Alternatives to a World Government#2: the deep, deep problem with a consumer society

All our breezy prescriptions for a World Government will fail miserably if they don’t address the same problem that the Governments of the Nations are grappling with. And one of the biggest is the widening gap between People and Rulers. Almost within days of arriving in office, the government of our poor namesake Sir Keir Starmer found itself plagued by a deep and inveterate hostility from the voters.

Those same voters demand endlessly lower taxes, then complain bitterly about potholes, weak defence and the lack of capacity in the prison system. They demand an end to red tape and regulation while simultaneously clamouring for restrictions on immigration, the sale of certain drugs, and the use of the internet by minors. Where has such demanding — and self‑contradictory — behaviour come from?

One possible source, we wondered (and at first this was mere speculation), is consumer society. For decades people have been born and raised in a milieu that specialises in gratifying their capricious wants: for sweet foods, for psychologically active substances, and for ever faster ways of travelling towards the next traffic jam. We do not blame companies like Amazon, Netflix or Deliveroo; they have simply perfected trends in a culture a century in the making.

So we asked: do people now demand the same instantly gratifying solutions from politicians that they expect from fast‑food companies?

Readers will be glad to know that help arrived from a much deeper thinker. We came across the work of a remarkable philosopher, Luke Yates, whose book was published in that far‑off year of 2022. Modern society, Luke argues, is based on consumption practices: convenience, speed and instant gratification. If this is how people come to perceive politics, then our outlook is dire indeed.

For, as those of us in the — er — more reflective- elements of the population have known for centuries, politics isn’t like that at all. Its word‑cloud comprises such elements as slow, procedural, available resources, nuance, evidence and above all: choose options. To expect any politician, world emperor or local councillor to wave a magic wand and solve all is to chase mare’s nests and even, dare we say it, bark at the Moon.

Which leads us to a third, depressing metaphor: dead ducks. For if Luke’s thesis is even halfway reasonable, our plan for a World Government will solve absolutely nothing at all.

Oh well. We tried.

Luke Yates (2022), How everyday life matters: everyday politics, everyday consumption and social change, Consumption and Society, 1(1): 144–169.

#world government #luke yates #consumer society #politics#economics #culture

Alternatives to a World Government #1: the deep disease of inequality

Get the diagnosis right, or the ill will never be cured. Thus far, our LSS remedy for the current malaise– economic stagnation, mass migrations, ecological collapse, the utter alienation between rulers and ruled–is the institution of a World Government (LSS passim). But that is a Historian’s diagnosis. What if other viewpoints understand the problem better? If they are right and we are wrong, then our World Government will surely fail. Let’s look at some other possibilities then, starting with our number one candidate: economic inequality. And our Witnesses for the Prosecution, as t’were, are firstly, Thomas Piketty [1] [2] and secondly Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

In Capital in the Twenty‑First Century and Capital and Ideology, Piketty shows that when the rate of return on capital outpaces economic growth — — wealth concentrates faster than societies can redistribute it. The long arc of history is one of repeated “regimes of justification” for inequality, periodically interrupted by shocks (wars, depressions) that force elites to accept progressive taxation and broader social investment. Since the 1980s, most advanced economies have dismantled the egalitarian tax and welfare structures built after 1945, allowing inequality to surge back to levels last seen in the Belle Époque. This produces political fragmentation, democratic fatigue, and a sense that the social contract has frayed. For Piketty, rising inequality is not merely an economic issue — it is a political destabiliser.

Wilkinson and Pickett’s research focuses on the psychosocial consequences of inequality. Their central claim is that what matters for social wellbeing is not absolute wealth but relative position: societies with high income inequality exhibit higher rates of mental illness, mistrust, violence, poor health outcomes, and weakened community life. Inequality, they argue, acts as a chronic stressor, pushing individuals into status competition and eroding the sense of shared fate that healthy societies require They show that wealthy but unequal societies suffer from social pathologies that cannot be explained by poverty alone. Inequality corrodes the emotional infrastructure of everyday life — the ability to trust neighbours, feel secure, and imagine a common future. In their view, rising inequality is not just a symptom of malaise but a generator of it.

So any World Government that does not tackle these deep anomies would either become a castle built on sand, or quickly degenerate into a tyranny defending the same arrangements which have brought the Nations to this present sorry pass. Not an easy argument to overcome, especially when we thought we had it all worked out. And guess what, gentle readers-more demolitions will be inflicted in upon us in the next few episodes of this new series : don’t miss it!

[1]Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty‑First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

[2]Piketty, Thomas. Capital and Ideology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.

[3]Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane, 2009.

[4]Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett. The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well‑Being. London: Allen Lane, 2018.

#inequality #economics #history #world government# #politics #society #government

More on why everyone hates Keir (but this time we’ve got serious back up)

A few months ago(LSS 5 2 26) we offered a short piece called Everyone hates Keir-here’s why, in which we pondered the troubles of Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s soon-to-be-former Prime Minister. And why this essentially dull, technocratic and overwhelmingly honest man seemed to inspire such depths of visceral hatred from so many of our fellow citizens. We tried to place it in the context of Britain’s economic decline. And our only conclusion was to liken poor Sir Keir to the sort of sensible family lawyer who tells a family of rakehell aristocrats that the family funds have finally run out. He’s not going to be welcome is he?

But today we are glad to bring you an explanation which we think goes far further, and has far more explanatory power than our own humble offering. For it comes from the sagacious Professor Ben Anderson of Durham University, in the Conversation, who places his own analysis in the context the post 2008 crash economic wasteland we all now inhabit. You should read the article for yourself; but to dare our own take, he argues that the politics of feeling have replaced the politics of coherent ideology. Poor Starmer offers reason, rationality and evidence in a world that longs for feelings of certainty, belonging and attachment.

And, we ask,what stronger feeling can there be than hatred? In some of the most memorable words we have read for some time, Professor Anderson tells us:

Hatred is intense, and that intensity is central to today’s politics of feeling. And so an apparent hatred of Starmer is about the experience of feeling something intensely – and the difference this makes to people’s everyday lives. Intense feeling interrupts boredom, loneliness and other kinds of ordinary malaise. And in uncertain and anxious times, hate offers the illusion of reassurance. It establishes an unequivocal position against something.

In such circumstances no rational centrist politician can thrive, nor even govern for long. Keynes noted that the whole world of Arts Sciences and Letters which he believed in were in mortal peril if the basic needs of ordinary people for security and food were not met. Thus he so accurately foresaw the raise of the dictators and the coming Second World War. Are we living through similar days again?

[1] https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-feeling-why-did-boring-prime-minister-keir-starmer-provoke-such-visceral-reactions-286491?utm_medium=email&utm_c

#sir keir starmer #politics #uk #economics #jm Keynes #labour party #psychology #emotion #reason #unreason

Alternatives to a World Government: Part #1 of a new series

All the thinkers we admire say the same thing really: what is your alternative explanation? Bayes insists on always balancing two probabilities. Russell on always looking at the opposite point of view, Keynes on first establishing if your pet idea is general or just a special case. And Daniel Kahneman on checking which bit of your brain you’re thinking with anyway. Which brings us round to our universal panacea, a World Government. We’ve made the case for it a number of times here(LSS passim) so veteran readers will know our diagnosis: most of the problems of the world appear intractable because nation states can never work together with sufficient speed and co-operation to resolve them. Hence economic stagnation, growing xenophobia and a rapid breakdown of the ecological systems upon which we all depend for Life.

Hang on: because aren’t we muddling diagnosis with solution? In which case abolishing the nation state becomes a futile quest, and our World Government a mare’s nest. Are there other diagnoses of our ills which, if correc.t could address all these ills while safely retaining our systems of Governance.? We ought look at them : we owe our readers that much. And so we drew up a list of other possible root causes, which we cheerfully present below. We shall examine them in the coming weeks. Our candidates include Economic inequality. Institutional decay, Technological acceleration, and its concomitant, cognitive overload., Economic model exhaustion, Tribalism and Media systems and collapse of a common narrative

None of them are mutually exclusive and we will find overlapping themes, read similar authorities and consider facts more than once as we move through the series. So bear with us. But one thing we do know: one of you out there, maybe more than one, will have an idea we haven’t thought of. So if you want to put a candidate on the list let us know. In any case we look forward to all of you accompanying us on this next journey.

# bayes #jm keynes # bertrand russell #daniel kahneman #history #economics #politics #governance #technology

Friday Night: Canadian Cocktails

“Canada : it’s a country where scale, sanity, and scenery all conspire in the traveller’s favour. You get cities that hum without overwhelming you — Vancouver’s ocean‑and‑mountain glamour, Montréal’s café‑soaked charm, Toronto’s multicultural thrum — and then, ten minutes later, you’re in a forest so vast it feels like a thought experiment. Lakes the size of small nations, wildlife that treats humans as mildly interesting background noise, and a national temperament that is unfailingly polite without being saccharine. For the holidaymaker, it’s the rare place where you can have adventure without chaos, wilderness without hardship, and culture without crowds.”

All of the preceding has been recently confirmed by first hand reports which have just reached us. In fact, the two travellers concerned (plus wives) so very much enjoyed the place that we thought we’d salute their achievements by penning a hymn of praise to Canadian cocktails. And to save time we are going to link you directly to some brilliant experts called My Bartender [1] who have compiled a list of no less than eight (count ‘em- eight!) delicious recipes, including how to make them, how to serve them, and above all how to enjoy them, whether you are touring the Maple Leaf Land itself, or sitting somewhere altogether more cramped like these sweaty offices in Croydon. Read their outpourings now to learn more about the eponymous Canadian Cocktail, the Maple Leaf (how Canadian is that?),the Canadian Maple Leaf old fashioned(answer: even more so) The White Canadian (must be good up on the snows of Baffin Island) The French Canadian (we say “oui” to that), JP Wisers Apple Jam’n (sounds as if it could soothe the savagest sasquatch) The Strawberry Sour(ditto a bear) and finally the Canadian Caesar( not to be confused with the American Caesar-he is become so tiresome lately)

And we hope that by sipping just one of the above you you will get some taste of this glorious country which our correspondents enjoyed so very much

By the way: do not really attempt to soothe actual bears with cocktails. They have their own views on mixology and tend to become prickly and stand offish at even small frustrations

_{Thanks to P Seymour and G Herbert}

[1] 8 Best Canadian Cocktails to Drink

#cocktails #canada #travel #rocky mountains #holidays

Brexit: how two Rights made a wrong

Photo by Duu0161an Cvetanoviu0107 on Pexels.com

Brexit could have worked. Read those words slowly, from an honest Remainer. Because as some of us always knew, there were pragmatic arguments from the other side, which we feared greatly, because they were exceedingly strong. So how is that most successful political project in recent British History now seems to have fallen so flat? Why, ten years on, do the memories of Brexit feel far from triumphant? We repeat, so that no one gets us wrong: Brexit could have worked. And this is why we think it didn’t.

The overarching problem was that the Leave coalition was built from two groups who wanted entirely different futures. Both were impeccably Right Wing. Both were possessed a vision of a future that could well have worked. But both pressed the same “Brexit “ button for opposite reasons. Because they belonged to two quite different right-wing tribes. One tribe, The Free‑marketeers dreamed of a Britain unshackled from Brussels, a nimble “Singapore‑on‑Thames”: low taxes, light regulation, capital flowing freely, goods moving frictionlessly, and a labour market kept competitive by high mobility. Their model required openness — to investment, to trade, and, crucially, to people. What can be more red tape than Immigration controls? But it might have been very, very prosperous.

The other half of the coalition wanted the exact reverse. The Nationalists imagined their Brexit as a chance to pull up the drawbridge: to instigate tighter immigration rules, more insulation from global competition, to achieve a more interventionist state protecting industries and communities. Some were driven by economic insecurity, some by cultural anxiety, and yes — some by outright hostility to outsiders, seeing Brexit as a way to begin a purge of “foreigners” from public life. Their model required barriers, buffers, and a powerful State willing to police identity as much as borders. It was a vision of national retreat, not global acceleration. But it might have been very, very stable.

These two projects could not coexist beyond Brexit day. You cannot believe in the free movement of capital and goods while fleeing, like a child at bathtime, from the free movement of labour. Markets do not work that way. Block labour and capital simply moves instead; block people and goods compensate; block both and you get the stagnation we now inhabit. Brexit tried to fuse two rights — the right to globalise and the right to barricade — and produced a wrong. A decade later, the contradiction still sits at the heart of British politics, unresolved and unresolvable, because the country cannot be both fortress and freeport at the same time. Deep, deep down, the question is not about Europe, nor taxes nor even immigration rules: all are details It is What do you want to be going forwards?

‘I feel entirely vindicated’: three Guardian columnists debate Brexit and its legacy | Aditya Chakrabortty, Polly Toynbee and Simon Jenkins | The Guardian The Economic Impact of Brexit | NBER

#brexit #united kingdom #european union #economics #history #nationalism #free markets

Should we blame Alan Greenspan for everything that’s gone wrong?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

As historians of the future pick through the rubble of America’s decline and fall after its supreme triumph in 1991, they will ask one plaintive question: “How was such a winning position thrown away so decisively — and so quickly?” There will be plenty of blame to go around, plenty of suspects against whom fingers will be pointed. But one name keeps coming up again and again: Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006.

Today, the case for the prosecution against “ol’ Al” is made loudly, cogently, and with devastating clarity by Robert Reich, US Secretary of Labor under Clinton and now a professor at Berkeley.

We really think you should read this [1] — especially if you have a home, a family, a community, and, most pertinently of all, a job where the salary has not risen significantly in twenty years or so. But for those pressed for time, Reich summarises what he sees as Greenspan’s masterpiece of misjudgement thus:

“If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan… the worst collapse since 1929… resulted from the deregulation of Wall Street that Greenspan advocated.”

“He pushed Clinton and Congress to repeal the Glass–Steagall Act, which since the 1930s had separated investment banking from commercial banking, thereby preventing banks from gambling with personal savings. He also argued vigorously against regulating derivatives — essentially financial bets on financial bets — that later proved to be weapons of mass financial destruction.”

Yet we ask: is the culprit really Greenspan? Or is it actually ourselves?

Greenspan was widely regarded by critics as an enthusiastic advocate of the ultra‑rich and the values they espouse: hierarchy, conspicuous consumption, obsessive individualism. Whether these are virtues or vices is a matter of debate — but they were adopted enthusiastically by wide sections of the population for decades, making the task of Greenspan and his Wall Street fellow‑travellers infinitely easier.

For the ultimate illusion they peddled was Common Sense: it makes sense to reduce the deficit, for what is a nation but a giant household? Well, it is a bit — but mostly it isn’t. So things like infrastructure, research, and health go into the “nice‑but‑we‑can’t‑afford‑it” ledger too many times, and slowly but surely decline acquires a momentous, unstoppable hegemony of its own.

So don’t just blame Greenspan — blame ourselves for buying into a system that puts that sort of man into that sort of job. And hope that future societies develop much more judicious HR policies.

[1] RIP Alan Greenspan: you were charming, powerful and wrong | Robert Reich | The Guardian

#business #economics #united states of America #alan greenspan #robert reich #finance #markets

Vaccines: it’s a question of Anthropology not Biology: Gillian Tett knows why

Why doesn’t evidence cut through? Why do reason and learning so often fail? They’re themes that have haunted this blog since its inception way back in the COVID‑19 days of 2020. Aren’t we supposed to be the heirs of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and all that? Maybe part of the answer lies in this story about the UK and Japan, and their startlingly different experiences with their respective HPV vaccination programmes, as detailed in this excellent Conversation article by Professor Justin Stebbing of Anglia Ruskin University [1].

On the face of it, vaccines are a winner: the biology is clearly understood, they save lives, and they have eliminated numerous diseases [2]. Which explains the success of the UK rollout of the HPV vaccine: Justin has a barrage of juicy statistics, but in his words the NHS now feels able to publish a plan to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem in England by 2040. Compare that with Japan, where following a reasonable start, the HPV vaccine campaign collapsed into desuetude. There were media stories, the government lost its nerve: the result is” that among girls born in certain years, coverage fell from around 70% to below 1%, and it remained at that level for years“. And Justin explains the dreary consequences at some length.

So why can’t we understand the difference between the two countries? In the end, vaccine hesitancy has very little to do with the science and everything to do with the stories people swim in. The biology stays constant; what shifts is the cultural weather around it. A rumour here, a misframed headline there, a neighbour’s anecdote, a politician’s stumble — tiny changes in narrative that can tilt whole communities from confidence to doubt. Vaccination succeeds or fails not in the laboratory but in the social world: in trust networks, identity cues, and the fragile ways humans decide whom to believe. It is anthropology, not virology, that explains why one hospital bed stays empty and another does not.

In other words, public health is really about anthropology, not biology. One person who understands this well is Gillian Tett, whose formidable book Anthro‑Vision [3] argues that the real drivers of human behaviour are rarely the numbers on the page but the cultural currents beneath them — the stories people trust, the tribes they belong to, the risks they feel rather than calculate. Public health often talks in data, but people decide in narrative. A stray rumour, a clumsy headline, a shift in group mood can undo months of scientific clarity, while a well‑placed story or trusted voice can restore confidence just as fast. And suddenly this becomes true of many of the things that preoccupy us here — climate change, economics, even the long arc of female emancipation. For all our “LSS are the heirs‑of‑the‑Age‑of‑Reason,” for all our Whiggish rhetoric, we’ve missed one important truth. People are not how we would like them to be. And this book tells us a lot about why.

[1]https://theconversation.com/the-hpv-vaccine-works-but-only-if-we-keep-trusting-it-285618?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20fo

[2] Why vaccination is important and the safest way to protect yourself – NHS

[3]Tett, Gillian. Anthro‑Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life. London: Random House Business, 2021.

#vaccination #public health # HPV #anthropology #biology #culture #history

So-why would anyone love a World Government anyway?

Recently we approached one of the sharpest minds in the UK with our thoughts on the nation state. To our immense honour they replied. Please understand that, although we must protect their confidentiality, these are their exact words:

….. the core paradox today is that countries have to be small to get a real sense of citizen accountability – but big to grapple with these problems of security and prosperity. Therein lies the size conundrum………….

And we hope that the following anecdote illustrates why they are right.

Yesterday, while wandering at leisure on England’s south coast, we came across a seafront meeting of locals who had convened to discuss ways of improving their town, which they held to be in Decline. Before anyone sneers, let us record how moved we were that they had turned out at all, and how assiduously they strived to avoid dragging in wider political allegiances. Their concerns were local indeed:-flower beds, and the colours of bus shelters, mainly. Their hostility common- a deep suspicion of their local council and all its works. Which is shortly to be replaced by a merger with certain neighbouring towns, a prospect greeted with general dismay.

It follows that, if they were so suspicious of their local council- the very first and most immediate layer of their government- how much more suspicious might they be of a World Government? And not just them, but people everywhere, from the High Arctic to the projected colonies on the Moon? What makes people cling so jealously to the local and the tangible? We confidently tell them that Big offers Defence, Economies of scale, Energy grids, Supply chains, AI, biotech, cyber capacity and Climate resilience. Plus the World Cup. And quite rightly they counter that Small offers meaningful scrutiny, power where the scale is human, that corruption is easier to spot, that leaders are socially legible (you can imagine them in your local pub), not a distant man in a suit reading from an autocue. Policy feedback loops are brief too, meaning decisions have immediate consequences political pressure works-and you see where your money is going. That is a strong set of arguments, tuned to the way people are. Should we close down this whole LSS trope of World Government, and concentrate instead on flower beds and bus shelters?

Perhaps. And perhaps not. Even the most well-kept flower beds cannot escape the droughts of climate change for ever, nor the neatest town the effects of rising seas. The threats in the world will require collective action sooner or later. While the things they love like beer, cars and chocolate are supplied from the efficiencies of world markets, the very antithesis of the local and the particular. But so far all arguments on our side have been based on reason and evidence. Which can never win the emotional loyalty which those who tell stories about Tribe and Location currently scoop with ease. It is time for us to look for stories of our own. Which can offer so much more.

#world government #accountability #politics #economics #history #power

Thomas Piketty thinks he has a way out of the mess: but do we know enough to take it?

Given the simultaneous polycrises we’re now immersed in, it’s always poignant to come across a report that offers possible ways out. So when another such is unearthed, this time by Jonathan Watts of the Guardian, [1]we were particularly intrigued. Partly because it covers some the same tropes we have circled around here ( Justice; LSS 24 4 23 et seq : Inequality: LSS 16 9 25 and governance; LSS 16 1 25 et seq) And partly because one of the report’s moving spirits is the great Historian and economist Thomas Piketty, whose name has also graced these pages. [2]

Living standards can rise for all, the authors asseverate. The worst of climate change may be mitigated. Political and social tensions ameliorated. The key is to tax the small group of billionaires who control most of the world’s wealth and power. While at the same time redirecting investment away from carbon heavy industries such as construction, mining and manufacturing and towards education and healthcare. The new world they envisage would have a shorter working week, be more prosperous (the lowest universal income quartile would come in around $5000 per annum) and above all be ecologically stable. Hyper capitalist consumers and green neo-puritans come in for equal criticism. Both endless consumption and austerity hair shirts are unfeasible say Piketty and co. Sufficiency is their new lodestar for their intriguing (dare we think Whiggish?) Third way. [3][4][5]

And our thoughts? We think the report’s careful scholarship and refreshing new thoughts are clear already. Its recommendations are both sanguine and rational and would undoubtedly contribute to a more tolerable world. But: they run up against what in everyday language is called human nature and in Social Identity Theory comparative advantage. Most people would rather live in a world where they had £10 and their neighbour £5 rather than one in which they had £15 and that neighbour £13, as their relative social advantage is better in the first instance than the second. That, in a nutshell is the human weakness.[6] It suggests that groups enjoying relative social advantage will fight like tom cats to maintain it against inferior groups, rather than join with them to their common benefit. Particularly if they are well funded to do so by sympathetic billionaires who thereby ensure their own supreme advantage over all. This is human instinct. In theory we could overcome it. Have we the cognitive capacity to do so?

[1]‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival | Environment | The Guardian

[2]Thomas Piketty – Wikipedia

[3]World Inequality Conference 2026 – World Inequality Lab

[4]World Inequality Report 2026

[5]Global Justice Project

[6] Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, “A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3), 1999, pp. 817–868.

#economics #climate change #inequalty #social justice #tax #education #decarbonisation