Russell Brand; Inequality, Revolution, and Real Change

In his interview with Jeremy Paxman, Russell Brand hit the nail on the head. In the world at the moment, politicians are “apathetic to our needs. They are only interested in servicing the needs of the corporations”. Perhaps this is the reason why the edition of ‘New Statesman’ that he edited is currently sold out everywhere in Amsterdam, it resonated with people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYcn3PuTTk

 

The reality on the streets

The past month I walked through Amsterdam looking for work, applying wherever I saw a ‘help wanted’ sign. In bars, cafes, restaurants, hostels, clothes shops. There were very few places with signs up. When I handed my CV to them, most places responded that they get flooded with applications and some got hundreds of resumes that day. When I extended my search and applied at places that did not have signs, they responded there that they also get flooded with resumes most days, and don’t usually bother keeping them. When I applied at one bookstore, the elderly woman behind the counter responded that giving her my CV would be ‘a waste of paper’. Others looking for work told me they experienced similar things. Signs are put out asking for work one day and will be taken away the next day. University graduates have given up the hope they will work in the area they studied, and are happy to get jobs they would not have had to study for. There is a running joke about university graduates who are preparing CVs and cover letters for a job washing dishes. There are a lot of people out there looking for work. For the generation of university graduates that finished after 2008 it is a struggle to raise money, let alone look at pursuing a career. You could be forgiven for thinking that everyone is in the same position. You would be wrong.

 

Graduates from the 1930s still waiting to hear back
Graduates from the 1930s still waiting to hear back

 

The Richest 1%

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, incomes of the richest one percent actually grew by 31.4%. To add insult to injury, during the year of the crisis the CEOs of the big banks received bonuses of several hundred million dollars. To put this in comparison, imagine a kid being put in charge of a lemonade stand. This kid then sells lemonade that disappears before anyone can drink it, burns down his lemonade stand and the others on the street, and creates a global shortage of lemons. Now imagine the parent rewards this kid with several million lifetimes worth of pocket money for his ‘good performance’.

There are some out there that profit still, and perhaps profit more because of the recession. In his article, Russel Brand contends “the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites”. Based on the actions of political leaders in providing massive amounts of bailout funds to the financial world to the detriment of people all over the world, it is hard to argue he is wrong.

The dream of democracy was to create a system of equality, to be the antithesis of systems that benefitted only the elites. The hope was that it would look after the needs of the people in that society. Since widespread deregulation of the 1980s, income inequality has spiraled out of control. The system that was intended to protect the people was used to create a new elite. It has been used to cater to needs of this elite to the detriment of the majority.

 

Street art inspired by Brand
Street art inspired by Brand

 

The fault with the argument

Up until this point, I am in complete agreement with Russel Brand. At present inequality is a massive issue, and it can be argued that almost all of the problems in the world stem from this. It has been argued that people often gravitate to crimes such as theft and drug dealing, and those that result from these, because they have no money to survive and cannot find legitimate work. Hunter S. Thompson once said “politics used to attract the best and brightest; now it attracts the dumbest and meanest”. In the current situation, politics attracts the greediest and most ambitious. Inequality is systemically encouraged by the two party political system that bends to the will of big business while simultaneously ignoring the needs of its citizens.

However, Brand’s call to stop voting is dangerous, and would be exactly what reinforces the balance of power in favour of the elites.

The problem is it does not take into account how most Western-style democracies operate. Countries like the Netherlands, England, Australia, the United States and so on, all operate under the representative democratic system. Officials are elected to represent groups of people, most commonly under the two party preferred system. Brand argues leaders of the two party system no longer represent the best interests of their people, and as a result people shouldn’t vote. However this neglects one of the crucial elements of this system.

When people vote, they elect officials for the house of representatives and also the senate. In Netherlands, as in most other countries, the house of representatives proposes new legislation. If the proposed legislation is agreed upon by the majority, then it is sent to the senate to be accepted or rejected. The crucial piece of this is that independent parties receive the same power.

The independent parties can hold real power in terms of encouraging new legislation or accepting or rejecting proposed legislation. If you don’t think that the current government is doing enough to tackle corporate corruption, vote for one of the socialist parties or those aiming to oppose the big banks. If you believe the government should do more to address environmental issues, vote for a green group. If you think more should be done for animal rights, vote for an animal rights group. Once elected their officials can propose new legislation and can also accept or reject proposed legislation. In the Netherlands there are independent parties like the Green Left, Party for the Animals and 50Plus that are dedicated to resolve specific issues in society. The amount of officials representing each group depends on how many votes they receive.

To those who think it is an impossible scenario, it has occurred before. Following the Australian elections of 2010, neither party emerged with a majority. People in Australia felt that there were problems with the two main parties, and they felt frustrated with both. Many voted independent, and as a result there was a hung parliament. This situation was only resolved when the Labour party allied itself with the three main independent parties, including the Greens, and formed a majority government. From 2010 to 2013 this alliance resulted in many new legislations and amendments focused on environmental protection, disability support and so on. The independents had some real power and could make a significant difference.

If you really feel that there is no party that adequately addresses your needs, maybe create your own. For the generation of university graduates that are unemployed or underemployed; it seems like there are enough of us to not only create a new independent party, but maybe also enough people to vote ourselves in. We could bring in policies that actually mean something to our generation; make unpaid internships illegal, increase taxation on the biggest corporation to pay back the debt they caused, maybe even ban all cars from driving in Amsterdam and make it a bike only zone.

The top 0.1% of the World holds three quarters of the global wealth.
The top 0.1% of the world holds three quarters of the global wealth …

 

A change of paradigm

If you really want to have a revolution in the system, vote independent. In the words of Hunter S. Thomspon; “all we have to do is get out and vote, while it’s still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out”. Don’t believe that you have no power, we all have a power to voice what we want, and we all make decisions individually that together have the most powerful impact to decide what kind of world we want to live in. The call to not vote is irresponsible, as it neglects the power and voice voting allows us. What we need is to change our paradigm that there are only two parties to vote for. Each and every one of us has the power to change our system.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put my Bachelor of Economics to good use and go wash some dishes for minimum wage.

 

Henry Stokes
Henry Stokes
Henry is a writer of fiction novels, and is passionate about issues of inequality and women's’ rights. He completed a Bachelor of Economics at the University of Sydney, graduated with First Class honours in Human Resource Managemen. Information on his novels can be found at the Henry Stokes facebook page.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Henry, Nice piece! Completely agree with you. Love Russel Brands speech although his lack of alternatives and throwing away democracy is indeed quite dangerous since it currently is the only system we got. Taking our hands of that will only further the insanity. I found quite a nice video visualizing the income equality in the states. Nice to see how it put things in perspective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM . Next week I’ll be writing a couple of posts about the shared economy and how i think that it’s part answer and part threat to the current system of governance. Keep it up!

    • Hey Martijn, many thanks for the feedback! Means a lot. Thank you for sending the video! I’ve seen it before and found it equally crazy and interesting. If you are interested I can highly recommend watching ‘Inside Job’, a documentary about the 2008 financial collapse. I found it very insightful. There is also ‘The corporation’ which shows that the pursuit of profit has resulted in some pretty shocking impacts on peoples’ lives. Pretty sad stuff.

  2. while I agree with this article in general, there is one crucial point in Brands message (which as the author pointed out, only really goes for those countries with an entrenched two party system) namely that you shouldn’t vote UNTIL there are non-establishment alternatives available. Living in a country with very much a multi party system, brands message kinda goes dead, because we do have options to vote for those that oppose the democrcy for the elite. In a place like the UK voting for either Labour, the tories or the LibDems doesn’t make an ounce of difference because they are all different flavours of the establishment, and voting for any of them is just voting against your own self-interests most of the time. Brand does make the point that once a party emerges that doesn’t go vote for them. I think that is a rather important detail to miss out on.

  3. Hi my name is Mattenski Kaleshnikov I rural Russia and agree hole hearted with your writes. Wow so agree I live no money and tough sometime I eat just snow ha ha funny but yes true but I have no rubel like you say so communist not work in my country and democracy is like gremlin who steal ha ha not Kremlin I say gremlin but one day I go Kremlin you come with me stoke but any way I need new job last job I have was bear hunter but I eat all that’s why no job and only eat snow if you can visit me one day 491a Rusktuzlokitnipolikov Street, Sublakinamestikylivarkovlikov and then you take me with you to Netherland and I visit Rotterdam to see windmill !!!!!!!!!

  4. Excellent article Henry! Many of your points hit close to
    home, especially your experience as a graduate on a path attempting to utilize your
    degree for what it is intended. No one promised us it would be easy out there,
    but I think many grads are shocked and dismayed at how grim the reality truly
    is – so you have a nice diploma spelling out your fantastic academic
    achievements? So what. It’s certainly not a meal ticket.

    I recently watched a documentary entitled The Economics of
    Happiness and found many of the arguments quite compelling and
    thought-provoking. I recommend it.

  5. Firstly, good article, however you damage the credibility of the piece almost immediately by referencing the opinions of that overrated master of self publicity Russell Brand.

    Speaking as a shallow man, even I am not so shallow as to give a damn about the opinion of a hollywood actor, who I hasten to add receives his millions from the very same corporations that he hypocritically speaks out against.

    So Russell Brand wants to change the world does he? How, by starring in a remake of Arthur? Brand in my opinion should stick to what he’s best at, being unfunny in crap films.

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