Adult babies rule the modern world – its time for adults to spank them and take over.

We live in an economic and political era created by the fantasies of adult children.

..

In this childlike world one can live without the meddlesome inconveniences of authority, structure and choices – if you are born into the right family.

The twin syntheses of this desire to live without boundaries to behaviour or consequences for inaction are called neoclassical economics and neoliberalism. This doesn’t mean that either ideology is bereft of the language and shibboleths of personal responsibility – its just that such restrictions are borne by the majority of people who are bullied and cowed by them and not by those who control and benefit. 

With the recent sad death of Tony Benn I noted with interest the assertion by some columnists that he was a failed romantic – well if Benn was a romantic then Thatcher was a baby.

There was never a coherent proposal or a structure to Thatcherism – or indeed to the interventions of her American counterpart Reagan, just a foot stomping and a rebellion – all government intervention was deemed bad. Laissez faire market economics freed from all constraint and responsibility towards society was deemed good and the destruction of civilised society was provided with moral camouflage that persists to this day. 

When you boil away all the nonsense algebra and theoretical red herrings of economists and neoliberal apologists – this is what you are left with.  We were promised that an unfettered market would be more efficient, fairer and full of light and freedom – its proved to be the biggest unfulfilled promise of the age.

Economic theory asserts that in an uncluttered market everyone can access the information needed for informed choices, that everyone can maximise their utility and so gain a fair and commensurate slice of the resources they work hard to create.

Sadly, real life doesn’t conform to such childish fantasies – that’s why adults create rules and structure. One might call the central ideology of modern times ‘the fantasy of magical balances’ an appealing but disastrous abandonment of the responsibilities and nuances of adulthood. As the report released by Oxfam today confirms for the umpteenth time, the neoliberal deconstruction of society has resulted in rampant inequality and poverty for the many – while a few can live in fantasy islands of indifference.

As any parent who has supervised a game of pass-the-parcel will tell you – its important that an adult controls the music or the result will be chaos. Oddly enough those who started in the era of neoliberalism  with the most resources and power have rigged the music to suit themselves rather splendidly – a predictable development that should have been avoided.

If you allow a child to run a party game so that they are the only winner, you can be sure that child will assert vociferously that this is best for everyone and indeed the only way the game should be played. Look behind the headlines of the mainstream media and this is all you will see from countless so called adults – a gleeful elite of selfish babies using their power to insist that their greedy and childish excesses are the only way things can be.

When I think of powerful people in the modern age – people like Rupert Murdoch, Iain Duncan Smith or George Osborne I am always struck by their childish ways – they lie, they wriggle, they stomp their feet and always try to get their own way – with precious little self awareness of their behaviour. I do think that people with little or no moral virtue or substance are bound to flourish in just the kind of moral and societal  vacuum that currently exists.

Aside from the unsustainable and destructive costs to the environment , another key indicator of modernity is the almost comic incompetence of the political and economic class.

One might have thought that the shattering financial crash of 2008 would have forced a reappraisal of the neoliberal ideology that created it, but the bewildered children of the establishment have chosen to ignore reality. One almost has to laugh at the useless solutions of the adult babies to the economic crisis. Unwrap the media hoopla and all that remains is a rescheduling of all the debt and a determination to carry on as before.  A few ineffectual levers are prodded and pulled with hands spread plaintively to indicate that nothing can be done in economic matters except to hope for the best.

But there are actually a great many things that can be done to sort out the messes of the neoliberal era. Reforms of the monetary system, taxation and financial systems are possible in a world of functioning social democracies and strong governments, many coherent solutions exist right now.

Sadly the almost total capture of democracy and government by the happily self-centered and self serving now hobbles any attempt to re-assert adult control and supervision over the conduct of political and financial affairs.

The onrushing 2015 UK election is a façade that wouldn’t even fool a primary school child – the electorate is offered a choice between groups that offer a further regression into the juvenile fantasy of neoliberal deconstruction  – while the grotesque reality of food banks, poverty and accelerating inequality is the on-going consequence.

Perhaps we only have ourselves to blame. The specious appeal of neoliberalism is that it requires no effort and brings no bad news. The promise is that house prices will always go up and that lots of money and the easy life just around the corner. If one plays the game in the right way everyone can be a winner – right? Perhaps we all wanted to believe this and trusted that some overarching altruism would prevent the wealthy and powerful from grabbing all the crayons for themselves – it hasn’t worked out that way.

Like an unsupervised playground, British society now rewards the thuggish brute force of the bully like never before – slum landlords, benefit sanctions, the bedroom tax, zero hours contracts, workfare, and pay day loan companies are just a few of the boots being aimed into the stomachs of those without the resources to defend themselves.  Watching the wealthy gorge themselves at the expense of the desperate is a sickening sight, but that’s what happens when greedy fantasists are allowed to direct the affairs of nations.

Adults all over Britain and all over the world need to carefully but decisively reshape the political and economic landscape of which they are a part. Even if you are doing comparatively well right now, its hard to see how the middle classes can survive an extension of the neoliberal project – increasingly there is a simply a widening and inevitable chasm between the haves and the have nots.

A solution within the existing political system is favoured but unlikely to succeed – I think that a new style of local fellowship is the only answer to neoliberalism.

If grown up problem solving and cooperation is now beyond the capacity of our elected officials and public servants then let us develop a new template that can operate without them.

One of the characteristics of modernity has been the comparative decline of many traditional forms of association and fellowship – local village communities, churches, trade unions and even neighbourhoods are not the sources of strength and solidarity (however expressed) that they used to be. This presents both a problem and an opportunity  A new form of universal fellowship would be much more suited to the inter-connectivity of the modern world and could replace the more parochial and at times selfish fellowships of the past.

Governments and politicians will ‘graciously’ permit what they cannot prevent and an emerging network of local fellowships that share their lives and resources in an adult way would go a long way to removing the rancid culture of permission that exists for neoliberalism.

The callous indifference towards social injustice, inequality, poverty and the suffering of others need not be tolerated and the notion that compassion and fairness are unsustainable luxuries is a big fat lie.

My new book ‘Towards A New Fellowship’ will examine how childish people and ideologies have come to dominate our world – and how with a simple network of caring local groups, that tide can be turned back towards the better aspects of our common humanity. 

Childish and greedy bullies have taken over public life with disastrous consequences – its time for adults the world over to stop being victims to the machinations of neoliberal politicians and neoclassical economists and re-build a new reality from the ground up.

My vision has hope for the future – what hope does the modern political landscape offer?

If you hope for a better future then share this article or let people know how you feel in your own words.

A powerful first step will be to defrock and spank the shallow priests of modern economics and neoliberal thinking – their ideologies are juvenile, their economic theories are nothing but a hapless collection of busted faux scientific flops that serve as camouflage for the super rich.

Lets get to it – they ain’t so tough I promise you – bullies like these are always cowards and they will wither under adult scrutiny. 

Money does not transform an adult baby into a super-hero or a god however much they would like us to think so – its time to put the pin stripe mafia in their place and to remind them that this world is just as much ours as it is theirs.

John Lynch