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The End of Politics
The west is in crisis. Governments have grown too big, living beyond their means - and ours. The true costs of extra officialdom have been concealed. Parasitical politicians have been hopeless at holding to account the elites who now preside over us. As a result, Western nations are mired in debt and chronically misgoverned. Should we despair? Actually, no. Precisely because the West s Big Government model is bust, things are going to have to change. The West is on the cusp of dramatic changes driven by the failure of her elites, technology and maths. At the precise moment Big Government becomes unaffordable, the internet revolution makes it possible to do without it. Be optimistic. We are going to be able to manage without government - and thrive. The old political and economic order is about to give way to something vastly better.
- GenresPolitics
278 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 16, 2014
Warren Buffett wrote that "only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked". According to Douglas Carswell in his new book The End of Politics (Biteback, £12.99), with the fiscal tide at ebb it is Western governments that have been caught skinny-dipping.
Carswell, Conservative MP for Clacton, charts the growth of the state sector across the West from around 10 per cent of GDP at the turn of the 20th century to approaching 50 per cent today. He also describes the topdown, "constructivist rationalist" model of the provision of goods and services by this expanded state. Both are now unsustainable.
The state will shrink because people are not willing to pay the taxes to support its current size. The state has swollen because the costs have, until now, been shifted to a minority of people via progressive taxation and hidden by inflation and borrowing.
We can borrow no more, Carswell points out, and our currencies are edging closer to inflation thanks to zero interest rates and quantitative easing. Neither can we tax any more. In the old days, when wealth in the West was generated by digging things out of the ground or making other things in factories, these activities could easily be taxed as neither the natural resources or factories could move. That didn't hold in the longer term. Politicians in the United States impose the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world and then complain about offshoring.
What generates wealth in the West now, as we try to scamper up the value chain, are ideas. These can move around rather easily, making them difficult to tax. The result, Carswell says, is a move to the taxation of consumption which is "flatter" than "progressive" income taxes, and consequently a more proportionate sharing of the burden of state spending. With the end of currency debasement and debt, the end of burden shifting will knock out the last of the three motors of government growth.
Top-down government provision is doomed by what Carswell christens "iDemocracy". People will be less likely to accept whatever education or healthcare the government decides to give them when they are increasingly used to choice. Collective patterns of work and leisure are giving way to more individually tailored modes. The days when half the population would tune into the Royal Variety Performance have given way to a situation where, as Lily Allen says on the current commercial for Sky+, you can make your own daytime TV.
Carswell argues that big government has never come about by popular demand and that empowered citizens will embrace "iDemocracy". This underplays, I think, the "collective corruption" which comes from having more than 50 per cent of the country as net recipients of government handouts, as in Britain. People may be reluctant to junk a system, no matter how unsustainable, if they perceive a personal gain from it. But unsustainable it is and, as the saying goes, "If something can't continue, it won't." I hope Carswell is right.
Carswell, Conservative MP for Clacton, charts the growth of the state sector across the West from around 10 per cent of GDP at the turn of the 20th century to approaching 50 per cent today. He also describes the topdown, "constructivist rationalist" model of the provision of goods and services by this expanded state. Both are now unsustainable.
The state will shrink because people are not willing to pay the taxes to support its current size. The state has swollen because the costs have, until now, been shifted to a minority of people via progressive taxation and hidden by inflation and borrowing.
We can borrow no more, Carswell points out, and our currencies are edging closer to inflation thanks to zero interest rates and quantitative easing. Neither can we tax any more. In the old days, when wealth in the West was generated by digging things out of the ground or making other things in factories, these activities could easily be taxed as neither the natural resources or factories could move. That didn't hold in the longer term. Politicians in the United States impose the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world and then complain about offshoring.
What generates wealth in the West now, as we try to scamper up the value chain, are ideas. These can move around rather easily, making them difficult to tax. The result, Carswell says, is a move to the taxation of consumption which is "flatter" than "progressive" income taxes, and consequently a more proportionate sharing of the burden of state spending. With the end of currency debasement and debt, the end of burden shifting will knock out the last of the three motors of government growth.
Top-down government provision is doomed by what Carswell christens "iDemocracy". People will be less likely to accept whatever education or healthcare the government decides to give them when they are increasingly used to choice. Collective patterns of work and leisure are giving way to more individually tailored modes. The days when half the population would tune into the Royal Variety Performance have given way to a situation where, as Lily Allen says on the current commercial for Sky+, you can make your own daytime TV.
Carswell argues that big government has never come about by popular demand and that empowered citizens will embrace "iDemocracy". This underplays, I think, the "collective corruption" which comes from having more than 50 per cent of the country as net recipients of government handouts, as in Britain. People may be reluctant to junk a system, no matter how unsustainable, if they perceive a personal gain from it. But unsustainable it is and, as the saying goes, "If something can't continue, it won't." I hope Carswell is right.
January 5, 2013
This book is replete with polemical throwaway comments sourced by the Daily Mail and other questionable sources. When I hit the US Republican statistic that 47% of people don't pay taxes, I wanted to throw it in a corner. That 47% includes children and OAPs and is questioned by many US commentators.
I agree with many of his observations, cliche-ridden and obvious though they are. But his wholesale adoption of the Austrian school of economics shows a longing for solutions which belong to the theories of a past age, demonstrably unworkable (as evidenced by the Euro crisis).
Many of his complaints about the state we're in arise from politicians and the system they set up. As a politician himself, it's a bit much to see him complaining about the results of gross political incompetence in the ways or laws are framed and carried out.
It's just another Daily Mail rant based on the philosophies of the past.
I agree with many of his observations, cliche-ridden and obvious though they are. But his wholesale adoption of the Austrian school of economics shows a longing for solutions which belong to the theories of a past age, demonstrably unworkable (as evidenced by the Euro crisis).
Many of his complaints about the state we're in arise from politicians and the system they set up. As a politician himself, it's a bit much to see him complaining about the results of gross political incompetence in the ways or laws are framed and carried out.
It's just another Daily Mail rant based on the philosophies of the past.
November 23, 2012
A very good and hard hitting assessment of the state of politics and national debt in both the UK and USA. With many hard facts, Carswell makes a good argument for the inevitable collapse of big government and attempts to predict the future form of democracy. This prediction is the book's weakest point as he seems to hold an over optimistic view of the role of the internet and direct democracy in our future world. Yes, the 'old political and economic order is about to give way' but 'to something vastly better'? The case isn't made in the book, but don't let that put you off reading it.
He makes it very clear how government has grown and has hidden the true costs of that growth, how our true debt is far far higher than official figures show and why the current efforts of our UK, USA and EU politicians are doomed to failure.
Essential reading for anyone who knows that something is seriously wrong but is unable to quantify the problem.
He makes it very clear how government has grown and has hidden the true costs of that growth, how our true debt is far far higher than official figures show and why the current efforts of our UK, USA and EU politicians are doomed to failure.
Essential reading for anyone who knows that something is seriously wrong but is unable to quantify the problem.
July 12, 2014
Carswell nails the problem of western government on he head. We have too much and we can't afford to pay for it. Most would not like the message nor the solution but rare to read a politician who calls it as it is.
May 6, 2014
Totally convinced me that the citizen-consumer, armed with the Internet, will force the West to upgrade its political operating systems. And thereby save itself from decline.
Plus, after years of sitting on the fence, I know now how I will vote come the UK's referendum on Europe.
Plus, after years of sitting on the fence, I know now how I will vote come the UK's referendum on Europe.
July 27, 2013
Couldn't actually finish this book!
July 31, 2022
So England has some good politicians? Why can't we have guys like that over here?
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews