Meanwhile, back in the real world

The establishment have milked it for all it’s worth but tomorrow, after the last stage-managed event surrounding that diamond jubilee is over, for the vast majority of the population it will be back to reality with a bang.

For the jobless teenagers bussed in from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth to sleep rough and work for nothing as stewards during the Thames procession on Saturday, it will be back to grinding poverty and a total absence of a worthwhile future.

For the unemployed it will be another week of fruitless searches for jobs; for those with disabilities, it will mean fending off intrusive medical tests (run by a private company on a pay-by-results contract) intended to force them into menial jobs.

For tens of thousands of homeless households tomorrow will mean another night in temporary accommodation, disrupting children’s education and making it impossible to bring up a family in a sustainable way.

For public sector workers, it’s the start of another month of jobs cuts and increased pension contributions deducted unilaterally on the orders of the ConDem government. And another year of a pay freeze while food prices, in particular, continue to soar.

For those lucky enough to have jobs, Wednesday will for many see a return to a hostile work environment where management makes sure everyone knows their place, getting to work on an overpriced, overcrowded transport system.

An unprecedented, co-ordinated state operation, incorporating the media and led by the BBC, has driven reality into a corner in favour of relentless pomp and pageantry that has gone on for hour after hour, day after day.

No matter that people are being slaughtered by the Assad regime in Syria, or that the Obama administration is using drones to execute at will in Pakistan, or that the global economy is irreversibly heading for a second, far worse crash. More important, beacons are being lit across Britain, loads of boats are struggling down the Thames and some pop stars are holding a concert outside Buckingham Palace.

The last few days have seemed virtually authoritarian in atmosphere, with a contrived “celebration” organised to mark what? The fact that a privileged woman, a huge landowner with several palaces, immense wealth, including a hidden collection of masterpieces, has held an unelected position for 60 years.

Discredited politicians have tried to use the occasion to create a sense of flag-waving Britishness that died with empire and is not particularly supported by the citizens of Wales and Scotland, let alone the minority population in the north of Ireland.

The ConDem government, perhaps the most despised in recent history, no doubt hopes that the queen’s diamond jubilee has taken some of the attention away from its austerity policies which have helped to deepen the recession triggered by the financial crisis of 2007-8.

Of course, the monarchy is not the all-powerful ruler who cites divine authority from God. That period of history ended with the execution of Charles 1 by Cromwell’s parliamentary forces in January 1649.

But it symbolises the fraudulent nature of what passes for democracy despite the immense struggles of the Levellers of the English Civil War, the radical movement of reformers of the late 18^th century, the Chartists of the 19^th century and the Suffragettes of the 20^th century.

Present democracy is little more than a show, a façade behind which corporations and financial institutions, markets and bond dealers, call all the shots. The monarchy is part of that theatre, with Her Majesty’s government the accomplices who direct the state to give big business what it wants and needs.

A fresh constitutional settlement is urgent to meet the aspirations of a disenfranchised majority of working people, replacing the power of the corporatocracy. Such a democracy could never include an unelected, hereditary head of state but would instead express the power of those whose labour actually makes society possible. Tomorrow is as good a time to start on this project as any.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Staying out of the hands of the state

The flowering in the numbers of civil society, non-state organisations, groups and campaigns is the reverse side of an historic decline in participation in formal political processes in Britain and an ever-increasing alienation from existing power structures.

That much is clear from a new report Making good society, which was produced by a commission set up by the Carnegie Trust under the watchful gaze of former New Labour advisor Geoff Mulgan. What is less certain is the path mapped out by the report for civil society in reshaping Britain.

The strength of civil society organisations is their relative independence from the state. It is where, as the report puts it, “people come together to pursue their shared interests, enthusiasms and values” on a not-for-profit basis, adding:

“In civil society, people come together freely as equals. Civil society has grown as an expression of the values of co-operation, solidarity, mutual commitment and freedom. It has complemented, influenced and challenged the formal institutions of democracy. And it has always stood for visions of a good society, as well as meeting more immediate needs.”

In 2006–7, the UK had 870,000 formal civil society associations with assets of £210 billion. Uncounted, but probably in still greater number, are the thousands of informal community groups that do anything from improving public spaces to campaigning for fee-free cash points, the report says.

Modern capitalist state structures, of course, stand for everything civil society doesn’t. The “values” of the state are about ruling over people, a partisan commitment to vested interests such as high finance and corporate power and a “freedom” so circumscribed that anything meaningful will certainly get you on to a more-or-less secret database. No wonder the commission found civil society so much more positive!

So much so that it would like to harness the untapped power and potential of civil society in “responding to the triple crises of our time: those of political trust, economics and the environment.” Don’t get too excited, however. We’re not talking revolution here. Quite the opposite.

For example, the commission wants a greater role for civil society in creating “stable, responsible and transparent financial activity”. This would be achieved, suggests the report, by “strengthening its capacity to influence financial institutions and regulators through building its own specialist institutions that have the knowledge and authority to challenge conventional financial thinking.” Or by “mobilising citizen investors, the millions of ordinary people with pension plans and savings, so that their future incomes are derived from companies that operate responsibly and sustainably.”

In reality, however, the financial system is on the edge of a precipice and pension schemes are in meltdown. Final salary pension schemes are being unilaterally wound up while the state has had to take on limited obligations of companies that have gone under. Now the state scheme itself is under threat.

After correctly pointing out that representative democracy in Britain was created in large part by pressure from below, principally through the struggle of the Chartists and Suffragettes, the report advocates using civil society to breathe new life into the political system through a bigger role for civil society in “organising deliberation, argument
and decision-making”.

However well-meaning, this is surely the wrong approach to civil society organisations. They flourish precisely because they are operate and exist in an environment that is largely self-created. Drawing them, as the report suggests, into solving society’s deep problems will lose them their independence. Nor would this answer the related crises of democracy, the economy and the environment. That will only come when the state itself is transformed and democratised through mass action because it is certainly beyond reform.



Paul Feldman
Communications editor