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Macho Politics
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At the age of 15 I was the leader of my own party, my heroes were from the right; Winston Churchill, Oswald Mosely and Enoch Powell. By age 18 I had moved to far more respectable ground and I joined the SDP (Social Democratic Party) in the first few weeks after the launch. Throughout my student days I stayed a loyal Social Democrat although I always had an urge to be a radical. |
Wide Eyed Radical. 1981 |
Most of the politically active students were either nominally Trotskyites or Anarchists. (Somehow a capital A seems appropriate for this organized rabble). They were principally a bunch of posers rather than actually genuine thinkers. The Anarchists could never explain how they expected a society to run without a government, they just enjoyed demos, marches and the chance to throw stones at the Police. I shared a room with an anarchist, he would never debate his views or how he got them, they were a badge that came with the haircut and the music. More a fashion lifestyle statement than a philosophy.
The Trots were the worst. "Trots" being a generic term of abuse for a wide range of posers who considered being left wing was the in thing, and being more left wing than anybody else around became their goal in life. Leon Trotsky was their hero. They too enjoyed marches, demos and abusing the Police. They also engineered a series of political stunts in support of "right-on" causes such as the boycott of any company with the slightest links to South Africa (NUS marches ostensibly about student grants were punctuated by calls of "Barclays Bankers Are All Wankers!" as the marchers passed Barclays banks) opposition to the dictatorship in Chile, the campaign for (unilateral) nuclear disarmament by Britain and support for Sinn Fein. The attitude was if Maggie Thatcher supports it they must oppose it.
This trendy attitude got up the noses of quite a lot of the other students. I took too much pleasure when my Hall of Residence committee let the sponsorship of an Angolan child lapse and instead sponsored a Sergeant in the South African Police, and I also feel a little ashamed of my glee in seeing Conservative students wearing "Hang Nelson Mandela" badges. I did not support South Africa, quite the opposite, but I was just thoroughly pissed off by the right-on politics being aired all the time in Student Union meetings. I hated the constant striking of poses and lack of any sense of reality exhibited by these trendies who occupied University buildings and marched down the street in pointless demonstrations. They knew it was pointless, I knew it weakened the cause of students with genuine grievances. Anything that annoyed the Trots was worth trying.
Since leaving University my life has been rocky. I have learned by experience that the capitalist dream is a snare. For most people the dream never materializes. For many it is a nightmare. There has to be a better way. It became obvious to me that socialism of a kind must be the answer but that socialism in one country would never work. It has not worked very well wherever it has been tried. Life in socialist countries always compares badly with the portrayal of the western capitalist world.
If everybody in the whole world was properly fed and nobody was rich the total sum of human happiness would probably be more than the current situation in which a few have to cope with the problems of affluence while the many cope with destitution. The solution must be to achieve a democratic world government first. Once the world is one there is no reason to elect a conservative, a fascist or an economic liberal. The super-rich corporations want to maintain the status quo, countries are convenient, national rivalries are there for them to exploit. Committed socialists who have gained power within democratic countries have to swallow their pride (and hide their contempt) to woo international capitalists to come and offer their people wages just above the poverty level, because if they don't another country will.
Multinational companies are too big to be taken on by most governments and they hold the trump card in that they can always go elsewhere. I suggest removing that card, remove elsewhere. Once the world is united as one country, one nation, one people there is no platform for the right.
Who would elect a Hitler to run the world? Not many people, never a majority. Hitler only became popular by opposing outsiders; who could a potential World President oppose? The only possible coalition to run the whole world would have to have the support of an enormous cross-section of interests. I predict that it would start out as reformist and mildly redistributive, with a strong green agenda too. With time the proposals could become more radical as the poor of the world woke up to the power of their numbers. It might take two generations or so to achieve something thoroughly socialist. It should not be rushed, a smooth transition to power is far safer and more likely to remain as a permanent change.