Post-war England: Affluence and Angst

The British population, at the end of the Second World War, was exhausted and relieved. It took a little while for things to get back to anything approaching normal; rationing stayed in force for another nine years for some goods, infrastructure needed rebuilding, industry needed reorganising. England, more directly affected by the war than Scotland or Wales, probably had more sorting-out to do, but even if that were not the case, my thoughts are more concerned with England.

Despite the poor material shape of the country, it's my sense that the people, having survived the privations of wartime conditions, rebounded fairly well and got on with life as best they could. However, if they thought life would go on just as it had before the war, they became disillusioned fairly soon. Changes were in the air.

It wasn't until the fifties that changes became really apparent. New buildings were in new styles, and with new purposes: council estates, secondary modern schools, technical colleges. There were new styles in clothes, new cars, new aircraft. The government tried to bolster a patchy spirit of optimism and confidence by launching the Festival of Britain, which was intended to show how British industry was forging ahead. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 was a morale-booster, coinciding with a large increase in sales of TV sets and subsequent viewing.


Against the material advances there were some counter-currents: the Korean war, the Emergency in Malaya, the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya, and at home, failure to achieve a satisfactory state of labour relations. This was part of of a larger picture of relative decline, in which Britain was losing her empire, and losing ground against other industrialised nations, having been the world leader in both these areas.

Within this milieu voices of dissent began to be heard. A group of writers labelled the Angry Young men expressed through their work a rumbling of dissatisfaction with the state of things. Post-war England was not shaping up in the way they had hoped, or had been led to expect. Look Back in Anger, the play by John Osborne, inspired the label. The group wasn't really cohesive, and it's members probably denied being members, or even denied it's existence. Room at the Top, the novel by John Braine, was not really anti-establishment, being the account of a bloke of working-class origins making his way up the social ladder in the provincial north of England. However it paved the way for a grittier style of writing and film-making as represented by A Kind of Loving, The L-Shaped Room, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Girl with Green Eyes, Up the Junction and The Pumpkin Eater. Most of them were successful as both books and films.

A more expressly anti-establishment voice was heard in the satirical TV show, That was the Week that Was, and in the magazine, Private Eye. Left-wing newspapers, the Daily Herald (Labour) and Daily Worker (Communist) were a bit stodgy and appealed only to staunch members of their respective constituencies. At some point more strident publications began to appear: Socialist Worker, Militant, Red Mole. These were matched by more radical groups, the Socialist Workers Party, International Socialists and the like.

On a more popular cultural level, unrest seemed to grow among young males, with battles between gangs of Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, and later, skinheads and football hooligans. Milder forms of dissent appeared with the Beats, hippies, and Punks.

The context of the social scene was a growing affluence and vigorous modernisation schemes that saw the building of motorways, shopping centres, tower blocks, industrial estates. But in the larger world context, Britain was declining economically relative to other advanced countries and losing international influence.

It's hard to say what were the direct causes of the various forms of discontent: perhaps they were many. And it would probably be wrong to link together the various manifestations of discontent. Nevertheless it would be true to say that from 1945 until at least 1980 there was a sense of alienation and futility running through English society. I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of this subject and hope to develop it further. Having been out of the country for the last thirty years I'd like to find out if it persisted and whether it still exists.

Globalisation

Something I read started me thinking about globalisation. It was an essay looking at early views, eg. in Shakespeare, of the world as a whole, a globe. I began to see that if one thought of the planet in this way and went back in time well before Shakespeare, one quickly saw that the world was global, so to speak, from very early on. After all, life spread across the whole world, from the earlies forms up to homo sapiens. It's the latter that's interesting for my puposes, since modern man emerged in a particular part of the world and spread fairly rapidly thoughout it. The habitable planet was not exactly a blank slate, but a well-stocked garden open for the taking, more or less (beware the predators!) Since the first outward expansion there have been many migrations, conquests, colonisations. The Roman Empire, for example, covered most of what the Romans thought of as the known world. Phoenician traders sailed round most of it. The British Empire was a global enterprise, foreshadowing today's globalisation, lacking not much more than the instant communications and fast travel available today.

Plenty has been written about the present situation so I shall not venture any comments on it. I feel that taking the longer and braoder view, however, helps put it in perspective. And looking at that longer view, we see that as humans spread across the world they diversified in appearance, language and culture. It is possible, then, that the apparent homogenising effect of globalisation will be counteracted by local variation.

What's the Matter with Kansas

I read this book by Thomas Frank. It is an account of a shift to the right among ordinary working Americans as a result of radical conservative propaganda employing social issues, enabling Republican administrations to support big business which is shafting ordinary Americans. Whether this account is strictly accurate I don't know, but it was an entertaining read. It attracted a lot of discussion which I'm not going to go into. The Wikipedia entry sums it up; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_the_Matter_with_Kansas%3F

Supercapitalism

I'm parking this synopsis here as a lazy way of making notes of this book's contents. having just finished reading it;



Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday LifeWritten by Robert B. Reich

From the greatly admired author of The Work of Nations and The Future of Success, one of America's greatest economic and political thinkers as well as a distinguished public servant in three national administrations, a breakthrough book on the clash between capitalism and democracy.Mid-twentieth-century capitalism has turned into global capitalism, and global capitalism—turbocharged, Web-based, and able to find and make almost anything just about anywhere—has turned into supercapitalism. But as Robert B. Reich makes clear in this eye-opening book, while supercapitalism is working wonderfully well to enlarge the economic pie, democracy—charged with caring for all citizens—is becoming less and less effective under its influence.Reich explains how widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and the spreading effects of global warming are the logical outcomes of supercapitalism. He shows us why companies, fighting harder than ever to maintain their competitive positions, have become even more deeply involved in politics; and how average citizens, seeking great deals and invested in the stock market to an unprecedented degree, are increasingly loath to stand by their values if it means biting the hands that feed them. He makes clear how the tools traditionally used to temper America's societal problems—fair taxation, well-funded public education, trade unions—have withered as supercapitalism has burgeoned. Reich sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy. He argues forcefully that the spheres of business and politics must be kept distinct. He calls for an end to the legal fiction that corporations are citizens, as well as the illusion that corporations can be "socially responsible" until laws define social needs. Reich explains why we must stop treating companies as if they were people—and must therefore abolish the corporate income tax and levy it on shareholders instead, hold individuals rather than corporations guilty of criminal conduct, and not expect companies to be "patriotic." For, as Reich says, only people can be citizens, and only citizens should be allowed to participate in democratic decision making. "

It was quite an eye-opener, illustrating something I've known for a long time without quite getting my finger on, viz. that corporations exist to make money for their shareholders. Reich makes it clear that this is their only bottom-line function, and within a world become more competitive through deregulation and free trade, have been forced to be more energetic in their pursuit of profits. This has led to benefit for consumers in the shape of "great deals', but not without social and environmental costs. His main argument in the second half of the book is that these costs can only be reduced through regulation, which can only be effectively imposed politically by democratic means, not through spurious 'self-regulation' by corporations.

Planet of Slums

I came across the name of Mike Davis recently, and read a book edited by him: Evil Paradises, which describes rich enclaves in an increasingly impoverished world:

"Although they read like science fiction, the case studies are shockingly real. In Dubai, where child slavery existed until very recently, a gilded archipelago of private islands known as “The World” is literally being added to the ocean. In Medellín and Kabul, drug lords—in many ways textbook capitalists—are redefining conspicuous consumption in fortified palaces. In Hong Kong, Cairo, and even the Iranian desert, burgeoning communities of nouveaux riches have taken shelter in fantasy Californias, complete with Mickey Mouse statues, while their maids sleep in rooftop chicken coops. Meanwhile, Ted Turner rides herd over his bison in 2 million acres of private parkland." (New Press review)

Next I read Planet of Slums:

Imagine a place where thousands live crammed together in makeshift shacks bordering toxic dumps, with no access to clean water or electricity. Residents defecate on the ground because there are no latrines, and perpetually live in their own waste because there are no sanitation services. Nobody maintains the roads or regulates traffic, so many perish in car accidents. There is no industry; there are no jobs, no education system, no health care whatsoever. Police presence is limited to collecting protection money. This dystopian vision may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it's far from that–it's reality for more than one billion of the earth's population.
Renowned American scholar Mike Davis chronicles the horrific living conditions in the world's ghettos, favelas, and barrios, detailing the global policy decisions that have fuelled their explosive expansion. The text reveals that most of the world's population growth is taking place in developing countries, with 95 percent of that growth occurring in cities. There are now more than 200,000 slums on the planet, with populations ranging from several hundred to 20 million.
Davis ties the rise of slums to World Bank policy. For the last 30 years, the institution has been lending money to impoverished nations at high interest rates, then leveraging those debts to aggressively restructure local economies. Many nations now spend more than half of their annual budget on debt repayment, and the bank requires these countries to slash social spending for what's left. The result is the complete retreat of the state–and an unprecedented level of misery for the poor of the world.
The grim situation that Davis describes should ring the alarm for civil society and governments alike. Sadly, the academic approach of the book guarantees its readership will be limited. The text is packed with tables and statistics, but it's short on narrative. The reader walks away with a good understanding of how a billion people are living–but gains no real connection to this mass of humanity. In spite of its best intentions, Planet of Slums winds up reinforcing the abstraction of slum populations when it should be humanizing them.

Straight.com (Vanvouver) review. Cutting and pasting may be lazy but it's quick. I tend to agree with the final sentence, which echoes another review I read online. Davis cuts from one slum to another in his account, without really distinguishing one from another, so that slums worldwide tend to coalesce into an homogeneous mass. Still, this global view portrays the global horror, which was brought about largely through colonialism, maintained through post-colonialism, when middle classes maintained the barriers keeping slum-dwellers out, or moved into slum areas that were tidied up, and reinforced by neoliberal economic policies.

State of the World

I'm finding myself getting more interested in world affairs these days, probably as a result of web browsing and reading articles. I was given a copy of Charlie Wilson's War as a birthday present, and having read that decided to read non-fiction books again after years of reading mainly crime fiction. Charlie Wilson's War describes how the CIA assisted the mujahideen against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, with the aid of congressman Charlie Wilson.

I next read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, who gives an account of the way countries that have been subject to a disaster of some kind are made vulnerable to the imposition of an open market, allowing foreign corporations to move in. Then I read Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, who describes the rise of the "security" contractor, or mercenary army, and the privatisation of the American military.

I'm presently reading The End of Victory Culture by Tom Engelhardt, who runs the TomDispatch website which I visit regularly, and who examines the American psyche. So it will be seen from these notes that I am looking at the state of the world from the perspective of American involvement, which is considerable, and influence, which may be the strongest, but not the only one.

The prevailing world view among the administrative classes seems to be that expressed by Francis Fukuyama in The End of History, which asserts that the world model is now universally based on democracy and free markets, that the clash of ideologies is over. However he has modified that position, and I believe there are in fact countervailing forces, which is what makes the world a turbulent and interesting place.

May you live in interesting times (purported Chinese curse)

Withnail and I

Watched this film last night: hilarious. An alcohol-fuelled romp that follows loosely on from Hangover Square, in a different time and place and medium. There's plenty of info on the web, eg. here, so I don't neeed to go into the story, such as it is. My only serious thought on reflection is that the lifestyle of characters such as these in the book and film, based on regular sojourns in the same pub or pubs, is not as prevalent as it once was. Impecunious types can't afford to drink more than a pint or two, and the atmosphere of most pubs today isn't conducive to the sort of scene I have in mind, where a central figure, sometimes a minor celebrity, a writer or actor, would hold court, surrounded by a regular crew of acolytes or hangers-on.

The pattern of pub-going and drinking has changed overall in recent decades. At one time it was common for men (usually) to arrive at their local fairly early in the evening and have several pints of ordinary bitter of a low alcohol content, play darts or chat with the other regulars, most nights of the week. The generation that replaced them preferred a stronger beer, to the extent that ordinary bitters practically disappeared, drinking fewer pints and staying a shorter time in any one pub, and not having strong allegiance to any one. I actually fall into this character, having always been a lone pub crawler with a few regular stops that shift over time. But the lone drinker is a different animal from those that drink in groups.

I write this in the context of recent reports of declining sales of beer in pubs in England, the gradual withering away of one of the staples of life there. One commentator pointed out that English-style pubs have popped up all over the world, which I've observed in Canada, so it's true to some extent. and welcome though they are, they aren't English pubs as such. You only find them, and English beer, in England, and in dwindling numbers. Not that I've done much to support such pubs as are here in Nova Scotia; can't afford to. I drink home-brewed beer and go out a few times a year for a meal, rather than just to drink, which follows the increasingly prevalent pattern.

Hangover Square

I read this book by Patrick Hamilton a few days ago, around my 65th birthday. It was actually a re-read, as I first read it some time around 1960. Hamilton is well known as the author of plays, including Gaslight which was made into a successful film, but this is the only work of his that I have read. (It was also made into a film, less successful) It concerns a group of characters whose lives consist mainly of drinking, in dingy flats or their favorite Earls Court pub. (click on the author's name to find out more) The story itself is not what drew me to the book, and drew me back, more the style of the writing and the ambience it creates. I was fond of loose, almost plot-less books in the days when I first read this. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch was probably the one that started me off, after which I looked for more experimental stuff, including Alain Robbe-Grillet and other members of the French avant-garde.

However there's a certain type of English novel that appeals to me: Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell was another, the work of Henry Green, Rayner Heppenstall. Hurry on Down by John Wain follows this tradition, if I can call it that. Their structure is decided very much by contingency, which fascinated Iris Murdoch. In other words, the course of events is determined purely by immediate circumstance, one thing following another. I think the reason I liked them is that they were like life, or like a certain way of looking at life, plus the fact that I simply found them enjoyable to read.

The above is by way of introducing what is my main theme here, which is life after 65. I could have given that as the title of the piece, but I thought I'd come at it obliquely. The idea was to chronicle my progress and gradual decline through this terminal phase, but it occurred to me that anything I wrote would be a product of that process, and illustrative of it. I think one can't just say, "I am in decline/fading away or whatever" which is self-referential without referencing anything specific. It would make as much sense to simply stop writing, which is going to happen sooner or later.

My life has been governed almost exclusively by contingency, moving from one situation to another as things changed, or I felt like it, or met someone, etc. I've been in the same situation now for almost thirty years, so there hasn't been change, apart from having children, but I feel no less governed by contingency: life is contingent on things remaining the same.