A Basis for Hope?

how big a deal would it be if there were a political position on which almost everybody could agree?

Democracy is in danger! The planet is dying! Society is degenerating! Demographic collapse! More pandemics coming! Robots taking over! Racists! Russians! Rednecks! Snowflakes!

Well,… despite all the generation and exploitation of fear for political purposes, there genuinely do seem to be signs that the old ways of doing things no longer work. Whatever the cause, something really is breaking down.

And then it seems that an even more disruptive dynamic emerges: The growing challenges press us all to acknowledge the presence of a problem, but at the same time we all seem to disagree, with ever-increasing vigour, on what exactly is the nature of the problem, as well as where it came from and what should be done about it. Confusion and conflict increasingly reign.

Step back. Here is a potent but very simple proposal - a suggestion that there already exists, despite the rabid polarisation on almost everything, a point of politics on which almost everybody can agree. A point which, once it is brought to attention, and its implications begin to be seen, must surely form a basis for the un-named change we all hunger for:

Is it not the case that government interferes too much in business, and business interferes to much in government?

And is it not the case that the obvious solution, indeed the only solution there can be, is a third set of institutions which are part of neither?

Such institutions existed in embryonic form in the late 19th and early 20th century, under the name ‘civic society’. Had that embryo developed, it would have become a fully-fledged ‘cultural sphere’, enabling wider social participation, and eventually forming part of a mutually regulating triad, together with the spheres of government and commerce. The embryo did not develop however. It was killed off. Maybe it was killed off by the emergence of the ‘nanny-state’, or maybe by the interests of corporate business. Or maybe by the influences of technology. Maybe it was a combination of the three. But anyway, in the latter half of the 20th century, it died.

Until something is done to start bringing it back, all attempts to create a better and more human society will clearly and unavoidably fail.

Perhaps I seem too definite in my assertion? Before you decide, consider the following:

• The State, because it is necessarily concerned with equality, is obliged to look at things from a collective level. It inherently cannot attend to the individual needs and differences which are the basis of freedom, participation and culture. That is a big problem, since those things are the basis of all that is most human.

• Corporate commerce meanwhile, whatever it might more recently like to claim, is concerned with maximising profit. It’s success in that over the past hundred years or so have by now brought it to a point of grotesque dominance.

• Irrespective of what it was that caused the premature demise of ‘civic society’ (when it was literally no more than a seedling) the result has been that government and corporate commerce have been left ever more free to get on with the business of corrupting each other.

• The problem, and thus the solution, become clear: Our systems and institutions, we begin to see, entirely block the possibility of living more humanly for a simple reason: They are entirely created and operated by governments and corporations, and human values are the priority of neither of them.

This need for a third social function is not speculative, and not ‘invented’. Indeed, it seems that it is already beginning to be recognised as the only truly viable way forward there is. What’s more, it is already happening: As the problems of living under a two-dimensional state / corporate Leviathan increasingly come home to roost, we are already seeing new cultural institutions beginning to take shape, as a natural and balancing response¹. It is so far only the tiniest response in what will be a long and difficult process, but it is nonetheless encouraging.

It should be no surprise to see the beginnings of such new cultural institutions either: Human life always has been, and always will be, made up of three fundamentals, and those are precisely the making of rules, the trading of commodities, and cultural activity. Until the three have distinct identities and institutions, and proper mutually regulating relationships, the kind of world we aspire to will be unattainable. The kind of ‘better society’ that both sides of the political divide, as well increasing numbers of protest groups, make so much noise about, will be impossible.

There’s a lot more that would need to be said about how the development of this ‘third set of institutions’, can be continued and greatly extended, and how it might eventually form a proper mutually regulating triangle with those of government and corporate commerce. And indeed a lot more can and will be said about it. But for now, it seems beyond doubt that we have in this a solid principle for understanding what has gone wrong, and what we must do going forward.

The challenges that brings are vast, difficult and long-term. But at least we no longer have to pretend we don’t know what went wrong. And nor do we need to keep deluding ourselves that we could get to a better world if only the left could finally win over the right, or the right could finally win over the left.

I will attempt some more practical thoughts on all this in my next post.

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1. I touched on these early signs of emergence in my last post, ‘The Elephant in the Womb, Part 2’.