Review: Reckless Opportunists-Elites at the end of the Establishment-By Aeron Davis- Manchester University Press- March 2018

“The bourgeoisie itself sees no way out. In countries where it has already been forced to stake its last upon the card of fascism, it now toboggans with closed eyes toward an economic and military catastrophe. In the historically privileged countries, i.e., in those where the bourgeoisie can still for a certain period permit itself the luxury of democracy at the expense of national accumulations (Great Britain, France, United States, etc.), all of the capital’s traditional parties are in a state of perplexity bordering on a paralysis of will”[1].

Leon Trotsky was describing the condition of the ruling elites in the 1940s. Fascism had established itself in three major European countries, and a global war had already killed hundreds of thousands of people. As Aeron Davis shows in his new book history is not only repeating itself, there is a real danger of the world not existing in a few years.

It must be pointed out that Davis is no Marxist but has in a limited way exposed how rotten the British and for that matter global ruling elite has become. The guiding principle for what passes as policy or perspective today by political parties, leaders of the big business is whether it is right, not for the vast majority of the population, but for the super-rich.

Readers looking for a Thomas Pickety style exposure of growing social inequality and the reasons behind are going to be disappointed by this book. Whether Davis has an understanding of the social forces at play or downplays them is open to debate. The fact that he mentions the word capitalist once in the book gives us a clue.

Davis’s book is based on at least twenty years of research and interviews. He has interviewed and observed over 350 members of the ruling elite. As Davis points out “as an academic studying how power operates, I have spent the past 20 years researching elite figures in five areas associated with the modern establishment: the media, the City, large corporations, the Whitehall civil service and the major political parties at Westminster. After interviewing and observing more than 350 people working in or close to the top during that time, my sense of this evolving long-term crisis has become clearer. I have come to believe that the establishment is no longer coherent or collective or competent. Its failings are not only causing larger schisms, inequalities and precariousness in Britain; they also threaten the very foundations of establishment rule itself”.

During that twenty year period, the world capitalist system has witnessed a significant economic and political crisis not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The majority of the book deals with the implication of the September 2008 global economic breakdown. Davis highlights in his book that very few of the highly paid representatives of the bourgeoisie saw the crisis coming or how close to the banking collapse came to bringing down the whole capitalist system.

Another aspect mentioned in the book is how the corporately controlled titans of the media not only did not see the crash coming but the words of one writer “celebrated the reckless financial speculation and reckless self-enrichment that define the business activities and personal lifestyles of the ruling class “.

Davis believes that too many of today's leader are “reckless opportunists” hell-bent on making as much money as they can regardless of the consequences. Davis points out that this recklessness is endangering the very existents of the capitalist system.

One striking example of the process of degeneration blighting many bourgeois leaders was described by Andrew Turnbull, a former head of the civil service,Turnball described the 1970s which witnessed a series of economic collapses Turnball points that the more perceived members of the ruling elite believed that this crisis could not be handled by “privileged amateurs”. As Davis points out “Meritocracy” and expertise – represented by grammar school education, the professions and PhDs – began dictating the new recruitment policy.

Turnball concludes “Gradually the classics and humanities people got replaced,”when I arrived we used to have people who were experts on Byron and musicians – rather refined people. Then, rather hard-nosed economists gradually took over, and the dominant culture became football and golf, rather than music.”

While Davis would lead us to believe that the majority of the ruling elite are reckless opportunists a weakness in the book is that he does little to examine the more conscious elements in the ruling elite and what they plan to do about the crisis of leadership amongst them.

Aside from piling on more misery to the working class, there are firm plans amongst the bourgeois for war on a global scale and with nuclear weapons. As the document entitled “Fractures, Fears and Failures,” from the WEF’s 2018 Global Risks Report Warns

“Democracy is already showing signs of strain in the face of economic, cultural and technological disruption. Much deeper damage is possible: social and political orders can break down. If an evenly divided country sees polarised positions harden into a winner-takes-all contest, the risk increases of political debate giving way to forms of secession or physical confrontation. In these circumstances, a tipping point could be reached. A spiral of violence could begin, particularly if public authorities lost control and then intervened on one side with disproportionate force. In some countries—with widespread ready access to weapons or a history of political violence—armed civil conflict could erupt. In others, the state might impose its will by force, risking long reverberating consequences: a state of emergency, the curtailment of civil liberties, even the cancellation of elections to protect public order". 

Conclusion

Davis like philosopher Thomas Hobbes believes that leadership does not have to be  “nasty, brutish and short. The system can be reformed and regulated and can be “nice". Whether Davis had his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek when he said that is open to debate. This is a system and leadership that is rotten to the core, and if it is not removed, it will propagate a global war that will make the 2nd world war look like a tea party.

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[1] The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International-The Transitional Program-https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm