The influence of political systems

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

Groucho Marx

Politics undoubtedly has a huge impact on everything that happens in the human world and will be instrumental to the achievement of any change in our collective behaviour. Unfortunately all political systems are to some extent or another undermined by the human flaw of self interest which influences us all. We like to think that governments act for the good of all but this is far from being the case and more often than not they actually serve the desires of a relatively small privileged few. Whilst in some cases this is the direct result of corruption more often than not it derives from a desire to give the people what they want. The issue being, that what we the people want has been manipulated by corporate marketing and the media to serve an agenda which further widens the socio-economic gap. Politics and economic are now more closely entwined that ever, no matter what fundamental political ethos a government advocates, they all now seem to be subservient to forces of market economics.

If we are to radically change our approach to living in the world, politicians must lead the way, they are not simply governors of our nations they must also be more strategic and long term in their thinking. When historians look back at the late twentieth and early twenty first century, how will they judge those who we entrusted with our future? It seems to me that even the most enlightened of them still defines the problem as continuing to achieve economic growth and development, whilst reducing the detrimental impact on the earth. The true leaders of future generations must focus on how to change the very course of mankind towards living in a harmonious and sustainable way which minimise our footprint on the earth. This will involve enormous cultural and sociological change and it will be a rare person indeed who can gain the support of the world’s citizens to take this challenging path.

I would call this politics with a big P, truly furthering the development and evolution of mankind. What I see in the world of politics today is that of the small p variety, little more than horse trading; squabbling about access to mineral rights, fish stocks, carbon quotas, the positioning of national borders and the dominance of one dogma over another. The image of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned comes to mind. I notice with some amusement how the UK government boasts of reducing carbon emissions whilst neglecting to mention that this has been achieved by the off-shoring of almost all its manufacturing capacity. In fact, with the increase in UK consumption of factored goods the actual true global carbon emissions attributable to the UK is rising significantly albeit in places like China and India. Politics today and perhaps since it first began, seems to be a game of smoke and mirrors but that will no longer do, mother earth has spoken and it is time for the children to go to bed and the grown ups to go to work. I have absolutely no doubt that the people with the necessary, vision, wisdom and courage exist to take up this mantle but I suspect none of them are listed amongst the political throng of today.

Democracy is held up by many as the ideal model for a political system but I find it somewhat floored, in as much as it assumes that the mass populous knows what is best. Collective thinking is so often a compromise and is typical founded on the popular beliefs of the time, which is fine when things are stable but when significant changes in direction are called for, the collective inertia can be devastating. Most democracies have a 4-5 year electoral cycle which is little more than an endless beauty pageant, the winner being the most charismatic proponent of what people want to hear and believe, leaving little hope for the election of anyone who actually aspires to change anything very much. The power of our longing for the security of the status quo cannot be underestimated. I wonder if we shouldn't consider a two tier approach to global politics where there is a global government for global issues and national governments subservient to it, responsible for the governance of individual nations within the wider parameters designed to protect the global interest. How this could be achieved, I do not know but we must recognise that the greatest issues facing us in the twenty first century, do not respect national boundaries and as such, the attention to them cannot be moribund by national or corporate entrenchment.

I wonder if my expectations from politics and politicians are too high, perhaps politics responds to change elsewhere and is simply the executor of greater ideals whose time has come.