Where do we go from here: 5

Political leadership

I have held forth, in the previous three posts, about the problems facing human societies in terms of conflict, our economic systems, human populations and food supplies, condensing into a few paragraphs discussion of issues that fill books and newspapers and magazine articles and blogs and endless media hours. Virtually every point I have made could be (and no doubt is) elaborated, developed and argued in all those media, but hopefully my condensed version will provide the basis for some constructive thoughts. But, whatever the arguments, the solution to all the problems considered must lie in political action, in decisions made by governments with the capacity to influence – or determine - the way societies function and the resources of countries are used.

Politics is the business of politicians who, in democracies, are elected by the people. There are all sorts of other political systems, some of which are not particularly salubrious, but let’s confine our attention to democracies and the role of democratically elected leaders. These people are vital to the success of their societies, by which I mean success in terms of the well-being of the whole population, and in terms of the natural environment. If that is destroyed, or even significantly degraded, the society can’t be considered successful and amount of economic effort and activity will serve to maintain living standards.

Most people in western countries are convinced that our systems of democratic government are as good as it gets – the apogee of political evolution.  But a vanishingly small number of our elected politicians are real leaders; for the most part they are public relations puppets, driven by polls that indicate to them what their constituencies want, regardless of the fact that most of the people who make up those constituencies are themselves driven by self-interest and the standard delusions about economics. A majority of people want ‘the good life’ – the houses and cars and consumer goods and holidays and entertainment – without wanting to consider the real costs. So society gets ever more ‘precious’, with endless whingeing about minor inconveniences, about price rises or the unavailability of things that there’s no good reason we should have, with controversies about trivia and the expenditure of huge amounts of effort and emotion arguing about things like the behaviour celebrities or matters that shouldn’t be in the public domain at all – like whether homosexual couples should be allowed to marry. And the brand of ugly adversarial politics that we currently have in western countries doesn’t help.

So we probably get the political leaders we deserve. It would be wonderful if, at least occasionally, we got people standing for election who have clear and definite (and constructive) vision and who are prepared to pursue that vision regardless of the opinion polls and focus group findings and the pressure and bribes of lobbyists funded by powerful interest groups. Of course the way the political game is played now, people of vision and high principle probably wouldn’t get elected or, if they did, in a system like Australia’s where politics and parliament are dominated by political parties, the party machines would make sure they were kept under control, so they wouldn’t get much done. There is also the  problem that, quite frequently, people with vision and ‘fire in the belly’ are nutcases – think of the great leaders of the 20^th century, like Hitler or Mao Tse Tung or Stalin (hardly democratic leaders!). Even Churchill had some pretty peculiar ideas. In Australia Whitlam had ‘fire in the belly’ – and didn’t last long, but Bob Hawke, though a politician to his bootstraps, was undoubtedly a leader with convictions, and he did last. In Canada Pierre Trudeau, who led that country from 1968 to 1984 (with a brief interlude when he was out of power) was, by all reports, a man of vision and principle. But looking across the political landscape of the world right now, I don’t see anyone, in any country, who inspires much genuine respect and admiration. Obama looked hopeful – I think he is a person of high principles – but he hasn’t managed to struggle free of the constraints imposed by a completely negative, indeed destructive, Republican party that exploits the prejudices and ignorance of large chunks of the American electorate, and by the financial crisis brought on by the greed of the Wall Street traders etc. etc. The world is awash with words about it all.  All we can do is live in hope, but I’m not holding my breath.

I set out, when I started to write these things, to try to imagine how the world’s problems might be fixed, but I have ended with the conclusion, basically, that it’s not going to happen. Life in the rich, developed countries will go on apparently much as before for some time to come. Money and power and technology will (probably) insulate the populations of those countries from a great deal of unpleasantness for years to come. There will wars and rumours of wars and gradually accumulating environmental problems (I haven’t even mentioned climate change) and some nasty famines in faraway places. Well-meaning, and in many cases extraordinarily admirable, people will work hard to alleviate the problems, and in some cases and some places they will make progress, but overall we will not change our ways. Humanity is in trouble: the world we leave to our grandchildren is going to be a lot less pleasant than the one we live in now, unless they have so much money that they can totally insulate themselves from it all. All that isn’t very cheerful, but maybe my prognostications will be as wide of the mark as those of Nostradamus. Good luck; enjoy your life.