I very much enjoyed this piece… although I see things a little differently, I learned a lot. I love the closing phrase about the wisdom of the pavements; the statistic on the scale of the wealth transfer from poor to rich in the US is mind-blowing; and I particularly valued getting a proper understanding of AOC.
I very much enjoyed this piece… although I see things a little differently, I learned a lot. I love the closing phrase about the wisdom of the pavements; the statistic on the scale of the wealth transfer from poor to rich in the US is mind-blowing; and I particularly valued getting a proper understanding of AOC.
I think my main point of difference is that I see the new politics - which I would call Citizen Democracy - taking shape primarily outside the formal political system, and then challenging that system to evolve into it. It’s the Buckminster Fuller quote about changing things by creating new models, rather than fighting the existing system. This is how I see what has happened with Gov Zero in Taiwan, the Chilean constitutional campaign (whose failures, indeed, I would tend to blame on the left), the deliberative wave around the world and especially in its incarnations in the standing citizens assemblies now in place in Paris and Brussels. I think I see AOC in this light too - she’s an outsider acting from the inside.
I would also argue, as a result of seeing it more as an outside than inside phenomenon, that identifying this solely with the left is questionable - which makes me struggle with the language of “definite left” that pins it there so strongly. I’m not sure it’s necessarily accurate and I wonder if it might even risk being unhelpful to put it in this box - when as Anthony says it has as many enemies on the traditional left as on the right. I also see it as emerging both in the centre and on the right too, in different contexts around the world. The Taiwanese changemaker Audrey Tang describes herself as a “conservative anarchist” for example; parts of the liberal centre are driving it in France; even in the UK the Tory think tank Onward is probably the closest think tank to articulating it, although with serious flaws.
So I suppose in sum I am very much in agreement that there is something new and vital emerging - and I also agree that it can and must manifest on the left. But I don’t think it’s starting from there, and I don’t think it can or even tactically should be claimed as a phenomenon OF the left. As I see it, there is a Citizen shift across the whole of politics - and it will take hold more fully if political debate becomes a contest over how it is done, not the property of one party or tradition.
Thanks Anthony. I still disagree though! I think you’re contesting my view on two points, which I’ll take in turn.
First you’re saying that because economic fairness (my deliberately different paraphrase) is a part of this, that means its of the Left. But it was Liberals who first championed and proposed Universal Basic Income, for example, and of course there’s Beveridge. And even on the Right there is a strong tradition of economic fairness, if not equality. If I were being belligerent I’d say you’re creating straw men of the other sides, and not appreciating that the same could be done in return - and if it were, the argument would be that the Left always proposes Big State solutions, which I would argue is just as antithetical to this whole phenomenon as some of the reasons for which you exclude the Right and Centre.
Second I think you’re arguing that it can’t meaningfully form outside party politics, that it only becomes meaningful when it engages. But why can’t these be phases? Forming and then engaging? Especially when you then speak admiringly of Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics - which I see as a great example of a movement growing outside of formal politics, and formal politics stepping into it - and perhaps the best western analogy to what the Gov Zero movement did in Taiwan. I think of it in the terms of Bucky Fuller - “you never change things by fighting the existing reality; to change something, create a new model that makes the existing obsolete.”
In fact, I’m going to go even further than I did in my first response! I actually don’t think this is even just a political phenomenon, let alone a phenomenon of one political tradition. I think it’s bigger than that. I think it’s happening in business and in civil society too. It’s primarily a cultural phenomenon - not a political one.
The reason this matters is because I think the whole game of society is changing, on a scale we haven’t seen in 80 years - not just a new wave of left politics. And I believe it needs to be supported to take shape everywhere, not be claimed by one side of one sector to the exclusion of all else.
I very much enjoyed this piece… although I see things a little differently, I learned a lot. I love the closing phrase about the wisdom of the pavements; the statistic on the scale of the wealth transfer from poor to rich in the US is mind-blowing; and I particularly valued getting a proper understanding of AOC.
I think my main point of difference is that I see the new politics - which I would call Citizen Democracy - taking shape primarily outside the formal political system, and then challenging that system to evolve into it. It’s the Buckminster Fuller quote about changing things by creating new models, rather than fighting the existing system. This is how I see what has happened with Gov Zero in Taiwan, the Chilean constitutional campaign (whose failures, indeed, I would tend to blame on the left), the deliberative wave around the world and especially in its incarnations in the standing citizens assemblies now in place in Paris and Brussels. I think I see AOC in this light too - she’s an outsider acting from the inside.
I would also argue, as a result of seeing it more as an outside than inside phenomenon, that identifying this solely with the left is questionable - which makes me struggle with the language of “definite left” that pins it there so strongly. I’m not sure it’s necessarily accurate and I wonder if it might even risk being unhelpful to put it in this box - when as Anthony says it has as many enemies on the traditional left as on the right. I also see it as emerging both in the centre and on the right too, in different contexts around the world. The Taiwanese changemaker Audrey Tang describes herself as a “conservative anarchist” for example; parts of the liberal centre are driving it in France; even in the UK the Tory think tank Onward is probably the closest think tank to articulating it, although with serious flaws.
So I suppose in sum I am very much in agreement that there is something new and vital emerging - and I also agree that it can and must manifest on the left. But I don’t think it’s starting from there, and I don’t think it can or even tactically should be claimed as a phenomenon OF the left. As I see it, there is a Citizen shift across the whole of politics - and it will take hold more fully if political debate becomes a contest over how it is done, not the property of one party or tradition.
Let the debate continue!
Thanks Jon, much appreciated. There is so much we agree about and yet there is also an important difference of approach. I try to summarize this here https://bylinetimes.com/2023/01/09/clashes-over-the-definite-left/
Thanks Anthony. I still disagree though! I think you’re contesting my view on two points, which I’ll take in turn.
First you’re saying that because economic fairness (my deliberately different paraphrase) is a part of this, that means its of the Left. But it was Liberals who first championed and proposed Universal Basic Income, for example, and of course there’s Beveridge. And even on the Right there is a strong tradition of economic fairness, if not equality. If I were being belligerent I’d say you’re creating straw men of the other sides, and not appreciating that the same could be done in return - and if it were, the argument would be that the Left always proposes Big State solutions, which I would argue is just as antithetical to this whole phenomenon as some of the reasons for which you exclude the Right and Centre.
Second I think you’re arguing that it can’t meaningfully form outside party politics, that it only becomes meaningful when it engages. But why can’t these be phases? Forming and then engaging? Especially when you then speak admiringly of Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics - which I see as a great example of a movement growing outside of formal politics, and formal politics stepping into it - and perhaps the best western analogy to what the Gov Zero movement did in Taiwan. I think of it in the terms of Bucky Fuller - “you never change things by fighting the existing reality; to change something, create a new model that makes the existing obsolete.”
In fact, I’m going to go even further than I did in my first response! I actually don’t think this is even just a political phenomenon, let alone a phenomenon of one political tradition. I think it’s bigger than that. I think it’s happening in business and in civil society too. It’s primarily a cultural phenomenon - not a political one.
The reason this matters is because I think the whole game of society is changing, on a scale we haven’t seen in 80 years - not just a new wave of left politics. And I believe it needs to be supported to take shape everywhere, not be claimed by one side of one sector to the exclusion of all else.