Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Duncan Green — Book Review: The Road to Somewhere, by David Goodhart


Populism versus elitism in the UK, with implications for elsewhere. Links to other reviews at the end.

It's anecdotal rather than based on sociological and poli sci studies, but it's worth a look anyway.

There are parallels in other countries and not necessarily close ones since the differences are large.

For example, the liberal Western elite projects its values not only on fellow countrymen, which is turning out to be disproven at the polls, but other countries with very different cultures. The result is wishful thinking if not magical thinking that has little correlation with reality.

Liberalism is crumbling owing to its internal contradications — paradoxes of liberalism — emerging in the bastions of liberalism like the UK and US.

The liberal elite doesn't know how to handle this and is flailing about to maintain control.

1 comment:

NeilW said...

Interesting it is on the Oxfam blog.

Those in the aid industry have a question they should ask themselves everyday: "How much closer are we to no longer being required than yesterday?"

Because once you wander away from that path you quickly end up where you are treating the symptoms of a problem to maintain a job and a purpose, rather than addressing the root cause to make the problem go away.