We Count, We Matter

Voice, Choice and the Death of Distance

Christopher Steed

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351394154
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

This book examines the meaning of Brexit, the election of Trump and the rising tide of populist revolt on the right amidst the collapse of the left. Exploring the reaction against the establishment or 'the system', the author contends that we are witnessing a new divide between those who wish to see an interconnected world and those who seek distance: as transport and technology shrink the world, we witness a backlash that favours protectionism and opposes immigration. Distance is the new frontier: for some, remote players are rejected in favour of identities closer to home. This divide plays out in relation to the notion of 'face', as individuals react to 'faceless' organisations and processes such as globalisation and automation, responding to a sense of alienation on social media and developing a conception of themselves as networked individuals. Thus, we move towards a type of society characterised not by honour and dishonour, or right and wrong, but by voice and choice. A fascinating and very accessible analysis of the divisions and transformations that have come to dominate the contemporary landscape, this book will appeal to political leaders and social scientists with interests in globalisation, social movements and social theory.

1Trump cards

The forces of seismic reaction had been building for a long time. They were cut from the same cloth as popular reactions to many social forces: forces that had been protesting for a while against the establishment that controlled how things were arranged and ordered the world in its own image.

It was in 2016 that they burst through the dam.

A wired-up, connected world open to trade and movement of people with acceptance and embrace is generating contrasting reactions. Those who are open and tolerant are more likely to be millennials or Facebook natives and have a world-view less rooted in communities and national identity. Others respond to a world where distance has collapsed by putting up the drawbridge; closing rank against free movement of foreigners and migrants. A populist has now assumed the US presidency by campaigning on a platform of stark economic nationalism and protectionism. By definition, walls and drawbridges sustain distance and separation.

Donald Trump’s words at his inauguration (which appear at the beginning of this book) expressed the shift from the globalist tendency to the re-assertion of the nation state. “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, DC and giving it back to you, the people”.¹

In response to the election of Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan, who stood for the Republican Party’s nomination in 1992 and 1996 on an anti-trade platform, put it like this: “Globalisation is finished. The future belongs to ethno-nationalism and economic nationalism”.²

The slippery concept of nationalism can be extended to either its civic or ethnic forms. A networked world is creating two different reactions, one positive, one negative. Why? The lens through which this can be examined is that of ‘facework’ – the facelessness of invisible forces and elites or of accelerating technological change. These reactions map on to pre-existing ways of seeing the world. The supporters of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election of April 2017 tended to be well educated, more metropolitan but also more optimistic. A positive view of the world was held by 72% of his campaign constituency compared with 29% of those who backed Marine Le Pen and the Front National.³

A marked feature of Western society at the present time is sweeping transformations in the social and political environment. The plates are shifting. The world works differently. In politics we see a fragmented landscape characterised by disconnect and the rise of nationalisms. Angst about Europe or globalisation is much about remote forces out there who control our lives. It signifies a retreat into identity. Community solutions are seen as preferable rather than centralised control where ‘we do things for you!’ In the economy we see a crowded marketplace replete with small business, the consumer and the rise of the social economy. Public ownership and centralised targets are perhaps on the retreat though it remains to be seen how the Corbyn political agenda will play out. Paternalism won’t work in welfare or indeed international development. In education too, a reaction against impersonal systems competes with systematised provision. Organisations are less top-down and bureaucratic, coming under scrutiny as never before as educated citizens realise their own agency. These changes indicate that just as technology has killed distance, distance is very much alive as an existential threat. The need is for human connection as a way of overcoming such alienation; local identities and personalised public services on a human scale. Political processes such as the Scottish National Party in 2014 and the UK Labour Party in 2015–2017 have deployed involve new approaches to collective action through building new mass movements.

We are going to examine the notion that there are common themes in people rising up in protest as so many contemporary people appear to find that forms of social life do not match individual aspirations. The sense that there is something wrong with our world had replaced the broad acceptance of the political system. The thread running through reactions by people against ‘the system’, whether or not gathered into people movements, was two responses to ‘distance’. A pervasive perception of distant, remote forces who controlled your life and destiny engendered suspicion and hostility. Those ‘out there’ far removed had power over your world. It was unsurprising people reacted against them.

In the UK referendum to leave the EU that summer of 2016, the key phrase was ‘bring back control’. People voted to wrest power back from the unelected (as they saw it) and restore it to our own country. The faceless who pulled the strings should be kicked away. In the event, the result was a chance for a free kick against all those who had seemed to hold ordinary people in contempt. “We’re putting power back in the hands of the people”, as Trump underlined.

The buzz word was ‘populism’. The word raised many questions. What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are ‘the people’ anyway and who can speak in their name? What is their legitimacy?⁴ How far does the new populism bring a challenge to democratic politics? Or was it a slightly sneering term used by undemocratic commentators, purely in the eye of the beholder? Perhaps the meaning of this slippery term is best seen through what it does; populism performs.

Literature has explored the backcloth to some of these themes. In Returning to Reims, Didier Eribon returns to his hometown and rediscovers the working-class world he had left behind 30 years earlier. For years, Eribon had thought of his father largely in terms of the latter’s intolerable homophobia. It is his father’s death that opens Eribon’s eyes to the way by which multiple processes of domination intersect in a given life and in a given culture. He reflects on how sexual identity can clash with other parts of one’s identity.⁵

In a similar location, The End of Eddy explores similar themes. Édouard Louis came from Hallencourt, a village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. Before he had a chance to rebel against the world of his childhood, that world rebelled against him. Confronting his parents, his social class, its poverty, racism and brutality followed inescapably. It was a serious attempt through a debut novel to try to understand that world, happy hunting ground for populist parties.⁶

It is not often that we get a bottom-up analysis from the grassroots. Amidst the political shockwaves that followed a stunned America, the election of Donald Trump elevated his own book, The Art of the Deal, to the number one position on the New York Times bestseller list.⁷ Number two on the list was an unusual choice, a book that offered rich insight into why ‘Rust Belt America had voted the way it did’. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis was a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis, that of white working-class Americans, searingly written from the inside. It was an urgent and troubling meditation on the demographic that has been slowly disintegrating over 40 years and the loss of the American dream for a large segment of the population.⁸

In a resonant elegy, Strangers in Their Own Land, the sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarked on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country – a stronghold of the conservative right. As she encounters those who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets, people whose concerns are common to most citizens: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children. Her journey offers several interesting paradoxes: the main paradox about why people are so right-leaning, big government-hating in a state that relies so heavily on federal subsidies. The ambiguity is reflected too in the juxtaposition of people needing big industry for their livelihoods, but also hating that they have to live with its pollution and the corruption within the Government.⁹

Based on five years of immersion reporting among Tea Party loyalists, Hochschild’s journey uncovered a substantial group of voters who felt they were at the bottom of the hill; waiting in vain to climb up, waiting for a pay rise. At the top of the hill beckoned the American dream. Immigrants and black people had jumped the queue, waved to with encouragement by former President Obama. In short, the Government was not working for them. Her journey was one of engagement; engagement with people who thought differently from you.

In George Santayana’s novel of 1935, The Last Puritan,¹⁰ he articulates an untrained, pushing, cosmopolitan orphan unleashed by industrial capitalism in America. The schoolmaster Cyrus Whittle signposted the liberal internationalist globalisers who promoted the Americanisation of the world. Confident in the easy assumption of progress, the aftermath of the Second World War saw the USA as the wealthiest, most powerful nation on Earth. It was the natural heir of the reason, freedom and democracy that Europe had forfeited. Now in 2016, a new ideological era had dawned. American society and culture seemed to have a big question mark over it.¹¹ The lack of belonging is manifested in the alienated life that many perceived they were living. They felt they were losing themselves amidst the forms of contemporary life that were oppressing them. It all touched a cultural nerve.

Donald Trump triggered a political earthquake, making promises to bring jobs back in abundance despite the manufacturing that had migrated overseas. Historical changes had taken place. Bringing American jobs back from the Far East meant a counter-reaction against free trade and open borders. Donald Trump had succeeded in rallying those who felt locked out of the system. It was not just those who had never been to university: a significant proportion of middle-class Americans voted for him, wanting to regain control over their lives. As a fervent Trump supporter, Cleveland Pastor James Davis, gushed, “the little guy who felt the country had been taken from them have now got the Republic back”.¹² It was a moment of wide-scale rejection of establishment politics and the global rise of a right-wing populist movement. Being more cosmopolitan and not really grasping the new politics of identity rooted in place, few left-wing parties were succeeding. They had not connected with cultural concerns of voters about feeling overrun; the anger against the faceless. The outliers were Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn whose currency was the politics of hope.

Political rhetoric had become stale and the mistrust of politicians made voters flock to populists who promised elemental authenticity or tru...