Revisiting Ill Fares the Land — Part 2

The first part in this series can be found here.

The most significant change in politics in the years since Thatcher has been the steady shift from a belief that the state is there to serve the interests of its citizens to an acceptance that the levers of power are abused for the benefit of the large corporations — usually transnational — and the wealthiest sectors of the population. (One of the great ironies here, of course, is that many of the voters for parties who represent these democracy-subverting forces believe they, too, will benefit as the state is diminished. They are, of course, sorely mistaken.)

The response of the UK to the crash of 2008 was telling. In addition to finding untold billions to support the financial institutions directly responsible for the crash, the incoming Tory government used this as an excuse to start a savage attack on the size of the state and, relying on the general economic ignorance of the population, used the term ‘austerity’ to establish a simple upwards redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.

It is no accident that in the wake of this frank and brutal assault on the civil fabric of the state, we are seeing the rise of authoritarian politics — especially on the right — and the decline of trust in both the state and democracy. After all, if we’re constantly told that the state is what holds us back from fully realising our individual economic potential, it is unsurprising that the pillars of a liberal society, including the law, begin to take…