The pas de deux of state and money.

The Irish constitutional referendum has again exposed the contradiction between direct democracy and representative democracy. By rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, the people voted against their elected representatives. In a repeat of the Dutch and French campaigns three years ago, the Irish government and most of the opposition, as well as the media commentators and the press editors, were all supporting the treaty and calling for a “yes” vote. But, as the result showed, the nation’s representatives and opinion makers did not convince the voters, who either abstained from voting or, to a majority, voted “no”. This result should not be swept aside disdainfully. It was much more than a victory for the sovereigntists, the Catholic Church and the ultra-conservatives. As was the case in 2005, the Irish “no” vote carries a double message. It questions the European Union and the electoral process.

From the outset the European community has been about trade, big business and banking. Beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community of 1951, and followed in 1957 by the customs union of the European Economic Community and the nuclear energy program of Euratom. Then came the Common Agricultural Policy, aeronautics and space, and on to the single currency. During the past half century corporations, bankers and farmers have had the benefit of a cosy nest, protected from the world by tariff barriers and subsidised exports. And, as the market expanded with new adherents, so their power grew. Capital has grown at an exponential rate but, notwithstanding a trickle down of wealth, organised labour has not progressed at all. Social rights are still negotiated at a national level and trade unions have been incapable of going transnational. As a result, outsourcing to lesser paid regions of Europe and inverse immigrant flows have levelled down salaries rather than pull them up. The European Community has been a huge success for employers and a catastrophe for workers. This may not have been the intention of successive Commissions nor, more recently, of the Lisbon Treaty, where some social questions were timidly considered. But all Europeans know that the corporations get their way by lobbying and that labour organisations have neither the funds nor the capacity to do the same. And that neither the Commission in Brussels, nor the Central Bank in Frankfurt, nor the parliament in Strasbourg, is going to change that disadvantage. Being reduced to the national arena by their trade unions and their means of action, European workers see nothing to gain and much to lose from an expanded communal superstructure.

In a speech to the Commons after his electoral defeat of 1945, Winston Churchill is reported to have remarked, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government... except all the others that have been tried.” These words expressed his disappointment with, perhaps, a touch of scorn for fickle voters. But, considering the context, they also implied that there is no known democratic alternative to representative government. Suggesting that people are too busy, lazy or ignorant to govern themselves, and rely on professionals to rule in their stead. And this is largely true concerning the civil service. The functions of state need dedication and specialised knowledge, as do the military, the health service, law and order, transport, etc. But the craft of politics belongs to a different domain. It concerns ideology and its consequences. The idea people have of society and the world at large, and the acts that are a result of this point of view. So that a nation’s meandering path is determined by swaying opinions.

A democratic government is legitimised by elections. At regular preordained intervals the people are called to the ballot-boxes to make a choice. But the choice is between two or more candidates and has no effect on policy. There is no binding mandate, only promises that may or may not be kept. The only choice offered to the electorate is between granting another term to the incumbent and replacing him by his opponent. On a national scale this produces a bipartisan representation with alternating majorities, with government and opposition playing their respective roles, knowing they will change and change again. An ongoing comedy, with the parts transmitted from generation to generation by co-optation. This is a highly selective reproductive process that leaves no room for eccentricity. And so the voters are given a choice of candidates that seem ever more interchangeable, being equally primed for the same part. And parliament resembles a college of cardinals whose essential task is to perpetuate itself. (The Roman Church’s longevity shows how effective co-optation can be.)

As the facade of democracy crackles, the wheels of government become more apparent. Behind the power of state is the power of money. The state and its functionaries are nothing without the wherewithal produced by the rest of society. Alternatively, the power of money is nothing without the power of state behind it. Accumulated wealth needs to be backed by the strong arm of the law. Each leans on the other but, as neither is monolithic, their collusion is more like a clumsy pas de deux than a total symbiosis. Though state ideology is basically greed, always wanting more, it is tainted by moral values and a vague sense of justice. While the accumulation of wealth opposes rent, interest and profit, the historic divisions of surplus value between land owners, merchant bankers and entrepreneurs. These are the faults that produce seismic political upheavals. When morality and justice are ignored, and when the three elements of capitalism are at each other’s throats, there is usually a break in continuity. The old moulds are shattered and new ones replace them. And, as the shape of things inevitably becomes loose and comfortable with time, its replacement will feel tight and constricting.