We present an extract from Total State: Totalitarianism and How We Can Resist It, the new book by Dr Paul O'Brien.
Highlighting the fragility of our liberties in the context of the state and the democratic system, O'Brien critiques the ever-widening gulf between the electorate and the world of political intellectuals that’s putting our freedom, lives and liberties at stake. He sets out some of the basic ideas of key thinkers in the area of political philosophy to create an accessible and engaging read for those searching for a path into the world of complex political thought.
AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIETY
What would an alternative to our current society, with its fragile and fracturing veneer of freedom and democracy, look like? Utopianism is always risky, and historically has been one of the factors feeding into totalitarianism. That said, at the present juncture the lack of a utopian vision may feed into societal and environmental collapse. So it is perhaps worth the risk to try, tentatively, to sketch out what a desirable society might look like.
I suggest something like an eco-social model. 'Eco-social' is perhaps a more politically useful term than ‘eco-socialist’, since the latter has unfortunate connotations of centralised state control, and of a tendency towards dictatorship – however supposedly temporary such an envisaged form of control might be.
An eco-social society is one that is ‘Green’ in two ways: (1) in the ecological sense, whereby people and planet take precedence over economic growth; and (2) in the sense of grass-roots control, where decisions are made at the lowest effective level, from the ground up rather than from the top down.
Such a society is not Luddite and does not reject technology; it judges technology not on its profit-maximising capabilities but in terms of its social and ecological contribution to society. Certainly, it rejects technological inevitabilism, whereby a technology-dominated society is seen as both desirable and unavoidable.
In such a system, small-scale business and worker co-operatives are facilitated and encouraged, while large-scale corporations are broken up into smaller-scale entities. Ethical investment, worker management, profit-sharing, a strong (renewed) role for trade unions, collective wage bargaining, social partnership and economic democracy function to water down the role of profit-making in the economy, and to foreground social and ecological values.
Alternative systems of money creation are explored and implemented as appropriate. The corporate influence on government and media is strictly curtailed, and individual freedom – and specifically privacy – are to the fore as values to be defended, and indeed expanded where they have been curtailed.
Decisions in such an eco-social society are made at the lowest effective level, whether local, regional, national, supranational or international. State involvement is appropriate insofar as it benefits areas like basic industry, finance, transport, health, housing and education. Otherwise, economic and social activities are left to small-scale business and co-operatives.
In either case, there is maximum provision for popular involvement in the ownership and control of resources (which could feed into a universal monetary dividend as appropriate).
Ecology would replace economics as the dominant driving force, both at a practical and an academic level.
More immediately, there is an urgent need for a crash course in political literacy for the population as a whole. This might start with an overhaul of the educational system at all levels; however, it would not be confined to such an overhaul – the situation is too urgent for that.
It remains to be seen whether, or to what extent, such a roughly sketched scenario would interface with the technological scenario outlined by futuristic thinkers (such as Klaus Schwab). The latter scenario includes implantable technologies, wearable internet, ubiquitous computing, the internet of things, smart cities, driverless cars, the enhanced role of artificial intelligence in decision-making, robotics, the blockchain, 3D printing and neurotechnologies.
Technological development is neither bad nor good in itself – the issue is whether or not it is employed for the good of humanity and the planet. Such decisions need to be made on a case-by-case basis, rather than on the basis of either technophilia or technophobia.
In a post-pandemic world, some version of the Great Reset may be inevitable and, to a degree, desirable. The key issue lies in the extent to which such a reset is under democratic control – a control that, in turn, is influenced by a public consciousness where issues of civil liberties are to the forefront.
Such control would require the weakening, and ultimate elimination, of the corporate domination and financing of politics, along with a massive increase in public participation in decision-making. This would greatly expand our current, somewhat gestural democratic system, which involves ticking a box every few years. In a society that wants to defend and expand freedom, such a system is simply not adequate.
In our proposed example of a new kind of society, social, ethical and ecological concerns would replace the pressure of wealth creation; company laws would mandate such priorities, rather than simply the need to make money for shareholders.
In such a society, prosperity is no longer measured in terms of economic growth, but – insofar as measurements in this area have any meaning – factors such as security, happiness, sustainability, personal fulfilment, health and education would prevail as markers of a desirable society.
Since radical redistribution of wealth would take the form of a social dividend from which everyone – not just the poor – would benefit, the arguments against such redistribution would be weakened. Once implemented, such a system of direct wealth distribution would be politically difficult, if not impossible, to abolish, and could indeed function as an impetus towards further wealth-sharing and a more equitable society.
The issue with the kind of alternative politics outlined here is that it is ‘populist’ in the sense that it trusts the instincts of ordinary people to form and maintain it. In that sense, it may be open to the same kinds of arguments directed against current and former kinds of populism: that the people as a whole may have a less than optimal political consciousness.
The answer lies in a combination of education, enhanced political debate, an end to corporate control of politics and the mass media, and a cessation of media censorship (whether in terms of digital and social media, or mainstream media). There is certainly an element of trust involved in the sanguine notion that, in the long term, people will act not only in their own interests but also in those of society as a whole.
The basic priority is the enhancement of democracy and freedom, as distinct from their current erosion.
In particular, the pursuit of truth – independently of pressures from left and right, science and religion, blind conformity and wild conspiracies – is crucial to the maintenance of liberty, and to its reestablishment where it has been lost.
We need to find ways of consolidating the positive role of the state while simultaneously negating its downside and developing economic and social alternatives.
It is a difficult, but essential task.
Total State: Totalitarianism and How We Can Resist It is published by Eastwood Books
