It’s funny how some things stick in the mind. We have never forgotten a line from the blurb on the back of our old 1975 Penguin copy of Keep the Aspidistra Flying. ”……Orwell knew how for many people, their political opinions really represented their own inner emotional preoccupations” In other words all that Enlightenment, Marxist and Chicago stuff about rational choices, class, economic determinism etc, etc, etc, is strictly for the birds.
We don’t always agree with everything from Aditya Chakrabortty. But he is readable, counterintuitive, and open to new ideas. Above all, he can be original-and that is much. Nowhere more so than in this fascinating article Heading Isolated into the Night, these are the voters our politicians created. Because he drills deep down into the lonely, overworked and desperately insecure world of the gig economy. Taxi drivers. Builders. Delivery Drivers. Call centre and warehouse workers. Fishermen. Is this demographic starting to sound familiar? Given the pressure they are under is it reasonable, or even remotely just, to expect them to argue like an LSE Professor?
The whole thing led us to do a bit more digging. And we came across the work of a man called Erich Fromm, whom, to our infinite shame, we had never heard of. [2] We think that we, and you gentle reader, need to do a lot more on this man and his field of political psychology. And remember this. Next time you meet someone with extreme political views, or even just ranting, ask yourself this. Are they really telling you about Political Economy? Or just their own unhappy. frustrated life? It’s a point we hope to revisit.
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm
#aditya chakrabortty #gig economy #liong hours culture #politics economics #erich fromm #psychology
Learning, Science and Society 