AN URGENT MESSAGE TO ALL
- David Younger
- Aug 22
- 4 min read
The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard it ceases to be anything more than ‘the gang in possession,’ and its days are numbered.”
— H. G. Wells
This quote from Wells captures half of what we are witnessing in the world today – exactly half. In the thirty or so years following the second world war it would seem, in retrospect at least that all was well. Now? Not so well.
The key element in understanding government systems and in particular how they are failing in our democracies lies in how they relate to the present-day economic environment.
The best case study lies in the United States immediately following independence.
In the Philadelphia convention of 1787, John Adams, when discussing the composition of a new government, famously railed against what he referred to as the “tyranny of the majority”, a phrase used by many from Thomas Malthus to Ayn Rand and all in the same context namely, freedom of the individual.
What is perhaps not so well understood is that the basis for representative government was, and still is, agrarian/patrician – a land-based economic governance which the early democrats of the United States maintained by the simple tactic of making it virtually impossible for those without land or property under their control to have any say in their country’s governance.
The system was largely successful due in part to territorial expansion but mostly due to local democracy. In fact for a hundred years after there was a visceral hatred of the growing industrial base which was regarded as slavery for the employed. But local communities looked after themselves largely due to the indifference of federal government.
In Britain, despite a different start, drawing in the wealth of the empire’s possessions to reinvest in the so-called industrial revolution, the basic premise was the same and although industrial expansion increased in both countries, the underlying ideology of government has not changed. What has changed of course is the way that the corporate world has expanded into the systems of every government in the world due in large to the fact that the format of the leading systems of the 19th century did not adapt to the growth of the industrial complex.
In the last 250 years the corporate/industrial world overextended itself twice and the response of governments was to ameliorate the effects with what we called social democracy but the underlying structure remained only to reappear and today we have been hit a third time. And this time is far and away the worst.
In the first instance corporate growth led to massive destabalising of society but also empowered the growing labour movement and led to small changes on the part of governments in the US and Britain in the early 1900s but government systems themselves were not seriously affected mainly because fiscal systems were largely self-sustaining.
The second event was a harbinger of today. Although, as before, governments and their fiscal systems were not really affected even though in both Germany and the US there was substantial investment in infrastructure, both nations also increased defence spending which benefitted them – Germany in the short term and the US substantially. The outcome, however, was a strong social movement towards better conditions for ordinary people.
Nevertheless regardless of reforms as they appeared to be, the debilitating structure of capitalism in its neoliberal form remained and remains to this day. This is how the form of central governments have become so divorced from the needs of their populations. They are trapped and the system in its final days – because that’s what they are – is only going to get worse.
There is much more to be said that shows how governments are disconnected with their constituents and why this continues. It will be uploaded to our archives page shortly.
How does this relate to us here in Scotland?
In the first place we are supporting direct democracy, partly through the RSS petition to enact ICCPR. The response is disappointing to say the least and rather demonstrates the way that even our own government seems to need separation from the people it is supposed to represent.
Our paper explores and proffers the alternative of grassroots democracy but in the short term a more important issue has to be addressed. No matter how well-intentioned our proposals may be, without the understanding and ultimately the authority of the people, any reform would be just another top down piece of legislation.
Scotland Decides supports the creation of a national convention and if things are as bad as they might be next year, we must have the convention in place as soon as possible given the ongoing car crash that the SNP are rolling out.
But more than that, the convention cannot involve MSPs. The only politicians we involve are the only ones who have internationally recognised authority and even they can be side-stepped by majority votes in the convention. It is, nevertheless, important that we involve them. We don’t “invite” these 57 MPs in Westminster. We tell them and keep them fully appraised of the goings on in the convention, as, of course we do with the Scottish public.
Scotland has the chance to create a fully democratic series of legislative bodies, interlocked and working for the people. We can prevent the wasting disease that nearly all other nations are suffering from and be in pole position to look after our people when the system collapses which it will do very shortly.
It will take a couple of weeks at least to publish our full paper, please be patient and please take the time to read it. Opinions will be welcome and contributions will be given space and time to be heard and discussed.
Thank you
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