George Monbiot is going to be dreadfully disappointed

Our Man tells us that democracy does not, not really, work. Because the demos isn’t quite up to it:

Our entire political system is premised on the idea of accountability. Brilliant theory: just a shame it bears no relation to reality. Those who believe the fairytale tend to lose elections. The winning formula is not listing your achievements and explaining what a schmuck the other person is. It is demonstrating hope. You flatter your existing voters while attracting new ones by telling a powerful story of transformation. If you’re already in government, you should spend big on public services: demonstrating in deed as well as word that life is improving.

We do think that’s a rather depressing idea for we too are in favour of democracy. Beats bloody revolution as a way of changing who has power after all.

It’s also true that we’re not the people who insist the economy must be run by democracy - not the collective and enforced kind at least. Rather, devolve power down to the individual, see what happens and clean up any failures as they become apparent. But Monbiot is of precisely the opposite opinion. He insists that we must have true economic democracy. What happens with money, by whom, who makes what at which price and so on, must be decided - then enforced - by the demos collectively, through voting, rather than individually. Which does, you know, rather run into this problem of if politics cannot deal with who makes the laws about marmalade then it’s going to have terrible, terrible, problems wth who makes how much marmalade, of which type, at what price.

Thus we do indeed think that if that true economic democracy he so lusts after ever arrives he’s going to be terribly, terribly, disappointed. His own analysis shows that it’s not going to work, doesn’t it.

Tim Worstall