Winston Churchill, Britain’s inspirational wartime leader once described democracy as “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
When you think about it, communism/socialism, ideal societies even religious republics, all sound great on paper, it’s just the pesky problem of getting the human element to go along with it. We all strive to live in peaceful, prosperous societies where there is both equality and ‘equality of opportunity’ for all. So when legislation is put in place to cover a rules based society, operating on those societal values, democracy wins hands down. The reason being that in democracies, our ruling politicians are required to win our consent to be governed by elections that are free and fair. They are also required to explain how their policies will make our lives better, or even just preserve what we value. We are not jammed into the narrow parameters that tyrants have decided fit with their ideals. Be that of the religious persuasion or a communist utopia that only exists in the narrow minds of its zealous proponents.
However, when democracies begin to fail to govern the ‘governed’ effectively, those ‘other forms of government’ begin to look less worse than they seem. The danger signs are mounting overseas. Extreme right wing parties are on the rise throughout Europe. In the wake of rising poverty and inequality, fascism and nationalism are beginning to rear their ugly heads again. Like Hanson in Australia, when high levels of immigration are occurring during a housing supply crisis, with rising living costs for energy and food, the populist right have set their sights on immigrants, targeting them as the major source of the problem.
Economic challenges are an ever present and democracies have been fighting a losing battle to adapt and ameliorate them. Western democracies have been struggling to balance the demands and the expectations of their societies, particularly in the provision of services and basic costs of living since the oil shocks of the 70’s and the rampant inflation it brought about. Inflation they’ve curtailed from time to time by raising interest rates and bringing economic slowdowns that further erode living standards and raise levels of inequality. This period has coincided with multinationals and the oligarchs they spawn, applying enormous pressure on governments to lower company taxes and forcing Western nations to compete for their attention and their investment.
Lower tax income hinders governments from finding the money to provide services from childcare to aged care, education, health and all the things you cannot put a price on. Services that rightfully belong in the hands of governments because we cannot just leave it to the market to provide for these essential services and hope for a fair outcome. At the urging of the rich and powerful, politicians have sought to run ‘lean and mean governments’ with a lightly taxed society, and the markets getting free rein. The problem is, it just doesn’t work. If it did, after decades of this approach, with Britain and the US the extreme examples, people would be holding hands, singing songs and dancing in the streets. Though none of us want to pay any more taxes than necessary, as ordinary taxpayers, we have not benefited to the extent high income earners and big business has. Multinational corporations especially.
Yet the fashion trend has run its course it would seem. People are fed up and voicing their anger. Right now, it’s directed at those further down the socio economic ladder because they’re an easier target. This suits big business because while people focus their anger on immigrants and refugees, they’re not focusing on the rorts corporations get away with. But what if the progressive democracies got their act together and ganged up to target multinationals and the oligarchs and actually started taxing them as they should? How much money would that release into the economy worldwide? For some time now, the OECD has toyed with the idea of an all OECD member nations tax of 15% across the board for multinational corporations. So no matter which country they domicile their earnings, the same tax rate will apply. As recently as January this year, it was backed by 146 countries.
It’s not even as though the vast fortunes the uber wealthy have accumulated has been recycled back into the economy. Ultimately, the bulk of the colossal amounts of money that the oligarchs and multinationals have amassed by not paying their fair share of tax for decades, is just sitting idle in tax havens, gathering dust, unused. It is not doing much good stashed in a hollow log somewhere. Apparently oligarchs only feel comfortable growing the pile to enormous levels that they can never truly spend. This is money that could build affordable housing, owned and run by local governments right across the world as competition for the private market. Money that could provide quality health, education, childcare and aged care. All the things we want and yet seem unable to provide. Why?
There is definitely an element of timidity. Certainly by progressive politicians. They’ve too often been forced to accept the political reality of the success their opposing conservative politicians have enjoyed for decades. Overwhelmingly through scaring people into voting for them, painting themselves as the least worst choice of governments and in the words of Paul Keating, “getting people to look inwards and down”. But the tide is well and truly turning. The newly elected Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani ran his campaign unashamedly on a policy of higher taxes for the wealthy to fund much needed public services like free childcare and affordable housing and he won convincingly. This at a time when the young are set to become the majority block of voters. Displacing in particular baby boomers, whose conservative selfishness one could argue, has left them in a society with unaffordable housing, large student debts and a less safe, less ecologically sustainable world.
Mamdani also ran as a democratic socialist. I’m not especially sure what socialism as a label brings to the debate apart from making it an easy target for a scare campaign. However, you can’t accuse him of hiding. In fact, his moves have also been described as “municipal socialism” focusing on local government ownership of public infrastructure. The point is, people have had enough and they want change. They want better, more affordable, easier lives rather than a constant struggle to pay their bills and put a roof over their head.
That an American politician, from an immigrant background can run aggressively – and win convincingly on a wealth redistribution platform, is proof enough the times are ripe for change. It would be the height of irony if this newfound appetite voters seem to have for ‘socialism Mamdani style’ came about as a direct result of decades of selfish, greedy, blinkered economic policies put in place by conservative politicians at the behest of their political masters. Policies that have not delivered for the majority and have made their lives harder.
Still, it’s doubtful any democracies in the modern world will go full circle to socialism. But don’t be too surprised to see this ‘radical fairness’ start to become the dominant form of political debate. There is no doubt in my mind that right wing politicians and the billionaires and multi nationals will go ballistic at the idea of paying higher taxes and will certainly attempt to label any attempt to get them to pay their fair share as ‘socialism’. Unfortunately for them, through their excesses of meanness and short sightedness, they have become the most effective advocates that anyone could wish for, for the wealth redistribution and fairness we so desperately need – albeit by accident.