Let's Change The System!

We were having lunch with old friends in a city-centre restaurant when 50,000 people marched past the window waving banners and chanting slogans. It wasn't unexpected: the marchers were left-wing people taking the opportunity to make their views known to the right-wing people who were staging their annual party conference here. If the right wing's choice of venue - this city which has always been a bastion of The Left - was an attempt to convince us of their credentials in respect of inclusive democracy, it missed the mark: they may comprise the majority of our coalition government but their agenda is widely regarded as being elitist. Their stated "policies" are transparently cynical ploys to capture votes so as to strengthen their grip on power: which is, unfortunately, par for the course with the party political system.

Later, while sweating out my lunch-time indulgence with 30 minutes on the cross-trainer, I convinced myself that the proprietors of the gym ought to devise a way to harness my energy by wiring the machine to an electricity-generating turbine. That way they could help save the planet - or at least refund part of my membership fee as a Kwh credit. But, to be realistic, that would be beyond the remit of a business which exists not to benefit humanity generally but to make profit for its shareholders specifically. Which is, unfortunately, par for the course with the capitalist system.

It is an endemic problem: that factions, interest groups and cliques seek to run things for their own benefit, often at the expense of others. On a small scale things can be made to work fairly: the family business, the parish council, the cricket club and so on may be persuaded - or prevailed upon - to get along with their neighbours. But when we scale the entities up the stakes get higher and neighbourliness disappears in a mist of greed-fuelled rivalry.

Two recent events illustrate the argument. On Monday Silvio Berlusconi, a convicted tax-fraudster and megalomaniac, attempted to bring down the government of Italy, not in order to rid his beloved nation of an evil, repressive government, but simply in order to further his personal, political aims. And the next day the Federal Government of the USA was shut down by a Republican faction that refuses to accept legislation that will allow 20 million fellow Americans access to health insurance. Such attempts by political interest groups to wield power, regardless of the cost to society as a whole, should alert us to the fact that the current system of democratically elected national government is in need of revision.

When I first heard of the concept "global village" I was enthused with idealistic dreams of international understanding and co-operation, free interchange of people, goods and ideas and the end of war. It seems I was too hopeful. What we actually have is a "global market", control of which is the ultimate goal of trans-national corporate entities. The efforts of national governments to regulate this process are increasingly ineffectual. Given this, and the fact that the pursuit of factional interests renders national governments unfit even for the purpose of representing the interests of their populations as a whole, it is surely time to revise the role of national government.

Here's a start: more than half of the world's  people now live in cities, many of which depend not on the economy of their host nations but on the global market. These cities would be better served if they were freed from the shackles of party politics and allowed a meaningful degree of self-governance.  Their transport systems need to be efficient, their housing needs to be adequate, healthcare, welfare and policing need to be provided. These are not matters of party politics. These are neighbourly necessities, best taken care of by consensus.