Using the G20 to illustrate again that how we think about politics may be upside down. And how those who…

Using the G20 to illustrate again that how we think about politics may be upside down. And how those who oppose 'neoliberalism' actually use all of neoliberalism's framings, without even being aware of it. Huge consequences for Covid too. /1 https://t.co/fzjp4yyrdB

The word 'international' is misleading. It leads to the idea that nations came first, and then they created an 'international community'. That's not what happened at all. The international came BEFORE the national. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is key. /2 https://t.co/EAs1N41sVn

During the peace negotiations to end the 30-year war, for the first time the idea of 'sovereign nations' was created and used in a widespread way. That's the rough origin of countries or nations as we know them today, and of the idea of sovereignty. /3 https://t.co/J4zb1nmyIq

The critical point here I think is that we had an international community long before we had national communities. Unified by the church and by the Roman empire/Holy Roman Empire, mostly. Why does this matter? Because to this day our ideas about politics forget this origin. /4

The neoliberals want us to believe political action comes from the 'bottom up', this myth that 'the people' have a will, and that will drives political change. Bizarrely the people who oppose the neoliberals tend to believe exactly the same thing. That was the neoliberal plan. /5

There is no such thing as 'the people', except in the most generic sense of pointing at a collection of people living somewhere. The people is not a political actor, it has no will. Go back to 1648, and you can see directly that the sovereign will of nations had to be.../6

...created FOR them, by international fiat. It wasn't pre-existing. Groups, of whatever size, from the tiniest family or committee right up to nation states or the G20, NEVER spontaneously generate anything. It's always a tiny (about 5%) number of people within those.../7

...groups who mobilise everybody else. Without that mobilisation groups operate entirely using social conformity, everybody just imitates or copies what everybody else is doing. Not because people are stupid, but because if they didn't nothing would hold groups together. /8

The neoliberals know this, which is why they create fantasies like 'free markets', to generate the illusion they're giving individual freedom, when really they're just offering an idea to rally behind, collectively. Something for people to conform to, but in the direction.../9

...neoliberals want them to. We're seeing the same now with Covid, where neoliberals delegate all responsibility to individuals (which they know means nothing will happen). While those who oppose them also call for individuals to rise up and fix Covid. Which won't happen. /10

And now at the G20 the world waits to see if a bunch of populist elected windbags will agree to do anything useful for the rest of us, wielding their beloved sovereignty as if it represents the will of their people. It doesn't, it's whatever these windbags say it is. /11

Until we can ditch this myth that democracy or politics in general is driven by millions of people spontaneously deciding to organise societies in a given way, we won't have any democracy. We'll have the world driven by a handful of populist elected windbags. /12

Windbags who game elections so they can brand their ideological fantasies with 'the will of the people'. Windbags who've let millions die of Covid, because the donors who fund their elections don't want their businesses disrupted. /end