(I wrote this back in July. I have run an email list that I send to friends for about a decade now about ‘globalism’. You get the drift)
Dear Globalisers, (Actively Globalising since 1999)
A country has many classes, many races, may ideologies. But about 30 years ago a particularly powerful and ideologically ‘untouchable’ class moved into the political centre stage of Anglo societies. Let’s just call them the ’shopkeepers’ for sake of rigorous email argument.
And who has the world’s most powerful ’shopkeeping’ class? It ain’t the Americans with their Hummers, nor the French with their ideologies, it ain’t the Italians because they don’t play the world game, and it ain’t the Australians because they have a powerful Asian quarry to manage. It is the British. Napoleon knew this. British shopkeepers rule the world!
And about 30 years ago a particularly nasty ’shopkeeper’ took centre stage. A try-hard ’shopkeeper’ who wanted to turn her little shop full of dreams into a government and corporate ideology that ran the world. And she largely succeeded until about now. Along with Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Hi Chi Minh, Thatcher was perhaps one of the most influential leaders of the 20th Century (for better of worse).
Organized Labour was demonised. We are all shop-keepers now! Government management of economic risk was marginaised. We are all shop-keepers now! Big picture education was marginaised. We are all shop keepers now! Collectivism beyond ‘a shop full of dreams’ was marginalised ‘we are all shop keepers now!
What do ’shop keepers’ want? They want economic autonomy; their own bubble house, they want to manage their own labour force free from government interference. ‘Shopkeepers’ want a small picture laissez faire island; ‘as long as my shop is doing OK then the world must be a good place to live in’. The ’shopkeepers’ largely succeeded in unwinding the modern collectivism of the People’s Century (the 20th Century) and turning Britain et. al. into a confused and incoherent society that has problems understanding itself let alone the world stage where the ’shopkeepers’ and perhaps Britain no longer belong.
The ’shopkeepers’ indebted the British people, they destroyed their manufacturing industry, they degraded their universities, they marginaised their great culture, and undermined their great living cities. How many more shops does the world need? Where is the great English boot factories; the ship builders, the nation builders, the democratic innovation, the intellectual courage, the fart jokes?
The year is 2013. I see a road full of dead shops. The economy has largely collapsed; the ’shop keepers’ have boarded up their debt ridden houses dreaming about the days when they could afford 4 brands of grainy mustard and build their petty social empires. The world was expansive then! But then we ran out of oil, food got expensive, the Dutch drown whist wiping their arse with biodegradable toilet role.
Don’t get me wrong. I love real shopkeepers. I adore them. They work harder than me and they are decent people. But the concept of a ’shopkeeper’ was hijacked first by Thatcher in the 1980s and then by a long line of arse-lickers from Canberra to the White House (just like Stalin hijacked the concept of a worker). They got it wrong. They fucked up. They turned academics and politicians, truck drivers and scientists into socially narrow bourgeois unable to even think about; let alone address the challenges that face everyone else beyond their ’shop full of dreams’.
Governments shouldn’t have privatised vital societal assets, they should have mitigated economic risk through regulation, they should have kept money from accumulating in the unproductive housing industry, and they should have instilled inspirational policies that reward the collective spirit of a good people (we did this once). And most importantly they should have looked after real shopkeepers who are workers just like the rest of us.
We are in progressive times and great leaders are defined by great challenges. The Anglo economic downturn will be soul-searching, but it will also be a time to look at fresh components of our society for inspiration and leadership. It is the down-turn we needed to have. The world is rapidly globalising, but it ain’t going to be pretty for the next few years. We may see another side of the phenomena, just like we saw the ugly side of ‘nationalism’ there is an ugly side to ‘globalism’. And as the ’shopkeepers’ decline, another group awaits who may look even nastier. The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
Love and Peas Globalisers,
Craig xo
