Poem for my Grandfather
From my talented cousin, Thomas Larque:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lover’s eyes.Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
A Change in the Global Order
I wrote here, as the Euro teetered and London burned, of a world-changing moment. Two months later, I’m pretty convinced this is still the case. We’re in the middle of a change in the global political consensus. Over the past two centuries, and turbo-charged by the effects of the Second World War, the world has come together - economically, socially and ideologically. It seems clear that, as a result, the global acceptance of freemarket capitalism that has held sway over the past 50 years is now, globally, being challenged.
From Britain, to Spain, to the United States, capitalism is being called into question by the middle-middle-classes who feel themselves alienated from those at the top of the financial pyramid. In the UK, the justice of free-trade capitalism was not only called into question by the London Riots, but also by the unprecedented student protests of 2010, during which tens of thousands of Britain’s middle-class youth took to the streets in protest against government austerity measures which shifted the financial burden of education onto the citizenry - austerity measures blamed squarely on the selfishness of City bankers. In Spain, the middle-class indignants have been marching and occupying piazzas in the tens of thousands, infuriated by Friedman-based fiscal policies. The United States is in the midst of huge anti-wall street protests.
The bourgeoisie is breaking down - journalists, politicians, nurses and teachers are no longer willing to accept the wealth and power of the richest members of society as a naturally-occurring fact of life. The blaming of the current financial crisis, right or wrong, on the selfishness of global financiers, is not merely an act of finding scape goats - it is an attack on the fundamental assumption of laissez-faire capitalism - on the idea of perfect markets, trickle-down, and the inevitability of a class of rich individuals.
The financial crisis has brought a spotlight on the atomised societies and economies of the late 20th century world. Largely unfettered free market capitalism, seen in the 80s and 90s as a means to build net propserity, has come to be criticised as an avenue to developing GDP growth without benefiting the majority of the population. Whilst in the 80s Wall Street was viewed with some kind of reverence in the United States, it is increasingly seen as symbolic of an unjust and ineffective economic model. Look at the difference between the films Wall Street I and Wall Street II for proof of this.
In an untypically excellent piece of political commentary, The Daily Telegraph wrote last week on the profundity of the political vision set forward by Ed Milliband at the Labour Party Conference (article). In his keynote speech, Milliband, leader of the British opposition, called for a new economic model of ‘Just Capitalism.’ His speech is the product of a discursive context shaped by the British Riots, and the concomitant exposure of a deep social malaise amongst the poor. Equally important to the new political discourses taking place is the unacceptability of boom-and-bust, of cyclical markets driven by speculation, and of an economic model based on glaring disparities in wealth.
Peter Osborne’s Daily Telegraph article rightfully brought attention to a shift in political discourse in Britain. It insightfully discussed the fluidity of the new political context we find ourselves in - one in which the old status quo of British politco-economic discourse has been discarded - and a Britain in which politicians and intellectuals are still struggling to find palatable replacements. What seems clear is that this is not just a British phenomenon, but a global one.
D’Avry, in his book on Historical Rationalities, talks about thought-systems that structure the world we live in, and how we understand it. These thought systems are based on a series of mutually-reinforcing assumptions about the way the world works. In his thesis, he argues that to be challenged, a mentalité must be attacked simultaneously from at least two directions, undermining several of these self-reinforicing assumptions and thus destroying the system. The financial crisis of 2007 has undermined our assumptions of self-governing markets; riots in Britain have challenged assumptions about the value and desirability of trickle-down as a way of enriching the masses. We exist in a world where, perhaps more than at any time since 1968, globalised capitalism has been called into question.
It is down to our generation, I believe, to determine the parameters of the future discourse. In Phnom Penh, surrounded by an international community of expatriates, the commonalities of the international community seem apparent to me. It is up to the international middle classes to search out new alternatives to free-market, laissez-faire capitalism. The criticism of the system is alive and strong, but now the search for a credible replacement must begin.
Based on the idea of the ‘apology project’, this video documentary is built around calls made by ordinary people to an anonymous phone number. The phone number was set up as an opportunity for callers to apologise anonymously for anything that weighed on their conscience.
Panic on the Streets of London
The wide spread of the British riots can lead us to no other conclusion than that it speaks of a broad social problem. Last night, there was unrest in cities including Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham with shops being looted and set alight. In Oxford, a MacDonalds had its window broken. Whilst violence in London over the weekend was initially blamed on isolated ‘organised criminal groups’ (the Met), or ‘thugs’ (several tabloids), the diffusion of such behaviour across the Capital and the country speaks of a generation and socio-economic group that have been frozen out of the ambitions and values of mainstream British society.
Politicians and the public have been divided on how to treat the rioters. The most thoughtful article I’ve read, from the Guardian, speaks of how such unacceptable behaviour is the product of British society’s inability to include the poor, and disabling economic and educational divides. The comments section of the same article, though, speaks of a wide public instinct for violent reprisal against the dispossessed. Much of my facebook feed involves calls for arming police with water canons, paintball guns or bazookas.
The violence and destructiveness of the rioters is unpalatable. Public intolerance of the rioting is understandable and, yes, violent response tempting. But such measures would prove crude and ultimately ineffectual. We can quite rightly label the individuals involved as thuggish, violent and disrespectful. But stopping our analysis of the situation here misses the point: what has led such people to take on these qualities; how has society failed to include these people? For what social and economic reasons have they not acquired accepted codes of behaviour and ideas of decent behaviour? We can blame the individuals, but we must ask what conditions have created these individuals; and what shared experiences have generated frustrations that lead young people to violently pillage and attack symbols of authority.
The riots could still have a net positive effect on Britain. They might get mainstream people thinking. By bringing the marginalised into the public square, literally, and making them unavoidably visible to those who can normally escape noticing them, these riots could act as a necessary social corrective. The initial riot in Tottingham has acted as a spark that has ignited what is clearly widespread dissatisfaction amongst groups of British society. When these riots end, it is our responsibility as a society to address the mals that caused them.
Cameron has called Parliament back from recess. I’ll be interested to hear the discussion: MPs can either be populist, and appeal to a public demand for reprisal; or they can be sensitive to the situation that has engendered these riots, and seek a long term solution.
New Labour - a Golden Age
Reading Monday’s papers, its almost no overstatement to say the world as we know it could be on the brink of collapse. The USA, maintainer and leader of the Western world-order, has had its credit worthiness downgraded. Riots have engulfed London. The EU seems at a crucial juncture. Europe must either summon the political will to finally meld quarrelling states into fiscal union, or be ripped apart by spiralling government debts that can only end in a wave of defaults and the end of the single currency. The world, I thought today for the first time since Northern Rock defaulted in 2007, is actually in a crisis.
The repeated stop-gap measures the EU has implemented are nothing more than bandaid measures, repeatedly rejected by the markets. Statements of intent and hundreds of billions of €s are not solving the problem - it is clear now that the only way to end the sovereign debt crisis is through structural change. The issuing of Eurobonds is a process which will pool member state’s sovereignty to an extent no treaty yet signed has. If the EU fails to make this huge step, a 60 year period of never-before-witnessed peace and prosperity will likely end. The thought of the EU breaking is terrifying.
Closer to home, the riots in London have shown the social and economic malaise faced by austerity Britain. Rioters quoted by the New York Times gave an impression of that old beast class warfare rearing its head again. ‘We’re standing up to the ruling class’ said one 47 year old man. That in modern Britain there should be felt a distinction between normal people and the ruling class is a sad thing. This is the consequence of a government that looks back nostalgically to Victorian morals and education models. The European-style Socialstaat that New Labour began to construct seems already like a golden age - a high point for the C20th’s artistic and cultural production; for employment, growth and social inclusion. Trends, unfortunately, that were only just beginning to take root when the axe of the Coalition fell.
Dissatisfaction with the culling of social provision and the perception of a Government that doesn’t care for or represent people is clear in the rhetoric of rioters. It is worth remembering that Conservative policy did not win the last election so much as Labour party internal politics lost it. Cameron and Clegg’s margin of victory was especially slight given the dismal state of Labour in-fighting, and spoke more of a population exhausted by their politicians than any embracing of fiscal austerity or reductions to the size of the state. The political consensus in Britain has shifted towards one favouring freemarkets, but also a stronger (though never too strong) more interventionist state that attacks the causes of crime; that offers better public services, education and health care systems. The Tories had to acknowledge this and rebrand themselves. The more people found out about the Big Society during the election campaign, the lower the Conservatives polled. Today, the social policies and general aims of the Labour government, fuelled by a healthily-growing economy, are something we can look back upon longingly. Despite popular will, public finances and election cycles mean a return to those halcyon days does not seem imminent.
The West, Europe and Britain seem on a knife-point. Right now, we are witnessing a distinct historical moment in which the institutions and political assumptions that underlie our world are in danger. I have no doubt the US can repay its bills, and I’m cautiously optimistic that European leaders, faced with the absolute threat of the destruction of the European project, will ultimately make a strong case to their citizens for necessary change. I even think that British integration into Europe, social as well as economic, as slow and fractious a process as it might be, will continue. But the perilous situation of the West today is a grand and terrifying thing.
This had an effect on me, both as a statement about jobs whilst I start my career, and as a European work of art seen from the context of Cambodia. I’m aware of the Western luxury of leisure and the ability to stare at the working world we participate in and mock.
Cameron Endorses Inequality
Daily Telegraph readers have been at the vanguard of attempts to sustain inequality in the way our top politicans, judges and journalists are chosen. Launching viscous criticism at Nick Clegg’s calls for fairer and more transparent internships, the Telegraph employed that nebulous term ‘middle class’ to describe the constituency it believes the government’s attempts to drive meritocracy are targeted at hurting. Of course, when 70% of Britain’s consider themselves middle class, the term is pretty meaningless. The advantages a ‘middle class’ local electrician can offer his children are pretty different to the advantages a top judge can offer his children, and most importantly, the impact on society at large is quite different. The problem the country faces, and the Telegraph defends as natural, is upper middle-class elites who determine national life currently being capable of ensuring their offspring take over their positions of power in society.
The Telegraph bravely defended the rights of these ‘middle class’ parents to give their children a head start above other cleverer candidates. David Cameron, whiffing dissatisfaction in the Tory-Telegraph ranks over government policy to make internships fair, has now broken with the Coalition’s official line to say that in fact, he quite likes inequality. In an article with the Telegraph, he tells upper-middle class readers he’s proud of his elitist mega-expensive public school, and that his father gave him a leg-up as a stockbroker. He fails, however, to mention the notorious ‘phone call’ from Buckingham Palace that allegedly secured him a position as an MP. Cameron defends a system of inequality that has served him well.
This is thin ice for the Prime Minister to skate on. Government in a sense sets the direction for a nation. After Clegg’s initial declaration against unfair internships, the National Union of Journalists, amongst other groups, decided to abandon unpaid informal internships. I know one child of a journalist in Oxford who suffered from this change in policy, and a good thing I think that is too. What Cameron risks doing here is creating ambiguity and dividing opinion on something that should be immediately obvious : by successful parents / friends / relatives / neighbours giving help to those they know and like, a system that pushes out the more talented is encouraged. Just because I know an MEP and can get an internship with him doesn’t seem a good enough reason for me to stand a better chance of entering politics than the committed but not-so-well connected grassroots activist down the road.
More worryingly, when the Prime Minister endorses internships, and gives them at the heart of government, he is essentially encouraging the development of a government of the people run by an increasingly small group of privileged acquaintances. Government must diversify, become more accessible and more representative of the whole 60,000,000 people it serves. The concentration of any single group in government, as encouraged by informal internships, means that the rest of the country misses out on fair representation and its benefits. Equally in judges or journalism - concentration of high-power positions either in justice or in media determine which sectors of society are represented.
Of course, Clegg’s aims for a meritocracy shouldn’t be our end goal - a meritocracy can exist in the most unequal and unsatisfactory nations. Britain has a long way to go before its the fair and balanced society most of hope for it to become. But the reallocation of internships away from a narrow social band towards a system that embraces a broad sweep of society across the institutions and professions that determine our shared national life is a small but significant step in the right direction.
