Thanks Grant. Useful analysis. I think it is fair to say that our current model of democracy is increasingly unrepresentative of diverse views as our politicians operate on a set of common values that largely support the status quo. For example Chris Luxon sells two of his properties for a tidy sum as did Jacinda when she sold her Pt Chev property while she was PM - neither pay any tax on their substantial profit. What they both have in common is that they oppose CGT. Meanwhile Chris 'not on my watch' Hipkins is still thinking about a wealth tax. When it comes to matters of substance there is little to separate them. What history appears to show is that it is only when moderation no longer works that we actually get change. When Britain introduced electoral reform in 1832 it followed a decade of 'Captain Swing' riots calling for representation and the following year (1833) slavery was abolished in the British Empire in part a response to the slave rebellion in Jamaica in 1831. Moderation will only work until it doesn't - but where you are very much on the money is AI - we seem to be drifting into an AI dominated future without any common sense of direction - and where we end up is anyone's guess.
Liberal multiculturalism becomes intolerable as it engenders political passivity...
In practice, though, NZ's most progressive social policies were undertaken by those who gave up on revolution and opted for gradual lawful changes. But, yes, there are times when progress seems to demand that people go out and smash things. Chartism is a good example.
Very interesting. 'Best of times and the worst of times' all right. But there's nothing complicated about it. Here in the Western world we've moved far away from the cohesive nuclear family unit and we're seeing the results. It seems to me the most unhappy are those who've moved furthest away. So with time...
I think it helps guarantee the greatest happiness for the greatest number. I like Japan and its people, and although not a Christian country they honour their parents and grandparents - and by doing so respect themselves and others. The political model that follows reflects that respect.
Interesting, Grant, thank you. There is much I agree with, but also some I don't. For example, your reference to the integration of East and West Germany ignores that the original division was an artificial construct—as was, say, the partioning of Palestine by the Balfour Declaration. Actions by and within states have consequences not often recognised until decades after the event, an example of which was the reparations forced on Germany in 1919 which [inevitably?] led to the rise of the Nazi Party.
I don't agree with you regarding AI. You admit that you use AI to assist you writing your missives, with which I have no problem although the old-fashioned part of 83 year-old me perhaps looks at it askance! However the thoughts you express on artificial intelligence suggest you are referring to large language models such as you use in preparing your essays and in reality that is a relatively small use of what statisticians and number crunchers refer to as AI. But we need to remember that artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, and by far the most important use of the, shall I call it "art", requires the development and implementation of neural networks and appropriate algorithms. You will have encountered those who believe that true AI will involve self-programming computers, but a little simple thought shows that a computer will always require a set of rules by which it is programmed.
I would be really interested for you to elaborate how you perceive AI taking an important role in the way our political structures evolve. I'm not thinking here of the malicious uses to which large language models or AI visual tools can be put.
Hi Gary. Thanks for your comments. While I do use AI-generated images for posts sometimes, I don't use AI to generate text for my posts. Just to be clear. And I can't predict how AI will affect political structures in future, although it's already being used in some administrative systems now. It does get discussed in my most recent book, Government and Political Trust. The unpredictability is evident when reading those in the AI industry such as Ray Kurzweil. I'd recommend reading Suleyman's The Coming Wave. Cheers.
[Posted separately so my post doesn't get too long.]
Winston Churchill, whatever you think of him, had a point when he said that "democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." And JFK said that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable."
From my own experiences, I firmly believe that social democracy is but 1 form of peaceful revolution.
The Ayatollah regime needs to go, and big ups to the Iranian public fighting for their human rights. If they can do a successful Persian Spring, good on them, but they face an uphill battle against a powerful IRGC & clergy.
- External regime change like the CIA did on Mossadegh in 1953 is the whole reason the ayatollahs seized power in 1979, & is still fraught today. The Dubya option of bombing Iran would be much costlier in financial & human terms than Iraq, given Iran is bigger, more populous & stronger. And even if the regime was topped externally, what's to stop it being replaced with another dictatorship?
- A Machiavellian option: concoct a border war between the IRGC & the Afghan Taliban. While that might weaken both, it could further destabilise the region & give neighbouring nations an excuse to join the Nuclear Club, or justify their continued membership of it.
- Various sanctions have been imposed on Iran since the 1979 Revolution, which have affected its economy but have barely dented the regime itself. And sanctioned regimes can still get weapons from other rogue states.
- If external options to depose the Ayatollahs are too fraught, that leaves the internal options. There was a window of opportunity with Khomeini's death and the ascendancy of the moderate Khatami, but Khatami was often overridden by Khomeini's successor Khamenei & the unelected clergy. The same went for Hassan Rouhani in the 2010s, and possibly with Pezeshkian now. Ayatollah Khamenei is long past retirement, and whoever succeeds him will have to go through the Assembly of Experts, which is hand-picked by the Ayatollah himself & effectively stacked with loyalists. Coupled with even more Khamenei loyalists in the IRGC, the possibility of an Iranian Gorbachev is a tall order.
-Short of secretly arming & training the anti-Ayatollah protesters - another fraught option as Afghanistan shows - the Iranian public still face a big but not impossible obstacle to a democratic Iran.
From what's been happening in Myanmar, where rebels have been gaining ground against the military junta , there may be some hope.
As for Israel & Gaza, basic international law should be allowed to do its job. The Hague making good on its proposals to warrant Bibi & Sinwar et al is just the start.
Labeling parties "far right" and "populist" is an attempt by the Establishment and MSM to try and associate them with past memories of nazism, and fascism. But clearly they are not. What they are is essentially centrist in their policies, in a political spectrum that has moved sharply to the far left, on social issues. Hence their rapidly growing support among ordinary citizens.
People naturally have always had attachment to place, and culture. The Nation State for the most part embodied that. But supranational entities like the EU, are failing to deliver on their economic promises, and meanwhile are pursuing policies that are increasingly perceived as not being in the interests of working people. While UN treaties are undermining Nation States sovereignty as we speak.
Describing social media as toxic, which we constantly hear used as a rationale to usher in censorship, is an exaggeration that ignores the fact I'm reading your blog right now, so its educational benefits outweigh it's costs.
Not so much policing Grant, just the point that these terms are designed to other people, and help create the polarization and division that is so prevalent at the moment. Reducing half the population to "deplorables", only helps those who employ divide and rule tactics, designed to prevent people from realizing they have more common interests than they thought.
Thanks Grant. Useful analysis. I think it is fair to say that our current model of democracy is increasingly unrepresentative of diverse views as our politicians operate on a set of common values that largely support the status quo. For example Chris Luxon sells two of his properties for a tidy sum as did Jacinda when she sold her Pt Chev property while she was PM - neither pay any tax on their substantial profit. What they both have in common is that they oppose CGT. Meanwhile Chris 'not on my watch' Hipkins is still thinking about a wealth tax. When it comes to matters of substance there is little to separate them. What history appears to show is that it is only when moderation no longer works that we actually get change. When Britain introduced electoral reform in 1832 it followed a decade of 'Captain Swing' riots calling for representation and the following year (1833) slavery was abolished in the British Empire in part a response to the slave rebellion in Jamaica in 1831. Moderation will only work until it doesn't - but where you are very much on the money is AI - we seem to be drifting into an AI dominated future without any common sense of direction - and where we end up is anyone's guess.
Good point, thanks Mark. You might like Slavoj Zizek's Plea for Leninist Intolerance.
https://www.uvm.edu/~jwaldron/articles/zizekapleaforleninistintolerance.pdf
Liberal multiculturalism becomes intolerable as it engenders political passivity...
In practice, though, NZ's most progressive social policies were undertaken by those who gave up on revolution and opted for gradual lawful changes. But, yes, there are times when progress seems to demand that people go out and smash things. Chartism is a good example.
Very interesting. 'Best of times and the worst of times' all right. But there's nothing complicated about it. Here in the Western world we've moved far away from the cohesive nuclear family unit and we're seeing the results. It seems to me the most unhappy are those who've moved furthest away. So with time...
Thanks for the comment, Mike. Do you see the nuclear family as a model or foundation for the State?
I think it helps guarantee the greatest happiness for the greatest number. I like Japan and its people, and although not a Christian country they honour their parents and grandparents - and by doing so respect themselves and others. The political model that follows reflects that respect.
At the same time, it's better to break up an unsalvageable marriage, than to lock it into a cycle of domestic violence, or even domestic homicide.
https://d3nd7i493f0o21.cloudfront.net/assets/upload/289835/-413205091/he-beat-her-150-times-she-only-got-flowers-once.gif?k=c3bd9deb4e
Interesting, Grant, thank you. There is much I agree with, but also some I don't. For example, your reference to the integration of East and West Germany ignores that the original division was an artificial construct—as was, say, the partioning of Palestine by the Balfour Declaration. Actions by and within states have consequences not often recognised until decades after the event, an example of which was the reparations forced on Germany in 1919 which [inevitably?] led to the rise of the Nazi Party.
I don't agree with you regarding AI. You admit that you use AI to assist you writing your missives, with which I have no problem although the old-fashioned part of 83 year-old me perhaps looks at it askance! However the thoughts you express on artificial intelligence suggest you are referring to large language models such as you use in preparing your essays and in reality that is a relatively small use of what statisticians and number crunchers refer to as AI. But we need to remember that artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, and by far the most important use of the, shall I call it "art", requires the development and implementation of neural networks and appropriate algorithms. You will have encountered those who believe that true AI will involve self-programming computers, but a little simple thought shows that a computer will always require a set of rules by which it is programmed.
I would be really interested for you to elaborate how you perceive AI taking an important role in the way our political structures evolve. I'm not thinking here of the malicious uses to which large language models or AI visual tools can be put.
Hi Gary. Thanks for your comments. While I do use AI-generated images for posts sometimes, I don't use AI to generate text for my posts. Just to be clear. And I can't predict how AI will affect political structures in future, although it's already being used in some administrative systems now. It does get discussed in my most recent book, Government and Political Trust. The unpredictability is evident when reading those in the AI industry such as Ray Kurzweil. I'd recommend reading Suleyman's The Coming Wave. Cheers.
[Posted separately so my post doesn't get too long.]
Winston Churchill, whatever you think of him, had a point when he said that "democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." And JFK said that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable."
From my own experiences, I firmly believe that social democracy is but 1 form of peaceful revolution.
Great comments, thanks! Gradual progressive change worked for NZ in the past.
And you may like this:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-khamenei-warned-nasrallah-israeli-plot-kill-him-sources-say-2024-10-02/
The Ayatollah regime needs to go, and big ups to the Iranian public fighting for their human rights. If they can do a successful Persian Spring, good on them, but they face an uphill battle against a powerful IRGC & clergy.
- External regime change like the CIA did on Mossadegh in 1953 is the whole reason the ayatollahs seized power in 1979, & is still fraught today. The Dubya option of bombing Iran would be much costlier in financial & human terms than Iraq, given Iran is bigger, more populous & stronger. And even if the regime was topped externally, what's to stop it being replaced with another dictatorship?
- A Machiavellian option: concoct a border war between the IRGC & the Afghan Taliban. While that might weaken both, it could further destabilise the region & give neighbouring nations an excuse to join the Nuclear Club, or justify their continued membership of it.
- Various sanctions have been imposed on Iran since the 1979 Revolution, which have affected its economy but have barely dented the regime itself. And sanctioned regimes can still get weapons from other rogue states.
- If external options to depose the Ayatollahs are too fraught, that leaves the internal options. There was a window of opportunity with Khomeini's death and the ascendancy of the moderate Khatami, but Khatami was often overridden by Khomeini's successor Khamenei & the unelected clergy. The same went for Hassan Rouhani in the 2010s, and possibly with Pezeshkian now. Ayatollah Khamenei is long past retirement, and whoever succeeds him will have to go through the Assembly of Experts, which is hand-picked by the Ayatollah himself & effectively stacked with loyalists. Coupled with even more Khamenei loyalists in the IRGC, the possibility of an Iranian Gorbachev is a tall order.
-Short of secretly arming & training the anti-Ayatollah protesters - another fraught option as Afghanistan shows - the Iranian public still face a big but not impossible obstacle to a democratic Iran.
From what's been happening in Myanmar, where rebels have been gaining ground against the military junta , there may be some hope.
As for Israel & Gaza, basic international law should be allowed to do its job. The Hague making good on its proposals to warrant Bibi & Sinwar et al is just the start.
Labeling parties "far right" and "populist" is an attempt by the Establishment and MSM to try and associate them with past memories of nazism, and fascism. But clearly they are not. What they are is essentially centrist in their policies, in a political spectrum that has moved sharply to the far left, on social issues. Hence their rapidly growing support among ordinary citizens.
People naturally have always had attachment to place, and culture. The Nation State for the most part embodied that. But supranational entities like the EU, are failing to deliver on their economic promises, and meanwhile are pursuing policies that are increasingly perceived as not being in the interests of working people. While UN treaties are undermining Nation States sovereignty as we speak.
Describing social media as toxic, which we constantly hear used as a rationale to usher in censorship, is an exaggeration that ignores the fact I'm reading your blog right now, so its educational benefits outweigh it's costs.
Thanks for reading, Sean, and for your language-policing! Do you read Frank Furedi?
Not so much policing Grant, just the point that these terms are designed to other people, and help create the polarization and division that is so prevalent at the moment. Reducing half the population to "deplorables", only helps those who employ divide and rule tactics, designed to prevent people from realizing they have more common interests than they thought.
Clinton's 'deplorables' comment was definitely poorly judged.