Don't think about it

Whilst trying to get my thoughts about climate change in order, I came across a book, ostensibly about transport and mobility, that clearly expressed several points that I was inarticulately groping for. It's always wonderful when that happens. The author is a Danish academic called Malene Freundenal-Pedersen. She examines transport choices from a sociological perspective, which provides a very interesting contrast to the predominantly technical, pseudo-objective approach transport planners use. But more than that, she describes some important general characteristics of 'late modern' life in the developed world:

1. Individualisation. (Emphasis on individual choices and the need/entitlement to create your own lifestyle that expresses who you are as an individual.)
   
   
2. A disassociation of time and space. (Technology allowing communication, work, and leisure pursuits to take place practically anywhere.)
   
   
3. Reflexivity. (This is a single word for the fact that we are aware of the society we live in, and are both influenced by it and influence it. The term implies a self-consciousness and need to substantiate or legitimise the conditions of society.)
   
   
4. Risk awareness. (Linked to reflexivity, as we are constantly re-evaluating risks based on a constant flow of new information.)

But the most important, to my mind, is the fifth: Ambivalence. This can be seen as a response to the first four factors, which in combination tend to produce insecurity and anxiety. A mass of information, a deluge of risks, a cavalcade of apparent contradictions, and an onerous set of expectations are hard to handle; unless you choose to ignore or deprioritise certain things. This is everyday ambivalence. For example, on a daily basis I'll contemplate which of my library books are close to being due back, whether I need to buy more peanut butter, and what I need to prepare for the next day. At the same time, I know but choose not to dwell on, for example, the facts that women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours but only earn 10% of the income, that China's economic boom is causing environmental catastrophe, and that there are approximately one billion people in the world without enough to eat. Overwhelming, unpalatable information of this kind abounds in the media, but usually loses the competition for attention with minutiae of life. As Freundenal-Pedersen puts it:

Ambivalence can have an overwhelming impact on everyday life and result in paralysis if not dealt with through routines.

As I understand it, ambivalence helps us get around the guilt that should result from awareness of the damage our comfortable lifestyles wreak. Thus, climate change is a phenomenon mired in ambivalence. Although the scientific consensus is unequivocal, we can't feel or touch climate change as such, struggle to fit it into our risk assessment frameworks, and cannot reconcile it with our individual lifestyle choices. The implications of this initially seem extremely gloomy, as it seem that before we even try and remake our economic and political systems to respond to climate change, we have to somehow overcome our collective social mindset and dominant culture.

I've said previously that I think imaginative, utopian thinking about the future is necessary to address climate change. We need to imagine a better world, and Freundenal-Pedersen neatly points out what that is so difficult in today's society:

Modern society has shaped us into individuals, with no room for utopian visions or communities shaping these visions. As individuals, we are too preoccupied with creating our own individualised picture and reality of the kind of life we wish to inhabit; a life which focuses on unlimited freedom and possibilities and opportunities to buy whatever we desire...

Without imagination and aspiration another, more real and significant menace is born when these imaginings, dreams, and utopias disappear, and we subsequently forget how to play and live life beyond the frames already existing...

We are getting swept into a cocktail of freedom as an individual good, with guilt becoming the regulator for how free we can actually act.

Things are not hopeless, though.

Many of the individualised citizens in late modern everyday life still dream about and long for strong communities, close connections, and less fear of the future.

How do we address our ambivalence? By telling new stories, contemplating better lives, and designing utopias together. Freundenal-Pedersen terms this 'social learning', which could be as simple as discussing collectively what you think would make the world better. We use narratives, often generated and reinforced by the media and advertising, to justify our daily choices to ourselves. These are changeable. Indeed, arguably reflexivity and constant access to information via technology allow narratives to evolve relatively quickly.

Now, I enjoyed this sociological theory, but it's only useful if the implications can be used pragmatically. In reality, do social understanding and norms shift slowly or abruptly? Conveniently, there is a striking example of an abrupt, institutionally-induced shift observable right now. It occurred shortly after 11th May 2010. Prior to that date, UK politicians spent their general election campaigns ducking the prospect of government spending cuts. Once the coalition government was in place, the emergency budget appeared and suddenly significant across-the-board cuts were presented as essential. The media, which has pounced on any mentions of cuts during election campaigning, appeared to turn upon the public sector. It was painted as bloated, wasteful, unnecessary, and an impediment to growth. Public services, including the welfare state, were without exception presented as unaffordable, overgenerous, and in need of reform. I don't think the scale of this shift in public consciousness has been adequately acknowledged. Prior to the election, talk of cutting benefits was basically taboo; now this is taken for granted. David Cameron has taken very effectively taken advantage of the UK's ambivalence towards the public sector.

In a slightly perverse way, the successful sale of of the austerity story to the British public gives me hope that a similar shift can occur in relation to climate change. Ambivalence can be exploited to drive through huge institutional change without the need for a public campaign, or even widespread public acceptance. You could even use the 2008 Climate Change Act as an example - it got widespread public support, but was subject to a virtually unprecedented level of political and media consensus. How many people really thought through its implications for their own daily lives? Would it have gained the same support if The Daily Mail had claimed, not without justification, that it would raise petrol prices? (I realise that this train of thought isn't giving much credence to democracy; how that interacts with climate change deserves and will get its own post.)

Freundenal-Pedersen suggests a renaissance of utopian thinking in civil society is necessary to slowly overcome ambivalence. Much as I like this idea, I consider it neither sufficient, nor fast enough. Reawakening utopian dreams is important, but most people will likely remain ambivalent about the infrastructure underpinning them. To have any hope of radically reducing emissions, I think we must also look to institutions.

All quotes from 'Mobility in Daily Life' (Malene Freundenal-Pedersen, 2009).

Social Science Fiction

The future is intrinsically fascinating to me and fiction presents it more vividly than most non-fiction. I will admit to something of a fondness for dytopian literature. Utopias are compelling too, but well-written ones are much harder to come by. So here is a slight digression from my climate change posts, a list of dystopian fiction recommendations. What issue most concerns you? These are all futures that we should try to avoid; pick your poison.

Acute housing shortage? Strikingly depicted in Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. New York is stiflingly overpopulated, the oil has run out, anyone is entitled to squatters rights over the tiniest empty space and abandoned cars are prized as homes. I strongly suspect this book was written as an extended argument for the better access to contraception.

Endemic pollution destroying human health? Try The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, a master of the genre. Constant food contamination scares and outbreaks of disease steadily push down American life expectancy and promote political instability. Overconsumption has poisoned the basic essentials of life. This novel has a particularly memorable, distinctly dark ending.

Capitalism gone to extremes? I give you Market Forces by Richard Morgan, in which Naomi Klein's worst nightmare manifests itself and civil wars offer the best investment opportunities. Über-macho traders duel with cars and kill anything in the path of profits. Although written prior to the credit crunch, probably reads more plausibly in light of it.

Dependence on the internet and obsession with celebrity? Gwyneth Jones' Bold As Love series is less depressing than most dystopias, but still depicts the collapse of civilisation and regression to subsistence-based feudal squalor. The catalytic event is the destruction of the internet, and events that follow include a civil war with armies led by pop stars.

Desertification and a precipitous fall in agricultural productivity? Earthworks by Brian Aldiss uncompromisingly shows the starvation and hopelessness resulting from inadequate food and crippling inequality. Unusually, it is centred on Africa, which adds to its punch.

Ground war in Europe with 21st century weaponry and guerilla methods? Kaleidoscope Century by John Barnes brings it to life. This novel is notably uncomfortable to read, in part due to the nature of the narrator. This is a Europe wracked by the horrors of failed states; war crimes and endemic AIDS.

Extreme weather triggered by climate Change? The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd is to my mind the most immediately plausible of the bunch. It realistically explores how carbon rationing would work, through the eyes of a teenage girl. The tragedy is that it is already too late and climate change has taken hold. The discomfort of reducing your carbon footprint is neatly compared to the terror and danger of droughts, storms, and floods.

Withdrawal of public services and urban ghettoisation? The most effective depiction is a French action film, Banlieue 13 (District 13). Although predominantly an action flick, one of my favourites in fact, the premise is excellently realised. A deprived neighbourhood is walled in and has all public services withdrawn, as politicians no longer want to have to deal with it. Naturally, heavily armed drug dealers take over. To my disbelief, I recently read a US planning commentator recommend this exact approach, couched as allowing poorer areas to embrace the benefits of gated communities.

What I think characterises all these novels, as well as the dystopian genre in general, is the sense that things will only get worse. As I've said before, I think this mindset must be overcome in order to make progress in tackling climate change. Dystopian novels try to make a point and act as a warning, it isn't often that they propose a solution to whatever terrible situation humanity finds itself in. Wallowing in disaster is not a luxury that non-fiction, and reality, can afford. The vividness of dystopian novels is deceptive; the real world is much more complicated and ultimately interesting.

If you would prefer not to contemplate hellish theoretical futures, I suggest a recent, wonderfully snide novel of the banking crisis called Other People's Money by Justin Cartwright. Much too gentle and of the current moment to be a dystopia, it nonetheless dissects our relationships with banks and money beautifully. The old certainties of the banking system are dying. This novel could be read as a eulogy.

The City and the City

The most striking and entertaining academic writing that I came across in 2011 was by Rem Koolhaas. I found an extract from his book 'S,M,L,XL' in the innocuously titled 'Urban Design Reader' and loved it. Much of the planning literature I've read has been about the process and its aims, whereas Koolhaas makes sweeping, judgemental statements about what already exists. It makes a refreshing change. Also, he's very funny.

Rather than make my own inevitably depressing predictions for the year ahead, I give you the abridged Generic City. It seems like a 2012 sort of place to me.

Identity is like a mousetrap... The Generic City is the city liberated from the captivity of centre, from the straitjacket of identity... The Generic City is what is left after large sections of urban life crossed over into cyberspace... The dominant sensation of the Generic City is an eerie calm... The Generic City is fractal... Its main attraction is its anomie... [airports] are on the way to replacing the city... The in-transit condition is becoming universal... The great originality of the Generic City is to abandon what does not work... The street is dead... Housing is not a problem... [sites] are like holes bored through the concept of city... The roads are only for cars... The Generic City presents the final death of planning... Its most dangerous and most exhilarating discovery is that planning makes no difference whatsoever... It is open and accommodating like a mangrove forest... There is always a quarter called Lipservice, where a minimum of the past is preserved... Tourism is now independent of destination... Shrimp is the ultimate appetizer... The only activity is shopping... Close your eyes and imagine an explosion of beige... Voids are the essential building block of the Generic City... Postmodernism is the only movement that has succeeded in connecting the practice of architecture with the practice of panic... Bad weather is about the only anxiety that hovers over the Generic City... The architecture of the 20th century needs unlimited plane tickets, not a shovel... The new infrastructure creates enclave and impasse... In each time zone, there are at least three performances of Cats. The world is surrounded by a Saturn's ring of meowing.

Whether you agree with him or not, Koolhaas paints quite a vivid picture, doesn't he? His writing reminds me a lot of William Gibson, somehow. Happy new year.

Reading List

A while back I read an excellent book on the financial crisis: Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz. Although it provides a clear and compelling explanation of how the US housing bubble formed, infected banks around the world, and nearly brought then all down, my overriding impression was that Stiglitz was barely restraining himself from just writing, 'YOU BASTARDS, LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE STILL DOING! BASTARDS, BASTARDS, BASTARDS!' I might be projecting slightly there, but Stiglitz is clearly very unhappy about the abject failure of banks to behave responsibly, their apparent inability to admit to any failure whatsoever, and their craven lobbying for their losses to be born by governments. As we all should be, and books like this are very important.

Much of the other literature on the financial crisis that I've read has been too measured. For instance, Gillian Tett's Fool's Gold provides the best explanation I've come across for the toxic financial products that banks invented, with a narrative concerning the team at JPMorgan who came up with many of them. Tett clearly has to tread a fine line - she interviewed these people for her book and presents them as three dimensional characters, so won't fully condemn their behaviour. Nonetheless, the bigger picture cannot be ignored. What should have been technical innovations of interest only to industry specialists spread throughout the financial system like a virus and precipitated the credit crunch, the worst recession for 80 years, and a sudden ballooning of government debts. Stiglitz spells this out clearly, Tett does not.

(As an aside, one of the many ironies of the crisis is that had the US not sold so many of these financial products abroad, as the financial markets are so globalised, their impact would have been much worse in America but the rest of the world's banks would have been relatively unscathed. Thanks for the exports, yanks.)

Neither book addresses the current government debt disaster (crisis seems too gentle a word), as they were both published two years ago. Back then we were worried that banks would not be able to pay their debts. Now it is governments that look doubtful, as the debt burden has been nationalised. The final chapter of this one hasn't even begun yet, but I distinctly doubt it will be pretty.

Meanwhile, my fellow students and I are still spammed by leaflets and emails suggesting we attend recruitment events for investment banks. Naively I assumed that this recruitment hard sell had waned in the past few years; apparently not. These adverts are always very innocuously worded, emphasising words like 'challenge'. It really angers me that quite a few students might swallow this stuff and equate working in The City with succeeding in life. This is what I want to say to them:

You do not have to be a banker.

The careers service assumes that you want to get a job in The City. The big banks are trying to court you with swanky events, free pens, and high starting salaries. They are trying to create an aura of prestige around themselves. But be absolutely clear about what their business is - transferring wealth from the poorly-off to the already wealthy. They aren't creating anything that wasn't already there, just moving worth around and exaggerating the value of investments.

Theirs is an industry that recently experienced systemic, catastrophic failure, and required gigantic bailouts from the public sector. The banks lobbied against any government regulation then systematically failed to manage risk. They have undermined the fundamentals on which the world economy is based and left the mess for others to clear up. Unemployment is high and growing, first world governments are threatening to default on their debt, and there is no way back to business as usual.

Is this really the industry you want to work for? Do you genuinely think your intelligence and skills are best used to make wealth inequalities worse? And the backlash against bankers has hardly begun - do you honestly want to be on the wrong side of it?

It may seem at the moment like banking is the most obvious career option, simply because banking firms make the loudest play for your attention. There are many other things you could do. In my third year as an undergraduate I shared a house with six other women. The seven of us are all ambitious, intelligent, and driven, but not one of us got a job primarily motivated by profit. One teaches English as a second language, one monitors dangerous diseases at the Health Protection Agency. Another is an army officer, yet another works as a civil servant in the Treasury. Amongst out number you will also find a doctor and a Teaching Assistant who writes novels on the side. I myself have worked in Local Government, helping to plan new communities for the past three years. Can you honestly tell me that our various talents and abilities would all be better spent trading collateralised debt obligations?

The world is facing massive challenges - climate change, terrible inequalities between and within states, demographic shifts, not to mention rebuilding our economies to promote well-being rather than endless, impossible growth. Those are real challenges worth confronting, rather than pursuing the pseudo-achievement of pushing up refinancing fees. There are a myriad of career options out there; don't waste your brain and your life on banking.

If you're still tempted, at least go in with open eyes. Read Freefall and Fool's Gold, then try and tell me that Goldman Sachs et al deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Personally, my next career step is to apply for a PhD, as I find myself very much enjoying the life of research. I doubt there will be much of any funding around, but I intend to have a damn good look.

Stormy Weather

I have a confession to make: I can't bring myself to read the Open Public Services White Paper. Whenever I try and steel myself to pick it up, all I can think of is David Cameron tearing the social contract into tiny pieces whilst laughing maniacally. That is not a pleasant mental image.

Instead, I've read Vince Cable's 2009 book about the credit crunch, titled 'The Storm'. He wrote it in haste to try and explain the causes of the financial downturn, back when the idea of Liberal Democrats in the cabinet would have provoked disbelieving laughter. Reading it with the benefit of hindsight is very interesting.

When I borrowed this book from the library, I thought it would display the vast extent of Cable's hypocrisy once he become a government minister. I was surprised to find that some of his 2009 viewpoints accord quite closely with the coalition's stated programme. The book articulates Liberal Democrat ideology much more clearly than any of their election campaigning ever did. Cable's view is liberal in the old-fashioned sense of the word; pro-markets and anti-state in principle, but agreeing that there is need for a strong legal, regulatory, and fiscal policy basis for markets to operate within. Superficially, this agenda seems to differ from the Conservative Party (who dispute the need for a strong legal, regulatory, and fiscal policy basis, painting it all as red tape) and the Labour Party (who are more pro-state, insofar as they actually invested in public services). That's a vast oversimplification, which credits UK political parties with an ideological coherence that they don't have, but it does point to a certain sympathy between Conservative and Liberal policies. Labour at least pretended to put people before markets.

Cable clearly articulates the need for reduced UK public spending to get rid of the so-called structural deficit (a disputed term, I should add). This is now the coalition's favourite soundbite. He also emphasises the need for stronger regulation of banking. The current government have talked about this at some length; their actions have conspicuously failed to live up to their words. Remember Project Merlin and how banks continue to ignore it? Remember when banks were allowed to pay unlimited bonuses? I don't think that this was what Cable had in mind in 2009. That said, his concern was the need for multilateral reform, given the international nature of the crisis. He has been making the right noises, just without supporting action.

There is a seemingly minor but critical distinction to be made between Conservative and Liberal Democrat economic policy: in his book Cable proposes public sector cuts once stimulus has got the private sector growing; Osbourne's approach is predicated on cuts to the public sector acting as the stimulus. The former nuance has clearly been subsumed under the great coalition carnival of cuts. As I've said many times before, I doubt such sudden and deep cuts will turn out well for anyone, least of all the most vulnerable in society, the economy, and the Liberal Democrats as a political party.

'The Storm' makes it clear that unbalanced housing policy contributed significantly to the economic crisis. Cable notes that the hysterical pursuit of home ownership (influenced by political, financial, and media hype) brought about a destructive house price bubble. To avoid it happening again, a more-balanced housing market with greater proportions of social and private rented property is needed. That is definitely not what the present Housing Minister and his ministry are working towards. Interestingly, Cable suggests that a period of deflation could help to prevent a second property bubble. In 2009, this was a real possibility and deflation did actually occur (if you go by RPI). These days, inflation is above 4% and being driven by food and fuel prices rises over which the government has very little control. Both markets are dominated by cartel behaviour and global in nature, as other chapters helpfully explain.

This book is definitely at its best when looking at the global picture; the rise of China and India as economic powers, the perversity of richer countries borrowing heavily from poorer, and trends in energy and food markets are all summarised neatly. I strongly take issue with the relegation of climate change to an afterthought, though. Nonetheless, 'The Storm' is well worth reading and covers a lot of ground within 157 pages. Ultimately, though, it is fatalistic. The UK is waning as economic power, many contributory factors to the downturn remain beyond UK policy control, and even if we get our domestic policy in order recovery will remain difficult.

Cable sensibly doesn't try and predict the future; he didn't foresee the alarming prospect of Greece, Ireland, Italy, and the US threatening to default on their debts, for instance. Rather, he presents a frankly depressing vision of where things were in 2009 and the main problems that needed to be addressed. It's now 2011 and those problems remain unfixed; rebalancing the housing market, investing in education and research to strengthen the economy, economic rebalancing away from financial services, and promoting fairness by using the tax system to reduce inequality. I haven't seen evidence of the coalition government making progress with any of that, despite frequent name-checking of the latter two aims.

I still think that Vince Cable has acted hypocritically and consider his callous attitude to Southern Cross unforgivable. However all politicians (indeed all humans) are hypocrites sometimes and working in a coalition inevitably requires compromise. The astute analysis in 'The Storm' demonstrates that Cable must realise how ineffective and downright dangerous most of the policies he has to support are likely to be. As the economy stalls, the euro totters, and America seems doomed to be downgraded, I wonder if he thinks such compromise was worth it?

I did find one prediction in the concluding chapter of Cable's book: 'There is a long period of austerity ahead'. It's hard to argue with that.

Ill Fares The Land

In George Orwell's 1984, Winston is given a book:

'[It] fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.'

Last night I finished reading exactly such a book, Ill Fares The Land by Tony Judt. It challenges the largely unspoken assumptions that have dominated economic policy in the Western world since the 1980s. The book brought some thoughts that have been nagging at me into focus. So rather than getting a reasonable amount of sleep last night, I wrote a political diatribe. It isn't polished or structured, but it's a sincere response to that remarkable book.


Why have we stopped imagining any alternative to free market capitalism? This is a question I've long wondered about, now re-awoken in my head. The simplistic communism/unfettered free-market capitalism diochotomy is frankly stupid. Surely humanity can manage more sophisticated thinking? Why haven't the interdependencies between markets and governments been acknowledged and studied?

How did the economic growth become an end in itself rather than a means to an end?

Have we forgotten the original purpose of government and the public sector?

Why are we as a society willing to tolerate huge and growing inequalities? High unemployment? Social exclusion and poverty? All in the name of economic growth and the ubiquitous totem of efficiency.

Why do we now value efficiency above everything else, without even knowing what it means?

Why can't the wealthiest countries in the world afford basic public services any more?

The coalition government are trying to dismantle the state, whilst telling us that we don't need it. If that is indeed the case, why has it persisted in being useful for hundreds of years? Why did our estimation of its value suddenly plummet in the 1980s?

Where has our faith in markets come from? Unregulated markets are as unsuccessful as over-regulated ones, just in a different way. Monopolistic exploitation vs so-called inefficiency - which do you prefer?

Economics has become akin to a religious mystery, with a priesthood of bankers telling us its too complex for us to understand or be included in. That's a lie. The basis of economics, the laws of supply and demand and the concept of markets, are very simple. Deceptively so, as they fail to reflect the ways that human beings, and the institutions and markets in which they interact, actually behave. I remember being taught about models of long term economic growth about six years ago and realising, with some amazement, that none of them stood up to scrutiny. They all made assumptions that are utterly ridiculous - infinite capital, for example. Yet we continue to put our faith in these models, because no-one has stood up and said, 'BUT THAT'S JUST NOT TRUE!' No-one does that because they're afraid of being told, 'Oh, you just aren't clever enough to understand.' (I tried to discredit these models in an undergraduate essay, but that was never going to shake the world to its foundations.)

The goal of a government should not be to promote economic growth above all else. Governments exist to protect their citizens, to create an environment of fairness, justice and equity for all. We are not dismissive of governments because these concepts are no longer relevant in the twenty-first century, but because governments appear to have lost faith in them. All debates on fairness are framed in purely economic terms, as if the only freedom anyone needs is the ability to make as much money as they can.

Public sector workers are increasingly being demonised as meddling, obstructive bureaucrats. At times I have felt guilty that I am paid by the public purse, because my job isn't absolutely essential to the continued functioning of the UK. Now I think, why the hell should I apologise? I do my job to make the world a better place, insofar as I can. The aim of it is to improve life in Cambridgeshire, by planning for the population's future needs now. Why are workers in the private sector being painted as morally superior, for working merely to enrich themselves and the shareholders in their companies? What is wasteful about working to improve the environment and people's lives? How did we as a society get to the point where a public servant is a drain on the country rather than an asset to it?

Why does this feel like a radical thing to question? Because at the moment it is. We have a cabinet minister who fears 'cigar chomping commies', a Prime Minister who thinks the state should retract and let mythical communities provide their own public services. The NHS and education systems are about to be dismantled. Government support in every single sector of society that you can imagine is being scaled back or withdrawn. The overriding goal of this government is to cut public spending, whatever the human cost.

At the moment, I think people feel a mixture of three emotions about this:

1. Ignorance ('none of this will effect me')
   
   
2. Vague satisfaction ('ha, those wasteful bureaucrats deserve a bit of a shock; after the recession we've had in the private sector, it's their turn to feel some pain')
   
   
3. Vague fear & unsettlement ('there are a lot of changes happening suddenly, I don't remember voting for this')

To 1, oh yes it will.

To 2, when the private sector suffers, private sector employees feel it. When the public sector suffers, everyone feels it. Because everyone uses public services, however much they unknowingly take them for granted.

To 3, now you're actually thinking.

I refuse to apologise for so-called bureaucratic wastefulness any longer. Why is it so much more reprehensible for the public sector to allegedly waste a little than the private sector to waste a lot? Which is better value to society - thousands of people employed doing so-called 'bureaucratic non-jobs' or a vast handout to a bank? The former do not meet economic definitions of efficiency, and their value cannot necessarily be quantified. But that does not mean that they're valueless and less justifiable than bailing out a huge private bank, which will then confirm its commitment to inequality by paying billions in bonuses whilst refusing to lend to small businesses.

The public sector has been on the defensive for thirty years, since it became the norm to measure success in purely economic terms. That is a stupid, wrong-headed way to assess whether services like a rail network, health centre, or environmental protection agency are operating well. We must learn to measure beyond money. There are many things too important to try and quantify so simplistically; health, education, and the environment, for example.

I do not think that the public sector is perfect and the private sector evil, just because I refute the notion that the public sector is always wrong. We need a more intelligent and nuanced view of both sectors, and of their interdependence.

Tony Judt ends with an entreaty that if you agree with him that something has gone very wrong with how we are governed, do something about it. He doesn't specify what, because that's a much harder question. Nonetheless, I feel galvanised and somehow vindicated. It's very frustrating to disagree with so many government policies, dissecting each into tiny pieces so as to describe how they are goes wrong. All current policies start from flawed economic and political assumptions, assumptions that have become so widely accepted since the 1980s that we have almost forgotten how to contradict them. We criticise high train fares, fear the threat of unemployment, feel vaguely guilty about our inefficiencies, and aspire vaguely to wealth as it is is supposed to make us happy. So little in culture or media contradicts this.

My generation needs to read Ill Fares The Land, it's well worth losing sleep over. We need to be reminded that a better world is possible, and that better is not a synonym for richer.

There is no profit in trying to build utopia. Attempting to make the world better for people requires thinking beyond market transactions, it demands imagination of a kind that modern life seems to suppress. The UK is at a turning point, with an anti-government government telling us to go away and govern ourselves. Perhaps this is a chance for our imaginations to awaken, for us to recognise what we really want from the state, and most importantly for us to challenge the notion that human beings exist to produce products and services more efficiently. That is what our economy and our political system are based on.

Does anyone really believe that to be true? Do you?