Voting no for democracy

The European constitution is too boring to talk about: a transparent attempt by the elites to structure Europe as a neoliberal paradise, booted into touch by the first people to get the chance to vote on it. What does interest me among the acres of very dull comment on a very dull document is Will Hutton's views on democracy.

If I had to categorise Will Hutton, I'd put him down as a centrist procapitalist -- in other words, somewhat socially liberal but a financial conservative: the position adopted by many educated forty-somethings, who are too well-off to enjoy the idea of progressive taxation and redistribution and think it's probably true that business owners create wealth for all (they base this belief on the richness of the West, which is arguably not so much an outcome of its entrepreneurial spirit, given that much of its business fails to make money, but more of its rapaciousness past and present). As an aside, anyone who thinks that the Observer is a leftist paper should note that many of its commentators are in the same mould. In its desire to be "serious", the Observer has allowed itself to drift to the right -- another sign that the right has a firm grip on political discourse, so that it is hard to think your way to a coherent position on the left.

Hutton says of referenda that they are the "instrument of the democratically weak and authoritarian regime alike throughout the ages". The redefinition of democracy is one of the more interesting programmes of the regressive right, but I don't think even they would dare be quite so bold as Hutton. He is suggesting that a referendum, far from being the ultimate method of democracy (and of course the method of decision-making most common in the classical democracies of Greece) is not democratic at all. Hutton believes that allowing the governed to have a share of power is "anti-democratic". Clearly, he thinks being "democratically weak" means "not strongly enough elected". So it is a virtue of his democracy that the populace are robbed of a say, that they should only have the option of changing leaders, and not of changing leaders' minds.

Curious enough, but Hutton goes on to say:

"What has to be interpreted as the 'democratic' voice of the people is in truth the result of the anti-democratic extreme right and left coming together on this issue as they would on no other - thus weakening the parties of the normal democratic discourse who are characterised as the unlistening 'elite' while posing them with an impossible political dilemma."

Can he be serious? 62% of those who voted in the Netherlands said no to the constitution. Hutton has managed to claim that two-thirds of the population of the Netherlands are extremists and the minority that voted yes are in fact the voice of the people.

He is wrong, of course. Democracy is a measure of the will of the people, not of how readily that will can be ignored -- "democratically weak" should mean "does not have the support of the populace" (which is the position Chirac finds himself in) and not "does not feel he can ignore the populace" (as Blair did when he ignored enormous protests to take us to the war in which we continue to murder the people of Iraq without reason and without aim or end). Referenda are a fair expression of people's will. If I were running the UK, or Australia, there would be many more. It would become incumbent on pollies to educate the populace -- to convince us. You want your Capitalist States of Europe, you prove to us it's good for us.

Hutton is wrong (he's often wrong but not usually so spectacularly so). While it's true that Europe is struggling to find a way forward, and this has not helped, it should be a wakeup call for the political elites. The people don't want to go in the direction they pointed us in. Even in nations that very much see the benefits of Europe, such as the Netherlands and France, they do not see the further benefit of the vision of the centralisers; instead, they see a Europe laid open for the robber barons; they see their security, their welfare, their oldfashioned caring societies traded for the hateful coldheartedness of the anglophones.

***

Part of the problem has been shrouded in racism and nationalism, but is real enough. The expansion of Europe into the east did not serve the citizens of the west, and they could transparently see that. It was done for political reasons: to continue the process of reating a system in Europe that would not permit war -- the Natofication of Europe, I suppose you could call it -- and to ensure that the developing economies of the east would be shaped as they developed into cash cows for western firms. The EU is a powerful tool for business interests, if they understand it. A single market is a double-edged sword: there's a market for your goods, yes, but others are better equipped to exploit your part of it. Eastern Europe is rather backward and its firms not in the least competitive. It is set to be a dumping ground for our goods. All well and good for our businesses, but not so good for the people of western Europe, who can see the other side of that coin. The people of eastern Europe can come and work for those businesses! And they become the new Greeces: economies that we effectively drag into the modern day, paying through the nose to do so.

As with so much in modern politics, the effect is to transfer our taxes to businesses. The argument is that strengthening our businesses ultimately makes us wealthier. The certainty is that it puts dollars in Gradgrind's pocket and in those of the people who own shares in Gradgrind's companies.

So it comes as no surprise to learn that the rich suburbs of the Hague and Amsterdam voted yes, and the poor voted no. Competition for the rich is something they can win: the battleground is the shops of Warsaw, Budapest and Bratislava. For the poor, it is something they can only lose: and the battleground is the factories of Lille, Marseilles and Rotterdam.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:55 pm