Since posting my last column on Norway's exceptionally mature response to terrorism we have had the riots in England eliciting a very different response from their government. In what follows I want to get to what I believe is a root cause for the difference.
First, it should be kept in mind that the violence and destruction of the riots were abundantly displayed, often in real time, by television. This elicited immediate emotional response from millions of British citizens. This was not true of the deliberate horror that Norway had to digest.
This fact let Prime Minister David Cameron respond with declarations that the rioters and looters, which included 13 and 14 year old children, were criminals and would be hunted down and prosecuted as such. This was property damage and loss. Four people were killed, one by police, the remaining three by the murderous use of a car to run over three people trying to defend their neighborhood. The Norway rampage killed 85, but the acts were not televised.
While this difference between televised and non-televised crime is important, I think it is not the most important difference between the British and Norwegian governments' response.
The major difference is, in my judgment, the economic, and in consequence, the socio-political context in which they occurred. Norway has a people-centered democratic socialist society. Great Britain has a free market economic system that still reflects the economic views of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a primary tutor of Ronald Reagan.
David Cameron responded to the riots by repeatedly declaring that the rioters were criminals. Yet it was obvious, especially in the earlier days of the riots, that many of the participants were teenagers in tennis shoes. As far as I have been able to determine, Cameron has not once mentioned the dire impact of the austerity program that has been unleashed on the poor and middle class population of the working class neighborhoods in which the riots took place. His concept of social causes of the riots consists of culture criticisms such as "disrespect for authority, gang culture, and children growing up in dysfunctional families." This is the usual conservative misconstruence of social issues as moral issues. Progressives have to deal more effectively with this moralistic dodge if they are to get society to effectively focus on social needs. As erstwhile wealthy countries become poorer this argument will be increasingly used to account for the disturbances that arise as societies become less equal.
For example, the Daily Mail on April 21, 2010 carried a report by Professor Danny Dorling that found that London is the most unequal city in the Western World and that the gap between the rich and the poor is the largest in 200 years or since slavery as they put it. Does Prime Minster Cameron really believe this startling fact and the austerity program it has imposed on the poor and middle class, has nothing to do with the riots? Does the Prime Minister actually believe this fact has nothing to do with the "irresponsibility" of children destroying property while laughing? Is the Prime Minister so ignorant that he does not understand how poverty, especially in the presence of extreme wealth, angers the deprived poor? Has he never heard of the French Revolution? He chose to exercise the cruel hoax that mass uprisings against radical inequality are simply demonstrations of character defects. Even Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labour Party, which has come to remarkably resemble our current Democratic Party, could not avoid lamenting the destructive behavior of the young rioters, although he did mention some economic factors.
Does Mister Miliband not understand that released pent up anger is not a rational process? Miliband could easily and correctly said the Conservative government's exemption of the wealthy from its austerity program was a major cause of the riots, but he did not. We progressives must articulate the deliberate confusion employed by the wealthy to divert attention from the suffering and chaos they have inflicted on the less fortunate.
But why the difference between the Norwegian response to social calamity, which saw the danger to its democracy by repressive actions and the response of the British government to the violence it encountered? I think an important part of the answer lies in the fact that Norway's socialist government is focused on the welfare of the people while Britain's is focused on the welfare of the wealthy. Norway has a much more cohesive society because everyone participates in its economic productivity. In Great Britain it has become obvious that the benefits of the economy flow heavily in one direction only. In short, the economic structure of a nation has a lot to do with the nature of its culture.
This observation is, of course, as old as Marx, but it continues to escape the ideologues of today's conservatives. As one author says of Marx's basic theory," Any analysis of society and its problems must, according to Marx, start in an examination of its processes of production. All human societies have to be concerned, before anything else, with the production and distribution of the means of life. By using tools and instruments to effect changes in nature, humans are able to satisfy their material and other needs through productive labour." I would add, not by nonproductive financial speculation.
It follows from this type of analysis that if one would change society, a good way to begin is to change the economic structure. This, I suggest, is what progressives need to aim for. It is much of what was done by FDR's New Deal.
It follows from this type of analysis that if one would change society, a good way to begin is to change the economic structure. This, I suggest, is what progressives need to aim for. It is much of what was done by FDR's New Deal.
Bob Newhard
