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Apathy: the barometer of success
If apathy is a measure of social satisfaction, then George Grant is all for it
George Grant
George Grant
26 February 2008
If I were given a pound for every time I heard someone lament the level of political apathy and, as one of its principle causes, the lack of choice between the mainstream political parties that presently exist in the United Kingdom, then I’d be a very rich man. Political apathy is widely regarded as a sign that politics isn’t working, and the ferociously boring battle for the centre ground that is taking place between Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and even the SNP - their desire for Scottish independence aside - as somehow detrimental to the entire political process.
But what this says to me is that, more or less, everything is working really rather well. When I asked an acquaintance of mine which party he was planning on voting for at the next General Election, he said to me that he wasn’t voting for any of them as politics didn’t affect him. Whilst this opinion is sad - not to mention wholly erroneous, since realise it or not, politics affects every part of our lives, right down to the duty that determined the price of said acquaintance's beer - it is at the same time tremendously encouraging. In his world, political intrusiveness was at such a low level that that he had come to believe that politics didn’t affect him at all.
Thomas Jefferson, one of the great libertarians, described the sum of good government as that “which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned.” It is absolutely no coincidence that, as a general rule, people only get political when they feel they have something to lose by remaining idle. If all the employees of the NHS felt that the present administration was providing to their satisfaction, then they would not become so vigorously political as to go on strike; if serious grievances did not exist regarding Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom, then there would be no independence movement.
The reason individuals of all ages and political stripes were so politically active in the 1970s, for instance, was because, with a 3-day working week, inflation as high as 40%, and the FTSE 100 as low as 150 points, the situation was so utterly dire and the possibilities of personal and collective loss so very great as to merit a real concern in the political process.
It is surely true that the desire to see one’s ideology incorporated into the political process is motivated as much by a belief in the personal or collective loss of not having it implemented, as by a belief in the gain that having it implemented will bring. That all the main parties are fighting for the centre ground in Britain is simply a reflection of the fact that most Britons are moderate individuals who are broadly in agreement. Wrongly or not, the Socialist Workers Party does well in areas where social inequality is perceived to be unacceptably high; the British National Party, likewise, does well in areas where whites perceive their way of life to be unacceptably threatened by large presences of ethnic minorities. Heaven forbid that enough public opinion should ever give parties such as these widespread electoral credibility, for then politics really would become interesting, and political apathy would cease soon enough.
One need look no further than the miles-long queues of black South Africans waiting in the sweltering sun to cast their vote when apartheid finally finished there in 1994 to see that political apathy vanishes when the state acts in such a way as to be truly detrimental to individual freedom and happiness. Voter apathy in this country will only start to diminish when the consequence of letting the other guy’s party assume the reins of power is perceived to be disastrous enough, either on an individual or collective level. So here’s three cheers for political apathy and indistinguishable centrist politics. Long may it last.
George Grant is Features Editor of The Journal
1 comments on Apathy: the barometer of success
Greg Neilson 5 months ago
Grant,
The above may be true to some extent (see 'median voter theory' which puts into econoimics what you have said with words), however political apathy does not just mean not voting when the polls are open. Ask 'the guy with the beer' some specific questions - does he think he pays too much for beer, does he feel that the unemployed should get more, less or nothing, should we tax so-called polluting cars, that in reality make a relatively small contribution to 'greenhouse gases', and I think you'll find he has an opinion.
The sort of apathy you are writing about, it seems to me, is more of the sort that 'I can;t change it, so why bother trying', and it is thrue that if things aren't that bad then people won't have the impetus to try to change it. The median voter theory, as mentioned above, recognises that it is only the 'middle' voter who needs to bother to turn up on polling day (Tony Blair recognised this with his 'focus groups' of Middle Britain which were no more than an attempt to identifly the lucrative median voter). However this median voter (which may constitute thousands of people as in South Africa) could be anywhere on the political spectrum - as you identify with the BNP and Socialist workers. In other words just because people are apethetic does not mean that a political system is healthy - it may just mean that they do not feel that they can change the median voter's mind.
The sign of a heathly political system is instead the presence of debate of divergent views - in other words trying to convince the median voter which way to turn, only then will the choice of the median voter be representive of most (or middle) of the views of the country. Consider a tug of war - only when there is sufficient competition on each side will there by confidence that middle of the rope tends towards where it 'ought to be'. If nobody bothers pulling, then it will lie on a heap, who knows where. It is natural that the parties in the UK are trying for the centre ground, and this does mean that most people should be happy. However, for a healthy political system there still needs to be an element of tug-of-war or one side may just run off with the rope.
As Ever
GN