There’s a simple fact which I think is going unremarked upon. These upcoming elections are America’s and Britain’s last chances. To stay something like functioning modern societies and rich nations. Yes, really.

Britain’s about to have an election in a few days. America’s already geared up for the upcoming Presidential race. Now, the stakes in both these elections are weirdly, eerily similar. In Britain, another five years of extreme conservatism. Brexit, and all its irreversible tragedy, follies, half-truths, stupidity, and self-destruction. In America…another four years of extreme conservatism…and precisely, exactly the same thing. What the? Here’s the point.

Both of these societies, America and Britain, are at breaking point. They are not just the only two rich societies in the world in which every major social indicator and economic statistic is blinking red, plummeting downwards — they’re among the only societies in the world. Rapidly falling living standards have become the trend and the norm — not the exception.

Let’s discuss some of those statistics, lest you think I exaggerate. What, precisely, is cratering? Incomes. Savings. Happiness. Trust. Purpose. Life expectancy. Maternal mortality. Mobility. Literally every single indicator there is is flashing warning signals of collapse in these societies. As a result, depression, anxiety, anger, and suicide are all skyrocketing. The feeling is one of despair and hopelessness and powerlessness — when it’s not the ugliness of something very much like neo-fascism.

What made these societies collapse? Weren’t they two of the richest and most powerful societies in the world? Indeed they were.

What made the US and UK reach the point of collapse was decade upon decade of total, stunning, reckless mismanagement of the economy and the social contract. In three precise areas: underinvestment in people and society (aka austerity), stagnant incomes, and privatization and deregulation. These intertwined to lead to a now-total lack of opportunity for a better life. Elites either turned a blind eye to all of these fatal mistakes — or worse, actively promoted and encouraged them. Let me quickly discuss them.

In America, incomes began to stagnate in the 1970s. They are still stagnant. That’s half a century of stagnation. And yet, there elites still are, from economists to politicians to pundits, proclaiming — “the economy’s booming” — and patting each other on the back. What the? And yet, instead of learning from this mistake, Britain repeated it. British incomes began stagnating in the 2000s — and still are. Smarter elites would have solved that problem with New Deals of various kinds — sparking and boosting a failing economy. But not in these societies. They responded…in precisely, exactly the wrong way. With austerity, slashing investment recklessly, viciously — and fatally.

America’s response to stagnation was exactly the wrong one: austerity. Underinvestment — in public goods and social systems — began in earnest in the 1980s, with the Reagan Revolution. It was a backlash to the civil rights gains of the 1960s and 1970s. It gave whites a way not to have to invest in people they still considered dirty subhumans — black, Latinos, Jews, etcetera. But the result was that America never developed a functioning healthcare, retirement, childcare system — any systems at all. And yet mostly, its elites still think of that as a good thing. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, for example, do. In Britain, again, instead of learning from this epic mistake, budgets were slashed, and vicious austerity began in the 2000s. A decade and some years later, Britain’s public goods are being Americanized — privatized, chopped up, carved off.

What was the result of those fatal choices? Spiralling poverty and precarity — and the hopelessness, misery, distrust, and despair they bring. In both places, people are left to pay higher and higher prices that nobody can really afford for basic things, like education and healthcare and transport — because of course the only thing the private sector is interested in is maximum profit. For example, in Britain, about 30% of children live in poverty. Thirty percent. Does that sound like a “rich” society to you? What the? In America, about 20% do. That’s a stark example of poverty resulting from decades of spectacular mismanagement. But sad as it is, that’s not even really the biggie. The middle class imploded into a class of new poor. Today the average American lives paycheck-to-paycheck, can’t raise even small amounts for emergencies, and struggles to pay basic bills. America’s once-vaunted middle class became a class of new, precarious poor, with little real hope in life. The famous Dream died. Why?

Because the private sector is only interested in maximum profit, so too the “labour market” — the jobs base — of these societies was utterly eviscerated. Today, Americans face the bizarre paradox of low unemployment — without rising incomes. How can that be? It should never happen: lower unemployment should force wages up. But it isn’t. That is because most of the jobs that are being offered aren’t what any modern society should consider good jobs at all. They are made of piecework, with no benefits or protections attached, that offer no mobility or upwards trajectory — offered by megamonopolies, who say, shrug, take it or leave it. America’s labour market is made of something much more like Neo-serfdom, than “jobs” in a modern economy. But they emerged because, of course, what the private sector wants is a pool of people to be able to exploit with maximum “efficiency” at a moment’s notice, day or night — with no consequence or remorse.

So as the jobs base was eviscerated — itself a consequence of privatization and deregulation — so Americans found themselves trapped by pincers. On the one hand, their incomes stagnated, and never rose, year after painful year. But year after painful year, prices would rise…and go on rising, to absurd levels. So now American pay prices the rest of the world literally finds incredible, as in hard to believe — $10K for insulin, $50K for childbirth, $250K for education, and so forth. Who can afford that…on stagnant incomes…offered by low-quality, low-wage, go-nowhere jobs?

Nobody can afford a life where incomes are stagnant, but costs go on rising. And so Americans fell deeper and deeper into debt, just to make ends meet. Today, the average American dies in debt. Whenever I say that, Americans give me this baffled look, like: “wait, isn’t that perfectly normal?” Of course it’s not normal. Dying in debt means you never earn, save, or own anything over a lifetime — it means you are literally a pauper, as in less than broke. And yet Americans have normalized this because it is such an everyday thing they can’t seem to understand what a fatal sign it is for an economy.

(For the average German or Spaniard or French person the idea of an entire society dying in debt is absurd. Go ahead and ask them. For Americans — they can’t imagine another way to live at all, except perpetually paying off debts they will never really be able to escape.)

What happens when a society is made of people who are less than broke? Who have to go deeper and deeper into debt every year just to make ends meet? Such a society is caught in a terrible trap — from which there is often no escape.

When people have become impoverished, a society can no longer afford public goods and social systems. Even if a lack of public goods and social systems is what drove them into poverty. When the average American is going deeper into debt, dying younger ever year working multiple crap jobs…how can he afford higher taxes to fund nice things like public healthcare and retirement and education? He can’t. And so he can’t have them. Do you see the inevitable conclusion? Think about all the above carefully.

America and Britain are at an irreversible turning point. They are on the cusp of a death spiral. They are reaching the point where people are becoming so poor that having public goods and social systems — being a genuinely rich society — is becoming impossible. Decades of underinvestment and austerity have left people poorer in real terms, every single year. And now they are so poor that they are fast growing too impoverished to be able to afford to have a modern society at all. Progress has come to a halt. The inevitable consequence of a sudden decline into poverty is regression into fascism and authoritarianism, of which Trumpism and Brexit are just the first steps.

This election is the last chance to break that vicious cycle, in both these societies. If America and Britain decide to invest in public goods and social systems now — if they decide to have a functioning social contract — this death spiral can still be averted. They can tax billionaires and corporations for example, and perhaps still develop and renew basic systems — and in a few years, hand the funding of those systems over to the average person, as they grow richer. But if they don’t, then they will reach a point of no return. The average person will be simply too poor, after another half-decade or so of underinvestment and austerity, to ever really be able to to afford a modern economy and a functioning society.

What does that mean the future for America and Britain is? They end up in the twilight zone of modernity. Once rich countries — who are now failed states. They become the weird paradox of poor rich countries, sham democracies made of extremism, nationalism, and fascism.

Think of a nation like Russia. Once, on the eve of Soviet collapse, it held promise. Today, it’s in the hands of oligarchs and mafias — while life has fallen apart for the average person. Russia isn’t a dirt poor country, like the Congo. But it’s not a rich one either — nor is it a typical middle income one. It’s a poor rich country that’s a sham democracy. A country where a tiny few are unimaginably rich — while the rest face falling life expectancy, stagnant incomes, perpetual indebtedness, and a total lack of mobility. The despair of living hopeless lives has made them easy meat for demagogues, extremists, authoritarians, and fascists. Sound familiar? It should: Russia’s dire outcomes are exactly and precisely the statistics we discussed at the beginning — the economics of American and British collapse, happening now.

Americans and Brits have a certain kind of arrogance, still. They think they’re above history, the world, law, truth. They think they were made to be rich and powerful — and always will be, because it’s their birthright. But they are already becoming poor rich countries, modern failed states — at light speed. These elections are their last chances. Yes, really. Their effects will be irreversible and permanent, pushing these societies past the point of no return. Progress will turn into regress — permanently. For the average person, they will be poor societies, broken democracies, and failed states — for the foreseeable future.

Another half-decade of the stunning mismanagement of the last few decades will lock America and Britain permanently into a trajectory of collapse, where they will join countries like Russia on the list of nations that failed. At modernity. At civilization. At prosperity. Where progress became regress, and never stopped. That way lie all the great tragedies of history.

Again — that’s not my “opinion”, it’s a simple fact. Where else do such dire numbers end up, if they continue? What happens when incomes, savings, happiness, trust, meaning, life expectancy don’t just decline but…keep on declining? A point of no return is reached. You end up imploding as a modern, rich society. You are not that kind of society anymore. For most, you are a poor, powerless, and broken one, where there are no opportunities, choices, chances, much less hope for the future, faith in progress, and optimism in one’s self. Because they cannot afford to even build the levers of their own self-elevation anymore.

Perhaps there’s a certain poetic justice in that, if you’re a cynic. Or perhaps, if you’re just a normal person like me — such epic, willful self-destruction is the stuff of tragedy.

Umair

December 2019