The WSJ's Opinion Pages have this article today about the Olympics, which notes that the public seems interested only in individual performers and not so much in collective sports. they link this to the lack of underlying ideological drive that made collective victories (like the famous 1980 victory for the US hockey team against the Soviet Union) so significant. Now that there is no such force binding us together, we care mostly about individual performance, personalities, success stories - and apparently the Olympics do not deliver this as well as American Idol or similar shows. The WSJ piece does not identify this as such, but this is a pretty stark acknowledgement of this trend.
The Economist had a similar story last week about the inexorable rise of professional, independently popular politicians in the UK, who are thus not attached to the party machine, and are much less loyal to the party and its leader of the day. That trend has long been visible in the US, where party discipline has never been as strict as in the UK, and where independently wealthy candidates have long been a feature of the game.
Is the chronic indiscipline that is plaguing the final phase of Mr Blair's administration the inevitable consequence of habits formed during the years of big majorities and of a prime minister whose power to reward and punish is in rapid decline? Or is it that something fundamental has changed in the way MPs themselves behave?
A bit of both is the answer, but the surprising part of it is the new-found independence of MPs. Because of the professionalisation of politics--few MPs these days have major interests outside Parliament--the power of the whips to bully and cajole should have grown. For young and eager careerists that still holds true, but it leaves out a lot of MPs who are neither and, for them, the ties that used to bind have loosened.
One reason is the erosion of ideological differences over the running of the economy. Not only are tribal loyalties less strong, but the stuff of politics has changed. Issues such as ID cards, religious hatred and no-smoking zones don't split easily or obviously along party lines, opening up the possibility for shifting alliances that coalesce temporarily to thwart government.
Like everyone else, MPs are also less deferential to authority than they used to be. They are more likely to have personal opinions that differ from the party line policy and the self-confidence (or vanity) to air and act on them. That vanity is fed by the requirements of 24-hour news channels which are always ready to give a platform to the outspoken or dissident. Disloyal backbenchers have a lot more fun than dogsbody junior ministers.
Individual MPs have become more autonomous for one other big reason: the power of incumbency. They now have ample private-office budgets, which they use to dig themselves into their constituencies. With the money to do regular mail-shots, run their own websites and compile e-mail lists of constituents, MPs have the means to communicate directly with their electorate and put themselves at the heart of any local single-issue campaigns that will raise their profile.
Thus:
- loss of ideology
- less deference to authority
- local legitimacy vs national one
- loss of effectiveness of centralised "power machines"
(I'll get back to how the current Republican party fits in this - or not)
This is all part of a general trend towards more individual freedom, independent thought, and the general unravelling of the great structures that used to hold our societies together: the church(es), unions, big party machines, life employment in big, hierarchised corporations. People knew their place in society, and there was little tolerance for deviants and uppitiness (especially from minorities or women).
The big social changes initiated in the 60s brought freedom to all, many more rights to those that were stifled or oppressed or simply ignored in society, a lot more tolerance for differences, and more generally the right for each of us to decide on its own what could make him or her happy. That has unleashed a burst of creativity and of variety, and a bewildering confusion/cacophony/wealth (your pick) of behaviors, motivated by the right, nay the imperative, to find one's own way and to pursue one's individual path to happiness. It has of course brought a backlash from the traditionalists (and/or from those that benefitted from the earlier system - the older workers already at the top of the pyramid, the middle aged white males who had all the power at home and his society) and the "culture wars" that are still being waged to this day.
The social revolution has been accompanied by the same kind of change on the economic front, in the form of a decades-long push by the conservative to promote individual performance and individual reward over the collective kind. Thus, the Reagan-Thatcher push to get rid of all the great collective institutions of the recent past, to cut taxes, and to deregulate. The individual must be set free (to earn more), and the measure of its performance is simple: money. Salaries, stock market performance, asset prices and goods ownership have become the main way to judge the "value" of a person, and the economy has slowly been organised to judge people on that sole basis, and to make it possible for individuals to capture value (note the verb here: not to create, to capture). Thus the fight against tools of public regulation of the economy (starting with taxes), against the institutions of collective bargaining (unions) that supposedly harm individuals's rights to get the best deal on their own.
Of course, that freedom, both on the social and the economic front, has generated a lot of stress. Many people are happy to have such freedom, and enjoy it, but many are also scared of it, overwhelmed by it, and some long for the good old days when not as much was possible but at least one knew its place in society, did not have to fight all the time for it, and lived more peacefully. For many, also, freedom has led to abuse, whose consequences have been paid by the "abuser" of by society. In the social sphere, this has meant more fluid relationships, as people do not feel constrained to remain forever stuck with the same spouse or to hide their sexuality or their social origins ; in the economic sphere, it has meant ruthless brutality by individuals and corporations in the pursuit of short term profit, via layoffs and the like.
Many feel uncomfortable with (or even overwhelmed by) the levels of effort that are required to function in today's society, and long for simpler answers. The renewed practice of religion, the quest for spirituality, and the focus on "values" are reactions to that.
The genius of the conservative movement has been to ride the massive changes of the past decades by providing a compelling narrative. They essentially acknowledge that the whole thing has been about freedom, but they have captured that word by splitting the whole thing into two totally different strands - the social, and the economic, and treating them very differently. Freedom is good, and the changes in the economic sphere are good, and come from that "freedom" - the empowerment of the individual must come from its economic performance, its capacity to make money. Thus, the trends on that side are encouraged. The second part of the narrative is to say that the uncertainty that comes with it come from the loss of "values", i.e. the unravelling by the liberals of the (idealised) wholesome life of the 1950s, which has brought nothing but grief: divorce, abortion, drugs, crime, lack of respect, uppity newcomers (women, minorities, gays, etc...), and a general sense of drift. Thus, that evolution is not about freedom, but about the loss of "respect". The harsh realities of the past (the discrimination, the violence within families, the stifling conformism) are ignored, as are the underlying "collective" pillars of economic success (public infrasturcture and long term investment, social safety net, strong regulations, etc).
In a word, the conservatives have managed to capture the fundamental liberal value behind the past few decades (freedom) and distorted it into a propaganda tool to promote irresponsibility in the economic sphere (the "grab what you can" economy) and excuse it in the social sphere (it's not your fault your wife left you even though you beat her, it's because of the liberals who put silly, dangerous, ideas in her head). Respect is not the same thing as responsibility.
Today's conservative movement = freedom without responsibility + "respect", i.e. blame the liberals for what's wrong.
Of course, the economic policies pushed by the conservatives have little to do with freedom, as that freedom is accessible only to a very small minority, but they have managed to convince everybody else that they belong, or could belong to that minority. The social policies of the conservatives have very little to do with freedom either, of course, but they have successfully moved the debate there form "freedom" to "values", used as a codeword for "know your place" which speaks to an increasing number of people as their ferocious economic policies create more and more social dislocation.
And the ultimate irony is that the conservatives, while valuing "freedom", have successfully built a political machine that tolerates very little deviation from the party line, and that punishes any lack of loyalty to the chief King George. The fact that they enforce discipline ruthlessly within the party (just like they enforce ruthless discipline wihin corporations) shows that they understand very well the power of collective action - provided that they lead it, and that they have to face isolated and divided opposition.
All of this tells me a number of things:
- liberals have to reclaim the mantle of freedom - on the social front. Freedom of choice, freedom to be who you want, freedom to enjoy your life as you care to;
- we have to accompany this by capturing the concept of responsibility, both personal and political. The social upheavals that conservatives complain about are the consequences not of liberal policies or lack of values, but of personal irresponsibility, promoted by the conservatives themselves with their "grab what you can" policies and their lack of care for anybody but "you";
- finally, the notion of the common good must be reintroduced. We all crave for community,and we all know very well that freedom can only be exercised meaningfully within society if there are rules that everybody obeys. That means good government, that does not interfere in your life, but arbitrates conflicts fairly. That means a government that fights irresposibility, that is blind to money, does not favor corporates over individuals, and is capable of taking care of the future, and gives a value - and a place - to the invisible commons, by punishing behavior that damages the future to provide present "value". Community is not about enforced discipline, it is about being together and/or sharing responsibility.
Individualism is not about the "grab what you can" economy. It is not the "winner takes all" world. It is the freedom for individuals to be as they want, as long as
they are responsible, i.e. that they acknowledge that they belong to a community and that their acts can have consequences for others. Freedom is about taking responsibility for what you do with others, and valuing them.
We do not live alone, in a vacuum. That's the liberal slogan: "you are free and you are not alone".
