Reviewed by Canon Mike D Williams
Is the political system broken? We have a new government full of hope and ideas to improve the future for all citizens in the UK. Yet, the fundamental problem remains that our collective goals often collide with our individual self-interest. Politicians are elected to resolve the dilemmas and trade-offs between achieving solidarity and personal freedom. They can never please all the people all the time!
Ben Ansell is professor of politics at Oxford and the 2023 BBC Reith Lecturer. The book builds on his lectures examining the five goals that unite voters. We want a say on how we are governed, to have equality, a welfare safety net, security and to be prosperous. Whilst we have those common goals Ansell argues that our own interests create traps for the political process leading to failure. For example, when times are hard for us personally, we may be willing to vote for increases to welfare, yet when times are good, we might baulk at paying the taxes required to fund the safety net.
The book is in five parts covering democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity. Each part is then structured with an introductory example, a clear explanation of the topic, how the trap is created and then potential ways to escape the trap. The escape ideas are interesting, but the weaker part of the book.
‘We only care about solidarity when we need it ourselves’. In a sense that summarises much of what the book is about. The section on solidarity starts with the example of how hard it was for President Obama to reform US healthcare. Here in the UK the NHS is a clear example of solidarity yet we struggle to fund it to meet increasing need.
When it comes to social care in the UK we fall into the solidarity trap. Governments fail to find a solution to the funding crisis and know they can only be elected by promising not to raise income tax. Finding a solution to the solidarity trap is about changing people’s norms about who is “us” – who counts as part of the community and is included in the ‘common good’.
The section on security is interesting – asking the question how those responsible for policing and security are held accountable to avoid the misuse of power. What works domestically to hold those in power to the rules does not internationally, as we have seen in Ukraine. There is no global watchkeeper able to stop the war. Prosperity and economic growth today might make us poorer tomorrow is the final trap examined. The failure of politics to create a sustainable economy is there for us all to see with global temperatures continuing to rise.
Do you get frustrated with politics – why promises are not delivered? Do you wonder why problems are not tackled or not resolved to your satisfaction? This book will help to explain something of why that is the case. The complexity of global and national challenges means that serious attention is needed to how to live together in a way that balances the collective with the individual.