A salvation in philanthopy
I sometimes wonder if a country economically dominated by financial services can effectively serve its citizens. So much of financial services today provides profitable but niche products for a few well-connected individuals, captains of industry, oligarchs and the infrastructure of tax-havens. With the wealth of the country held so unevenly and unrepresentatively, what programmes and policies of government will in fact be enacted?
Similarly with philanthropists driving key initiatives ranging from third-world humanitarian initiatives to the search for another planet for us to live on when we have despoiled ours, how should our priorities be set?
We think that by electing democratic governments with mandates we support, a set of policies will emerge that in most ways reflects the desires if not the needs of the electorate.
But we see that this doesn’t happen, particularly in the US, where a system of bipartisan politics stops many policies of the winning party being enacted. Also within the UK, government unaccountability, challenges to judicial oversight and an ability to deny Parliamentary debate places manifesto promises and balanced decision-making in jeopardy.
This is the state of democracy in a large part of ‘the western world’.
The electorate can also be duped or ignored. Polling research indicates that the extent to which this applies depends in large part on the educational attainment of the voters. Learning by rote rather than encouraging a critical and enquiring mind characterises state-funded education in both of those countries mentioned above.
Without the energy of critique and the oxygen informed argument, even democratically elected government can ‘get away with anything’. And they do!
It is time to sit back and analyse the performance of our elected politicians. It’s time for the wealth of nations to be used for the benefit and the security of its citizens. In today’s global community, this means balancing internal funding with international responsibility -0 not leaving this to the whim of a few billionaire philanthropists.
Most people in the UK who chose the present government in a contest between ‘the devil and deep blue sea’ last time (2019), seem to think “Boris is doing a good job, all things considered”. Unfortunately, all things are not being considered and the impact of Covid-19 seems to have dulled the senses into forgiveness and a sort of, ‘benefit of the doubt’ culture.
Whilst in the United States, over 75 million people wanted to retain the administration of Donald Trump. Perhaps you ‘have to be there’ to understand how that works. From the outside there is little support for his tenure outside of despots and those who would otherwise fear the diplomatic and military might of the USA.
Let me tell you as Shakespeare did, that “the evil men do lives after them, the good is oft entered in their bones”. Well, all things considered and historians awaited, both the recent and current administrations in the US and UK are have done some good but are essentially evil and their legacy will haunt us all.
What has happened to our democracy is not all their fault. Indeed they, themselves may be a product rather than a source of what ails our democracies.
We cannot wait for a new generation to be educated with an enquiring mind nor for bubbles of social media prejudice to break. It’s time to wake up now before what passes for democracy itself passes.
