If you believe the mythology of elections, entire populations swing from being free market fanatics, to Big…

If you believe the mythology of elections, entire populations swing from being free market fanatics, to Big State socialists, in only a handful of years. And then back again, ad infinitum. Nonsense, of course. There’s a much simpler explanation. /1 https://t.co/agzawnJEJI

Elections are performative theatre. A platform for existing social groups to pursue status. But even that’s misleading. Because the existing social status quo at any time is never going to willingly give an opportunity for others to replace them. /2

In most countries since universal suffrage began, conservative parties have dominated. That’s because they represent the existing status quo. Universal suffrage was only ever allowed, by this status quo, in response to perceived threats. They threw the threats a bone. /3

Quite confident that this wasn’t offering any meaningful challenge to competing status groups. And election results bear that out. Taking the Anglo countries of the US, UK and Australia as examples. Non-conservatives have won only 35-40% of elections. In the UK it’s 12%. /4

The UK is the origin country for both US and Australian democracy, so its status quo is more powerful, with the colonies opening up a little more space for alternatives. But not enough to even get close to winning half of the elections. /5

In Australia the Queen’s representative even removed a Labor government. Elections are a sop to a perceived threat, tolerated only insofar as they don’t meaningfully prosecute that threat. Societies have never stopped being social status hierarchies. /6

The existing status quo even invented a political tool to ensure this remains true. What’s now unquestioningly called ‘the economy’. Strip away the econo-bollocks and the economy is just a weaponised idea to prevent all action against the existing status quo. /7

The idea that societies are markets, run by invisible hands (i.e. by nobody). All designed to neuter governments, to make them puppets to a handful of statistical indicators, that enshrine the status quo. Elections are a sideshow to all of this. They change nothing. /8

I Tweeted earlier that on those rare occasions a party not representing the status quo wins, it’s because that status quo is floundering. Its grasp on material reality is so flimsy that a society is beginning to fall apart. Only then will a ‘progressive’ party be allowed. /9

For just long enough to fix enough things to allow the status hierarchies to get back to competing for status. Then they’re out on their ears, into opposition again. For long periods. /10

If you zoom out from all the hoo-ha of elections, you’ll see that societies over longer times are not battles between two teams. They’re a status quo, occasionally allowing some repair action. That’s what gives the impression of two competing teams. /11

With ‘the economy’ now holding even those occasional repair teams to a strict conformity with the status quo. /end