The complex forces of globalization and technological change have not eliminated the ability of citizens to use the state as a means to fight inequality.
Inequality is finally, mercifully, a topic of common concern. Articles are regularly popping up in the mainstream media, expressing relief at our newfound willingness to address the topic, from people who had a platform for addressing such issues well before the Occupy movement did.
Lately these articles seem to support a common premise: Inequality is driven by complex forces some of which are, to quote Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson, “beyond the reach of government.”
Technology and globalization are most often singled out as examples of these forces. From global editor-at-large Chrystia Freeland of Reuters, “[Rapidly rising inequality] is the consequence of a massive – and broadly positive – economic transformation … the big drivers are the twin revolutions reshaping the world economy – globalization and new technology.” From Vancouver Sun columnist Craig McInnes, “Why are we working harder and earning less? … technological change and globalization.”
Certainly, technology and globalization – if they can be so neatly separated for analytical sake – are playing a major role in structuring the world. But instead of simply suggesting that this explanation is “politically inconvenient,” as Freeland does, we need to take a careful look at how government shapes, is shaped by, and responds to these forces.
Globalization and technological change are the result of our collective actions. So, we need to remember, is government. It doesn’t take much to realize that very selective, government-driven trade liberalization is a key component of globalization. Government decisions to enter trade deals also coincided with decisions to de-fund education and social services – to ignore the effect that both globalization and technology would have on the working class, who faced either a transition into high-skilled labour, or the decline into informal and low-paying service-sector jobs that has gutted wages on the lower end of the spectrum.
To be clear, looking back to government doesn’t mean blind support for the postwar consensus model of big government. It’s past time for us to innovate beyond that model, – not by abandoning the idea of government, but by being both imaginative and pragmatic about what it can look like in a networked society. Abandoning the idea that government – which, we easily forget, can simply mean the body of people who make and enforce laws, a body we are all potentially part of – can solve problems is some of what has gotten us into this mess of inequality in the first place.
When people are increasingly in dire need, we should be loath to see government get smaller. Even many economists would agree with this statement. Instead we should focus on seeing how it can become more open, more democratic, and more widely distributed. Words like “capitalism,” “socialism,” or “anarchism” have utterly failed to help all of us come together to agree on what a more equitable distribution of governing powers might look like.
Looking to government is essential if we want a meaningful democracy that combats inequality. So is re-conceiving what government means to us. What we’re learning from this crisis and the response of Occupy movements is that “grassroots” democracy is the logical response to political systems that have lost touch with the body politic. That lesson is long overdue.
What we may be learning, too, is that democracy at a “grassroots” level is the only real kind of democracy, since the alternative – representative and bureaucratic – has failed to meet the basic condition of striving to serve all people equally. The postwar consensus was fantastic for producing a large middle class – a great achievement – but let’s not forget that it still left a marginalized underclass who were alienated both from and by the bureaucratic structures of a centralized government.
That bureaucracy, which is more easily navigated and manipulated by those with power and resources than by anyone else, has also contributed to the creation of a dominant class who can curse and cajole the state into doing its bidding. This undermines democracy. That shouldn’t shock us, as former American president Franklin Roosevelt predicted it in 1938 and former president Thomas Jefferson predicted it almost 200 years ago.
Globalization and technology have helped produce such shocking inequality in large part because the policies that shape the development of these two forces have systematically been made through bureaucratic processes that exclude and alienate the “grassroots.” As a result, “public” policy has failed to prioritize the public good. Turning away from government now because of the complexity or inconvenience of these two forces would only increase their negative effects.
Inequality cannot be addressed without confronting complex technological and globalizing forces – forces that both drive, and are driven by, government policies. If we ignore either of those realities, we’re mystifying a conversation that desperately calls for clarity. Let’s focus like a laser on re-imagining what democratic government looks like by returning to the pure and simple roots of the concept: equal participation in making laws and policies that leave us free to flourish, that help refine and articulate our notion of and commitment to the public good. Almost nothing is beyond the reach of this force.
Original Article
Source: the Mark
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