The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
*Puffs on cigar* The Establishment, hey, this sounds like a book for me.
*Pulls out monocule to read sub-heading* This book is trash!
Owen Jones’ The Establishment is an attempt to lift the veil on how power and the powerful have seized increasing levels of control and wealth from society at the expense of everyone else. It covers several facets, from the creators of the intellectual frameworks, through the enforcers of control, to the self-entitled people treating the economy like a casino safe in the knowledge the plebs will bail them out.
This was an excellent read and filled in a lot of the details for events and social changes we’ve heard covered numerous times. Instead of hearing these details discussed by the usual apologists of the status quo, Owen makes it clear what is happening and weaves it together as a solid narrative and argument for change.
Needless to say, I’m sure that plenty of the dismissals of this book did so by spotting a misplaced percentage symbol or by the tried and trusted baseless accusations of inaccuracy or confusion.
As an Aussie, I saw a lot of parallels between what Jones discussed for the UK and what the experience has been in Australia. The effective lack of difference between the two major parties (nominally right and left, but realistically described as shit and slightly less shit), the dominance of conservative (Murdoch owned) media, and the close ties of the powerful, all very familiar. This book could have been written about Australia, not the UK.
In some respects, the book, A Game of Mates, tried to cover much of the same ground. That book failed to be convincing as it lacked some of the scholarship and well thought out solutions you’d want. Jones’ The Establishment is the opposite, as it is compelling, and thus I take his arguments and solutions far more seriously.
Some of the solutions are no-brainers, like instead of taxpayer bailouts being socialism for the rich they could instead be the taxpayers buying the banks, utilities, etc. But some ideas, like stopping the revolving door, are more difficult and not fleshed out enough. This was also a solution proposed in A Game of Mates, and as I said in that review, it’s not well thought out. Are we just going to say that people can’t take on a different job in their field of expertise? Are we trapping them? Would it not be better to look at examples of where there isn’t/wasn’t a revolving door, and create those conditions (which I imagine would relate to a robust sense of community and contribution rather than thinking about how to game the system).
The Establishment is worth reading and then discussing widely.
Edit: Listening to an interview with Stacey Abrams reminded me of something that Jones said throughout the book that was quite important. There is this idea that the “two sides” of politics differ greatly and are hugely divided. Abrams stated that “conservatives want to conserve, which means protecting inequalities and suffering that occurs now from getting better” (approximate quote).
But something that I’ve noticed, and a point that Jones made throughout with reference to polling and surveys, is that there is a lot more common ground than people think. Jones argued that in many respects, the people who want the most progressive measures taken also happen to be voting for the most regressive and conservative parties and politicians. This is generally because supposed left or progressive politics doesn’t capture the attention, while those ultra-conservative voices are able to rally populism and easy messages to address complex issues (the classic being to blame the job stealing, dole bludging Schrodinger’s immigrant for whatever real issue).
So it is a trap people are falling into when assuming that the populous are somehow not looking to make society better. The real problem is actually selling the message of being able to make society better rather than just putting a fresh coat of paint on the status quo.
Comments while reading:
The main thrust, as outlined in the Introduction and part of the first chapter, reminds me of A Game of Mates and the TV mini series (based on a book) A Very British Coup. The former was a somewhat disappointing book that I felt lacked some evidence and cohesive thought to the arguments, which I get the early impression Jones isn’t replicating (i.e. he’s making a solid case).
The argument is similar to what we see in A Very British Coup where the power sphere is inherently conservative and the general populous is complicit in that continuing because the system was designed to keep democracy from eroding the power of the powerful. In that series (and the book), the powerful literally seek to undermine the democracy of their nation using any and all means. Obviously, completely fiction and no parallels to real life events can be drawn… (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_…)
The “good old days” that many people talk about were also the times of social democracy (at least partly). That annoyed the neo-liberals and free marketeers. Yet many of the reactionaries today would still point a hazy finger to those years as “great” (less for the economic social democracy and more for the bigotry). So it could be argued that many of the economic policies post-WW2 are what we need. It had more equal economic policies and it was a stark contrast to the pre-war policies that produced significant inequality in society.
Found myself nodding so much, but none more so than with the conclusion. I’d pull out some quotes, but the entire thing is a great summary of what needs to be done and why.
The status quo may be treated as common sense now, but future generations will surely look back with a mixture of astonishment and contempt at how British society is currently organized: the richest 1,000 individuals worth £520 billion,1 while hundreds of thousands of people have to queue to eat in food banks; a thriving financial elite that helped plunge Britain into a vortex of economic collapse, which was rescued by over £1 trillion of public money but continues to operate much as before; a reigning dogma that treats the state as an obstacle to be eradicated and shunned, even as the state serves as the backbone for private interests; a corporate elite, dependent as it is on state largesse, that refuses to contribute money to the state; a media that does not exist to inform, educate, as well as challenge all those with power, but which serves as a platform for the ambitions, prejudices and naked self-interest of a small number of wealthy moguls. More startling to our descendants will be how this was passed off as normal, as entirely rational and defensible, and how institutions run by the elite attempted, with considerable success, to redirect people’s anger to those at the very bottom of society.
Tyson Adams 