Chapter 1

1. The Broader Landscape

A government that’s a democracy, in the way the word is understood in the Western liberal tradition, should be representative of and accountable to its citizens and mustn’t waste the taxes those citizens are obligated to pay. That, in a sentence, is what our democracy is all about. And it is precisely those same democracies that are deeply deficient in these essentials, which we’ll examine in depth.

First, however, let’s widen the lens and our perspective. Let’s take a step back. We live in a time of increasing political stress and volatility, even or especially in such countries as the US and the UK, which had been quite stable in the recent past. Every era is new and different. Ours, socially and politically, feels quite a bit more so than what we’re used to, even if we put coronavirus’s impact to one side.

In the United States, the turnover of high-level officials in the Trump government is just one among many signals of instability. In his first three years, Trump had already employed more secretaries of defense than any other US president. In his second year of office, he lied an astonishing average of 8.6 times per day, while becoming one of the most divisive presidents in the modern era.1 He has been publicly rebuked by the leaders of some of the US’s closest allies, such as the UK, Canada, and Germany, as well as by the leaders of some of America’s largest companies, including Disney and Apple.

There’s more chaos across the Atlantic, as evidenced by Britain’s Conservative Party. In September 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, not even two months into his job, fired twenty-one MPs from the Tory Party, including the longest-serving parliamentarian member and two former finance ministers. It made Harold Macmillan’s sacking of seven cabinet ministers in 1962 look benign. Johnson’s actions led to the resignations of two cabinet ministers, including his own brother. He also lost his party’s majority in the House of Commons.

Johnson’s sister went so far as to accuse her big brother of making “tasteless” and “reprehensible” remarks about Brexit.2 David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister from 2010 to 2016, accused Johnson of both lying and placing his own personal career above the country’s interests.3 Britain’s Supreme Court unanimously decided that Johnson had acted unlawfully in asking the Queen to suspend Parliament in September 2019. Some suggest that Johnson might have been the first modern prime minister to have lied to the monarch.

What’s happening to our political landscape, and why is it happening now? Why do our political leaders seem at sixes and sevens? A wider perspective will give us a better vantage point from which to focus more sharply on specifics.

Technological Change

One critical factor in today’s political landscape is the information-technology revolution, which has been twenty to thirty years in the making. The internet has led to instant news-sharing. We have unprecedented and immediate access to data and news. We don’t know everything, but we have more information faster than ever, often confirming our preexisting biases. The internet has been a great support for conspiracy theorists and those with a penchant for thinking well outside the box. Sightings of Elvis, Tupac Shakur, and Steve Jobs continue to satisfy all-too-willing devotees.

Not only do we have access to information, we can instantly assemble with other people and communities. Social media brings all sorts of groups together—good, bad, and in-between. We can join thousands of Lego, Malcolm X, or licorice fans within seconds. We can join broad or narrow communities and draw strength from that membership, as well as learn from and educate others. Of course, not every group is to everyone’s liking. I confess I’m not the biggest fan of the plethora of white supremacist hate groups that Facebook has enabled to come together.

The technology revolution has also enabled us to instantaneously spread that mass of information and misinformation within our online communities and beyond. Opinions are shared with thousands, if not millions of people, who may be influenced to act. I have a certain sympathy for the criticism of Umberto Eco, the philosopher, literary critic, and semiotician: “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community…but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.”4

It’s not just that we can share what we want, but the media isn’t what it was. John Kennedy had many mistresses, as did many other previous US presidents, yet those stories never hit the national press. The press was far more compliant, and there was no social media. There was no extramarital scandal during his lifetime, even if his affair with Marilyn Monroe came close. Nor did Congress make any attempt to impeach him. The Camelot myth of the best and brightest persists in some quarters more than half a century after Kennedy was assassinated.

In contrast, Bill Clinton’s one affair while president with Monica Lewinsky, happening in the midst of the information revolution, almost knocked him out of office. He had others, but they were before his presidency, so let’s not dwell on those. The information was distributed instantly by an increasingly energetic media, years before the social media explosion beginning in 2006. CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the liberal media establishment didn’t hesitate to focus on the transgression.

Our context of independent and social media has made Trump the most mocked national leader in the history of mankind, a superlative he may not be inclined to brag about. And that same social media is the reason why a tweet from Katy Perry will go out to more than a hundred million people at speeds faster than Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon. In the history of our species, we have never been able to reach that many people that quickly. Not Moses, Caesar, Jesus, Mohammed, Gandhi, Michelangelo, Newton, Einstein…none of them.

A century ago, we rarely heard about large amounts of money wasted by government mismanagement. Today, we can find a news article every week that makes mention of a few hundred million dollars or so that were squandered in the public sector or had to be paid out for cost overruns. Even if we have become fairly jaded to this kind of news, we still take note. We are still aware.

All this means that both the public and private sectors face an era of unprecedented volatility, where major events can suddenly emerge or old systems disintegrate just as quickly, bringing about fundamental change. A bad marketing campaign in Japan can easily impact sales in northwest London’s Watford—in real time. A celebrity tweet encouraging a charitable contribution can raise millions of dollars in an hour.

The private sector, in its drive for survival, has responded to the pressures of the information technology revolution. Websites have become eye-catching. Production processes have been restructured to take advantage of real-time manufacturing technology. Through Siri and Alexa, many customers have basic artificial intelligence in their homes that facilitates product purchases and delivery. Music and video are delivered instantaneously.

In contrast, government, being a monopoly, simply hasn’t had to change with the same speed and gusto. Given the lack of competition and accountability, the systems, processes, and people in the public sector haven’t felt the same pressure to keep pace. For now, let’s be mindful of the contrasting cultural ecosystems in which the private and public sectors operate, as we move on to explore the socioeconomic factors that characterize the present day.

Income Stagnation and Inequality

The rise in economic inequality in Western democracies since the 1980s is an important part of both the foreground and background of current social and political change. Between the 1940s and 1970s, incomes across the West increased at about the same rate for both the wealthy and the rest of the population. According to The Economic Policy Institute, the income gap between the top and bottom quartiles in the US did not significantly change during this period.5

Following the embrace of the neoliberal economic agenda associated with Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK, wealth concentration became as sharply skewered as it was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the US, the wealthiest 1 percent of the population now controls 40 percent of national wealth, twice the share that they controlled thirty years ago.6 According to a recent study—even accounting for slavery, which then consisted of more than 10 percent of the population—income inequality in the US is higher today than it was in 1774.7

Between 1979 and 2013, again according to The Economic...