I would agree that the needs of the vast majority of the people are not being met by the political class, and that these politicians are not being held accountable for this. I also agree that we are seeing frustration boil over and we are beginning to see frustration manifest itself in political movements. I find it rather myopic of Mr. Brand that he points out the 'Occupy' movement while never once recognizing or mentioning the Tea Party / Liberty movements. These movements predated any 'Occupy' activity, and unlike 'Occupy' they have maintained their strength and presence while at the same time made some political gains.
This is another point of contention that I have with Mr. Brand. He says he does not vote because it does not make a difference. The political gains made by the Tea party / Liberty movements have proven that voting can still make a difference. Not voting though, makes no difference whatsoever, and the act of not voting, especially when espoused by a prominent celebrity, dangerously perpetuates the idea that voting is a futile effort. The 2012 election cycle in the United States already had under a 54% turnout rate. I would posit that the reason why we are in the mess we're in today is because of voter apathy towards elections in that those that don't vote, like Russell, don't feel like their vote matters and those that do vote don't do their due diligence in voting intelligently and holding their elected officials accountable.
My major point of contention however, is with Mr. Brand's, solution to all of this. Mr. Brand wants an egalitarian socialist system with a massive redistribution of wealth. The one major flaw in this is the same flaw that we are suffering from today, in that this system would still be run by people. In fact, I would hypothesize that this type of system would make today's problems worse, not better.
Think about it for a minute. Such a system would require massive if not total state control of economic activity. Entrusting a government with more control over a people's economic lives has never turned out well, and there are countless examples from just this past century, but I suppose Mr. Brand glossed over those cases in his history courses.
While Mr. Brand is right when he says that the political class are not responding to the needs of the people and he rightfully recognizes that they are serving the needs of big business and corporations, how exactly would that change if we were to give the state even more power over the economy. The problem is that the state already has too much power over the economies. That is why they are beholden to the special interests. Corporate cronyism is rampant because through government, corporations can impose their interests on the rest of us. There is an old saying that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' Why would I want to entrust a government with such absolute power?
Mr. Brand also misses the target when he criticizes 'profit.' What is profit other than gains made through work? Profit is nothing more than an economic incentive to do something. Profit is not a zero-sum game or transaction where if one person makes a profit it comes at the expense of someone else. No, the whole point of conducting trade or business is so that all parties involve come out ahead relative to their situation. While true, some may not come out ahead, it is up to the individual parties to gauge their situation and make that decision. The perfect example is professional sports when two teams trade players. Teams agree to trade players because they see a need that the other team's player could fill for them, so in essence both teams could potentially come out ahead. If there were no profit motive why would anyone bother to conduct any such activity?
The frustration of the political class that Mr. Brand vociferously point out is indeed evident, but he that in itself is not anything special. Millions upon millions of people are already aware of it. I do agree that we are approaching that tipping point where something has to give as well, however that is where I draw the line with my agreement. Mr. Brand's ideas about voting, but his proposal for a socialist egalitarian system would do nothing except exacerbate the problems we see today. This is why we should not idolize celebrities or the ideas they espouse. While I applaud Mr. Brand for recognizing and voicing his own political frustration, it behooves us all to think about the current state of the world and think critically for ourselves instead of letting others do the thinking for us.
