Notes on the News

By Gwydion M. Williams

Suffering from Freedom, Rather Than Enjoying It.

India – Twisting a Twisted System

Anti-Social Housing

Snippets

China’s Continuing Rise

Still Fighting to the Last Ukrainian

An End to Feed-the-Rich?

The Alternative Right

How to be a Good Follower

Austerity Was Pointless

Fixing Addiction

Suffering from Freedom, Rather Than Enjoying It.

All round the world, a spate of elections have not produced much actual democracy.

A loss of faith in socialism means many ordinary people seeking not to be burdened by the needs of others. But are surprised and puzzled that others treat them likewise.

1960s radicals wanted to change the rules on marriage and sex, and this has largely happened. Also drugs: mostly a bad idea. Only a few mad libertarians think hard drugs should be allowed.

1960s radicals took advantage of the popular lie that the West was the Free World. The real belief, East and West and all over the world, was that freedom was valuable only when most could enjoy it. Only a few suffering from it – ideally none, but realistically there would always be some.

Smoking cigarettes was once pushed by Hollywood films. Most of us now accept limits. Likewise for road safety, and stamping out under-age sex. But few would admit that limits on freedom that you see as necessary are exactly that. Most evade the problem. Many spread muddle in bitter arguments over where the lines should be drawn.

Much of the world has not accepted that same-sex unions can be called marriage. Some, and notably in Black Africa, will not allow them at all. Some allow polygamy, at least for Muslims. Very few allow polyandry, one woman with several husbands: it was customary in Tibet but Beijing suppressed it. And in the West, those vehement that gay marriage is an inherent human right are mostly just as vehement that legal recognition of polygamy or polyandry is out of the question.

Accusing those with genuinely different beliefs of a wicked hatred of freedom is only likely to make their opposition more intense.

In the West, the 1960s young were supposed to spontaneously make a kindly and harmonious social order. But visibly have not.

Song and dance are normally part of integrating humans into a social order. They have become sophisticated money-making machines: but chaotic machines with no wider purpose.

It is not even that capitalists are in control. They are feeding off of it, but they do not control it.

When 1960s radicals got jobs and started paying tax, many were persuaded by Thatcher and Reagan that the state was wasteful and oppressive. That market forces would sweep away the bad barriers. Except that Thatcher, at least, did not expect her policies to sweep away what was left of traditional British sexual rules.

The capitalists liked a twisting of the existing Mixed Economy system to give them a much bigger slice of wealth. But the Thatcher / Reagan promise that more freedom for capitalists would mean more wealth all round was false.

Yet not seen as false, because the centre-left under leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair surrendered to this false economics. And they and other leaders do nicely, and were bitterly hostile when Corbyn and Bernie Saunders tried to revive real socialism.

Hence disasters like Brexit, which thinking capitalists mostly disliked. But there is little connection between being a successful capitalist and being able to think coherently about the wider world.

The Western system in the 1940s saved itself by taking in a lot from Leninism.^[1] But Moscow’s decline, caused basically by being Russian Nationalists in a nominally multi-national system, was used as an excuse to revert to 19th century economics.

No 19th century economy managed better than 2% annual growth. It looked amazing, only in a world where most countries changed little from century to century.

They gladly shot themselves in the foot, and now wonder why it hurts.

Mainstream Western thinking is baffled that hyping notions of Freedom gets people insisting on versions of freedom that the Mainstream West were unfamiliar with. Such as Afghans who felt liberated when the Taliban returned.

People said ‘no limits’, but actually meant ‘only my limits’.

Dogmatic freedom-is-what-I-say-it-is attitudes cause hatred and acts of violent individualism: notably mass shootings and suicide bombers.

Also ethnic conflicts, which can be avoided by compromise and by shared values being imposed. But not if every compromise is seen as wicked and as treason.

Nationalities that fought each other when not under a strong empire fight again when competitive politics is treated as an absolute ideal.

The only real success for the New Right has been to deliver vast amounts of extra wealth and income to people who already had far more than they needed for a normal life.

Weakening socialism was no success, because other hostile creeds replaced it.

Including violent individualism. Personal Totalitarianism.

India – Twisting a Twisted System

You probably weren’t told that Modi’s BJP got more votes in the recent election than in 2019.

Or that Modi only ever had just over a third of the electorate.

As usual, it is The Economist that records the unwelcome facts that practical business people need to know. And then twist them in a New Right direct, but still worth reading:

“It is not that the BJP’s popularity has fallen across the board. Its overall share of the national vote declined only fractionally, from 37.3% to 36.5%…. In the south, in the past a weak spot for the BJP where it was hoping to make headway this time, its vote share did in fact rise markedly. But in its heartland, the Hindi-speaking states of the north, its vote share fell. And whereas its increased support in the south was not enough to win it any extra seats there, its decline in the north cost it dearly…In effect, the BJP’s vote was unchanged, but much less efficiently distributed. In 2019 its 37% share of the vote won it 56% of the seats; this time a similar showing yielded only 44% of seats…

“The increase in the BJP’s share of the vote in the south was substantial: it jumped from 18% to 24%. This was the reflection of a determined push to make the BJP a truly national party, with lots of spending and visits from grandees devoted to the region. But under India’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the BJP’s improved standing did not translate into a single extra seat.”^[2]

India only has two fully national parties: Congress and the BJP. Plus Communist Parties strong in several regions, but minor elsewhere.

Leninism had mixed success in getting rooted in other societies. In China, it was marginal before Moscow made it go into alliance with the Kuomintang. And it emerged after being betrayed and massacred as the main alternative to the Kuomintang, with other options made insignificant. That’s a truth totally beyond the understanding of China’s marginal Trotskyists – I’ve just finished a long book about them,^[3] and they call it Stalin’s blunder. Yet the entire world has never seen a significant Trotskyist party except in Sri Lanka, where authentic Trotskyism no longer matters.

It sees a great many squabbling Trotskyist sects, whose rise has neatly coincided with the general decline of the left.

In India now, the BJP has 240 seats, and needs another 32 for a bare majority. Modi’s allies have 53, but two relatively large parties hold 28 of them. If they withdrew, he could not rule with the remaining 25.

But that assumes the Congress-led INDIA alliance stands solid. With jobs and other favours that Modi can offer, it is unlikely they would. Some are anyway right wing, and would probably not want to replace Modi with a Congress leader. Yet no anti-Modi government can be formed without Congress, unless the BJP itself splits.

To rule, Congress with 99 seats would need 173 allies from a great diversity of small parties. Many more than were part of INDIA, and it would be like herding cats. So probably Modi stays.

Will he do more for the poor, to win them back in his ‘cow belt’ core? Maybe. But if not, a rival Congress-led government from 2029 might do no better. He might bounce back in 2034.

Anti-Social Housing

“Why Britain is the world’s worst on homelessness.

“Insufficient housing, an eroded social sector and diminished state support made tens of thousands destitute.”^[4]

Like The Economist, the Financial Times needs to give something like the truth to the elite who actually run the country. And seem happy to see the Tories ruined, on the assumption that Starmer will try to fix a disintegrating society without being harsh on the rich.

“When people picture homelessness, they tend to imagine people sleeping rough on the street, tipped into insecurity by substance use problems. Viewed this way, one might imagine the US would rank highest in any international comparison.

“Wrong. The main form of homelessness is people living in temporary accommodation, the main driver is an inability to afford housing, and America is not even particularly close to the worst. The UK holds that ignominious title, with an astonishing one in 200 households living in emergency lodging outside the formal housing sector….

“After declining for several years, the number of English households living in temporary accommodation more than doubled between 2010 and 2023 from 48,000 to 112,000, the highest figure since records began…

“Conditions in these buildings are often atrocious. Damp and mould are commonplace, as are insect and animal infestations. The disruption of being moved from place to place causes adults to drop out of work and children out of school. In the past five years alone, the parlous state of temporary accommodation has been cited as a contributing factor in the deaths of 55 children in England.

“These arrangements also impose enormous costs on local councils…

“Relative to population size, the UK builds fewer homes than the vast majority of other developed countries. This has sent private sector rents spiralling, exacerbated by a 25 per cent shrinking of the social housing sector since the 1970s, slowly closing a crucial safety valve.

“Losing your home tips people into spirals of despair and destitution, and the inability to afford rent is by far the fastest growing source of new homelessness in England.”

Very nice for private renters. But maybe the bulk of the elite have decided it has gone too far.

Sn ippets

China’s Continuing Rise

“China Rules the Green Economy. Here’s Why That’s a Problem for Biden.»^[5]

The US elite cares more about global dominance than the welfare of its ordinary citizens. But China has gone from a maker of cheap goods to a sophisticated state-dominated economy.

“China has become a scientific superpower

“From plant biology to superconductor physics the country is at the cutting edge”^[6]

Even the dominance of US and allied electronics is failing:

“America’s assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring

« The company is growing stronger—and less vulnerable”^[7]

These reports are not from left-wing sources. Most of the left is fixated on the view that Stalin and Mao were actually failures. That repudiating Stalin was brilliant, despite the later Soviet collapse. That maintaining respect for Mao was very wrong, even if in a mundane sense China does very well.

It is left to the advisors of practical capitalists to speak something like truth:

“For centuries the West sniffed at Chinese technology. Self-regarding Europeans struggled to accept that such a far-flung place could possibly have invented the compass, the crossbow and the blast furnace…

“China is now a leading scientific power. Its scientists produce some of the world’s best research, particularly in chemistry, physics and materials science. They contribute to more papers in prestigious journals than their colleagues from America and the European Union and they produce more work that is highly cited.”^[8]

Still Fighting to the Last Ukrainian

Years before the Soviet collapse, I looked at a map and reflected that an independent Ukraine might be a very significant country.

It still might. But it would need its own version of what Putin did for Russia. And most people in Western Europe still swallow the media line that Russian support for Putin is an aberration, caused by hatred of Freedom.

No one mentions that Russia declined sharply from the comfortable stagnation of Late Soviet times.

Nor are we told that Russia under Putin has recovered. That Ukraine was corrupt and poor, even before the 2014 bust-up.

Yet can anyone still believe that Putin will be humbled and destroyed by a resurgent anti-Russian Ukraine?

I suspect the issue now is not being held responsible. In twenty years time, we may get leaks confirming that people realised from 2023 that Kiev was never going to get even the limited aim of restoring the 2022 borders. But not saying so is much safer.

Zelenski escalated his demand – no peace without Crimea. This undermines anyone in Russia who would dump the Donbass to restore relations with the West.

I’m aware that the West’s elite are making money out of the continuing war. But when reading about Europe negotiating with China over cars, I feel that a lot of the politicians realise that the whole effort to isolate Russia and China has failed.

The Gaza War has not helped, but it had already failed. That must have discouraged many from risking making enemies by trying to restrain Israel.

Ukrainians serving in Kiev’s armies are being expended, civilians in their areas suffer, and Zelensky gets away with ruling without a new electoral mandate.

But we are safer with liars than fantasists. All along, lines were drawn to make sure that it was only Ukrainians and foreign volunteers who got hurt. Not risking letting the war expand.

Unlike Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, Putin’s Weapons of Mass Destruction are real.

An End to Feed-the-Rich?

“World’s billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers

“Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis…

“Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group».^[9]

The Alternative Right

Dire warnings about a rising Far Right seem excessive to me. As they rise, they become more mainstream.

Why not say Alternative Right? A return to more normal conservatism after the destructiveness of the Thatcher / Reagan creation of a New Right.

No longer mad faith in capitalism.

Racists? Immigration, a normal part of the human history, causes resentment if too many strangers arrive too fast, and with too many strange ways. Especially in an economic decline for ordinary members of the host population, even if it was the rich in that same population that caused most of the trouble.

Humans live within social structures, but the rules are arbitrary and infinitely variable. Bringing in outsiders is always disruptive.

All modern humans are born with a potential to adapt to any system. But any system need not be your system. And ‘spontaneous human nature’ may not produce any viable system.

How to be a Good Follower

«If there is one thing anyone with a job and a pulse needs to learn, it is how to lead. That, at least, is the message from the tsunami of books, courses, videos and podcasts on the topic…

“Missing in all this is an inconvenient fact. Most people in the workforce are not leaders and pretty much everyone reports to someone else. The most useful skill to have in your current job may well be how to be a good follower…

“A corner of the management literature is devoted to ‘followership’, but it remains small.”^[10]

Another interesting piece from The Economist.

But New Right success owes a lot to ordinary people fantasising about being part of the elite. Not thinking about what is good for the sort of people they actually are.

Austerity Was Pointless

“How the ‘unforced error’ of austerity wrecked Britain

“The Tories’ cuts were an obvious economic blunder, but their disastrous consequences are still piling up – and there is little hope Labour will reverse the damage.»^[11]

From The Guardian – which however was bitterly against Corbyn when he was seriously fighting austerity. So the damage continues.

“More than two-thirds of council-funded youth centres have been closed in England over the past 14 years, owing to a prolonged squeeze on local government finances, according to research by Unison…

“1,243 youth centres had been shuttered in the period since the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government took office in 2010, leaving only 581 in operation.

“The collapse in youth services has put teenagers ‘at risk of isolation and of being swept into gang and knife culture’, Unison warned and called on the next government to prioritise rebuilding the network.

“‘In the past, youth centres were able to help keep teenagers on the right path, providing guidance and advice to youngsters who perhaps weren’t getting any support at home.»

“More than a decade of cuts to services had ‘undone much of the previous good work’.”^[12]

Fixing Addiction

“China Drug Situation Report 2021…

“Thanks to extensive drug prevention education and the Campaign “Care for Drug Users”, the scale of drug abuse kept shrinking down. As of the end of 2021, there were 1.49 million registered drug users nationwide with a year-on-year decrease of 17.5%.”

Not so good in the USA:

“We have treatments for opioid addiction that work. So why is the problem getting worse?

“Opioid addiction doesn’t get as many headlines as it used to, but the crisis is as bad as ever. It doesn’t have to be…

“Decades into the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in American history, people are dying at higher rates than ever. Between 2017 and 2021, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids jumped from 47,600 to 80,411 — many more Americans than are killed each year by guns or cars. The surge has been largely driven by powerful synthetics like fentanyl, an opioid 50 times more potent than heroin.”^[13]

Nor for us:

“Drug misuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2023…

“Although there was no change in prevalence of any drug use for people aged 16 to 59 years compared with the year ending March 2020 (9.4%), levels increased by 17% compared with the year ending March 2013, where prevalence was at an all-time low (8.1%).”^[14]

The New Right has made a world fit for junkies.

Old newsnotes at the magazine websites. I also write regular blogs – https://www.quora.com/q/mrgwydionmwilliams

^[1] https://labouraffairsmagazine.com/problems-magazine-past-issues/the-mixed-economy-won-the-cold-war/

^[2] https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/06/06/the-people-and-places-that-turned-away-from-the-bjp – pay site

^[3] Prophets Unarmed: Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail, and the Return from Limbo

^[4] https://www.ft.com/content/24117a03-37c2-424a-97ed-6a5292f9e92e – pay site

^[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/08/climate/china-us-podesta-liu.html – pay site

^[6] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/06/12/china-has-become-a-scientific-superpower – pay site

^[7] https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/06/13/americas-assassination-attempt-on-huawei-is-backfiring – pay site

^[8] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/13/how-worrying-is-the-rapid-rise-of-chinese-science – pay site

^[9] https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/apr/25/billionaires-should-pay-minimum-two-per-cent-wealth-tax-say-g20-ministers

^[10] https://www.economist.com/business/2024/05/16/how-to-be-a-good-follower – pay site