More ideology in our public sector, less unprotected politics

 a con, democracy, democratic deficit, private sector, privilege, public interest, public sector, representative democracy, welfare, Welfare State, wellbeing, Western civilisation  No Responses »
Jun 052012
 

From the Facebook page "Connect The Dots USA"

Charles Clarke grasps the nettle interestingly when he says the following:

Over the past 50 years, Labour has steadily become more the party of the public sector than, say, an ideologically driven democratic-socialist party or a party committed above all to fighting poverty and social exclusion.

There was a time when I would have agreed with the implications of such an assertion.  A statist dinosaur of a political movement, incapable of refreshing itself for modern times.  Seeing how the private sector is deliberately undermining public and representative democracy for its own pecuniary ends, however, makes me begin to wonder if the left-wing fans of the public sector weren’t right all along.  That is to say, we need the bulwark it might represent against a fascist state driven by private-sector interests out to destroy representative democracy’s integrity and basic fundamentals.

The truth of the matter is that institutions such as the NHS are an out-and-out threat to the private sector’s fiercest proponents.  On the one hand, in their desire to bring to every man, woman and child the advances of 21st century progress, such institutions are about as individualist as you could possibly desire.  On the other hand, in their ability to do so in a sustainable and supportive way, they are about as socialist as you could possibly hope for.

What institutions like the NHS demonstrate is that – at one fell swoop – one can construct a politics where every single person is valuable and worth fighting for – in as individual a way as any libertarian might care to argue in favour of – whilst at the same time offering up an implementation of such a politics which beds down the foundations of a social space any democratic socialist would be happy with.

Institutions like the NHS massively square political circles.

Those who want to make more and more money out of our democracies find themselves threatened by such wonderful processes.

That is the real reason they must be destroyed.  In reality, the NHS, and institutions like it, don’t pose a significant financial threat to their business models – they have, after all, been making money out of medicine for generations – but, rather, far more importantly, a dialectic threat to their politics, and thus their longer-term goals.  And that is what’s at the root of the private sector’s battle to destroy the collaborative politics the Welfare State and its institutions represent.

The private sector wants an extraordinary and total rendition of our democracy precisely because our democracy was on the point of sorting out its most significant challenges.  After the end of the Cold War, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even as no one was really aware that it was happening, people in certain governments were looking to share out the spoils amongst the populace.  Battening the hatches on the Welfare State was just one example of such an investment.

Wars, economic crises and foolish endeavours various had, then, to intervene.  If they had not, the world this side of the 21st century would have looked very different.

Which is why the NHS and institutions like it are the final political – not financial – battleground where the future of representative democracy will be waged.

If we lose this war on that battleground, representative democracy will end up only representing those who do the representing.  Which is to say, those in power: the MPs who fiddle expenses; the leaders who lie to stay at the top; the Eurocrats who bind together a continent behind closed doors; the media barons who have access at all times of day or night; the columnists who have a bigger voice than the people; the moneymen and women who support labour laws which reduce the freedom of unionisation and collective action but allow evermore liberal opportunities to move their capital at will.

So what will happen to the people as a result of all the above?  Say goodbye to any significant chance of participating in the direction of a country’s political development!  The only vote you’ll be making is which consumer (not very) durable to purchase with your ever-decreasing disposable income.  That’s how they want it.  They want all ideology to become just one more monetary transaction.

Because when it comes to ideology, they fear the unpredictable.  But when it comes to money, they know more than anyone.

And that’s why we need an ideological public sector more than ever before.  Only then, when we stop allowing them to decide on their weapons and their killing-fields of choice, will we have even half a chance of saving representative democracy for ourselves.

At the moment, it’s like we were practising the political equivalent of unprotected sex.

Is that really something we want to continue getting involved with?

Why we might have a right to snoop on our politicians

 copyright, copyright madness, Lawrence Lessig, on a high, open government, politicians, politics, public domain, public interest, publishing, science  No Responses »
Apr 112012
 

Whilst I did a piece recently on the real origins of content “piracy”, Paul currently has a lovely piece over at Never Trust a Hippy on the real origins of copyright.  Interestingly, a commenter responds thus:

Another example of ideas being far older than one thought

And here, in far fewer words than I could ever manage, is the prime justification for there existing a public domain into which all thought finally ends up residing.

This is what I recently had to say on the subject:

[...] I appreciate the need for reasonable periods of copyright, but before we support “original works” we have to understand the process that leads to their creation – and recognise what any creator owes to a previous generation of creators. There is now a massive hole in the public domain, absolutely unheard of in previous times, where nothing but nothing can legally be done to have a creative conversation with, for example, the film industry – an industry which has appropriated with every moral and legal right to do so public domain works from the 19th century for its own wonderful purposes but has refused to return its own property created thus back to the public domains of the 20th and 21st centuries.

And whilst those who are unhappy with related Google-like dynamics may indeed have a complex case to answer, we shouldn’t mix what are essentially issues of trademark and/or copyright law with matters that relate to the almost social contract that is the public domain.

I read an interesting piece in the Guardian yesterday whilst waiting for a train at Oxenholme in the Lake District.  It was arguing that the research of publicly-funded scientists should end up – as soon as practicable – in the public domain via the legal figure of open access.  As the scientific journals and their publishers added very little real value to the scientific process, and in the meantime through their paywalls made access to new ideas evermore expensive and distant (I remember a calculation made by Lawrence Lessig recently which had him hunting down online documents to allow him to understand a family member’s illness better – if he hadn’t have been a top scholar at a US university, it would have cost him over $400 to access the information), so the argument in terms of a societal benefit to automatically place in the public domain such publicly-funded data has become considerably stronger.

But I’d go even further – as you jolly well might expect.  I’d argue that such principles should not only be applied to publicly-funded scientists but also to all elected figures who reach positions of prominence or otherwise on the backs of the voters.  Without the voters and their desire to delegate responsibility, a prime minister or secretary of state would be absolutely nothing politically speaking.  When politicians give exclusive interviews to national newspapers and other media, such organisations hug very close to themselves the content thus generated.  But, in reality, they have no right to at all: arguably the words and thoughts and ideas of our politicians already belong, in very strict measure, to ourselves:

David Cameron wants to snoop into your emails, SMS text messages and telephone calls. He is bringing forward powers to enhance the big brother state in exactly the opposite way he said he would do when he was opposition leader. But guess what, I have news for Mr Cameron. In 3 days time, I discover whether or not I will be given the right to snoop into his SMS text messaging. [...]

This does, of course, have implications for open government movements across the world.  But it is only the application of a very simple and fair principle: what you get out of the system, at some in the (near and reasonable) future you put back in.

As they say: what goes around, comes around.

So why should copyright, scientists, public figures and the public domain be any different?

Trust and the business of deregulating business

 big business, Big Society, business, Ed Miliband, politics, private sector, public interest, trust, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Sep 272011
 

Our politicians talk all the time about gaining our trust.  Ed Miliband, in his speech to Labour Conference today, said the following:

The Labour Party lost trust on the economy.

And under my leadership, we will regain that trust.

I am determined to prove to you that the next Labour Government will only spend what it can afford.

That we will live within our means.

That we will manage your money properly.

As someone who believes that government can make a difference, I have a special responsibility to show you that every pound that is spent, is spent wisely.

Now maybe politicians like Mr Miliband say these things because they are perceptive and accurate in their understanding of the reality out there.  On the other hand, the more cynical amongst you will argue that they say precisely what we need to hear – precisely what politicians generally don’t allow us to do.  That is to say, they claim to aim to gain our trust and confidence because they know – exactly – they are not worthy of either.

Another part of Miliband’s speech today, though, is pertinent to the case in question – that of trust:

Take Fred Goodwin, who ran the Royal Bank of Scotland.

He was at the heart of the banking crisis.

Compare him to Sir John Rose, former Chief Executive of Rolls Royce, a great British business leader.

Creating wealth and keeping jobs in this country.

He is the true face of British business.

The vast majority of our businesses that have the right values and do the right thing.

Rooted in their communities.

Committed to their workforce.

And creating real, lasting value.

But at the time of the financial crisis, Fred Goodwin was paid over three times more than Sir John Rose.

I tell you something, Fred Goodwin shouldn’t have got that salary.

And I tell you something else:

We shouldn’t have given Sir Fred Goodwin that knighthood either.

Which is why this question occurs to me: if business wants government to deregulate its activities, and politicians understand – even if emptily – that they are obliged to gain our trust, why don’t businesspeople also feel just as obliged to convince us of their goodwill?

Why don’t businesspeople also feel just as obliged to “do the right thing” -  to do “something for something”?

Why do businesspeople – as voters – expect their governors to do what they promise but reserve a completely different set of standards for their own pecuniary behaviours? 

Why, indeed, in this Big Society environment, can’t we extend the concept of the public interest and apply it to those who work in the private sector?