David Cameron has been sold to the British electorate as a thoroughly modern politician, part Blair, part Thatcher, a one nation conservative with a soft spot for social democracy, the green movement, big and small business, youth, minorities, traditionalists, the armed forces and the old. Has a politician ever been sold as so many things to so many people, at home in fashion magazines as he is at Party conferences? But despite being told, arguably more, about Cameron the man than any other politician he remains vacuous, strangely unformed, a cipher for the real interests and forces he represents. The Meaning of Cameronis an unmasking of the false politics Cameron embodies, and an examination of the face the mask has eaten into.
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About the Author
Richard Seymour, one of Britain's leading bloggers (Lenin's Tomb) and radical journalists, is the author of The Liberal Defence of Murder.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly Modern Tory,
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This review is from: The Meaning of David Cameron (Paperback)
The ruling class doesn't meet every month in smoke-filled rooms, waited on by Honduran man-servants, chomping cigars and discussing the latest American Enterprise Institute report. Like Baudelaire (and Kevin Spacey) said of the devil, the production of hegemonic conceits is far more subtle than that. And in their drunken hubris, perhaps the masters of the universe have actually started to believe that their privilege is, in fact, the just reward of the meritorious. Which is to imply, as Richard Seymour puts it, "... that those currently at the top--the Warren Buffets and Roman Abramoviches of this world--are the very best, the nec plus ultra of humanity." This is the type of "hate speech" embedded in the neoliberal vernacular that The Meaning of David Cameron attempts to undermine.
Though bound to mislead a few British book buyers, it should come as a relief to those on the penetrative side of the "special relationship" that this isn't actually a book about David Cameron. Cameron himself is an unimpressive figure. No rags-to-riches story, no stellar rhetorical or intellectual gifts, he is the embodiment the banality that we've come to expect from "late" capitalism. Yet the historical forces that swept Cameron and his hopey-changey sidekick into office are of universal interest. Seymour's first book, The Liberal Defence of Murder, was a sprawling, well-researched tome that covered centuries of liberal apologetics for imperial crusade. It has been compared to La Trahison des Clercs with some justice. His latest--namesake courtesy of Alain Badiou--is more like a pamphlet, a concise political intervention written just prior to the May elections. The length of the work belies its scope and ambition. Seymour covers decades of neoliberal transformation. Decades that have allowed reaction to cloak itself in the garb of modernity. The entire story of the contemporary British working class is outlined here: from the battle for the franchise to the fight for independent political representation through the vehicle of the Labour Party. Then that party's clash with the absolute limits of parliamentary socialism and metamorphosis into New Labour. Like Cameron and Clegg, Blair and his coterie weren't aberrations, they were the products of larger trends. The crisis of the 1970s saw the intersection of slow growth and rising inflation. Profitability was restored through an offensive against militant working class institutions, an economic project, but also a political one aimed at reasserting capitalist hegemony. In the parts of the world where a Chilean solution wasn't possible, a measure of consensus had to be built. The Thatcherites never needed a majority, only a plurality due to the FPTP electoral system, but even that required segments of the petit-bourgeoisie and working class to vote against their own economic interests. Thatcher was able to tap into middle class resentment over union "excess" and the bureaucratic grey of the welfare state, while Reagan profited off working class white angst over the use of the state as an agent of social integration. Then came pre-planned assaults on organized labor. Thatcher went after the miners, Reagan the air traffic controllers: "[...] it was necessary to fight the war in stages. Industries that were `vulnerable' to strikes should be given higher than average wage increases, thus preventing them for entering the battle. The Tories should choose their first battle in an industry where the unions where weak and where they were confident of victory" (35). But brute force was not enough to cement the new paradigm. This is where the neoliberal parlance of "merit" and "progress" came in. Like you'd expect from a good Marxist, Seymour exposes the class rule and exploitation behind these innocuous, even laudable, words. Meritocracy makes a virtue out of inequality. If we do live in a meritorious society then the wealthy getting wealthier would only draw the ire of the envious losers, those unwilling to accept the outcome of a fair game. Meritocracy also legitimizes the class system by propagating a fantasy, in which people aren't held back by structural inequality and hierarchy, but by themselves. Which is to imply that the solution to social problems require individual self-help rather than collective political action. Pick up The Secret, put down The Manifesto. The neoliberal usurpation of the mantle of "progress" is even more striking. It is a reflection of the petering out of emancipatory politics that the future progress, the modernity, that humanity is moving towards is taken to be ever more unfettered capitalism and not the erosion of class domination. History, along with language, has been appropriated by those who are tried and true reactionaries, people committed to maintaining an exploitative, centuries-old system. So the question inevitably arises, "What is to be done?" in order to confront capital's new front-men. Seymour's vague calls for collective social action strikes a tone that should appeal to his broad left readership, but it also seems insufficient. Social movements are great. We need to have more vibrant ones in the developed world. But what tangible has been made out of the movements in Chiapas, Argentina or the annual European anti-globalization protest and police-riot? At some point down the line I would expect to hear a bit more from someone with the online pseudonym "lenin" about the need for more concrete political organization on a continental basis. To maintain my reputation as an irascible a-hole, I should really find a few more qualifications, but The Meaning of David Cameron is relatively flawless. If the bourgeoisie was indeed a bit more classically conspiratorial and besieged, they'd stop the presses on this one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine study of Cameron,
By
This review is from: The Meaning of David Cameron (Paperback)
Richard Seymour writes the blog `Lenin's tomb'. In this useful book, he makes a lot of good points. He points out that Blair's evidence-based policy-making turned out to be policy-based evidence-making. Seymour cites the free market economist Ludwig von Mises, who taught Thatcher's idol Friedrich von Hayek, "It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilisation. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history." Immigration adds to the supply of workers to keep wages and workers down. Building too few houses drives house prices up. Privatisations put our money into individual accounts managed by the City, while former Labour minister Lord Digby Jones urges the government to `starve the jobless back to work'. Last year the richest 1,000 Britons got a record 30 per cent more wealth, thanks to the government's pouring £1.2 trillions into the banking system to prop up the euro and stock market and property values. Between June 2009 and April 2010, national income rose by £27 billion, £24 billion of which were profits. The ruling class rules whatever the voting system, however we vote, whatever we want, whatever they say. Remember Cameron's `cast-iron guarantee' of a referendum on the EU Treaty? Writing before the attack on Libya, Seymour ends presciently, "What is the meaning of David Cameron? He means war."
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