Tuesday 25 June 2019

On Convivials versus Politicals

Today, I’m going to compare and contrast the two sides in the big battle of our times. I call them Convivials and Politicals. Much of what I say today, I’ve already said in earlier essays. What is new, though, is how I choose to organize it. Think, if you will, of a large, milling mass of people, which re-arranges itself before your eyes into two opposing armies.

The word “convivial” means living together, and in particular living together well. Convivials, or convivial people, conduct themselves in a convivial way. Convivial conduct is treating others peacefully, tolerantly, honestly and civilly, and respecting their rights – as long, of course, as they do the same for you. It is the habitual behaviour of those who are, generally speaking, good people to have around you. It can be summed up as: “Don’t be an asshole.”

The word “politicals,” on the other hand, is one I haven’t used before. I’ve often referred to some of them loosely as “the political class.” But I also include as “politicals” those that hang on to the coat-tails of the political class. Politicals are those that promote, support or take profit from damaging, unjust or rights-violating policies of political governments. They include those that seek to impose ideological, religious or lifestyle agendas on others; to unjustly enrich themselves or their cronies; or to use government power to get away with acts that, objectively, are crimes.

Many people today, it’s fair to say, are not fully on one side or the other. Yet most have a bias. Those towards the convivial side are basically good people, who have not yet recognized the magnitude or the seriousness of what the politicals are doing to them. Those towards the other side, while they may have only some, or only a few, of the characteristics of politicals which I list below, nevertheless support the politicals, if only through voting for them.

Convivials

So, what are the characteristics of convivial people?

If there is one thing above all else that typifies convivial people, it is that they use what Franz Oppenheimer called the economic means. I have paraphrased this as “honest work and fair exchange.” Convivial people strive, as far as they are able, to provide goods and services, for which others are voluntarily willing to pay.

As to their aspirations, convivials usually follow a rule such as: “desire for others what you desire for yourself.” Wanting to live in peace, they desire peace for all. Wanting success, prosperity and happiness, and being willing to earn them, they desire success, prosperity and happiness for all those who earn them. Wanting freedom, they desire maximum freedom for all, consistent with respecting the rights of other convivial people. Being honest themselves, convivials put a high value on honesty. Many also value progress and innovation.

Convivials have, for the most part, the mind-set of the people to whom, in an earlier essay, I gave the name “Uppers.” They take a bottom-up approach to the world. Knowing that they are individuals, and thus different from everyone else, they seek to be tolerant of those who differ from them; for example, in race or culture. They will also tolerate people of differing religious views; as long, of course, as they show similar tolerance in return.

Whenever they can, convivial people take an attitude of live and let live. In particular, they will never seek to force any political ideology, religious dogma, economic injustice, or unreasonable lifestyle restriction on anyone against their wills. Nor will they give support or encouragement to anyone that seeks to force any such imposition on anyone.

Convivials respect truth. When making judgements, particularly those which impact other people, they like to seek out the truth of the matter. They value objective evidence, and seek to avoid being influenced by rhetorical tricks. They value means of seeking truths, such as good science. And they try their hardest to avoid lying to or misleading others.

In ethics, convivials tend to think of right and wrong as being objective, even if it may be hard to work out what is right or wrong in particular cases. They are naturally peaceful, unless attacked. They think of everyone as morally equal; no-one should have moral privileges over others. Recognizing that rights come from our nature as human beings, they respect and uphold the natural human rights and freedoms of others, provided of course that those others reciprocate. And they have respect and concern for all their fellow convivial human beings.

Convivials strive always to be honest, to behave with integrity, and to act in good faith. Whenever possible, they will try to keep the promises they have made. They also take responsibility for the effects of their voluntary actions on others. If they unjustly harm others, they know they are obliged to compensate their victims. Moreover, convivials take responsibility for guiding their own lives. And they strive to be as independent as they can be.

They will also desire justice for everyone; and justice must be according to the conduct of each individual. Thus those, who don’t do harm to others, deserve not to be harmed. And those that do unjust harms to others cannot complain if they themselves are correspondingly harmed in return.

As to government, convivials want it to be for the benefit of the governed. And that means, for the benefit of everyone among the governed, real criminals excepted. They will want government to be honest, impartial, and objective, and to follow the rule of law. They will want it to deliver objective justice to everyone, as far as that is possible. And they will be against war and warlike actions, except in self-defence, or at need in defence of others who are under attack.

In economics, convivials favour honest business and industry. They want low taxes and unfettered access to the market for all. They want property rights to be upheld. They want individuals and voluntary groups to be in control of their own means of production. They want investment decisions to be made privately, by individuals and by voluntary groups. And they favour economic growth, leading to better lives for all those who are willing to earn. And most of all, for those who are poor through no fault of their own.

Unconvivial, disconvivial, criminal, political

As I made clear in an earlier essay, even the most convivial people, on occasions, act in ways that are not convivial. As long as these unconvivial acts do not go too far, they can be dealt with by mutual tolerance; “live and let live,” if you will. Beyond this, if an act causes significant and unjust harm to someone, an obligation to compensate kicks in. However, if an unconvivial act is gross, malicious, irresponsible beyond the bounds of reason or persistently repeated, stronger action may be required against the perpetrator. Such acts I call disconvivial.

In today’s legal systems, the equivalent of disconvivial is “criminal.” Many acts considered criminal by governments – such as murder, aggressive violence, theft and fraud – are, indeed, disconvivial acts. These are real crimes, as opposed to merely disobeying “laws” made to enforce some political agenda. And many of those, that commit real crimes, show psychopathic tendencies. Such as: lying, deceit, recklessness, untrustworthiness, lack of empathy, lack of remorse.

But today’s political system also allows state or government actors, those that agitate for or support bad policies, and their cronies that profit from them, to get away with disconvivial acts. Things, that if done by ordinary people would be considered crimes, are seen as OK when done by the state, or by those to whom it grants privileges. Spying on people, hyping a non-problem with intent to procure political action, re-distributing wealth, or big business lobbying government for favours, for example. I call these acts political acts. Those that commit political acts often show arrogance and extreme dishonesty, in addition to the other psychopathic traits of common criminals. And they seek to use the immunity of the state to evade accountability. So, they are acting in bad faith.

Politicals

Politicals, as I said earlier, are those that promote, support or take profit from damaging, unjust or rights-violating policies of political governments. One trait common to many of them, is that they use Franz Oppenheimer’s political means. That is, legalized robbery; often including feeding at the taxpayer trough. On the other hand, many that are not directly paid by government are nonetheless politicals. Examples are crony corporate bosses (“political capitalists,” as I now call them) and their henchpersons; lobbyists; and agenda pushers in academe and in the media.

Unlike convivials, who all share a basic core of peacefulness, tolerance, honesty and civility, politicals fall into a number of sub-types, which may overlap. There are Bullies. There are Killjoys. There are Bossies, officious and overbearing, wanting to order people around. There are Power-grabbers, always looking to get themselves more of the trappings of power. There are Greedies, seeking power to make themselves and their friends rich. There are Guilt-trippers, that take delight in trying to make people feel guilty for just about anything. There are Snoopers. There are Meddlers, that love to interfere, to regulate, to restrict. There are Enviers; haters of success, and of people who earn it. There are Wasters, that favour huge projects that consume enormous amounts of other people’s resources; while taking their own cut, of course. There are Thieves. There are Dirty-tricksters. There are Troublemakers and Obstructers, that love to put obstacles in others’ way, to make people’s lives more difficult than they need be. There are Stop-the-Worlders, that hate human flourishing and progress; they form the backbone of the green movement. There are Agenda-pushers and Peddlers of lies, scares and “fake news.” And there are Rationalizers or Bullshitters, that do what their name says.

It might seem, at first sight, that all government employees are politicals, if only because they are paid out of taxation. And surely, those government employees that use their work time to promote, support or enforce policies that damage or violate the rights of innocent people, are politicals. But there do exist people who provide a valuable service, yet under current conditions have no other possible employer than government. Honest, non-politicized judges, magistrates and court officials fall into this category. As do honest police, and soldiers whose acts are of an entirely defensive or retaliatory nature.

There are also those, who work in professions which have been largely taken over by the state, such as teachers. With all such people, the question to ask must be: Do they strive to deliver full value to those who have been made to pay for them? If so, they’re OK.

What of politicians? In theory someone, who has gone into politics purely with the intention of making life better for all the people they represent, might be a convivial rather than a political. But in practice, such individuals are rare. Today’s systems of politics and political parties are so corrupting, that even those who enter politics with the highest motives usually end up becoming corrupted. So, the great majority of today’s politicians are politicals.

As to mind-set, most politicals seem to think like those I’ve called “Downers.” Their world-view is top-down. They are collectivists, seeing something they call “society” as more important than the individual. So, they are often intolerant of people who are different from them. They often show dislike or even hatred for those whose political views differ from their own. And instead of “live and let live,” they seek to force their agendas on others.

Politicals seem to have little or no respect for objective truth. Some, even, think that there are no facts. Much of the time, they disdain facts in favour of peddling their narratives and propaganda. And they will mislead, bullshit, insult or threaten those who refuse to accept their narratives.

They also seem to have little or no ethical sense. They think that right and wrong are subjective, or relative to a culture. Many of them see nothing wrong in using aggressive violence or war. Instead of accepting moral equality, they follow George Orwell’s “some animals are more equal than others.” And they, of course, are the ones that are more equal. If they accept any idea of human rights at all, they think these rights are not natural, but are granted by governments, and can be taken away. And far from showing empathy or concern for others, they like to control, exploit and bully people.

Politicals are, almost without exception, dishonest. They frequently lie, deceive, mislead, obfuscate, or seek to suppress the truth. They create problems that are not real, or hype them to make them seem bigger than they really are. They are often hypocrites, exhorting others to behave in one way, while themselves behaving in quite another. They break their promises without shame. They take risks with others’ money, and even with people’s lives. They are often glib and arrogant, seek to evade responsibility, and show no remorse. And many of them seem to have a constant need to virtue signal. All this, they do in bad faith.

For many politicals, politics is about imposing their agendas and ideologies on others. Such as: conservatism (social or religious), socialism, communism, fascism, political correctness, environmentalism or global government. So, they want the state Leviathan to grow ever larger and larger. They want it to pick winners and losers; as long, of course, as they themselves are always winners. They seem to think that, just because some bunch of politicians get together and make a “law,” that makes that “law” right. And they seek to silence, and to punish, anyone who gainsays their narratives. They show no concern at all for the innocent people, to whom their policies cause inconvenience, damage, suffering, or loss of opportunity. Meanwhile, they like to extol the virtues of “democracy,” but they only accept the verdict of “the people” when their side wins.

Politicals have little or no concept of individual, objective justice. Instead, many promote some nebulous “social justice.” In essence, they aim to steal from productive people, take a big cut for themselves, and re-distribute the rest to their cronies and to those whose support they seek.

As to the economy, most of today’s politicals hate honest business and industry. They hate small businesses and productive individuals. They hate private ownership of the means of production, commonly called “capitalism.” Yet, they make exceptions for their big corporate and banking cronies. They are against the free market, and pooh-pooh economic growth. They don’t want anyone to be rich or even well off, except themselves and their friends. And many of them support the deep green agenda, that actively seeks to destroy the industrial civilization which has been such a great benefit to us over the last two centuries and more.

Convivials versus politicals

Here’s the battle scene. On one side, there are the politicals. They do look a bit like an army. They have many officers and “leaders,” that want to set themselves above the others; though they also like to squabble with each other. Many of them are in uniform; whether pin-stripe suits, or police uniforms, or the kind of dress typically worn by middle-aged women in government. There is a perceptible sameness about many of them. They all like, and profit from, the current political system. And they don’t want to give up their privileges.

On the other side are the convivials. They don’t look like an army at all. While they do include some capable of leadership, they have no visible generals or colonels. Each of them is an individual. They are of all races, religions, cultures, social classes, shapes and sizes. Their dress ranges from suits, through casual, to industrial wear like boiler suits. At present, they are less numerous than the politicals. But their numbers are increasing, as more and more people come, oh so slowly, to understand how badly the politicals have been, and are, treating them.

The politicals are aware that the people on the other side are unhappy, and are starting to get angry. But they think of those people as “marks” – prospective victims – or even “deplorables.” And they want to crush them. On the other hand, the people in the convivial “army” merely want to get on with their lives in their own way. More and more, they are losing respect for politics, and for anyone that uses it for their own ends. So, they want the politicals off their backs.

Humans versus Neanderthals

It looks like a mismatch, doesn’t it? The politicals have everything going for them: power, money, organization, media, and many approving supporters. The convivials have no power, little or no money, no or little organization, few supporters as yet, and only a very small media presence, virtually all of it on the Internet.

And yet, and yet… the politicals seem worried. Recall Frank Furedi’s words, that I quoted in an earlier essay: “… most leaders find it difficult to believe in anything other than a scary future.” Recall the politicals’ constant harping on about “sustainability.” Could it be, that they know that the current political system – their system – is unsustainable? Recall the desires of deep green activists to curb, and eventually to destroy, our industrial civilization. Could it be that they, the politicals, could not survive in a free-market civilization without politics? Recall their screams of “there are too many humans on the planet!” Could it be, that their top-down political system inevitably fails when the number of people involved becomes large? After all, a plausible theory says the Neanderthals died out because they couldn’t live in larger groups as effectively as homo sapiens could. Recall, also, the politicals’ hue and cry about “species extinction.” Could it be that – like Neanderthals and homo sapiens – politicals and convivials have diverged into two species? Could it be their species, the political species, that is in danger of extinction? Could it be that homo sapiens convivalis is about to supersede homo sapiens politicus, just as homo sapiens once superseded homo neanderthalensis?

I spoke, earlier, of an “army” of convivial people, who are already aware of what the politicals have done to them. Their numbers are increasing; but, at the moment, slowly. The strategy for convivial people is, therefore, plain as a pikestaff. Get the message out there. Help people to see the politicals for what they are – criminals and worse. Help them to see that today’s politicals are not fit to be accepted into any society of convivial human beings. And that those among them, that have set out their stall to destroy human industrial civilization, are traitors to our civilization, and deserve to be kicked out of our civilization and denied all its benefits. Help more and more people to identify the individuals that are politicals, and to dump them.

Can some of the politicals, perhaps, save themselves – just as, if the genome evidence is to be believed, a few of the Neanderthals did? Surely. All they have to do is reform themselves, start to behave and continue to behave as convivial people, and fully compensate all those they wronged. But until they have done all that, no human being has any obligation to treat them as anything more than criminal vermin. The motto, I think, must be: “No forgiveness without compensation.”

I will end with words of John Locke, who said, of the human being under the law of Nature: “He and all the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society distinct from all other creatures. And were it not for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no need of any other, no necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and associate into lesser combinations.”

Does Locke not tell us where we should be heading? Today’s politicals are corrupt, vicious, degenerate men – and women. Let’s get rid of them and their politics. Let’s get rid of arbitrary borders, political agendas, bad laws, wars, injustices and re-distributory taxes. Then, and only then, can we return to our nature, and build a world-wide Civilization of convivial human beings.

Wednesday 12 June 2019

On the Troubles of our Times

Back in January 2008, I took a verbal snapshot of the many bad things the UK government was doing to us at the time. Today, I’ll carry this forward to the present. My purpose is to gain a better understanding of the troubles we suffer under today – and not just in the UK. And thus, to try to fathom what is going on underneath.

My list from 2008

Here are some brief extracts from my snapshot:

“Here in England, the news is uniformly bad. There is financial crisis and looming recession. Food and fuel prices are rocketing. Lifestyle fascists, having already made smokers into pariahs, are now gunning to do the same to alcohol drinkers. Selling our homes has been made harder. The European super-state is being forced on us by the back door. Taxes, as ever, go up and up, even as we are told they are being cut. Cameras film us wherever we go.

“Meanwhile, excuses are trotted out for yet more hassles and indignities to be imposed on us at airports. For yet longer detention without trial. For yet harsher penalties against drivers who break arbitrary speed limits, as those limits are being creepingly lowered. And the ID card project, designed to reduce us all to nothing more than numbers and DNA samples in a database, forges ahead. The agenda of control is out of control.

“All this is accompanied by torrents of anti-human propaganda. From ‘we’re a burden on the planet’ to ‘chimpanzees are more intelligent than humans,’ the humanity haters are having a field day. And, over all, there is a pall of constant fear. Fear of terrorism, fear of recession, fear of climate change, fear of any kind of risk. As sociologist Frank Furedi recently observed: ‘We really do live in an era when most leaders find it difficult to believe in anything other than a scary future.’”

The intervening period

Space does not allow me to give much detail on events since 2008. But I certainly see a continuation and expansion of the trends I saw back then. To be sure, we ordinary people in the UK have won on a few issues. Notably, we managed to stop the ID card project. We somehow deflected their planned “war on alcohol” on to softer targets like soda-pop and chocolate. And eventually the period for detention without trial was lowered to 14 days. But even that is far longer than in other countries. So, many of the woes I listed – government hassling us, impoverishing us, and violating our rights – continue unabated.

In the financial area, for example, the predicted recession did materialize. Failed and failing bankers got bail-outs, which taxpayers had to pay for. Since then, the economy has gone up and down, but mainly down. Industry has declined, as shown by the recent failure of British Steel. Prices have gone up inexorably, without wages increasing to compensate. (An unsurprising result of policies that make energy unnecessarily expensive; along with so called “quantitative easing,” also known as inflating the currency). Taxes, too, have gone up hugely. Every few months there’s a new ruse to take away yet more of our hard-earned wealth, and feed it into the insatiable maw of the state.

As to cameras spying on us, now there’s one for every 14 people in the UK. But also, many of these cameras can now do things they previously couldn’t, like facial recognition. Moreover, Edward Snowden’s revelations made us aware of the scale of the surveillance to which we are all subjected in the Anglophone countries. But since then, there have been repeated calls from the usual suspects for more surveillance! And in 2016, the “Snoopers’ Charter” bill gave them just that; though appeals against it are still going through the courts.

This spying on us, we’re often told, is supposed to be about “fighting terrorism.” Surely, there have been a number of terrorist attacks in Western countries in the last decade or so. To which the media, as is their wont, have screamingly over-reacted. The reality is, that in 2010 non-state terrorism caused about 13,000 deaths world-wide. For each of these deaths by terrorism, there were about 5 deaths in “official” armed conflicts, 40 by interpersonal violence, and 60 by suicide. Since then, the vast majority of terrorist attacks have been in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Many have been in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria; all of which have been targets of military actions by Western governments, which have led to at least a million deaths in those countries.

The fact is, terrorism is nasty and destructive; but political governments are far nastier and more destructive. Terrorism is no good reason at all to curb the rights of innocent people.

Then there is police misconduct and brutality. Confidence in police is low in many UK cities, particularly among black people. There have been cases of wrongful arrest of an MP, and police misconduct against another. Even beside the 2005 killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, there was the dubious killing of Mark Duggan, which sparked extensive riots. And police tasered a blind man. Yet the government want to give police more power, including “emergency” powers to access phone and internet records. And they want to issue tasers to all police officers!

Then there is Cameron’s introduction of “secret courts,” including secret evidence and closed court hearings. A clear violation of human rights; and liable to be used, so it seems, against anyone who annoys the establishment, even in minor matters. Combine this with a suffocating climate of political correctness, in which all of us are in danger of being accused of nebulous and wide ranging “hate crimes,” and you have tyranny indeed.

Add to all this the scandal of many MPs grossly over-claiming expenses. The NHS failing – again. Micro-chipping dogs; will we be next? More red tape to bind businesses. A proposal to abolish cash, so making every item of every purchase, however small, traceable via database to the individual who made it – a boon to the Lifestyle Police, no? If not also to the taxman.

Then there is large scale immigration, deliberately encouraged by government; presumably, to increase the tax base in an attempt to shore up the Ponzi scheme called the welfare state. Accompanied, ironically, by a scandal in which many long-standing UK residents were treated as “illegal” immigrants. And a proposal for tougher prison sentences for “people trafficking!” Meanwhile, asylum seekers can be held indefinitely without any hearing.

But the worst of the worst among the UK political class’s behaviour has been in two areas: Brexit and environment. Despite a very clear instruction from the people, and despite committing to it in their election manifestos, they have failed to take the UK out of the European Union. It’s become clear that many, if not most, among the political class don’t want Brexit, and never have done. They have put their own selfish and party interests ahead of the expressed will of the people. That is atrociously bad faith. Some of them, even, have worked deviously towards an outcome that might look like an exit, but in fact would bind the UK ever tighter into the EU.

As to the environment, all the main parties have descended into deep green madness. They and their media have backed the “humans are causing catastrophic climate change” fraud with everything they’ve got. Not only making energy far more expensive than it need be, but also risking the stability of the electricity grid in the future. They have made a big hoo-hah out of the “problem” of plastic waste. Even though most plastic which finds its way into the oceans comes from Asia; and the UK has never been a significant contributor to the problem. They have made to the EU and UN commitments on air pollution, which cannot be met. To subject us to these inflexible, ever tightening, collective limits was clearly an act of bad faith. But as a result, they are now seeking to make driving cars so expensive, that many of us are likely to lose our personal mobility entirely. Beyond this, they have banned new petrol and diesel cars from 2040. Moreover, our so called “representatives” have capitulated to an extreme and
disruptive green activist group, and declared a “climate emergency” for which there is no hard evidence at all.

The wider world

Looking at the wider world, you see similar problems. Whole governments have been bailed out – Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus. The political classes do not show respect or concern for ordinary people. There is dishonesty everywhere. Political debate has become more and more polarized, and nastier in tone. The green agenda is rampant. Even the churches have bought into it. Meanwhile, life becomes more and more of a struggle for ordinary people.

In many places, there are “grass roots” stirrings from those who are fed up with the whole system. In democracies, new political parties are springing up, like the Brexit party. But nothing seems to be bringing about any real change. The much vaunted “Arab Spring” has all but petered out, with Tunisia the only country in the region to have made significant reforms. And Islamic extremism is on the rise in places like Turkey.

Meanwhile, there are ongoing troubles in countries like the Ukraine, Venezuela, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. And the hopes many Americans and others had, that Donald Trump might prove to be different from, and better than, his predecessors, are starting to fade. Indeed, the USA seems to be continuing its policy of behaving as the biggest bully in the world.

A longer-term perspective

Our troubles today, I think, are the results of more than a century and a half of political and moral decline. There has been, as I described in an earlier essay, a centuries long battle between two opposite visions of politics. One is the top-down Leviathan state, in which the ruling classes essentially have licence to do what they will, and the rights and freedoms of ordinary people are not important. The other is the bottom-up, Enlightenment view, in which government is supposed to be for the good of the people – that is, of all the people. For a brief period in the 19th century, Enlightenment values were in the ascendant. But since then, Leviathan has been fighting back, and has inexorably increased its power, destructiveness and arrogance.

In the UK, it seems to me, the 19th-century reforms towards universal suffrage also contained the seeds of the rot. As I’ve recounted elsewhere, “democracy” has not proved to be much of a check on the state. If anything, it’s had the opposite effect, by giving a false legitimacy to bad governments. This was compounded when the political parties started to appeal to particular voter bases, aiming to benefit their own supporters (and themselves) at the expense of everyone else. Then, during the 1980s, the parties started to converge. The factions within the political class began to align themselves with each other, and against the interests of the people they were supposed to be serving. Something similar happened in the media too. To such an extent, that it’s now very rare for mainstream media to deviate from the politically correct message of the day. Even when that message is no more than lies, deceptions and hype.

Meanwhile, the big corporations got in on the act. They began to lobby government for subsidies, or for policies to favour them or to hamstring their competitors. This incest between corporations and government led to increases in the power and wealth of both, at the expense of smaller businesses and of ordinary people. And so, wealth was re-distributed from the poor and the middle classes to the rich. Meanwhile, the financial sector, encouraged by (and, some say, copying) government, became more and more irresponsible with other people’s money.

To add to all this, the UK political class have enthusiastically adopted the globalist, internationalist and environmentalist agenda, peddled by the United Nations and the European Union. This despite the policies resulting from this agenda being ruinous to ordinary people. But the statist political class don’t care. To act in bad faith, against the interests of the people they’re supposed to serve, has become for them the norm, not the exception.

How did they get away with it?

How has the state contrived to do all these things to us, without sparking a revolution? One way is by offering people “carrots,” to make them think the state is a benefit to them. Education is one example of this. Initially, state provision of education did improve standards; but over the long term, it appears to have produced a dumbing-down. And when a political class sets the curriculum, what will be taught will be only what the political class wants to be taught.

Welfare, pensions and health care are more such carrots. But obviously, carrots have to be paid for by someone. And that can only be the taxpayer. That, and an aging recipient population, are why taxes go up and up. That’s also why they want to get rid of cash; to make even the tiniest transactions visible, and so taxable. And that’s why they encourage large scale immigration, despite the cultural problems it brings with it. All these things, they have done in bad faith.

Another thing the state does is take measures to protect itself. This is what the surveillance is really about – the state seeking early warning of any possible opposition. This is what the political correctness and the secret courts are about, too. The political class want to be able to get anyone they want to, with innocence being no defence. And, while gun ownership has never been a big part of UK culture, I think it no coincidence that the Dunblane massacre was used as a lever to bring in very tight gun laws. All these things, too, they have done in bad faith.

And then there are the scares. In 1918, H. L. Mencken wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” And the state has taken his advice very seriously.

Terrorism is one such hobgoblin; real, but grossly overhyped. The environmental scares – global warming, air pollution, species extinction – are far less real. Indeed, looking objectively into these issues, I find no evidence that any of them is a big problem. To talk, as some do, of climate change as a threat on a par with a world war is sheer lunacy.

I do, though, find plenty of evidence of skulduggery on the part of the alarmists, of government itself and of its advisors. They seek to curb, and ultimately to bring down, our industrial civilization, which has done so much for all of us – including themselves. They have arbitrarily moved goalposts, e.g. from a target of 2 degrees above “pre-industrial” levels to 1.5 degrees. They have disguised politics as science. They have refused to release data to allow replication of studies. They have deleted, mis-represented and (probably) doctored data. They have sought to suppress dissenting views. They have whitewashed claims of alarmist misconduct. In environmental matters, they have inverted the burden of proof, and negated the presumption of innocence. And they have made costly commitments on behalf of us all, without rigorous justification. In all these things, the political class and their cohorts have acted in bad faith.

Whither the state?

For a while, a state can get away with ruses like these. The political class and their media and hangers-on can lie and distort the truth. They can reject all criticism, never correct their story, and never admit they were wrong. They can intimidate people into believing and following their agenda. They can harass, bully, impoverish or even murder anyone who tries to gainsay them. But over the long term, this is a high-risk strategy. After a while, the statists will start to lose people’s hearts and minds. Indeed, this is already happening.

But the key, I think, is that as Frank Furedi identified, the political class and their media find it hard – indeed, all but impossible – to see any positive prospects for the future. That raises the question: What are they afraid of? What is it, that causes the global political class and their hangers-on to be so negative about the future?

My diagnosis is as follows. I think the political classes know that, despite all their ploys, their state and the current political system are, slowly but surely, losing credibility and support among the people. And once people see through one of their scams, all the others immediately become suspect; and the bad faith that underlies them becomes more and more obvious. It’s becoming clear that the current system is not sustainable, either politically or economically. And that is what makes the statists fearful; because the inevitable consequence is that their system will eventually collapse, and they themselves will be dumped out of power.

This loss of credibility is greatest in the Anglophone nations, like the UK and the USA; but it’s happening in other places, too. As yet, those of us who have woken ourselves up, and have lost all respect and fellow feeling for the state and its political class, are a minority. But we are increasing. When enough people come to understand how badly they have been treated, there will be much anger against those responsible. That anger, properly channelled, can lead to real change for the better.

This is a dangerous time, of course. We must not only spread the truth about the state and explicate our alternatives to it, but we must also stay alive and solvent. But we owe it to ourselves, and to those around us, to be always rationally optimistic about the future. Optimists are sometimes wrong, of course; but we can’t afford to be pessimistic. For in the end, pessimists almost always turn out to have been right!