangelise, its own delusions. Meanwhile within the citadel Italy elected Berlusconi and a new political order was born. A movement that was both nurtured by liberalism and one that rejected it basic ideals. The appeal of Berlusconi was best summed by Zizek. 'I may look like an idiot, I may act as if I am corrupt, but don't be confused I am a corrupt idiot'. No one seemed to notice at the time but this is what a large number of the electorate wanted, those who compared the wealth and hypocrisy of a political-economic elite, with there own relative poverty - why should we obey the laws when ours betters and masters do not? Of course Berlusconi was an idiot, but an idiot who kept getting away with it. After all what's an election defeat when you own the media?

What we are now seeing is the old centre-right taking the lessons of Berlusconi and Putin and marring them with more established and effective party machines, where the mutually dependant relationships with mass media and private capital are long established. Coupled with a calamitous decline in trust with establishment politicians the old order has shed its skin to a reveal a new one, that of populist politics. Of course it's the old order 2.0, discarding the baggage of redundant ideas and norms and no longer appealing to our good nature it still maintains power for the same reason it always has, power itself, The disgust with Starmer is a reminder that the goals of politics is to merely take power. Our 'broken' politics are a reflection of our own societies, and these societies are in turns a reflection of politics.

Basically we are fucked, so pass me another Molotov cocktail and I'll see you at the barricades.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

In Britain at least, the economic shift of importance away from earnings from work to wealth (including and especially property equity and private pensions) is one factor. The large rise in life expectancy coupled with a much higher proportion of middle class pensioners who are economically independent of state or family support has created a new and significant demographic group whose wider political demands parties must now support, which are apparently more conservative and leaning to 'traditional values'.

[ChrisJ]

I think this -

Edit: we also really really need to do something about social media. I mean probably some form of global regulation

is important. But given who does the 'regulating' and who actually owns the media, I'd say we're fucked in this regard.

My take. What UA said is, mostly, but with emphasis on the "none of this is new" part. The whole 'end of history' thing and the brief post 1989 lull to which GFtW referred were pretty unrepresentative, weren't they? The end of easily accessible, cheap resources is coming to an end. I mean there is still quite a bit of oil, but using it will exacerbate the other shortages; agricultural land, fresh water, clean air. We're running out of sand for construction. Thanks to climate change, we're even running out of time. This is obvious even to most of those who would publicly refute it rather than constrain their own behaviour, so the scrabble for possession intensifies. If I can draw a domestic analogy, there's nothing improves the behaviour of primary school kids like the moment they get access to the school field after a spell of wet weather. There's enough space for everyone and.. calm... The reverse is also true.

In geopolitical terms, surely the 'point' of Trump is that he deregulates the modern day robber barons at home and wherever his influence reaches - chlorinated chicken, anyone? Modi fights for Himalayan water, Xi grabs.. well anything within reach really. Israel snatches Palestinian land and Bolsonaro wants to be able to rape the Amazon. Again, as Ursus says, nothing new, but the callous ignorance of the 19th Century whalers who presumed their prey were an infinite resource has been replaced by a cynical realisation that there's only enough for 'us' and fuck the rest of you/them. The 'us' is, naturally, always defined pretty narrowly in both demographic and historical terms.

Of course, flattening population graphs and greater efficiency might fix the problem of feeding everyone*. It is possible that technology will bring us cheap, plentiful energy and therefore solutions to - or at least mitigation of - fresh water shortages and climate change. But you wouldn't want to gamble on being out of power if it doesn't, would you?

*Of course, I know there's enough food, water, land and other stuff to keep 10 billion people in stable comfort if it were shared out even reasonably equitably. But where's the fun in life if you can't have a private helicopter?

[Gert from the Well]

"We're all middle class now". We are encouraged to believe that we all share the same aspirations and status. We have replaced the voodoo economics of trickle-down with a delusion of shared values, which excludes the work-shy and any dissenting group we can 'Other'. If it is good for business then it must benefit us as well, if the stock market is booming then ipso facto our standard of living is on the up as well. An idea that reaches its absolute nadir in our governments exhortations to shop and drink, my indulging ourselves we benefit the economy and ultimately ourselves. We no see ourselves as a separate class, but part of a greater whole. We reflect the lies we have been told and in doing so give them the veneer of truth, becoming complicit in our misery.

But at least Samp won last night.

[Nefertiti2]

George Monbiot

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1278605869861740544?s=20

[ChrisJ]

"We're all middle class now". We are encouraged to believe that we all share the same aspirations and status. We have replaced the voodoo economics of trickle-down with a delusion of shared values, which excludes the work-shy and any dissenting group we can 'Other'. If it is good for business then it must benefit us as well, if the stock market is booming then ipso facto our standard of living is on the up as well. An idea that reaches its absolute nadir in our governments exhortations to shop and drink, my indulging ourselves we benefit the economy and ultimately ourselves. We no see ourselves as a separate class, but part of a greater whole. We reflect the lies we have been told and in doing so give them the veneer of truth, becoming complicit in our misery.

So, you're saying we're all in it together?

[Gert from the Well]

So, you're saying we're all in it together?

The trouble is we are part of the problem, not the solution.

[ChrisJ]

The trouble is we are part of the problem, not the solution.

Sorry, I should have added a smiley winky thing. I'm general agreement.

[Bruno]

I don't view civilization (Western or otherwise) as ever not having been broken. There has always been industrial-scale injustice, exploitation, and suffering. For all I know there's less overall today than ever before. We're now just more generally aware that we're probably on a collision course with something apocalyptic. That collision course started long before we were born with the emergence of super-cheap energy.

Social media is vanity all the way down.

[Gert from the Well]

It all started when we decided that organising ourselves on a hierarchical basis was progress.

[Bruno]

It all started when we decided that organising ourselves on a hierarchical basis was progress.

That decision was never taken, it happened organically and has never not been operative.

[MsD]

Of course money, and the fact that the wealthy can fund propaganda / control the media. That’s why we’re at “post-truth”. The web was supposed to be a democratising tool, instead it’s given the “ruling classes“ a greater weapon, one that reaches people directly, and which they’re even less likely to see as propaganda.

The 10bn world population of 2050 are going to have even less of an equal share of world wealth.

[Gert from the Well]

That decision was never taken, it happened organically and has never not been operative.

It was a throw-away comment, but to my limited understanding the transition from hunter-gatherers to settled communities saw a profound increase in the divisions of communities. Where as before we had hierarchies there was still an equality of needs and labour, the move to settlements and ultimately states saw the development of non-productive hierarchies. Through the Gods, swords, the cross or capital these groups continue to maintain an exploitative relationship with the masses. We still identify with our masters, his needs are our needs.