Political parties may now be using algorithms and selectively targeting citizens with their messages – but, fundamentally, lack the courage to offer the public the sort of programme which would actually make a difference for voters. Such a programme would consist of such things as
-
Breaking up monopolies
-
Ensuring that the rich (and multinationals) pay
escalating rates of taxation
-
Returning privatized public utilities to the
public – preferably to municipalities or “mutuals”
-
Reinstating the requirement of media balance
-
Restricting corporate funding of parties
-
Citizen juries
-
A neutral civil service
The UK Labour Party was exceptional in its 2019 and 2017 election manifestos offering this sort of programme – and see where it got them I hear a lot of you saying…..
There
is apparently a project which compares the election manifestos of some 1000 political
parties in 60 countries. Unfortunately it’s one of these highly academic websites with impenetrable
prose. It did, however, put me on to what looks a useful collection of
recent articles Why the Left Loses
– the decline of the centre-left in comparative perspective Rob Manwaring
and Paul Kennedy (2018) which I should add to the
reading list on social democracy I recommended some 4 years ago
I’m currently in the middle of Future Politics – living together in a world transformed by Tech by James Susskind (2018) which must be one of the first popular books to explore the likely impact of the new world of algorithms and artificial intelligence.
The premise
of ‘Future Politics’ is that relentless advances in science and technology are
set to transform the way we live together with consequences that are both
profound and frightening. We are not yet ready for the world we are creating.
Politics will not be the same as it was in the past.
For
Susskind, three changes are of particular note: increasingly capable systems
that are equal or superior to how humans function; increasingly integrated
technologies that are embedded in the physical and built environment (the
internet of things); and an increasingly quantified society, whereby details of
our lives are captured as data and processed by digital systems. Those who
control the technologies will exercise power over us, set the limits of our
liberty, and determine the future of democracy. One of the problems is that the
engineers devising and implementing these technologies rarely engage with
consequences of these developments.
So, it is up
to the rest of us to correct this deficiency and take responsibility for
understanding and analysing the implications of this transformed world. We
must, says Susskind, engage with political theory if we are to think critically
and develop appropriate intellectual tools to tackle these digital
developments.
“[T]he shift
from law enforced by people to law enforced by technology means that power will
increasingly lie in force rather than coercion, with self-enforcing laws that
cannot be broken because they are encoded into the world around us.” (p. 105)
This is a really important insight. The following chapter on scrutiny is also perceptive and helpful as Susskind brings more distinctions into play: this time between scrutiny as intimate, imperishable, predictable and rateable (p. 127). The cumulative impact of this scrutiny will construct a world unlike anything we have experienced hitherto. Where we go; what we do; what we purchase; what we write, read and say; let alone who and what we know, and our work and ambitions will all be the subject of scrutiny (p. 129).
Further Reading
How
to Run a City like Amazon and other Fables; ed M Graham…. J Shaw (2019)
The People v Tech – how
the internet is killing democracy (and how we save it); Jamie Bartlett (2018)
https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/blog-review-future-politics/
http://bostonreview.net/politics/clara-hendrickson-jamie-susskind-future-politics-review
