Revolutionary politics as a hobby

 Via Nigel: from Summer 1978, Intervention No2 - contributions to Marxist studies.

Bohos and Bobos

This - by David Brooks in The Atlantic - about 'Bohos' and 'Bobos' [£] is very good on shifting modern social hierarchies that allow people with high-end power-boats to think of themselves as downtrodden (Bobos). But also on the Bohos as well....

"....highly educated, curious, ironic, wittily countercultural. X people tend to underdress for social occasions, Fussell wrote. They know the best wine stores and delis. They have risen above the muck of mainstream culture to a higher, hipper sensibility."

And...

"Spending lots of money on any room formerly used by the servants was socially defensible: A $7,000 crystal chandelier in the living room was vulgar, but a $10,000, 59-inch AGA stove in the kitchen was acceptable, a sign of your foodie expertise. When it came to aesthetics, smoothness was artificial, but texture was authentic. The new elite distressed their furniture, used refurbished factory floorboards in their great rooms, and wore nubby sweaters made by formerly oppressed peoples from Peru."

MP's second jobs

Are second jobs for MPs such a good idea?

Well, one thing we know about them is that the types of second jobs that MPs have skew dramatically towards financial services and PR/lobbying. Draw your own conclusions from that.

There's a good round-up of the issue in the FT here from a couple of years ago [£] here: 

"In declarations made since the last election in 2019, some of which relate to the year before the vote, 37 MPs have registered income of various kinds from financial services companies — the largest such bloc of corporate income. The sector accounts for 8.1 per cent of UK GDP....

By contrast, just 13 MPs have received income from manufacturers, which contribute 9.9 per cent of GDP. Just 8 MPs have financial links to retailers, which contribute 4.9 per cent. Public relations or lobbying companies have employed 30 MPs."

Since the 2019 election, we've seen a number of MPs using their status to promote the interests of the companies that pay them in unacceptable ways.

There's a lot more to this, as that article shows, but I'm left with one question:

No question sharing the experiences and perspectives of the people that they represent is good for democracy. As Edmund Burke put it in the classical rendition of the role of an elected representative...

"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

But surely we could find a way of doing it in a way that is less open to corruption or even the perception of it?

A new class of class politics

 Here Jon Cruddas, Paul Thompson, Jo Ingold and Fredrick Harry Pitts struggle to make sense of the relationship between class, work, experience, agency and political destiny. I'm not sure that they come up with any answers but the discussion is illuminating.

Why we chose the wrong leaders

It may be worth your while getting to know about Brian Klaas. Brian is a political scientist who writes for (among others) the Washington Post, and he does a podcast called Power Corrupts which is worth a listen.

Brian's main argument, in his recent book Corruptible, is less that power corrupts, but that power attracts the wrong people in the first place - it's less a matter of power corrupting people, but that political power skews towards people who will be corrupt.

Here is a New Statesman profile of him:

“I conducted 500 interviews with some of the worst people around – and they weren’t normal,” he recalled. “There are quirks about them, there’s something wrong with some of them, but they’re all very, very good at getting into power. And that’s not an accident. There are ways you can counteract that tendency or amplify it, and I think we’re unfortunately amplifying it quite a lot.”

And...

"...power-hungry people are, by definition, more likely to seek power. Whether running for national office or applying to manage the local homeowners’ association, those who get off on the idea of controlling others naturally put themselves forward, while most people look at the stress, scrutiny and public pressure, and politely decline."

It's an interesting side-point that the way politics is conducted - and particularly in the social media age - we seem to be creating a climate in which only people who have very thick skins, and who are ruthless can survive. So, when bad actors deliberately poison public discourse, it has a profoundly anti-democratic outcome (which is the intention). And when people with low stakes in a debate weigh in, promoting distrust, it exacerbates it further.

The importance of James Burnham

"...the view that politics is largely a matter of mystification and trickery, and that the idea of a neutral state is a myth that serves power-hungry ruling elites."

This, from The Tablet (2nd September 2021) is worth a read. I'm not sure I share much of the author's viewpoint, but it's a good round-up of a square peg, and a reminder that agnosticism and pluralism create the space for ideas that become useful in their own time.

How have economists thought about the environment?

 This is a fine, learned and comprehensive free-to-view post on the history of how economists have considered the environment.

Crude populism and TINA

 Here, Jan-Werner Müller offers [pdf] what is, for the most part, a fairly standard synthesis of what populism is. However, this line did leap out at me:

"What might be less obvious is that technocracy and populism seem like two extremes opposed to each other – and yet they share an important characteristic: they are both forms of anti-pluralism. Technocrats hold that there’s only one correct policy solution; populists claim that there is only one authentic will of the people (and only they represent it); whoever disagrees with them, reveals themselves as traitor to the people. For both sides, there is no point in exchanging arguments, no space for debate, and, in the end, no real need for an institution like parliament.

In short: both pose dangers to democracy, and the fact that they can perversely reinforce each other compounds the peril."

The idea that there is no alternative (TINA) is as dangerous as it seemed at the time. 

Werner Müller is really worth reading - particularly for his insights (in the LRB - a long read [£]) into the German intellectual malaise that is particularly noticeable after the invasion of Ukraine.