Change. It’s a political buzzword. Even though there is broad consensus in western countries that the modern, democratic welfare state is the optimal way to organise society, many politicians still offer change as their selling point when flogging themselves to their respective electorates. But what they mean, usually, isn’t anything radical. Guided by consensus politics, their “change” is tinkering at the margins: small tax cuts or rises, changes in regulation, action on large intangibles like “poverty” or climate change – but nothing that really upsets the status quo, and thus nothing that will materially change the lives of the vast majority of people in any drastic way.
But what would happen if someone actually changed something?
In the US, Donald Trump is probably the most radical President for decades, not because his platform was that extreme but because he actually has implemented a good deal of the policies he ran on. Contrast that with Barack Obama, who ran on a platform of “Change We Can Believe In” but delivered little in the form of different policy. But Obama, having let down his voters, is extraordinarily popular. Did the electorate not realise that he didn’t follow through on his promise of “change”? Or maybe they are secretly relieved that he didn’t?
We have previously discussed how the deep state doesn’t tend to allow change, because it threatens existing power structures. But there is another side to the prospects of radical change to society: does the population really want it? Yes, they are for radical policies when they are the undisputed beneficiaries. But take the tax system. While steep tax rises for the wealthiest are immensely popular in most countries, the facts have always borne out that to raise significant new tax revenues you have to target where the money really is: the middle classes. The rich are too few and their income and wealth too mobile for tax increases to be significant drivers of government revenue. But of course, while the people want better public services, they are convinced the burden of paying for it should fall on someone else. Or take the environment. Preposterously, climate scientist this week suggested that we need to reduce CO2 emissions by nearly half from their 2010 levels over the next 12 years, to prevent damaging change. This would destroy economies across the world so seems to suggest a dilemma between saving the planet and being prosperous. It’s not hard to predict where otherwise climate conscious voters will come down on that matter.
Recent riots in Paris, the worst for half a century, provide yet another example of how a European electorate view change. Emmanuel Macron won the presidency on an independent platform of changing French politics and setting a different course for the economy, but he is not the first incumbent to realise that the French are much more open to vote for change than to actually embrace it. He is now the most unpopular president ever. In a poll, 56% of the French agreed that climate change was a “very serious problem” – but when they were taxed on fuel in a policy initiative specifically designed to combat climate change, they rioted in the streets and the reverberations from the unrest ended with a policy U-turn form their government. Mission accomplished. Some supporters of right-wing populism have lauded the public uprising as a threat to the elitist’s globalisation, but it seems the change the French are looking for is an upturn in their own personal circumstances, at no cost and with no risk. It is fertile ground for socialism.
The problem is that radical change involves risk. And we are naturally risk averse. It seems we can sum up the general voter in a western democracy thus: they all want change. But no-one wants TO change.