Saturday, September 18, 2021

What use are politicians? (2021)

From the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are lucky in the West, there’s no denying it. We don’t have a war to face, we’re not slaves, we’re not starving, our kids get an education, public health, a choice of food, a measure of security and comfort.

But are we having a good time? Are any of us? Many of us don’t have jobs, or careers, or prospects. Those of us who do work are forced into the regimentation of the workplace, of bosses, of time-sheets and production quotas, reports, key performance indicators, the nine to five, the bills, the mortgage, the stress. Our kids are now being made to work harder and from a younger age to become skilled and employable. Kids of five are now being given homework.

We live in the world of capitalism, and everybody knows that capitalism is not perfect, that it has problems. Everybody knows that what we have to try to do is fix the problems That’s why we vote for politicians. They’re supposed to be fixing it for us.

Capitalism is like a car that’s permanently on blocks, with some politician underneath it and another one in the bonnet, shaking his head saying ‘Oh dear oh dear, that looks bad, that does.’ But what can you do? Capitalism may not be perfect but it’s the only thing we have and after all it does work, sort of.

‘Sort of’? We have the most technologically advanced society that’s ever existed. But when it comes to doing something useful like feeding the people in it, or limiting pollution and global warming, we can only manage ‘sort of.’

Politicians talk about this problem or that issue – within capitalism. The real reason why politicians all sound the same, and why people find it so hard to be interested in politics, is that they all have this same frame of reference. If you question capitalism itself you automatically put yourself outside that frame of reference, and that’s when the politics of capitalism suddenly becomes meaningless to you.

The experts in charge of decision-making are not ‘expert’ at all. No more than you are. You keep paying the bills but the car never gets fixed.

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