Fighting back in the 21st century

Democracy has been eroded, that is why politicians no longer represent us satisfactorily.

Parliament is a talking shop, real power lies with government.

The turning point came with the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US.

Both took the Western world down the road of free market capitalism under the influence of the Hayek and Chicago schools.

It is also ironic that both despised government but didn’t hesitate to use its tremendous power to affect the most profound and destructive changes to real democracy, ie. political, social and economic.

The direct beneficiaries of this roll-back were and still are the wealthy and big business.

This almost shattered the post-war people’s consensus which followed Labour’s landslide election in 1945.

In many ways, this early part of the 21st century is seeing the fight-back helped greatly by the inevitable overreach and self-destructive nature of those who wield power without responsibility or accountability.

As significant signs I select the EU referendum, the election of Donald Trump (also US) and the crash of 2007/08. There are others.

How it will turn out is an open question. Like all revolutions, there are good and bad elements.

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