Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: July 2016 Page 2 of 3

Personnel: A Potential Achilles’ Heel for Progressive Electoral Politics

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On July 17, 2016

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(Just so no one misunderstands, this is Mandos writing, not Ian.)

Over the years I’ve collected a laundry list of potential problems that left-wing movements have in obtaining and exercising official power “through the system” in developed Western societies, but at least two of them have to do with the question of personnel and talent. These are problems that that manifest themselves both in the way that movements operate in the electoral space and then again reveal themselves if the progressive-leftist party gets really lucky and manages to hold official power. Some of them apply to populist right-wing movements too (but I think less so; the reasons for this we can leave to another day) and is at least a contributing factor to the extent to which the neoliberal order appears so crisis-resilient.

(1) Personnel for Getting into Power: We live in a mass media society where cheap communications means that messages are propagated very quickly. This means that almost all political campaigning is going to involve an aspect of mass advertising and marketing. I know that a lot of lefty people for obvious reasons have a bit of an allergy to the idea of political ideation as selling something, but unfortunately, that’s what it is. Selling stuff is a profession, talent, and skill.

The neoliberal establishment side of the equation has a lot of money to attract the kind of talent who can sell stuff. But that’s true of everything: The left always lives with a headwind of money that favours the establishment. What is more fundamentally difficult, however, is that the neoliberal demeanour has a very natural and smooth affinity to the notion of selling and is very deeply founded on the idea of competing psychological influence over individual choice; in fact, it openly celebrates this as a cornerstone of its fundamental political truth. The modern left, on the other hand, views advertising and marketing as an attempt at corrupting individual authentic choice. But in an environment of technologically-accelerated information dissemination, there’s no escape from selling political ideas and from a need for the talent required to do that. It seems unlikely to me, however, that, money aside, the sales talent is in large numbers going to abandon an ideological affinity for the governing neoliberal attitude.

(2) Personnel to Run the Show: Once in power, the problems have only started. Large industrial societies actually require a great deal of technical skill to run, both on matters of economy and finance as well as general administration and regulation. While leftists deride the prognostications of academic economics, there are nevertheless technical skills and concepts that are still required to have a modicum of control. Unfortunately, most people educated in these disciplines were also made sympathetic to neoliberalism. We saw in the Greek crisis that there was a layer of Greek bureaucracy that actively resisted the original form of the Syriza government. That is partly class interest — but a lot of “technocrats” genuinely believed that they were doing a good deed from preventing what they thought was stupid or impossible policy from being implemented, rather than respect democratic decision-making or question the political assumptions they take as positive truths. This is potentially a deeper and more difficult problem than (1).

The problem of finding technocrats willing to administer a moderately left-wing, post-neoliberal state feeds back into the original problem of electability. If the public (quite reasonably) gets the sense that left-wing parties simply lack the expertise to make existing systems work on a day-to-day basis, they’ll choose a seemingly better-administered political outcome, even if it actually represents long-term decline.

I won’t pretend to have immediate solutions to these problems. But I think they aren’t very closely discussed in these sorts of environments.

Turkish Coup Attempt Fails

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On July 15, 2016

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Doesn’t appear to have gone far. Not enough colonels.

Has failed. Not enough troops, not organized well enough. Will increase Erdogan’s power significantly. Not good.

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The Nice Attacks

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On July 14, 2016

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A truck has plowed into a crowd at a Bastille Day celebration. Reports suggest about 60 casualties.

This is a tragedy.

It is not any more of a tragedy than the US attack on an MSF hospital in Afghanistan.

It is not more of a tragedy than the deliberate targeting of the Iraqi sewage system during the Gulf War.

The blood and pain of people who are not like you is not one whit less important than the blood and pain of people who are like you.

The number of people hurt and killed is important. Less death and pain is preferable to  more death and pain.

Every single person killed or harmed by ISIS is the responsibility of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, along with the governments and militaries who backed them. There is no ISIS without the Iraq war. (It’s unclear if ISIS will claim responsibility, but the point remains that this terrorism is the result of the Iraq war.)

Causality is important when dealing with ethics. The consequences of invading Iraq were forseen by everyone with even the slightest amount of sense. Even the CIA and British intelligence called the consequences correctly.

Until people get their ethical reasoning straight, they will continue to create hellscapes.

I feel great sympathy for those in Nice who have lost someone. I feel no more sympathy for them than for all the Iraqis who have lost someone.

We are either all human, or we aren’t. A world where we aren’t is Hell.

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Let Us Speak of Hope for the Future

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On July 12, 2016

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dawnI am on the record as having very little use for hope. Barack Obama’s campaign cemented my view, with lots of talk of “hope and change,” centered around a politics which was going to be neoliberal centrist at best. And that’s what it was.

Hope, like optimism and pessimism, is not realism. I am hopeful when there is reason to be hopeful, and not when there isn’t reason to be hopeful.

Regular readers know my baseline scenario: We are in for a world of hurt, having failed to deal with climate change until beyond the point of no return. This is added to the radical mismanagement of the economy due to neoliberalism, ecosphere collapse, radical depletion of aquifers, and so on. Technology is enabling (and already has created much of) a radical dystopic panopticon such as the world has never seen.

Nonetheless, I see reasons for hope. Oh, sure, a billion or more, way more, deaths are baked into the cake. They’re going to happen, the only question is how large the number.

But neoliberalism is dying.

I will state that in ten to fifteen years, maximum, almost no states will still be running based on neoliberal policies or ruled by neoliberal parties.

Neoliberalism has failed, and it is seen to have failed, by the younger generations and even much of the older ones. As demographics shift, as the old die and retire, neoliberalism will no longer be viable.

The future belongs to the populist right and left, and to those who are willing to stomp the boot hard. Yes, there’s been boot stomping already, but, in the first world, it has been mild compared to what will be needed to maintain control.

Humans are a wasting asset. As we move to autonomous fighting robots and to other forms of true automation, our lords and masters will be willing to give up much of the consumer society or will run it as a vast welfare gulag.

Do not be surprised to see basic income enacted, and to find that it has made your life little better, but is used as a way to keep customers viable, since our leaders will not know what to do with humans they don’t need to work. Oh, some work will always be available, and, yes, we could transition to other types of work, but I don’t believe our lords and masters have the imagination to manage that.

But there is a window and there is a chance. First, there is a window before the autonomous robots become very effective. Second, there is a chance they will be good for ordinary people: I am not convinced, at all, that autonomous robots are the weapon of the powerful. If micro-robots are easy to make, and I bet they will be, easy enough so that ordinary people can make them, they may turn out to be a vastly democratizing force.

After an era of terror, that is. Defending against small autonomous robots will be almost impossible. They will move too fast for human reflexes; your gun will mean nothing. Even if you manage to kill one or a few, they will come in swarms.

No one will be safe unless they completely bunker down, and maybe not even then.

Ages of assassination are terrible, but they can also lead to ages of mass prosperity. When you can’t physically stop someone from killing you, your only other option is to make it so they don’t want to kill you.

And that means people who are basically happy and enjoy their lives. Hopefully, they have someone in their lives to love. A man or woman in love, who is also prosperous and secure, does not try to assassinate people.

But the age of true automation also offers the possibility of utopia, of a sort. Most jobs suck, and most people would rather not work at sucky jobs. An age of abundant free time, if we can learn to handle the ecological catastrophe we have caused, is definitely possible.

We face great crises and changes, but out of them we have the opportunity to create a new society which is based on abundant free time, where humans are not slaves to jobs they hate. Our demographics and our politics are moving towards a new generation which wants radical change. That change could go very wrong, and in some countries it will, but, equally, it could go very right.

There is hope in the rise of the far left, even as there is fear in the rise of the far right. There is hope in the rise of the new automating technologies, even as there is fear that humans might be made obsolete.

As for the ecological crisis, better we had avoided it, but the right is not wrong: Crises are opportunities. We will have to seize this one and see to it that what emerges from the ashes of our old society is a new one which is able to responsibly use technology to the benefit of all, where “all” includes not just humanity, but all life on Earth.

This is the right thing to morally, but it is also the right thing to do pragmatically.

So hope? Yes, there’s hope, unless we drive ourselves extinct. There’ll be terror and hardship along the way, but that is as it always has been.

The future is unknown and humanity can still choose.

So have hope, just be realistic about it. It’s going to be ugly, but there are possibilities along the way and on the other side.

It’s those that may be worth fighting for.

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On Bernie Sanders

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On July 12, 2016

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Sanders-021507-18335- 0004

Sanders-021507-18335- 0004

I am not upset by Sanders endorsing Clinton because I never expected anything else.

What is important about Sanders is that he showed how well a self-avowed socialist can do. He won super-majorities of the young. In four years there will be more. In eight, even more.

The demographics are shifting, real left-wing politics are now viable.

That is what matters.

Four years ago, if you’d told me someone with Sanders’ policies would have come this close to Clinton, I’d have been happy with that result. I am today.

Sanders himself is now irrelevant. He’s an old man; he showed there is a constituency for left-wing politics, now his time is done.

Something similar may turn out to be the case with Trump, if he doesn’t win election: He will have proved that right-wing populism is viable and a more disciplined candidate will step in and execute it better.

Chill. Sanders run isn’t a victory, but it did show the tide of history is turning in favor of those who favor a kinder and far better-run world.

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Labour National Executive Votes Corbyn is on the Ballot and Purges Members

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On July 12, 2016

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Jeremy CorbynSo, both sides got something.  Corbyn is on the ballot, but all members for the last six months are not eligible to vote, and those members who could vote before under the 3 pound membership (most of whom signed up to help Corbyn), must sign up for the 25 pound membership during a 48 hour window.

There can be no question that the NEC membership ruling hurts Corbyn, and badly, but labour unions are still for him, and I suspect he’s still the frontrunner.

The rebel MPs may still take the question of whether Corbyn is on the ballot to the courts.

I have been covering the Corbyn situation as closely as I have because it is important, very important. Corbyn is a modestly radical socialist, and if he winds up changing the Labour party in his image, it becomes an important anti-neoliberal force in one of the world’s most important countries.  This is the potentially the first serious, English speaking world, crack in the “you may choose from neoliberal party A or neoliberal party B” facade in my adult lifetime.

It matters, because as long as we can only choose neoliberalism, we cannot get off the train to hell.

Note that Corbyn, for example, believes in workplace democracy.  He is quite a bit more to the left than Bernie Sanders was.

Update-in case you’re British. Unite: https://t.co/IPBlltKdBw

labour Vote

Update 2: Turns out to be even more sleazy than I realized.

Labour Meeting pic


Corbyn may take this to the courts, himself, since the Labour website people were signing up on as members said they would have a vote for leader.

I do not know if the NEC can be recalled to change this.

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What the UK Labour Party Leadership Rules Actually Say About Nominating a Leader

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On July 11, 2016

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Angela Eagle has launched her leadership challenge against Jeremy Corbyn.

The plan is to keep Corbyn off the ballot. The rebels claim he needs to be nominated, his camp claims the leader does not need to be nominated.

Here are the rules:(pdf)

2.
Election of leader and deputy leader
A.
The leader and deputy leader shall be elected separately in accordance with rule C below,unless rule E below applies.
B.
Nomination
i.
In the case of a vacancy for leader or deputy leader, each nomination must be supported by 12.5 per cent of the Commons members of the PLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
ii.
Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 percent of the Commons members of the PLP.
Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.

Those who wish to suggest that the rebels are correct, or that the law could easily be read either way, tend to quote only one part:

In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 percent of the Commons members of the PLP.

Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.

This section later seems key to the “not on ballot” argument.

Valid nominations shall be printed in the final agenda for party conference, together with the names of the nominating organisations and Commons members ofthe PLP supporting the nominations. In the case of a vacancy under E below this information shall be included with the documentation circulated with any ballot.

This suggests that everyone must be nominated in order to go on the ballot.

The first section clearly implies that only challengers need nominations. The second section, however, speaks of nominees being printed.

I am given to understand that those who drafted the regulations say that the intent was for the leader to automatically be on the ballot.

There is a strong argument that, legally, Corbyn, in the name of fairness, should be excluded from the ballot. You may read it here.

In any case, it seems clear that this will go to the courts. I am not sanguine, but we shall see.

I would suspect, if Corbyn is not on the ballot, that we may see some very bitter battles as members attempt to de-select and re-select MPs. There is also a real chance of the party splitting (as there is if Corbyn is on the ballot). The Conservative party will do very well out of this, but clearly it is most important to rebel MPs to keep the party as a neo-conservative party, not to oppose the Conservative party. (As it happens, I think they’re right. The Conservatives will do mostly what they would do, just somewhat more of it.)

The game continues.

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The World Has Always Been a Shit Show and It’s Always Been Beautiful

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On July 9, 2016

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Well, as long as recorded history, anyway.

I see a lot of angst and a lot of worry and a lot of anger about events. We have gun and police violence in the US. The rise of Trump, the crises shaking the European Union, economic stagnation or decline in multiple major economies, a military buildup on the Russian border, a refugee crisis, and a Middle East and North Africa which looks shakier and shakier. In the Far East, China seizes more and more, bringing it into potential conflict with multiple nations.

The neoliberal consensus is crumbling, the far-right is rising, and the real left is beginning to rise as well (Corbyn and Sanders are significant, not sidelights, and not the only ones). In South America, the left is retreat, even in shambles, with the right resurgent.

We have onrushing climate change and some reason to believe that we have passed the threshold beyond which change will be much more rapid. Fish stocks are collapsed and collapsing, there is some danger of ecosystem collapse, and on and on.

The most likely next US president (Clinton) is a terrible warmonger who appears to have a deranged hatred of Russia, the only other country in the world with enough nukes to, well, destroy the world. And it’s not as if Obama hasn’t been ratcheting things up already.

So, yeah, good news, there’s some, but overall it’s looking bad. We’re coming up on an age of war, revolution, and very probably serious food and water shortages combined with a practically unprecedented refugee crises.

Fun, fun, fun.

Or, as the case may be, not.

It’s always been bad for some. There was the Great Depression. There was World War II. There were huge famines in China, war in SE Asia, including the Khmer Rouge genocide. Terrible atrocities in Indonesia.  And on and on.

Never in history has it been the case that large chunks of the world weren’t hellscapes. Some nations or regions managed peace and prosperity for generations, even occasionally for centuries, but those must be understood as beautiful outposts of peace and civilization, ever in danger of falling back into barbarism.  (Not that the actual barbarians were often so bad. The barbaric Celts may have done the occasional human sacrifice, but Rome enslaved half the world.)

Human memory is short. In historical terms, we don’t live long and we think our lived lives are “normal” even if, in fact, they were lived during one of those rare civilized prosperous interregnums.

We think that industrialization changed everything, but it’s not yet clear that it did. Industrialization mostly allowed Europe to conquer the rest of the world, really. It created some high standards of living in core regions, and advances in medicine allowed unprecedented increases in population.

But it’s not yet clear that industrialized prosperity, in the style to which we’ve grown accustomed (and which has never reached everyone), is more than just an interregnum. There may be some rather hard and ugly limits on growth and prosperity due to Earth’s limits, both in resources and in our ability to handle the pollution we have spewed. Add to that our complete overpopulation, driving entire species to extinction, and threatening the ecosphere.

Again, fun.

So, the bad times will soon be on us again, for those of us they aren’t already on, anyway. If we’re old or sick, we may avoid them. If not, we’re going to get it in the neck.

But why despair?

Even in bad times, there will be good. Most of history has been bad, but people have still loved, they have still enjoyed food, and the beauty nature so generously provides. There has always been wine (or bathtub gin). Life has gone on.

It’ll probably go on this time, and if we manage to drive ourselves to extinction (still unlikely) well, no humans will be suffering any more.

Enjoy your lives as best you can. Take joy in the real things of your immediate lives. The horrors that are happening to others are not happening to you and making yourself unhappy because others are unhappy does nothing to help them, and harms you.

That doesn’t mean “do nothing,” it means do what you’re reasonably able to do, and don’t sweat the rest.  There are billions of people on Earth, you aren’t personally responsible for this, and your contribution is not going to be the key if other people don’t also get off their asses.

Be realistic, accept no more than your tiny bit of blame, and then go eat a good meal, make love, and listen to some beautiful music.

Don’t destroy your real happiness over events for which you are almost entirely not responsible, and which you do not have the power to change.

The world’s always been hell for a lot of people, but there has always been beauty and love for many. If you can, be one of those who is kind to those whom the world is not. No more is, or can be, asked of you, certainly not that you crucify yourself: Your suffering will not redeem the world. Leave that to the messiahs, be human, and be as happy as you can.

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