As I did not have my glasses on, I got quite excited by the headline that Ed Miliband was to pledging an end to Labour's "macho politics". I wondered how he would manage such a coup, but thought it interesting that he might try. As Labour has no real polices that I can divine, the idea of making it less testosterone-driven somehow interested me. Not that this is something people have ever demanded on the doorstop, so it is not a "real" issue. The real issue is that no one is on the doorstep; there is an absolute disenchantment with party politics of any kind. Then I read the headline properly and saw that obviously he was talking about an end to "machine politics " and it was all about cutting the links between Labour and union funding.

This is hailed as brave, as a clause IV moment, or lunacy, depending on where you are on the political spectrum. If it forces a debate on party funding then it is good, and, following the debacle of Falkirk, necessary. But again this is not an issue that many get concerned about – fiddling while Rome burns.

Although there has been an outpouring of nostalgia for proper trade unionism to somehow come back and save us, the failure to unionise poorly paid private-sector workers, from the catering industry to call centres, has meant that the often-wrong perception of unions as male and overbearing prevails. The divide-and-rule narrative has worked, rather as the "Labour spent all the money" one has worked. I see it often, as most of my friends work in the public sector. Their fantasies about private-sector pay, pensions and benefits are entirely based on those of bosses, not workers. They see suits, not cleaners. Such misconceptions play into the hands of those who would drive all pay down.

But if party funding were to be capped, as Miliband suggested, then the Conservative party, financed by bankers and tax-avoiders of all descriptions, would shrivel up and die. Labour would also be in deep trouble. Whoever funds the Lib Dems already is, though it is more than possible to imagine in your worst nightmare that Nick Clegg may again have the casting vote in who governs after the next election. Imagine this, and then imagine no political parties. It's easy if you try …

But we don't try very hard. The reality is that party politics is failing in myriad ways. We all know it, but because of its symbiotic relationship with the media, we constantly pretend it is not happening. People are not joining political parties and people certainly do not want to pay out of their own pockets for them to exist. Miliband's attempt to democratise Labour and its funding is a top-down move. If it forces David Cameron to "out" his hedgefund donors it may be inspired. But I am not sure.

Millionaires imposing cuts on people whose lives they not only fail to understand but actively despise is a crie de coeur we make but it is not heard. Labour's defence of "ordinary" people when the party contains so few of them any more becomes problematic. "Ordinary" people may or may not discuss the crisis of neo-liberalism, but it has doubtless sent party politics spiralling. The idea that, as with "growth", it will all return to normal is backed up by hope, not evidence.

We grasp our powerlessness instinctively. As Syria disembowels itself, politicians stand back, unable to act and unable to admit the mistakes they made in Iraq.

We are regularly warned that contempt for politicians is a bad, adolescent attitude. It could lead to fascism or Farage. The mood remains, though. Not only are they all the same; they are not even properly in charge. Cheerleaders for involvement may find a generation who know nothing but the narrative of austerity and are happy to cut the state. For when political parties are mere crisis managers, this is but another consumer choice than many people are simply refusing to make. The sense that someone else is running the show – bankers, Europe, multinationals – is no longer the province of the radical left. It is now the realisation of the radical right. It is telling that a young Mark Zuckerberg wrote out his credo as "companies over countries". The nation state exists, but when the head of Google glides in to talk to Cameron about tax arrangements it is he who is doing us a favour.

In a perennial cycle of arousal and detumescence, political obsessives score the shouting match that is PMQs while the rest of us mostly ignore it. Maybe we don't think the House of Commons is where stuff happens. It isn't – all political diaries of the past two decades have basically explained that. Is a crisis of capitalism always a crisis for democracy? Looking at Europe, it certainly seems to be.

There is no mandate for much of what this government does, and no promise from the opposition to stop it. We do not live in a one-party state but, to an enormous number of people, it feels that way.

Robert Reich and many others have talked of this same "disconnect" breaking out all over the world. When CEOs are treated like royalty, party politicians pale in comparison. They even pale in comparison to tennis players. In the old world, disempowerment meant people joining parties. In the new world, it means the parties are over.