Brexit: The "Disaster Capitalism" Theory

People inclined towards conspiracy theories seem to have more and more evidence each week that the Brexit negotiations appear to heading to an ultimate breakdown and a "Hard Brexit", with the primary beneficiaries of this situation being vulture capitalists. However, the term "vulture capitalists" would be misleading here, as conventional "vulture capitalism" is about making money from an unforeseeable traumatic event, such as the sudden collapse of an economy; when the "traumatic event" (e.g. "Hard Brexit") is helped along by the actions of the "vulture capitalists" themselves, it becomes something far darker - deliberate chaos.


"The name's Barnier, Michel Barnier..."

In this narrative, "Brexit" would more closely resemble the nefarious plot of a James Bond film: where a shadowy group of powerful interests plot to destroy Britain's economy in order to become rich from its carcass (anyone familiar with the recent Bond films might see an eerie parallel in the premise behind "Quantum Of Solace", for example). Taking this narrative further, these same "powerful interests" would be conspiring with others - "useful idiots" - who would act as unwitting accomplices and enablers to bring about the desired outcome. People in the West who are apologists for people like Vladimir Putin, for example, are certainly acting as "useful idiots" in trying to excuse Russia's self-interested actions (such as over Crimea and Ukraine). Similarly, those who try to make moralizing excuses for "The Brexit Agenda" are simply embarrassing their own reputations. These people are simply deluding themselves into thinking that brazenly amoral, opportunistic actions are somehow something more benign.

Continuing the earlier James Bond theme, as a fan of Bond films in general, it's interesting to consider where people like Fleming and other writers drew their inspiration. While the quality of the films is highly-variable, some of the most engaging plots are those that are believable (or fool you into thinking they are). All art is based, in part, on real life, and the James Bond series is no exception.
For instance, it's impossible not to watch some of the films and be shocked at the sociopathic cunning behind it all: like eponymous Auric Goldfinger and his plan to get rich by irradiating the USA's gold supply at Fort Knox; Max Zorin's utterly amoral plot (in "View To A Kill") to gain a monopoly on the silicon chip market by causing an earthquake that would destroy Silicon Valley; Renard's plan in "The World is Not Enough" to cause a spike in the oil price by targeting Istanbul; Le Chiffre's plan in "Casino Royale" to blow up a plane to make money on the stock market seems tame by comparison to earlier plot lines, but this made it seem all the more believable in the unpredictability of a post 9/11 world. These plots and these "evil masterminds" are all deliberate exaggerations of anything possible in real life, but what makes it all so watchable is how easy it makes it to suspend disbelief. That being said, 9/11 proved to all of us that a seemingly unthinkable nightmare only remains so until someone crazy enough actually thinks about doing it. Going back to Russia, the idea of Crimea being "taken back" by Moscow also seemed an idea for the fruitcakes, until it actually happened. Ditto with Brexit. Like conspiracy theorists, it's easy to suspend disbelief when reality itself seems so unbelievable.

The author doesn't share the dark, paranoiac vision of the conspiracy theorists on Brexit: this isn't some kind of James Bond plot line come to life. The UK government hasn't been infiltrated by agents of the Kremlin; Michel Barnier isn't a "secret agent" out to sabotage Britain's future outside the EU. However, there is always a chink of the light of truth in some aspects of any conspiracy theory: the idea has to come from somewhere, after all.


When the vultures circle

The premise of "disaster capitalism" was thought up by Naomi Klein. On the Brexit negotiations, there is now a mood in the government that leaving the EU at the end of March 2019 with no deal is actually a goer. In other words, to leave the EU without any agreements in place would be fine, as they think any disruption to the economy would be considered minor, or at the very worst, worth it in the long-run.
Setting aside the suspension of disbelief needed to take this view seriously, it's worth looking at where there are comparable examples in modern times of such a situation. What is being seriously considered in government is an effective "reset" of the British economy to before it joined the EEC and EFTA, more than fifty years ago, and for this to occur overnight on 30 March 2019. The government are saying they are willing to completely change the rules and framework that has guided the British economy, from one system to another, without a transition. This is what "Hard Brexit" means.

It's hard to find an exact comparison to this situation; the closest we can get is finding when another large, developed nation changed the structure of its economy overnight. One modern example that comes to mind is Russia.
Naomi Klein cited the example of Russia's post-Communist economy when talking about "disaster capitalism". Russia's economy had been Communist for seventy years. It changed to an unregulated free market economy overnight. What this meant in reality was that a small number of individuals ("oligarchs") took advantage of the chaotic situation and its lack of enforceable "rules" to buy control of sectors of the economy. Corruption became the way to do business; meanwhile, the day-to-day economy tanked. It took ten years and a currency crisis for the country to get back on its feet. The end result, when things recovered, was that corruption became a way of life and the country's tentative attempt at democracy ending in the quasi-authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin. This regime was then supported through the politics of nationalism.
This is one example of what happens when "disaster capitalism" takes control of the economy. It is the economic equivalent of "shock therapy". Other nations have also been guided to a similar course; after an economic crisis, the IMF's solution has been the same kind of "shock therapy" that results in years of turbulence. And this moment, when the economy is so vulnerable, is when the "vultures" descend.

It is in this kind of "turbulence" that the vultures see opportunities for rich pickings. The UK leaving the EU without any kind of transition and without any agreements is the same kind of environment that would attract these vultures. While the government is in denial about the turbulence that would be created as a result of a "Hard Brexit", those that see rich pickings in this environment would only encourage it.
"Hard Brexit" Britain would not be Post-Communist Russia, of course, but because the British economy and its intellectual manpower has become so enmeshed with the EU over the last forty-odd years, it simply has no means to easily adapt without it. Short-term chaos, at the very least, is inevitable without long-term planning: this would be Britain's version of "shock therapy". The question of the extent and duration of the chaos depends on the government. The fact that the government are a large part in denial about it simply makes the chaos more likely.

In this sense, the "disaster capitalists" are also agents of chaos, which makes the idea of there being some kind of nefarious plot so easy for conspiracy theorists to believe. The reality is more complicated. Brexit was once only an obsession of a few marginal figures, that had the implicit support of some elements of the media. It was a confluence of different factors - the same factors that saw the rise of UKIP - that got us where we are today. The same is true of the government's lurch towards "Hard Brexit": while this may be supported by a small number in government for their own ideological (or amoral) reasons, the government as a whole - and Theresa May in particular - seem to be sliding towards it almost by accident. As mentioned elsewhere, the government seems intent on a "wrecking ball" strategy in the negotiations. Whether this is a deliberate ploy to attain a "Hard Brexit" (given they think it will have little negative effect on Britain's economy), or simply a bone-headed negotiating tactic (as a facile attempt at "brinksmanship" for the EU to grant concessions) is irrelevant, as the end result will be the same: chaos of some description to Britain's economy.

So Britain's "Hard Brexit" may not be the result of any conspiracy at all, but more likely because of the sheer incompetence and stupidity that guides those in government; and these frightening levels of incompetence make Britain's future all the more uncertain. It is also this incompetence at the heart of government that makes Britain a ripe target for the vultures; like sharks, they smell blood. Like hyenas, they can smell the rotten state of affairs.

Narcissism, Consumerism and Capitalism

In recent years, more attention has focused on the apparent rise in narcissism in society, especially in the younger generation. Some have called this a "narcissism epidemic", and for good reason.

As mentioned in the lecture linked above, there has been a noted sharp increase in young people who identify themselves (or can be classified) as being narcissists. An article some months ago looked at the rise in narcissism in the so-called "Generation Y", the possible influence that parental guidance (or lack of) may have, and some of the wider social influences.
While these social factors may well certainly account for part of this apparent generational "attitude" changes, there has been a blind spot. We'll come to this in a moment. Elsewhere, the author has looked into the link between narcissism in modern society, and the role that economics (i.e. the type of economic system) can have.

Broadly-speaking, so-called "individualistic" societies seem to have higher levels of narcissism (and potentially psychopathy, too - more on that here). Arguably the two biggest socio-economic changes to have happened in industrialised society in the last forty years have been the rise in consumerism as a method to fund economic expansion, and the rise in narcissism in society in general. This is the blind spot referred to earlier. We'll look at the detail shortly.

Put into a historical context, consumerism as a method to grow national economies only really began to take off in the 1970s. While everyone thinks initially of the 1950s as the "Golden Age" of consumerism, the "baby boomer" generation were really the "infants" of consumerism; it only reached maturity as those born after the Second World War coincidentally began to mature themselves and begin to have more money to spend on consumer goods and property; in the UK this became known as the "Barber Boom" under the Heath government of the early 1970s. Richard Nixon's economic policies supported a similar tack. Both efforts lead to prices inexorably rising as people had more money to spend.
Wracked by a conflation of different economic factors, inflation continued soaring upwards throughout the rest of the decade, resulting in prices being massively higher by the end of 1970s compared to the start. The end of this decade also coincided with the Thatcher government coming to power in the UK, shortly followed by Reagan in the USA.
Under the policy of Monetarism enacted by both the British and American governments, the 1980s saw the restructuring of the economy away from (seemingly inefficient) manufacturing, and towards more service-based sectors (e.g. retail). At the same time, the economy was geared more towards finance, allowing banks to speculate far more easily (and with larger risks and potential profits). Credit became far easier to obtain, as banks encouraged its use as a way to extend their profits. Governments saw consumer spending as good for the economy, regardless of where the money spent actually came from. This policy has continued effectively in the same way ever since.

In short, we see the birth of credit on a mass scale being used in society, which in turn boosted the rise of consumer spending. Saving for the sake of it is seen as frumpy and old-fashioned. At the same time, even those who didn't indulge in credit were spending far more of their money on consumer goods compared to before. The same can be said for property investment, on an even grander scale.

Where does narcissism fit into all this?

A recent article looked at narcissistic personality traits. A narcissist is a fundamentally insecure person who is constantly in need of "narcissistic supply", and will do anything to get it, regardless of how he treats others and society at large. A narcissist is a child-like personality construction, in some ways comparable to a drug addict who is briefly bathed in the glow of his "fix" (i.e. a source of adulation), before quickly crashing and needing something else to fill the hole. This is an infantile, almost pathetic person who is unable to function independently without "narcissistic supply".
The psychology of the retail industry operates on the same premise towards its consumers. While what happens from the retailer's point of view is nothing innately evil, what happens towards society as a whole over time may well be. The point is this: marketing and advertising is privatized propaganda. There is no other way to describe this. Of course, this is perfectly normal in one way. The difference between society now and society sixty years ago is that ever more advanced communication methods allow companies to enhance their "exposure", targeting consumers more and more expertly. At the same time, the rise of credit  over the last thirty years has allowed individuals to easily access disposable income to spend. These two factors act as a "double pull". Advertising has created the famous phrase "Because you're worth it", which easily summarises the insidious nature of modern consumerism.

In other words, consumerism fuelled by easy credit nowadays has turned many people into "grown-up children". By creating a social environment where people are told they "are worth it", bombarded with endless messages about products they "must have", while also tempted by numerous methods to obtain credit, it is not surprising that a significant proportion of society develop the narcissistic traits mentioned earlier. By design or not, this is exactly the type of person who retailers want: an infantile and dependable "consumer" whose behaviour can be manipulated to improve retail profits.
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence for this, if we look at the change in narcissistic attitudes prevalent in "Generation Y", as mentioned earlier. It is more prevalent still if we look at the changes of today's young people (i.e. those under the age of 25), the feeling of "entitlement" that is far larger in young people today.
In darker terms, it could also be argued that the 2011 England riots - effectively an uncontrollable orgy of looting - were also a symptom of this narcissistic strain that has festered due to a rampant consumerist culture. At the risk of dismissing wider social issues, what is telling is that the spontaneous riots that occurred were used by many as an excuse for opportunistic looting. While it may have started on grounds of perceived racial prejudice, it almost instantly morphed into a chaotic orgy of consumerism. Compare this to riots in earlier years that were also triggered by race issues: looting was far less common an activity than simply "getting back" at the police. Likewise, the 2005 riots in France were characterised by an orgy of burning cars and nihilistic "revenge", not looting. This tells us a lot about the psychology of those involved, and the type of society that exists.
In this sense, we can argue that "consumerism" and the rise of narcissism are innately linked to the Anglo-Saxon economic model of Capitalism. The England riots of 2011 were distinct in the way they were an extreme manifestation of the divisive, ego-driven nature of the Anglo-Saxon economic model: after injecting its younger generation with a sense of "because you're worth it" entitlement one one hand, while divisive government policy took away their sense of control with another, the result was a build-up of narcissistic rage.

So this is the summation of modern Capitalist society: by creating the ingredients for narcissism, it "infantilises" individuals, with consequences for everybody. But also, the development of narcissism is fundamentally "useful" to an economy over-reliant on consumerism and the service sector, because it distracts people from the fundamental weaknesses in this economic model. It is a "natural by-product" of a consumerist society, and equally an essential ingredient to maintain the illusion.

For consumerism to function, consumer "need" must be created: this is where the advances in modern marketing and advertising techniques come in, using technology to make every form of consumer action appear as an "opportunity" on one hand, and a form of "individual empowerment" on the other. Thus by creating an environment where consumers are made to "need", they behave like narcissists always in search of the next source of narcissistic supply. On the one way, people are made to feel all-important and "entitled"; on the other they are equally made to feel emotionally-insecure and prone to repeated acts of "self-validation" (i.e. superficial sources of narcissistic supply, gained through consumption). This is how consumption occurs.

Indeed, it could well be argued that in a consumption-led economy, pathological levels of narcissism in society are thus necessary to ensure its continued existence and "growth": in order for consumer "need" to be guaranteed, the psychology of the consumer must be carefully calibrated - manipulated - in order to generate insecurity, dissatisfaction and entitlement. The most effective way to achieve this is to create a "consumer psychology" indistinguishable from the pathological narcissist.

By doing this, the creation of a consumer-led economy creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop, that nourishes on itself, and at the same time, becomes economically dependent on itself. A consumption-led economy quite literally eats itself. From an economic point of view, "growth" can only occur in this model if consumption occurs perpetually. Anything that causes consumption to reduce is a threat to a consumption-reliant economy. This also explains why interest rates are at historically-low levels. In this way, the creation of debt through cheap credit is in fact an essential aspect of the economic model: because debt creates dependence, and feeds the narcissistic delusion that consumers are "richer" through the possession of high-tech goods and other "must haves".
The irony is that in creating a consumption-led economy, individuals are - if anything - losing their individuality as a result of this. They are being manipulated - "infantilised" - much more insidiously in a consumer-led economy than one based on a more balanced perspective (e.g. where exports and manufacturing, rather than inward consumption, are the main sources of revenue).

Finally, it goes without saying that if a socio-economic model "infantalises" society, it also makes it easier to control.

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and John Galt: a modern-day Lucifer, or Satan in disguise?

In "Atlas Shrugged", the character John Galt dominates the third part of the story (Book Three). It is Galt who has been responsible for persuading the "best and brightest" to join him in his "New Atlantis", in a remote valley, where these people can live their lives according to their own efforts, without involvement of government.

As said in my earliest articles on this subject, biblical symbolism runs a deep vein through the novel: in its scope and ambition, "Atlas Shrugged" could well be called the most influential piece of fiction of the 20th century. This is the "Fall From Heaven" of the beginning of the Old Testament, but seen from the perspective of Satan/ Lucifer.

Furthermore, in the same way that Satan and his allies are banished to live their own form of existence in Hell, Rand has Galt and his followers living their "pure" form of life from complete scratch, with nothing from their successful and rich lifestyle of the outside world. In the remote valley these "exiles" live in, all their efforts are made by their own hand alone. They build their own houses themselves; they live simply (at least, appear to). From a psychological point of view, they have sacrificed their materialistic ego (i.e. their riches in the outside world) for the sake of a moral ego (i.e. the pride they have in doing things by their own efforts and in their own way). In "Atlas Shrugged", these "best and brightest" have made the ultimate material sacrifice in order to live true to their ideas; it could be argued that Satan and his followers were made to make the pay the same price by God when they were banished from Heaven.

John Galt is the mouthpiece of Rand's philosophy, spelled out in various ways in the novel. Galt explains Rand's own thinking on morality and the nature of government: Galt has stopped "the motor of the world" by taking away the "best and brightest" in society. In other words, Galt simply equates wealth with talent and effort; you cannot have the former without the latter. This is the basic premise of the novel, stripped of its baubles and fancy rhetoric. All those in his "New Atlantis" are rich because they are clever and/or hardworking. People are poor, therefore, because they are stupid and/ or lazy. It is as simple as that.
His moral objection to life in the outside world, where government controls much of day-to-day life, is that he refuses to live in a society where he sees the clever having to work for the sake of the stupid, and the hardworking for the sake of the lazy.

Galt's own vow is that he swears to "never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine". In Galt's eyes, this is the only moral way for a man to live: by his efforts alone.

Light-bringer or destroyer?

This philosophy as hardly anything new, as George Monbiot explains. The question is: whose philosophy is it? Blaming poverty on the poor has a long history, most recently expounded by George Osborne with his "strivers versus skivers" rhetoric. It goes down well because, like all successful ideas, it is easy to explain - regardless of the reality.

According to Christian belief  "the meek shall inherit the earth". According to Galt, it is the strong who shall inherit the earth. If Galt and his followers represent the "best and brightest", then "government" must seemingly represent the opposite - the worst and the weakest. What Galt finds offensive (i.e. immoral) is the strong being obliged to support the weak. Underpinning the tenets of Rand's philosophy - Objectivism - is the idea of social Darwinism. Society can only progress if its weakest elements are allowed to die. Accordingly, in a society where everyone is responsible for his own efforts, it is natural that the weakest specimens of society will not succeed. When neo-liberals and Conservatives talk about how "inequality is good", this is what they mean; they see it as being "natural".

So who is John Galt then, really? What does he represent?
My previous article on this subject mentioned "Luciferianism", and the role that some see Lucifer (Satan's name before The Fall) having in promoting the pursuit of objective knowledge. Lucifer is the "light-giver", whose gift is to free man from the shackles of God's narrow doctrine. Seen in this way, Lucifer's role is to test and push mankind on to better things; a kind of "disciplinarian teacher" for humanity. This seems to be the role that Galt is playing in "Atlas Shrugged", punishing society - robbing it for its "best and brightest" -  for the sake of itself. This theme, and further biblical references, are continued in the second article about the role of John Galt here.

Perception is one thing; the reality is another. Rand may seem inequality as "just", but that does not make the world "just". Those nations with the highest levels of inequality are not the most successful ones in the world; on the contrary, all the evidence suggests that nations with low levels of inequality (e.g. in Scandinavia) are those with the highest levels of development.
John Galt may be an idol for the neo-liberal scene, and people like the "TEA Party", but Galt represents a philosophy that ridicules the concept of empathy. And we all know what a society without empathy can be capable of.

On the one hand, Galt seemingly symbolises the "best" in humanity - its pursuit of knowledge and excellence, and its individualist spirit. But on the other, Galt symbolizes the very destruction of the concept of "humanity" - by destroying the very concept of human empathy, teaching it as something immoral and obscene.

In this way, "John Galt" may well be termed as a new, modern form of the Trickster: the "serpent" that encouraged Adam and Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit, and then suffered God's wrath.

It is in Galt's "manifesto", discussing in detail the symbolism of the Fall Of Man, that reaches the crux of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and the real meaning of her work.

The Charlie Hebdo attack: Islam, extremism, and the elephant in the room

I wrote a few days ago about some of the possible reactions and consequences of the Charlie Hebdo attack. In the mainstream liberal media, there have been a number of articles (see here and here) by Muslims attempting to put the actions of these terrorists into context. More exactly, the two examples highlighted attempt to put distance between the authors' faith and the perpetrators' interpretation of it.

This is all good and well, but misses the larger (and more glaring) point that many others (in the comments sections) were happy to remind them of: that there are many acts of terror committed in the world today, and a large number of them are by Muslims. In this sense, Islam appears unique in the 21st century in its adherents' motivation to plot and carry out many acts of terror across the world on an almost daily basis (aimed at Muslims and non-Muslims alike), compared to any other religion (or ideology, for that matter).

The lunatics running the asylum?

One of the writers compared to the Charlie Hebdo attacks to the Oklahoma bombing by Timothy McVeigh, saying that as Christians were not required to apologise for that individual's action, so therefore neither should all Muslims have to apologise for the actions of a few "lunatics". This thinking is wrong on two counts: first, McVeigh's hate was aimed at the government, and not fueled primarily by his religion; second, yes the Charlie Hebdo attackers may have been "lunatics", but there seem to be an awful lot of "lunatics" that are using Islam as an excuse to kill.

Those "lunatics" may be hijacking the religion, but that also begs the question: why is it so easy for so many "lunatics" to hijack Islam in the first place? Another article (although highly-satirical) talked about how Christians weren't all blamed for the actions of Anders Breivik, but again, this misses the point: the number of violent Christian extremists in society is very small indeed, while the number of Muslims who consider themselves to be "fundamentalists" is comparatively large. Besides, Christianity mostly dealt with these issues three hundred years ago. By comparison, it appears that Islamic extremism has been undergoing a "renaissance" in recent times. This tells us that there is a fundamental weakness somewhere in how the faith is interpreted, if it allows so many people to use it as an excuse to terrorise society. The extremists are winning the battle within Islam because the moderates seem to lack the intellectual or doctrinal weapons to neutralise (or successfully ostracise) the extremists in the faith.

More bluntly, when there are spectacular attacks like these, regardless of if they are aimed Muslims or non-Muslims. it is not enough to say "they're not true Muslims". The actions of ISIS, for example, are applauded by many in Saudi Arabia; likewise, the Taliban are supported by a significant number of Pakistanis. And in the West, from Bradford to Bordeaux, police uncover terror plots by home-grown extremists almost every week. While there was a great deal of terrorism in the seventies and eighties, by the likes of the IRA in Britain, such a level of continual terror activity by those professing to one faith alone, is unprecedented. This is what makes it unique. And if ordinary Muslims cannot (or refuse to) see that, they are deluding themselves.

The enemy of my enemy...

As said earlier, the number of people professing to be "fundamentalist" Muslims seems to have undergone a "renaissance" in recent decades. This also includes Western converts.
By a strange coincidence, it's worth considering the rise of modern-day Islamic fundamentalism in concert with the rise of economic neo-liberalism. Both of these "ideologies" emerged as a world force around thirty-five years ago: more exactly, the year 1979 was pivotal to both.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became premier of the UK, and initiated the neo-liberal project, to be followed shortly afterwards by fellow neo-liberal disciple, Ronald Reagan in the USA. Since that time, this doctrine, also known as the "Anglo-Saxon model" has been responsible for the rise in the corrupt financial system: after markets became deregulated, banking abandoned economic logic and any remaining moral scruples, which led to the financial crisis of 2008. This disastrous doctrine is still the economic orthodoxy in the West.

In 1979, the Islamic revolution overthrew the rule of the Shah in Iran. Later that year, Islamic militants seized the grand mosque in Mecca. In Saudi Arabia, the social effect of the seizure, after taking it back, was to make the country even more fundamentalist than before, which has existed ever since. In Iran, the theocratic regime encouraged the spread of Islamic fundamentalism through entities such as Hezbollah. Further afield, Islam took a stricter course in Pakistan with its new military ruler, Zia ul-Haq in the same year, instigating a process of cementing stricter Islamic values, for instance, by making blasphemy a capital offence.
The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, also in 1979, made ul-Haq a useful ally to the USA in its fight against Communism, and thus began the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism and the West, in the theatre of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda became one beneficiary of this. Thus the USA and the UK, the two arms of the "neo-liberal" model, became key financial and military allies of the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This has continued to the present day. It should also not be forgotten that Reagan did a deal with the Iranian leadership for the release of the US embassy hostages - after he became president in 1981. There was also the infamous "Iran-Contra" imbroglio.

At this point, conspiracy theorists may be having a field day. The relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens is well-established; others may well talk darkly of a convenient overlap between elites in the Middle East talking up their anti-Western rhetoric, and the "military-industrial complex" in the West talking up the threat of terrorism. That's for others to consider.

Many Muslims talk about extremists who carry out acts like the Charlie Hebdo being "bad apples"; coincidentally, this was the same excuse that was said of those at the banks who were responsible for the financial crisis. It doesn't wash. It was structural failures, and failures of the system itself, that brought about the financial crisis; likewise, it is problems with the structures and implementation of Islam that have brought about the "extremism" crisis in Islam today.

Swimming against the tide

The talk since the 1990s, and especially after 9/11, has been of a "clash of civilisations". More specifically, this is a dialectic played up by ideologues on the far-right in the West, as well as elements of the so-called "neo-cons"; similarly, it is the same rhetoric used by the radicalised edge of Islam, now fronted by the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. For both it is a convenient card to play for their own ends: since the first "intifada", the fall of Communism and the first Gulf War, events have been used by Muslim extremists to justify their actions against the "Great Satan"; likewise, since 9/11, "neo-cons" and other far-rightists (e.g. in Europe) have used terror events and "the enemy within" to play up the threat, playing into the hands of the extremists to play the "victim" card, and turn more recruits to their cause.

In a wider sense, the stance taken by extremist Muslims, such as those who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, was a symptom of the inter-connected nature of today's world. Globalisation and the mass accessibility of the internet means that the cartoons designed to appeal to CH's narrow consumer base (itself a segment of French society) could be easily seen by fundamentalist Muslims in the Middle East, the last people who would be expected to be readers of CH. The same point could be made of the infamous "Danish cartoons", which resulted in furious protests as far afield as Indonesia. Only in the 21st century could a cartoon drawn in Denmark result in violent protests on the other side of the world!
In this sense, what these extremists (European far-rightists, as well as Islamic fundamentalists) are doing is stubbornly and violently swimming against the tide: their anger and violence is a reaction to the powerlessness they feel against the opening-up of global society. They want to turn the clock back to a time when their religion and values were unchallenged, and are prepared to use violence to make it happen.

Ultimately, they will fail, as the Counter-Reformation failed. Terrorism is the counter-reaction to the opening-up of global society, and the way that technology and ideas are spreading to places where they didn't exist before. There is no easy answer to the threat of terrorism; it may be the price that society must pay until global society eventually turns the corner and wins the intellectual battle. This is the battle that Islam is also going through, an intellectual battle to find its place in the modern world.

We must all wait, patiently, until that ends.

The establishment, the child abuse scandal, and psychopathy: the elephant in the room

The number of cases of  historical (and recent) child abuse involving "establishment" figures is growing by the week. Recently, it has been uncovered (and admitted by police sources) that there was indeed a high-placed "paedophile ring" involving Westminster around thirty years ago, which was covered-up by those in positions of authority.
This ring has also been implicated in the death of at least two teenage boys; one case was the disappearance and murder of a former magistrate's son in 1979, the other the son of the driver of the former Australian commissioner in 1981.

There is a strong argument for linking the psychology of people who abuse children to that of psychopathy: for someone to carry such acts of abuse, by definition, requires a complete lack of empathy for the victims; worse, the fact that the victims are vulnerable (children) adds stronger psychological evidence that the perpetrators bear many of the hallmarks consistent with psychopathy. From the case of Ian Watkins last year, to the infamous Jimmy Savile, there is a convincing argument that this form of abuse should be put on the same level of psychological severity as other psychopaths; the fact that they choose to abuse children is simply their chosen method of displaying their psychopathy, for whatever reason.

There are many ways that psychopaths may indulge their psychological disorder on society, and can vary wildly from case to case - what unites them is the common trait of a lack of empathy for their chosen victims.

The case of Myles Bradbury

Myles Bradbury was until recently an acclaimed, and universally-respected (and loved) doctor at Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge, one of the best in the country. He was also a serial child abuser.

Looking at the anecdotal evidence of the case, there is a convincing argument that Bradbury's personality corresponds to large degree to that of a psychopath. He was charming and persuasive with the parents of his victims, and trusted implicitly by all those he was involved with; he was involved in good work with the scouts and church groups, so manufacturing a persona as a moral pillar of the community.
The same has been said of many psychopaths: that they are masters in the art of performance, hiding their true, amoral, selves behind a mask of respectability. Bradbury was a "God-like figure", who appeared to revel in his status, and clearly used his status as a cover for his appalling and callous acts. This included abusing boys when even his parents were in the same room.

As people after the event always ask: how did they get away with it? The answer lies in the charm of the psychopath, and their adaptive personality. In short, they have no real "humanity" in the moral sense of the word, but have the personality of a predator on society, that is able to use adaptive skills to get what they want from the human environment.

The other question - the elephant in the room - is why does it appear there are so many of them in the establishment?

A finishing school for psychopaths?

In general, psychopaths, as amoral predators, seek to reach the top of society. And many of them succeed in getting there, through a combination of amoral ruthlessness and cunning charm. The modern social environment of today's Capitalist society also resembles the ideal, dog-eat-dog environment that a psychopath would be ideally-suited for: where Ayn Rand's ideas have been put into practice, they appear to create a society that almost seems like an inadvertent attempt at socially-engineering sociopathy on a mass scale. Modern free-market Capitalism, based on the tenets of Ayn Rand's ideology, encourages a society almost at economic war with itself; a mass of amoral individuals who see the cost of everything and the value of nothing. In short, modern-day Capitalism grinds down natural human empathy.

But going back to the question posed earlier, what is it about the UK establishment? Is there something fundamentally wrong somewhere that has created a disproportionate number of psychopathic child abusers?

As has been shown, psychopathy (and sociopathy) are a by-product of a person's human environment. While it is not fully understood (and biological factors are also important), psychopathy usually occurs due to the environment early in a person's life creating a lack of empathy in the individual in question. One glaring distinction that marks out "the establishment" from the rest of British society is in the area of education.

"Public school" is a long tradition for the establishment, and has been a rite of passage for generations; in some families, for centuries. Boarding school is how many of Britain's elite choose to education their children: many of the current Conservative government, including David Cameron himself, are products of that system. And we can see the results of that system for ourselves today.

While it is not my place to judge parenting, boarding school has been extolled by the elite as the ideal method to educate children of the elite so they are ready to step into positions of authority when the time comes. Boarding school is the way to "build character" in children and adolescents; away from their parents and surrounded by their peers and an authoritarian adult regime.

But the reality often seems to be different: by definition, boarding schools are atypical social environments, that create atypical behaviour: less about emotionally "building character" than psychologically "purging empathy" from the child growing into adulthood. In other words, it is in many ways a dysfunctional social environment that breeds the conditions for forming sociopaths.

There are number of cases of these types of school being populated with teachers who are child abusers, far more than found in the schools system at large; similarly, the many "rites of passage" that occur in boarding school are little more than psychological terror and forms of sexual abuse. These have the effect of not creating constructive and outstanding members of society, but can create the very opposite: either traumatised adults, or adults that have little empathy for society at large and little concept of social value: in other words, ready-made psychopaths.

It is for this reason that Britain's "establishment" seems to be disproportionately-afflicted by the child abuse scandal: these perpetrators were not born as monsters, but often may have been turned into them by a system that was meant to create the very opposite. But there are so many intertwined with propping up its tottering moral code, that no-one in authority has the courage to change it. it is for this reason why it is corrupt.

It exists simply for the sake of amoral self-perpetuation.

Why UKIP are the "real" Conservative Party

There are two conservative parties in British national politics today: the Conservative Party, and UKIP. One of them represents the views of the Thatcherite, Euro-sceptic, neo-liberal right, and the other is the "Conservative Party".

Nigel Farage is the leader of UKIP, and was one of its first members, joining in the early nineties after leaving the Conservative Party in disgust over the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which turned the EU from a looser, free trade zone into a much more concrete political and legal institution, with the aim of perpetual "ever closer union".

"We'll always have Maastricht"

It's worth remembering that Margaret Thatcher was always of the view that the old EEC was good for Britain because it was a free trade zone; she supported it because it was in Britain's interests. She was pro-European in many ways; but she was also ideologically anti-EU, as it took away sovereignty from Britain over various areas of government.
The crunch came in 1989 when her chancellor and foreign secretary (Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe) had pressured Thatcher into agreeing to join the ERM, thus harmonising the comparative values of various European currencies, including the pound. Over this key issue, amongst others, Thatcher fired Howe that summer, replacing him with the little-known (harmless? malleable?) John Major. Barely a few months later, and in October Lawson quit, forcing Thatcher to promote the hitherto unknown Major into the second biggest job in the government, that of chancellor. And little over a year later, in November 1990, Thatcher herself was gone. It was surely the most tempestuous eighteen months of British peacetime politics ever known in the modern Conservative Party. And Europe had played a key part of it.

Major came to power by accident and chance circumstance; an archetypal mediocrity, in every way like the fictitious Jim Hacker from the political satire series, "Yes (Prime) Minister".
Thatcher seemed to trust him as a safe bet in 1989, seemingly channelling her own prejudices into the empty jar that was John Major; assuming he was another of the younger generation of "Thatcher clones", raised to worship at Thatcher's altar, and had already replaced many of the older "wets". But once in power under his own steam, it was clear to the Thatcherites that Major was just like the old-style "wets".
His support for the Maastricht Treaty caused a significant number of Conservatives to rebel, coming close to forcing a vote of confidence that could have brought down the government itself. The rest of the story is well-known.

The heir to Thatcher?

Reviewing this period of Conservative history is key to understanding UKIP. Because Nigel Farage's politics and ideology are shaped by those events, and by the ideology of Thatcher. While the modern leaders of the Conservatives claim to be "neo-Thatcherites", they know the words but not the real psychology; Cameron and Osborne are too distanced from that time and Thatcher's unique sense of mission. Besides, Cameron claimed he was the "heir to Blair" before saying he was heir to anyone else; in this sense, the Conservative Party are simply an extension of Cameron's psychology and ideology (whatever that is), and "Thatcherism" is only a superficial part of it.

It was Thatcher who transformed the Conservative Party into a fearsome electoral machine under her tutelage; it was Thatcher who comfortably won three elections in a row. UKIP are criticised as a "populist" party, but it is Thatcher who is the real role model to follow in creating a "populist" political party: Thatcher was herself an outsider, a non-establishment figure - a grocer's daughter from Lincolnshire who was a convert to the neoliberalism expounded by Ayn Rand.
With her own force of will she became leader of the Conservative Party, and turned it into a neo-liberal party, forcing it to reject the "post-war consensus". Likewise, she also made the Conservative Party seem a less "establishment" party, and appeal again to ordinary people; the aspiring working classes. Norman Tebbitt is a witness to that.

It was this approach that made Thatcher the most successful Prime Minister of the modern age - a non-establishment, egalitarian political outfit that believes in promoting self-worth and economic freedom. Now, Thatcher was a divisive figure - there can be no denying that - and that was as much down to her difficult (detached?) personality as much as her view on society. What Farage has in his favour is a genuine and irrepressible personality that explains ideas in ways people can simply understand.

It is Nigel Farage who has the best claim today to be a real "heir to Thatcher". Farage made his career in the "Thatcher Eighties" in the London Metals Exchange, and doing so without even going to university. His views are those that Thatcher espoused thirty years ago, almost without exception.

What UKIP and Farage represent is, put simply, the politics of Thatcher and the Conservative Party circa 1987. There are many in the Conservative Party who look to the events of 1989-90 as a black time, when the real principles of Conservatism were betrayed and the politics of Thatcher (and the woman herself) were abandoned. The Conservatives have never truly recovered from that.

Farage and UKIP are, in many ways, an opportunity to put things back in some order. Of the Maastricht rebels and the Eurosceptics of the '90s, few are still around or in active politics. A glorius exception to that is John Redwood, who famously put up a leadership challenge to Major in 1995. The question to ask is: with two MPs already having gone to UKIP, why should others not follow? Clearly, those who admire the politics of Thatcher have more in common with UKIP than with the modern Conservative Party. Cameron's views on Europe are little different from those that John major held twenty years ago, and by being part of UKIP those Conservative MPs can at least not worry about having to toe a "party line" clearly so far from their own heart. Under Cameron, the Conservative Party has lost all real sense of purpose beyond its own, aimless, survival.

They should join a "real" Conservative Party...

A real-life "Game Of Thrones": The Multi-polar world of the 21st century

Events of the last five years have displayed the shift in the global centres of power.

Fifteen years ago, the USA was the unchallenged "superpower" (or as the French called it, "hyperpower") in the globe. By 1999, the USA had shown itself to be the world's supreme arbiter of justice, in the Kosovo war using the moral and military support of its NATO allies to bring an end to an attempted genocide and force about a change in government in Serbia (then still calling itself "Yugoslavia").

Today, the limits of America's power abroad are clear to be seen. The reign of George W. Bush displayed the amoral extent of US foreign policy to intervene and change governments in its own interests. The nadir of that was when, in 2003, post-war Iraq was ruled for a year by an American "viceroy", L.Paul Bremer III. In fact, for all his good intentions, Bremer was keen to emphasize his independence from Washington at the time; inadvertently declaring Iraq as his own personal domain. Such comments laid bare the ineptness and ignorance of American understanding of the world beyond its borders, and the lack of understanding of the places they were "intervening" in.

The Obama administration has gone to the other extreme, declaring a mostly "hands off" approach to foreign policy. The result has been an inconsistent application of that approach, in some ways similar to the foreign policy decisions made by Bill Clinton  - intervening in some cases (such as Kosovo), in a half-hearted way in others (such as Bosnia and Somalia), and sometimes not at all (such as Rwanda). Clinton's approach could be explained as a steep learning curve, from the disaster in Somalia at the start of his tenure, to the success in Kosovo at the tail end of it.
But Obama's inconsistency has more been a victim to events and the political reality of the world around him. America is no longer able to act as the "supreme arbiter of justice" as it did at the end of Clinton administration, and much of the way through the Bush administration. Nowadays, America's power has been leeched off by other rising powers, such as China and a resurgent Russia. All its actions have to be tempered by what the reaction will be from its rivals. If the USA can intervene in Libya, then why can't Russia "intervene" in Ukraine? America's inconsistent and morally-ambiguous foreign policy is now coming back to bite it where it hurts.

In the popular TV series "Game Of Thrones", the land of Westeros is the setting for the "War Of Seven Kingdoms". In many ways, the globe can be effectively carved up into seven similar spheres of influence: The USA, China, Europe (the EU), Russia, The Arab World, Latin America, and India. Like in "Game Of Thrones", each of these centres of power is competing with the others for control, using both fair means and foul.
Going through them alphabetically, these "centres of power" can be summarised like this:

The Arab World

The "Arab World" stretches from the Straights of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf. An excellent article and graphic by the "Economist" summarises its current status. Historically, the Arab World hasn't been united into anything approaching a coherent political entity for nearly five hundred years. The current collection of states owe their borders due to agreements and lines on a map drawn up by Europeans over the last hundred years, much of it as a result of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, their former masters. The result is something like a squabbling group of feudalistic satraps (some of whom claim to believe in "democracy") who control varying degrees of territory, resources and population. Collectively, they belong to a loose alliance that calls itself the "Arab League". Much of the wealth in this part of the world is focused at the eastern extremity, on the oil-rich lands around the Persian Gulf.
In the years since the Arab Spring, the relative stability that occurred between these many "players" has been disturbed, and in some parts, completely destroyed. Syria and now Iraq are in a state of civil war; Libya is teetering quite close to one; Yemen likewise. Within the Arab World, different (and surprising) alliances have been formed due to the rise of Islamic extremism; the one true beneficiary of the Arab Spring.

The USA and Europe look on, trying to make sense of the confusion and fluid allegiances, and make a mess of trying to choose the "right" sort of ally (Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Qatar?). Russia looks on with interest, plotting its own allegiances with duplicitous cunning; China, like a true merchant, always follows where the money is.

China

These days, China is at its pinnacle of development and potential in world history. China has been one of the world's pre-eminent powers for the last two thousand years, the chaos and relative decline of most of 19th and 20th centuries notwithstanding.
China today is ran as a highly-organised (and efficient) hierarchical capitalist state. While the powers of the USA and Europe disapprove of its human rights record and the fact that it is not a democracy, China's internal political system tends to reward efficiency and (on the whole) punishes bad organisation and corruption. While many critics call Russia a "modern feudal state", China's hierarchy rewards efficiency above anything else; in Russia, the system rewards loyalty to the centre above anything else. As a result of this, China's population understands how to get on; a simple work ethic is rewarded. It may not look pretty to Western eyes, but it works. China's government is popular with its people for the simple fact that living standards and a Chinese person's way of life has changed beyond imagining in the last twenty years; for example, China's thriving middle class is the same size as the entire population of Europe, or the USA or the Arab World. Words like "democracy" are meaningless in such a context. China has always been a strong state, and will continue to be so.

China's attitude to the abroad seems very straightforward: what it can get out of it. Like any great power, what China looks for above all is one thing: security. Having a natural merchant's mindset, China sees security in money, trade and resources. It is for this reason that it has gained larger economic control over some the resource-heavy parts of Africa, as well as a larger stake in the energy market in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Its "String Of Pearls" policy may look like an act of aggression to Western eyes, but this tells us more about Western insecurity about the USA and Europe's relative decline. Angry rhetoric about its claims over the South and East China Seas may also be a combination of nationalism at home and territorial security of its "near abroad". In this sense, it looks somewhat comparable with Russia, but minus the psychological insecurity.

Europe (The EU)

Like the Arab World, Europe is a collection of states; the difference is that most of them sit together as part of a super-national entity that has legal and economic authority over them, called the EU. Most of the EU shares the same currency, which is effectively controlled by Germany, the EU's biggest economic power. In many ways, the modern-day EU shares the same characteristics of the former European empire, Austria-Hungary: as a multi-national super-state with a parliament full of different languages, ruled by a unaccountable and essentially autocratic government that struggles to adapt to changing circumstances.
While the individual states of the EU are all recognised as democracies (though some far from perfect), the legal authority in Brussels that rules over them and dictates law to them, is not a democratic entity in the real sense of the word. Its "government" is appointed through opaque negotiation, while the "parliament" has little real control on the executive. In essence, the various nation-states that are part of the EU have given up many of their legal powers to a centralised European autocracy.

The contradiction here is that while the many nation-states of Europe have willingly surrendered power over their internal affairs to the EU, these nation-states still have almost complete independence in foreign affairs. While this works fine for the likes of Germany, it makes smaller countries look ridiculous on the world stage when they have to balance their commitments; rather like how the original Thirteen Colonies that made up the USA after their independence all had their own foreign affairs between gaining independence in 1783, and becoming a proper federal state, in 1789.
Of course, the EU does have its own foreign policy (and foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, since 2009), but when it has tried to create a combined front (such as over Ukraine), it has not taken long for the individual states' whims to take over, or be manipulated by outside "players". Just like with the Arab League.

India

In many ways, India is the polar opposite to China. While India is the "world power" with easily the second-biggest population, it is a democracy compared to China's one-party state. The other major difference is that while China is a highly-organised, centralised state, India is a highly corrupt, disorganised state. While in China, everyone knows who is in control, in India, it often appears that no-one is in control. The culture of corruption that infiltrates all levels of the government means that it is almost impossible to get things done. While China has leapt forward economically in the last twenty years, India's pace of growth has been far more modest; and that is down to a combination of corruption and inefficiency. While India's middle class has been growing in an impressive manner, without reforms in the basics of how the state is governed, this is simply a detail.

The talk of India becoming one of the "big players" on the world stage (as the USA would like to see) still looks like a far-off pipe-dream. There's being a democracy, and then there's "democracy" that paralyzes the decision-making process. This, combined with corruption and inefficiency, is what is keeping India on the lower rankings of the "players" on the world stage.
This compares to, say, Turkey: a nation with a population many times smaller than India, but has an efficiently-organised economy and a very well-structured government agenda that has allowed Turkey far greater influence with other (bigger) world powers than would have been thought possible.
India's "foreign policy", if it can be seriously called that, seems an incoherent tangle of ideas. Different politicians from the main parties have contradictory ideas about the future direction of the country; without a coherent sense of purpose, India will be going nowhere quickly, and will be prey to the designs of other, more powerful, rivals.

Latin America

Within Latin America (the American continent south of the Rio Grande), Brazil is by far the biggest power. Brazil's rise in the past ten years has been impressive, and has been helped with its growing energy market. Like India, Latin America is a "rising power", not a "risen power" like China, or to a much lesser extent, Russia. The main advantage that LatAm (primarily a result of Brazil's success, and to a lesser extent, Mexico's economic growth) has over India is that LatAm's foundations are firmer.
Brazil as the largest power in the region has recently started to tap into its potential: using its growing oil sector, and wealth, it has begun to build its economic independence on assertive foreign relations. The USA once considered LatAm to be its backyard, and historically claimed rights to the Western hemisphere. That changed with the more assertive Socialist government of "Lula" DaSilva a decade ago, and has continued with his successor, Dilma Rousseff.

This realignment of LatAm relations (essentially an assertion of independence) coincided with the first years of the Bush administration. A rising China was seen as a useful partner, LatAm welcomed China's hands-off approach, and a new economic alliance was born. By the end of the decade - and coinciding with the financial crisis - Brazil's oil independence meant that it had also become more assertive. This meant that Brazil became one of China's main rivals for influence and resources in sub-Saharan Africa.
With Europe consumed with its own economic problems, and the new Obama administration taking a more hands-off approach to some areas of foreign relations, much of Africa's resources were effectively up for grabs. Some African nations looked to Brazil as a more "European-like" partner to deal with, with the advantage of being geographically closer than Europe itself or China.
In other areas, LatAm's foreign policy has generally been to go against whatever the USA (or Europe) were doing. This explains the economic closeness to China, as well as healthy relations with Russia. In a primitive sense, some voices in the West would see LatAm as going from being on the side of the "good guys" to that of the "bad guys".

Russia

The author has spoken before about Russia's place in the world: its mentality is due to a combination of geography and history. It has been called a "modern-day feudal state" by some (although that term can be used about many places in the world). Historically, it has always been a "resource exporter": a hundred years ago and more, it was a grain exporter; now it is an oil and gas exporter. In many ways, the Kremlin is one of the archetypal "courts" of world power, as it has been for centuries. The fact that the current resident is not a "tsar" but there by popular will is a historical detail.
Russia has always been a country needed to be ruled by will-power. Its greatest time of weakness, in the late 16th and early 17th century (called the "Time Of Troubles"), was when the country was overrun by foreign powers, eventually leading to the rise of the Romanov family, who ruled the empire for the next three hundred years. The 1990s are seen by contemporary Russians in something of a similar light: a time of weakness and anarchy. Vladimir Putin changed all that.

Russia's foreign policy has always been to defend its interests in whatever way it can: if it means siding with butchers, so be it. Is the USA so very different, in spite of its claim to the highest motives? From Chechnya to Syria, Russia's interests are the Kremlin's interests, and vice versa.
Russia's historic antipathy towards the USA, and pragmatism elsewhere, have meant that Russia has made allies of China and Latin America, while following a policy of divide-and-rule in the Arab World and Europe. This has left the USA at perhaps its weakest moment in foreign relations in decades, perhaps since the start of the Second World War.

The USA

The USA's geo-political situation is well-known, as summarised at the start of the article. The USA's internal situation is akin to being divided between two factions (red and blue), managed by an kleptocratic elite - calling the USA a properly-functioning democracy is a bad joke. While productive and rich, the "empire" is going through a period of introspection, not seen since before the Second World War. Tired after fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for thirteen years, the American people now see that war abroad creates more problems than solutions. As I write, Iraq is effectively divided in three by sectarian and ethnic divisions, and Afghanistan looks like it may go the same way, de facto divided into a north and south along ethnic lines after a disputed presidential election. Karzai was the "strongman" that held the US-occupied country together; with him gone, the motivation to stay together becomes tenuous.
This would be the nightmare scenario for American foreign policy makers and military planners, with so much blood and treasure poured into a bottomless pit of chaos.

To be fair, I have omitted Japan, which is a huge oversight considering its economic might (if negligible military might). Somehow, Japan appears to carry less obvious geo-political influence over its neighbours than, say, Germany has over the rest of Europe. This has more to do with Japan's reliance on the USA as a military ally, lending itself to being a "pygmy" on the military round-table. Even in this globalised world of economics, military spending and prestige count for a lot. And while Germany's military spending is also modest, it has a lot more economic muscle it can leverage when it needs to; with huge China facing it across the sea, Japan's economic power can only be compared in respects to its neighbourhood. The behemoth of China dwarfs even the advanced economy of Japan.

These are the "players" in the game of global power. Right now, things bear a worrying similarity to things a hundred years ago, when Europe was divided into a variety of alliances.

More specifically, the Middle East looks like it has the most spontaneous likelihood to explode into a regional war. And no-one can predict where that could lead...

The nature of power: from Feudalism to 21st century Capitalism

The word "feudalism" evokes images of slavery: medieval serfdom, peasants bound to serve a class of landed gentry. By definition, feudalism was a form of slavery. In the modern world, "feudalism" is considered as dead as the age of knights that is associated with it. But perceptions can be misleading.

Feudalism was mainly concerned with two things: property, and freedom of movement. As land was considered property, so were the people who tilled the land of the person who owned the land. These "serfs", or slaves in other words, were bound to the landowner, and any attempts by serfs to flee their fate could be punishable by death.

The first part of the world that began to change this system was Europe, with the growth of the professional merchant class, skilled professions that allowed individuals freedom of property, movement and so on. The Republic Of Venice was an early medieval example of this. Gradually, more and more European states moved in this direction: the last major European power to formally abolish serfdom was the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century; over in North America around the same time, the southern states of the USA fought for secession from the USA in order to continue their own form of serfdom on African slaves and their descendants. They lost.

A land of milk and honey?

Karl Marx famously wrote about the path of feudalism to Capitalism, in the end equating the "satanic mills" to a form of "industrialised serfdom".

Industrialisation brought a transformation of society to those it affected. The serfdom of the land was transformed into the subservience to the factory. Proponents of Capitalism would argue that this was an inevitable stage of the process of mankind's advancement, and unless people wish to live in tree-houses and tilling the fields in an agrarian commune, this logic is hard to refute.

In a more basic way, feudalism was about power, who controlled what, and how. And this is where the argument for feudalism's death becomes more complicated.

In the 21st century, in 2014, who holds power, and how? In a great many cases, the way that nation-states are ran is really not so very different from five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or more. Certainly, technology has changed life in many ways beyond recognition, but human nature is unchanged, and the nature of power is fundamentally unchanged also. This is a point that Jonathon Swift explained very well in the last part of his famous novel, "Gulliver's Travels", all the way back in the early 18th century. The TV series "Game Of Thrones" is famous across the world, but one of the main reasons is that human nature and the use of power is represented by the characters in a very accessible way for the viewer. In other words, medieval politics and power are fundamentally no different from the modern-day.

A handful of examples can easily express the point.

The UK is held up as an exemplar for the rest of the world to follow. As the mother of modern democracy (apologies, Greece...), the rule of law, and a sensible balance of power, an education system that is the envy of the world, and so on. And yet, this "exemplar" is one of the most feudalistic modern states in the developed world.
While the UK has no "serfs", its "citizens" are still legally subjects to the crown. The UK has no constitution. The British crown is one of the biggest landowners in the world. While the British royal family may well seem harmless enough, one half of the electoral system (The House Of Lords) still consists of individuals who are either from centuries-old landed gentry (i.e. landowners), or are there by the favour of a bygone government. The House Of Lords has few contemporaries in the developed world as a temple for feudal values. The British establishment also propagates itself through the UK's education system, which is one of the best methods in the developed world for maintaining the untouchable position of Britain's peculiarly-modern form of feudalism. This system has done wonders for preserving the elite, while the lot of the average Briton has suffered, especially since the financial crisis. Needless to say, like any feudalistic institutions, this system isn't even very efficient; it is simply is very good at doing the best for those in positions of power.

Aside from the UK, many of the most developed countries in Europe are still monarchies: in Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway; the Low Countries are all monarchies; as is Spain. Yes, they are "constitutional monarchies", but while the power they wield is only theoretical, it tells us more about the psychology of the people themselves: they like having a monarch. The interesting question is "why?", and this tells us that while many people in the modern world are far more educated (and the world they live in technologically-advanced) they still want to believe in fairy tales.

Modern-day feudalism?

Crossing the pond, many political commentators like comparing the modern-day USA to the Roman Empire of the past. The "Land Of The Free". Few objective economists would argue that the USA is the most unequal nation-state in the developed world, and that is a result of the way it is managed. While health care is considered a human right in the rest of the developed world, in the USA it is considered something you can only have if you can afford it. While Obama's controversial health care reform has claimed to have helped (a little), any objective observer would look at the private health care system as a grossly-inefficient and amoral answer to the world superpower's health problems.

But the American model of running the country was never meant to be "fair": it was meant to be "laissez-faire". Ayn Rand was the most famous proponent of modern-day neoliberalism, which idolised the gains of the rich as a way to motivate the poor. The rich in the USA, in the last thirty years have reached a level of wealth so far from that of the average person that they may as well be considered aristocracy in their own right. No-one in the know seriously doubts that the elite of America are the ones who decide how the game of power is played every four years for the White House. The Koch brothers, who funded the "Tea Party", are simply the newest (and most polarising) set of characters on the scene.
While the USA rid itself of legal slavery, it advocated an economic model that created a new riddle: a slave may be fed and housed, but has no freedom; a freed slave has freedom, but no house nor food to eat. Since the the USA became an imperial power at the turn of the 20th century, it has been exporting this riddle across the world, spreading its own "riddle of freedom".

The USA's "riddle of freedom" was taken in by the UK under the tutelage of Margeret Thatcher, which is these days known as the "Anglo-Saxon Model" by some, and has been implemented ruthlessly by the Conservative government since 2010 under the excuse that "there is no alternative"(!). Since 1979, the UK has been ran like a multinational company, if symbolically headed by a feudalistic establishment: the asset-stripping mentality has turned the UK into a vulture market even for foreign governments.

Since 2008, in the Euro-zone, it's "Club Med" that are being treated to a similar kind of treatment. As Germany holds the purse-strings, it has the right to dictate the economic affairs of Southern Europe. It has already toppled governments in Greece and Italy to do so. While in the latter case, the sitting premier (Silvio Berlusconi) was hardly going to be missed by most Italians, it is hard to deny that the European Union itself is an unaccountable bureaucratic behemoth (not unlike empires of old) that seems to grow with ambition year-on-year. The EU's ambition has been laid bare with its efforts to bring Ukraine into the fold.

At the end of the Cold War, the "Anglo-Saxon Model" was exported to Russia and the former Communist bloc.
Some commentators have described Putin's Russia as a "modern feudal state", or worse. But in reality it was always likely that once the Soviet Union was gone, Russians would revert back to their old way of thinking. Modern Russia and the battle for who controlled the Kremlin in the 1990s became another version of the "Game Of Thrones" seen on TV. Putin was simply in the right place at the right time, and was the most effective player of that oldest of games: power. "Capitalism" in Russia simply became a battle for who controlled the most property, and who controlled the most had the most leverage (or so he hoped). The Kremlin is run as the supreme "court" that it has been for centuries, ruling the largest realm in the globe. Technology is just a detail; all freedom is relative.

A number of other post-Soviet states are also ran as "modern feudal states" in the same manner, with ruling families or oligarchies; come to think of it, almost all the the Middle East is run in such a manner. Given the blessing of oil, and what does an emir need to keep power over his modern-day feudal state than sprinkling a little of his wealth around? Give enough of the population enough money to afford an "iPad" or an off-road vehicle for the desert, and what would any person care about "democracy"? China is living proof of that logic, and both it and Russia are the two biggest countries in the world, by population and area respectively. The USA's dominance looks transient compared to the many centuries that these two states have thrived.

The third world (e.g. most of Africa) is hopelessly corrupt, inefficient and sunk deep in poverty. Investment by aid charities will not change that. Some say you get the government you deserve. But you cannot change human nature, and for all the technological advances made since the time of "real" feudalism, some people still want to live in a "real" feudal society (with "wifi", of course!). The establishment of a trans-national "caliphate" in the heart of the Middle East by the Islamic extremists of ISIS (regardless of how long it lasts) is a very definitive endorsement of that view. Feudalism and power struggles will be around in one form or another as long as people have a feudal mentality.

And that doesn't look like it will disappear very soon.

Psychopathy, lack of empathy, and Capitalism

One of the key characteristics of psychopaths is their lack of empathy. What do we mean when we talk about "empathy"?

Empathy is generally understood to be when a person understands how another person feels psychologically and emotionally, and responds in a constructive way to those feelings. This definition follows from the thinking of leading British psychologist, Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University (a cousin of the famous comedy actor, Sasha). In his book, "Zero Degrees Of Empathy", Simon Baron Cohen talks about the importance of empathy in human society, what happens when it is eroded, examples of psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy, and its scientific basis.

Zero Degrees Of Society

An article by George Monbiot talks about the relationship between conservatism and how core values are shaped by our social environment. I just talked about psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy: the most famous example is psychopathy (more on its key attributes here and here), but this also includes Narcissism. But social environment can also create a lack of empathy itself, as Simon Baron Cohen (SBC) also mentioned in the book mentioned earlier.

A famous example SBC talked about was the Nazis. In the right social environment, people begin to lose their sense of empathy. Scientific evidence has suggested that highly-stressful environments can have the effect of eroding the part of the brain responsible for empathy; over a period of time (such as during war, extreme deprivation etc) people begin to think more about themselves than the lives of others. Over time, others came begin to be thought of as objects rather than people with their own feelings and lives. In this way, people who lose their empathy can be called sociopaths. Psychopaths are people who have been born that way through biological and genetic factors; sociopaths are made that way over time by their environment.

The Nazis are a famous example of what happens when a society as a whole loses its empathy: people with a lack of empathy have no regard for those who they see as "enemies" (as Nazis saw the Jews); similarly, people with a lack of empathy have no regard for the suffering of strangers.

Continuing on the last point, it is generally understood that a society that treats those less fortunate than themselves with ignorance or worse has some kind of failing at its heart. To be "humane", almost by definition, is to have empathy for those who you know nothing about: it is why "charity" exists. Looking at it from an economic angle, it the reason why people willingly pay taxes; as was once said, taxes are the price of civilisation. Without taxes, government wouldn't be able to financially function, and likewise, government wouldn't be able to provide collective services to society as a whole.

How to be a sociopath

Of course, there are people in human society who do not believe that taxes are "the price of civilisation", and do not believe that government should provide collective services. From a psychological point of view, these people appear to have a severe lack of empathy.

These people are generally today called "economic liberals", "neoliberals", or "conservatives". Modern-day Neoliberalism has its roots in the thinking of Ayn Rand, who developed a philosophy called "Objectivism". The key value in this philosophy can be summarised as "the virtue of selfishness" (also the name of one of Rand's most famous books). Conventional morality (in effect, what we understand as "empathy"), is turned on its head: to act against your own interests is illogical, even evil. Likewise, "charity" is treated with contempt, as a concept that simply encourages indolence and reliance on others. As far as Rand was concerned, government should exist simply to provide security and enforce rule of law; all else was the provide of the individual.

It is this aim that modern-day neo-liberals, from the "Tea Party" in the USA, to the Conservative and Ukip parties in the UK, and the Liberal parties in Australia and Canada, ultimately look towards.

As these people see it, the financial crisis was not the result of a broken and utterly corrupt "neo-liberal" financial system, but the fault of government spending too much on society. Again, this is turning a conventional understanding of recent history on its head, blaming the lower half of society for the ills of society overall. Like sociopaths, these people find a moral justification for declaring economic war on the bottom half of society. Poverty is the enemy; therefore, poor people must be treated worse in order to encourage them out of poverty. It a "sociopath government" way of applying the principle of "tough love".

In any case, the result is a widening inequality of society. Like the psychopath, the "neoliberals" talk of inequality being a natural consequence of society, forgetting that the most equal societies in the world are also the most stable, and happiest.

In such a situation, it is not surprising that societies ruled by the "neo-liberal" consensus are more unequal, more unstable, and more stressful.
After the fall of Communism, the same philosophy was applied to the former Soviet Bloc. The result has generally been the same, if not worse: inequality skyrocketing, government services often failing in their most basic functions, and an increasingly dystopian appearance of society. While on the surface "neo-liberal" economies appear richer, once you peel off the golden facade, you see the broken and ragged mass of individuals that have been left behind to fend for themselves. This is the result of the lack of empathy embedded into the philosophy of modern-day Capitalism.

Rich people and psychopaths flourish under such conditions. Mass communication and consumerism is the golden skin that covers over the grinding reality for most people who live in "neo-liberal" societies; in many ways, with the strange destruction of privacy in the 21st century, modern-day "neoliberalism" and globalisation resemble a form of ideological tyranny. As Capitalism encourages people to see themselves as individuals first, the result is that society as a whole becomes a forgotten concept, a sea of individuals thinking like Margaret Thatcher that "there is no such thing as society". Well, if the government does less and less for you, how can you think that "society" exists? And if "society" doesn't exist, why would you give a thought to others, when there is nothing in it for you?

In such conditions, what proof would you have that there is such a thing as "humanity"? In such conditions, it is no wonder that psychopaths are attracted to careers like big business and politics; that's where all the money is.

(Update: Tuesday, 8 July

A recently-published study, described here, explains how the wealthier a person is, the more likely their levels of empathy will be eroded. In this case, the richer you are, the less likely you are to empathize with those worse-off than you, and society in general. While, of course, there are many exceptions to the rule, taken as a whole, it is not difficult to understand the psychology. The experiment described in the link demonstrates how those at the top end of society are statistically less likely to contribute to charity, behave in a more aggressive and entitled way, and have less empathy and instinctive kindness to relate to people's problems and lives)

Psychopathy and the sales industry: The example of PerDM

There was a recent case reported in The Guardian about the sales reps who are taking their "employers", PerDM, to court for breaking employment law.

My interest in this case is more than casual, as in a previous life, I too have worked as a sales rep for the same company. So I have a personal interest in the case, as well as first-hand experience of how "PerDM" and other sales companies operate. In many ways, the sales industry epitomises what happens when the psychology of the psychopath is put into practice in capitalism.

The character Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho" worked in big business (or something to that effect), and his personality is often portrayed as purely psychopathic.He lacks emotion, empathy, and has no moral scruples about anything he does. He is also a serial killer.
In reality, though, few psychopaths are openly violent; they are more than capable of causing chaos through their actions, but more than usual will use non-violent means to achieve what they want. It is not that they have moral scruples against using violence; it is just that they would use violence when it is convenient to their goals. Even psychopaths are rational, compared to the mentally insane.

How the sales industry treats its employees

First of all, a sales "company" like PerDM has few real "employees" as the term is generally understood. The vast majority of them, for tax purposes, are classified as "self employed"; the exception are the managers of the individual branches of  the sales company who will usually have set up their own branch in an area with no local company presence, along with a minimal administration. This is how the company expands with the minimum of costs. The company model is simple, and as described in the article mentioned, works like a "recruitment pyramid scheme".

Salaries are based fully on commission, so the number of sales dictates the employees salary. The promotion ladder works by  new employees (A) learning the basics of  the sales strategy and meeting a pre-set sales target. Once this is achieved, "A" chooses new employees  for "training-up"; once that employee has trained-up a number of new employees who have reached their target sales and have their own "generation" of trainees, "A" will move up the ladder and begin to earn his own commission off the sales of those trainees below him. This pyramid of  advancement will continue as long as more "generations" of sales staff are created under him, until "A" has acquired, through the commission earned from his trainees gives him enough capital to set up a branch on his own. And so a new branch of the sales company is created.

Sales companies get contracts from all kinds of businesses, as the sales techniques used are cheaper than conventional advertisement for the company in question, and more effective. Door-to-door sales is generally considered the most effective in terms of "percentages". The "Five Per Cent Rule" is considered in the sales industry to be the marker i.e. that five percent of people encountered face-to-face will say "yes" to the sale, under normal circumstances. Naturally, the most effective salesmen can achieve a percentage far more than the norm.

So on one hand, these types of sales companies expand like a Capitalist virus, while circumventing employment regulations and jumping through tax loopholes to maximise profits. And in the current economic climate, they are thriving. As someone in the industry once explained, when the the economy is doing well, the sales industry does well; when the economy does badly, the sales industry does well. Companies always want more sales in the good times; in the bad times, they need sales even more.

The psychology of the salesman

As a result of this, salesmen tend to compared with conmen, and for good reason.

As the sales reps' salaries are dependent on your sales, people sink or swim very quickly. Those who cannot make door-to-door sales work for them, lick their wounds and leave, if they cannot afford to work for free (or persevere until they become better at the job). The sales company loses nothing; what few sales the "newbie" has made still adds to the manager's commission regardless, and the company incurs zero costs towards its employees as they are classified as "self-employed" for tax purposes. Any travel expenses are taken on the employees own shoulders.

While their is a sales strategy that all sales companies have, the pure Capitalist nature of the job naturally encourages employees to be dishonest. For many, the temptation to use deceit or misinformation to "make a sale" can be too great; those with the gift of the gab prosper, and those who don't will be required to learn it in order to make sales. Those without "the gift" or with too much of a moral backbone stand little chance and will fall by the wayside.
The sales "strategy" operates around psychological tactics to break down a potential customer's resistance. In this way, the "strategy" resembles a form of manipulation akin to an unscrupulous trickster. The salesman will use a number of his "weapons" of manipulation until he either succeeds in making a sale, or fails and moves on.
Apart from the temptations towards manipulation and deceit, the nature of the job also encourages a superficial and insincere attitude towards people; the pure Capitalist nature of the job also encourages sales reps to see people as a cash cow. And as selling is akin to manipulation, it also transforms employees into actors, changing their personality and behaviour depending on the person they are selling to. In other words, sales staff begin acting like sociopaths.

The psychology of the sales office

The sales company's sales strategy also trains its sales staff into a specific psychological mindset. The sales industry operates in a bubble, which can become infectious. While the environment with sales companies varies from place to place, a badly-run sales company may be ran with a sadistic and highly stressful environment in order to meet targets; a well-run company will more likely emphasize "positive mental attitude" (not unlike in a Scientology centre, or a cult), that may well appear freakishly over-zealous to the outsider. Any struggling sales staff will feel intimidated in a badly-run office; in a well-run office, they will either become motivated by the unrelenting enthusiasm of others, or alienated by it, and leave.

Working in the sales industry is like nothing else, a world unto itself, and consumed within itself. In this way, it is an archetypal example of unfettered Capitalism at its purest, as described by Ayn Rand. As the sales staff are encouraged by the nature of their job to become like sociopaths, this attitude becomes more concentrated the longer, and more successful a person becomes in the industry. Sales managers, by definition, therefore are likely to have several degrees less empathy and fewer scruples than their less experienced sales staff.

When you have become hugely successful in the sales industry, you are bound to believe in your own infallibility, as well as have little time for the weaknesses and failings of others. When you have made your own fortune in an industry as uncompromising and unforgiving as sales, you may well believe yourself to be akin to a god, and for good reason.

It is for these reasons that the sales industry is equally-good at attracting people who are natural psychopaths, as well as turning people into psychopaths (or more exactly, sociopaths).