All communities, except self -sufficient farmers and hunter-gatherers, have to rely on the acquisition of wealth for survival; companies sell goods, states levy taxes and families depend on wage earners. Communities that provide a service to their members, such as charities, member-owned golf-clubs and religions, rely on membership subscription. How this membership subscription is gathered, matters.

To ensure they serve their communities, Buddhist monks are not allowed to own personal wealth.  In villages in Laos, monks collect food in begging bowls from local villagers. In return they provide education to the children and religious support to the village. Just like all non-profit making communities, those that provide the funds are entitled to have a say in its running and enjoy some of its benefits.

There was a time when the main source of political party income was member subscription. Quite early in the twentieth century the Labour party became excessively beholden to trade-union funds. As a result, the trade-union political agenda had a large influence on Labour policies. Similarly, the Conservative party became more dependent on business donations, and wealthy business men who funded the party gained access to ministers and were rewarded with honours. Both developments  eroded the influence of the general membership over party policy and gave a small number of individuals outside government a say in the way the country was run.

In the last three decades there has been a trend for right-wing parties to rely increasingly on income from a few rich individuals. These individuals are libertarians who want low taxes, minimum state control and are against all forms of cross-community support. This happened first with the Republican party in America and is spreading to Britain. Peter Geoghegan in his book Democracy for Sale tells the story about how this occurred during the Brexit debate and its aftermath.

This trend towards a few individuals having an excessive influence on the Conservative party has accelerated under Boris Johnson’s leadership. We now live in a country run by ‘Access capitalism’, where the rich pay money to get the ear of the Prime Minister. The Pandora Papers ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/05/access-tory-party-tycoon-funders-pandora-papers)  have recently revealed the extent to which the Tory party is beholden to off-shore funds from Russian oligarchs, corrupt business men and tax exiles. We now have the situation in which Boris Johnson, no longer reliant on funds from British business, is now blaming his former partners for the post-Brexit difficulties the country is now facing. At least in the old days trade-unions and businesses were British based organisations who had some interest in the health and wealth of Britain as a whole. We now have the situation where a few non- residents and foreigners are manipulating British policy for their own interest. The health of democracy in Britain has reached a new low ebb.

In the Future of Capitalism, Paul Collier makes a practical attempt to move economic theory forward from nineteenth century views of humans only being driven by self-interest and greed. The neo-liberal ideas, that this distortion spawned, are to blame for the 2008 financial crash and the huge divisions in society that exist today; the UK is a nation divided between an affluent, educated city-based elite and disaffected town -dwellers left behind by the effects of globalisation.

A key to his thesis is to recognise that belonging to a community is vital to man’s sense of identity. Most people gain their sense of identity from their family, their job and their nationality. The educated elite take pride in their profession, travel widely and place less emphasis on nationality. For the less-educated the situation is different. The rise of one-parent families, insecure jobs, Covid and many other issues has put immense strain on family life. Jobs for the skilled working class in manufacturing have disappeared as a result of globalisation and have been replaced by low-skilled precarious work in services and logistics. With both pride in the job disappearing and the pressures on family life, nationhood has come to be even more important in defining the identity of the less-well off.

This division became clear in the Brexit vote, which represented a failure of the radical left to engage and understand the disadvantaged. As Paul Collier says:

By eschewing shared belonging, and the benign patriotism that it can support, liberals have abandoned the only force capable of uniting societies behind remedies. Inadvertently, recklessly, they have handed it to the charlatan extremes, which are gleefully twisting it to their own warped purposes.

The election of Trump in the USA and the collapse of the red wall in the UK have been the result.

Paul Collier advocates that supporting communities needs to become central to economic thinking. He has developed ideas that support young disadvantaged families, that refocus businesses on developing a stable and skilled workforce, and that build and support local communities.

It is a good start, but only when economists fully understand that it is community development and memetic evolution that drives society forward will a more complete set of beneficial policies emerge.

Rational decision making in democracies is becoming increasingly difficult due to the tide of misinformation launched by social media and lobby groups. There are those that support climate change denial, refute the seriousness of hospital admissions due to Covid, anti-vacs’ and many others. The purveyors of these mistruths are a danger to society and themselves. George Monbiot writing in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/27/covid-lies-cost-lives-right-clamp-down-misinformation argues that ‘claims representing a danger to life’ should be prohibited. Few would disagree.

However, misinformation is more than a danger to life, it is a threat to democracy itself. This has been demonstrated with the election of Trump and the continual loyalty of his supporters, despite his lies, and his illegal and narcissistic behaviour. Trump has gathered a xenophobic tribe of followers who cherish his opinions, irrespective of their validity. This is a common characteristic of dictators.

Anne Applebaum in her book The Twilight of Democracy writes:

Authoritarians need people who will promote the riot or launch a coup. But they also need people who can argue that breaking the constitution or twisting the law is the right thing to do. They need people who will give voice to grievances, manipulate discontent, channel anger and fear, and imagine a different future. They need embers of the intellectual elite, in other words, who will launch a war on the rest of the intellectual and educated elite, give voice to grievances…. [by] betraying the central task of an intellectual, the search for truth, in favour of particular political causes.

Pseudo-scientists that give validity to false and dangerous ideas are a serious threat both to life and democratic institutions. It is they that have given credibility to climate change denial, vaccination scares and downplaying the Covid threat. Taken up by unscrupulous rumour mongers with their own political agenda they manage to confuse arguments, obfuscate the truth and warp decisions.

The BBC, for all its virtues, has given time and credibility to these agents of disinformation in order to give a ‘balanced view’. Contrarian arguments, however bizarre, make for entertaining listening. We all have the right to speak freely but there are limits. The freedom to disseminate misinformation has been exploited by rumour mongers in a way that is dangerous to society.

Lobby groups and malicious organisations who deliberately distort the truth do not support the principles of eco-humanity. It is hard to overstate the danger they represent to our society. We need to take more direct steps to protect ourselves.