Politics

Apelando a la política de la disrupción

Jan 31, 2017 Mark Leonard

LONDRES – El voto del Reino Unido para abandonar la Unión Europea y la elección de Donald Trump como presidente de Estados Unidos expusieron una profunda división generacional. Los millennials cosmopolitas y los pensionados nacionalistas -lo que Thomas Friedman llama "la gente web" y "la gente muro"- no parecen tener nada en común. Pero ambos apuntan a la misma crisis de representación política.

En el Reino Unido, por cada votante a favor de "Irse" de menos de 24 años, hubo tres de más de 65. En Estados Unidos, Trump ganó el 53% del voto de más de 65 años, pero consiguió el apoyo de apenas el 37% de los jóvenes entre 18 y 29 años.

En ambos casos, los mayores se sintieron atraídos por la retórica pesimista que despotricaba contra el daño que les generaba a sus comunidades el libre comercio, el movimiento libre, el amor libre y la tecnología libre de seres humanos que afectaba sus empleos y su seguridad económica. La gente joven era mucho más optimista sobre el futuro, sus perspectivas personales y el potencial de la tecnología -y mucho más empática con los grupos marginados.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 12 Comments on this article

Barbara ListeningHere Feb 8, 2017

Urging everyone to refer to this administration as #45 rather than Trump whenever possible. This is our 45th presidential administration. #45 is more accurate since it's not just one person who won the election, who's influencing public opinion, in government seats, or proposing and enacting law. It's also better targeted ego irritation for Trump who feeds off and spins negative attention, distracting us from the real crimes posited and enacted by this administration.
- Curtis Carpenter Feb 9, 2017
  
  Do you prefer that over "the Bannon administration?"
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Ted Peters Feb 1, 2017

Web People and Wall People are members of the same species and are psychologically compelled to act by the same set of evolutionarily determined unconscious programs. These are far more powerful influences on voting behaviors than mere advances in technology. More specifically, a sense of identity is our core psychological imperative and we will defend this even to our own self detriment. Today's Web People are not nearly as identity fluid as they pretend to be. For the moment, they feel compelled to defend their "generational" identity... but when the older generation passes from the scene they will inevitably look around and see one another as fundamentally "different" and therefore threatening.
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Michael Public Feb 1, 2017

If I were to design such I system I would like it to include the following:

1. Liquid democracy as described i.e. change your vote at any time and allocate votes to others (for the Web people).

2. Change in corporate ownership structures whereby workers and local society share in any dividends and capital gains along with stockholders. They also get a veto vote (for the Wall people).

3. The proper separation of state and business. State gets to make decisions that affect everyone equally. A business council gets to make all decisions related to business and economics. The specifics of this would have to be worked out but government involvement in business is generally a tragic tale and so is business capturing government.
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Michael Public Feb 1, 2017

You write "the political class should work to create a new system".

The political class exist because there is a terribly designed system. You are essentially asking the stable-master to design a usable automobile so people no longer have to ride horses. A better system would do away with the need for this class of people.
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Wayne Davidson Feb 1, 2017

The supremacy of the ruling class; sounds like a rant from the disillusioned disenfranchised of this world yet, the truth of this statement is as real as the people who rage against the immorality of this class.
The conflicted progression from tribe to hereditary monarchy and the ritual servitude that was and is religion attests this parasitic lineage.
Today, the supreme ruling class of benign and autocratic, prey on the obsequious in the name of democracy, and dictate to the socialistic and failed theocratic states as they have done for centuries.
Harnessing the Politics of Disruption might be a good start because the generational divide does not begin to describe the commonality of humanities despair.
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j. von Hettlingen Feb 1, 2017

Mark Leonard says the Brexit vote and Trump's election expose the generational divide on both sides of the Atlantic. Although cosmopolitan millennials - Web people - and nationalist pensioners - wall people - don't seem to have much in common, both are "deeply skeptical of existing institutions." As they think "representative democracy has broken down," they take matters into their own hands, prompting a "creative potential of disruption."
Many of Brexiteers and Trump voters are of the Baby-Boom generation. They fell for "pessimistic rhetoric assailing the damage to their communities brought about by free trade, free movement, free love, and human-free technology disrupting their jobs and economic security." Since they saw much at stake, they were determined to "smash the existing system," hoping to achieve something better - nostalgia - the return to the good old days, when jobs were plentiful, the economy strong and the country homogeneous.
Younger voters are more educated, but often they are less engaged than their older cohorts, because they disapprove of the status quo and want change. No doubt their decision to stay away from polling stations has come back to haunt them, because they are bearing the brunt of reactionary pessimism that older voters embrace in Britain and America. Now they seek to remain "optimistic about the future," not losing "their personal prospects," and hoping that "technology’s potential" would advance their cause.
The author highlights two individuals who - as "Web people" - are convinced that "technology must transform politics and institutions." Vyacheslav Polonski, a 27-year-old network scientist of Ukrainian origin says: “We are dealing with a twenty-first-century world.....but our political system has not evolved since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” He compares politics with economy, which is "characterized by choice, customization, and participation," arguing "bureaucracy, special interests, and entrenched-yet-declining political parties" are obsolete.
Polonski urges for a "more agile" government, allowing people to vote "for specific ideas and agendas, rather than a political party.” In his view “politics will become more like Uber: more decentralized, more open, more immediate.” But Polonski has a simplistic view of politics. No doubt technology has a place in history and shapes our lives, but it doesn't change our human nature. In order to better understand politics, one needs to read philosophy and history. This subject is defined by the interaction between people associated with governing, or with forming and running organisations that are connected with the legislative and executive authorities.
María Luisa Martínez Dibarboure from Uruguay maintains: “We live in a crisis of representation,” decrying politicians, once elected, return to "their own preferences,” but not their voters'. Her solution is to use the Internet "to ensure accurate representation," and the party she founded seeks "to elect a representative to parliament. That representative would use the Internet to poll her constituents before each parliamentary vote, thereby ensuring that she really is a voice for voters." This parochial form of adminstration matches Aristotle's "polis" and works well mainly in a small political community.
Another proposal is that voters can "delegate their votes to others, perhaps friends with more expertise on particular issues." But this could open the door to voter fraud and other controversies. Dibarboure says her concept would work better with "representative or direct democracy," whose combination of both is called “liquid democracy.” She insists: “We are about representation, not ideology....We don’t represent left or right.… This is about the people.” But politics is laden with ideology.
Obviously neither the "Web" nor "wall" people can be fully in charge and be efficient across a country. The author urges the political class to "create a new system – one that responds to the needs of the people." But when a country is deeply divided it's difficult to forge inclusive policies that address the grievances of all citizens. Only socialist parties would ensure that "economic gains" be widely shared. It's a shame that political parties "are more beholden to themselves" and their own supporters, neglecting others. That the author speaks of "socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor" reveals how politicians have lost their bearings. It explains the rise of populism and authritarianism, because many people want a leader with binary and simplistic views. They believe illiberal democracy allows people to have too much freedoms and too many choices, that consensus, unity and uniformity are no longer possible.
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Oleksandr Aleksandrovych Jan 31, 2017

Nations with ageing populations will inevitably fall back with each election cycle. Liberal democracies must either change their reproductive habbits or import young immigrants in order to survive.
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Curtis Carpenter Jan 31, 2017

I might muster a little more enthusiasm for the author's view if he had closed with "it is time to respond thoughtfully, and with great care."

The question "why have government at all?" may be old, but it's still relevant, there's still a great deal of wisdom in the old attempts to answer it, and I don't see any hint of any new answers here, or appreciation for the old ones..

A politics that becomes "more like Uber: more decentralized, more open, more immediate” sounds suspiciously like the politics of the tribe to me. It leaves far to many questions unanswered, and could mark just another waypoint on the descent to a Hobbesian future of the war of all against all.
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