neal lawson - 'the power of dreams' - with illustrations - nov 2011

8/3/2019 Neal Lawson - 'The Power of Dreams' - with illustrations - Nov 2011

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Neal Lawson The Power of Dreams (Chickens and Tents)

Below is an edited version of a speech delivered to Central St Martins College in

November 2011. The drawings were by Scribers.

Paul, who kindly asked me to come and talk today said I could discuss whatever I

wanted. There is a thing called the tyranny of choice beyond a small number of

choices we become traumatized.

Trials of shoppers show that beyond six flavors of jam most people cant cope. They

freeze up. Tesco currently has 47 types of olive oil on its shelf! So it was a bit

daunting to decide what to talk about.

But to someone like me, someone active in politics and hopeful about the human

spirit, we live in incredible times and the problem is not knowing what to say but

where to start; Libya and the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall St, Greece, Italy and the

Eurozone crisis.

In the UK weve seen the banking crisis, MPs expenses, Murdoch gate and the

closure of the News of the World, the formation of the first real governing coalition

in British politics since the 1930s and the responses like UK Uncut, the St Pauls

occupiers and the riots. And then there are butterflies, bees and spring flowers in

November. You know what I mean and you worry too.


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Yet given all of that, does anything actually change?

In Italy and Greece elected leaders are replaced by unelected technocrats who do

what the markets want. No bankers are jailed for their reckless actions. Political and

economic life goes on, its business as usual. The system grinds on and the Bond

Markets call the shots.

The planet burns, the poor get poorer and because those two crises get worse we

get a third, that of democracy itself. Because what is the point of politics if it isnt

solving those two essential problems?

The Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci used the term interregnum and said the old is

not yet dying and the new has not yet been born. In an interregnum a whole series

of morbid symptoms appear. But thats enough about George Osborne.

Never in my 30 year political life have I know the gap between what is and whatneeds to be and could be to be so great. The gap between politics as usual and

what people want and need. A world gone wrong but nothing and no one to take its

place.

We stand in Ideological rubble with all sides discredited. New Labour who got us into

this mess and Tories who are making it worse lets not even mention the Lib Dems.

The spell of neo-liberalism, under which they all fell, is broken but now what?

Why does nothing change? Why the stranglehold on option?

My thoughts the thing one thing I want you take away with you is this; the power

of dreams. A power so strong that even when your dream becomes objectively

discredited it still stands if only as the default option.

There was no end to boom and bust, there is flaw in the system according to one of

its principle architects Alan Greenspan. Capitalism tends to crisis and without control

will tend to even bigger crises. But it still stands.

My argument is that one side had the imagination to dream and from that

developed a vision, a programme and commitment to make incredible and lastingchange happen. Change that dominates our lives today.

My problem is that it was the right who dreamt and not the left.

This is counter intuitive it is usually conservatives who want to conserve and the

left who want radical change. But the roles have been reversed. To understand why

the switch happened we have to understand the context of the dream.

It was the 1940s. The height of big government, the unifying spirit of the Second

World War, the fear of the Soviet Union, memories of the Depression, FDR and the


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New Deal in the USA, the Marshall Plan across Europe and Labour in the UK building

the NHS and the welfare state. The future was to be some form of socialism.

Precisely at this moment a small group of mostly Austrian right wing economists met

in the Hotel DuLac in Switzerland to discuss the ideas contained in a book called the

Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Von Hayek.

The book said that the big state would lead to tyranny and what we needed was free

markets, privatization, low taxes and small states a world of freedom and

abundance they would argue. In the most trying and testing circumstances they

had a dream, which was powerful enough to create the political, economic and

cultural domination that followed. A dozen people imposed their will on the world.

It took some time and some chickens. One of their supporters in the UK went

away and set up a chicken farm to raise the money to fund the think tanks to turn

the theory into practice. But in 30 years their dream become a reality. Indeed itbecame the only reality. Its objective was not just to be the dominant dream but to

be the only dream.

So today TINA dominatesif youve not met TINA she is the daughter of Mrs

Thatcher. TINAthere is no alternative. Nothing other than the dreams of the

right-wing dreamers is feasible, let alone desirable.


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There is the politics of the systematic eradication of alternatives. A form of total

politics akin to the totalitarianism of the far left and far right. So total has their

dream become that we cant even imagine a different world.

And when you cant imagine a different world then history continues but the

system is so powerful and strong that there is no effective challenge to it.

That is where we find ourselves today:

Alternatives are ignored like the alternatives to the Iraq war, or thealternatives to the Governments economic plan A.

Alternatives are crushed like Occupy Wall Street or the Fortnum and MasonUK Uncut activists who were criminalized because they took a stance. As a

result the full force of the state wielded against them.

Alternatives are ridiculed protestors are undermined as tree huggers ordrop outs. To be utopian is to be wishy washy, away with the birds, they are

time wasters.

Or alternatives are co-opted and neutralized for example punk music or thesymbols of revolutionaries like Che and Lenin now used to sell an endless

array of products.

A cultural army of designers, psychologists, advertisers and marketers ensure that

we see an endless stream of powerful images and symbols to keep us on the

treadmill of turbo consumption. So much so that we can only really see ourselves as

shoppers not citizens. Were able to desire anything but unable to change anything.


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In its eradication of alternatives I would argue, to make the point again because it is

a rather large point that we live in something close to a totalitarian regime.

But is totalitarianism with a twist not the jackboot in the face of Orwells 1984 but

the Gucci handbag on the arm, or the iPhone in the pocket.

We all do it. Everyone on this room dresses themselves to belong to one group and

to differentiate themselves from each other. Every item of clothing, every accessory,

indeed every thing we buy is about who and what we are. Socially and

psychologically consumerism has become impossible to break free of.

What we face is the systematic reproduction of capitalist society through

consumption. Our willing and active exploitation of ourselves through seduction

and why on earth would you ever want to fight seduction and all of the economic

and financial paraphernalia that goes with it?

Nothing changes because there is nothing to change to there are no other dreams

about what the world could look like and what it might mean to be fully and properly

human.

This is not because we are stupid but because there is no other option. It maybe just

compensation but at least thats something. Better that than be a weird outsider

who values time and love more than expensive watches and boxes of chocolates!

So my plea to you is to dream. To think in the most difficult circumstances about a

different and better world. Because that is the only way we ever make changehappen.

Roberto Unger the Brazilian theorist said:

to be a realist first you have to be an idealist you have to know what you are

being realistic about

Everything starts with our dreams.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With ourthoughts, we make the world - Buddha

Martin Luther King Jrwho simply said I have a dream also said:

''If you want to achieve all that is possible attempt the impossible''

And then the most important political figure ever - Kevin Costner said in the film

Field of Dreams Build it and they will come.


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The NHS, a place we can be healed with no charge, something we take for granted

now was a revolutionary concept. It started as somebodys dream.

Over 25 years ago James Tobin had the idea of a small tax on financial transactionsits goal was to reduce both poverty and damaging speculative transactions. It was

ridiculed as a pipe dream of the left. Today it is actively supported by governments

across Europe. It shifted from the margins to mainstream because people believed in

its transformative ability.

People want to dream. The people in tents in the cold outside St Pauls have a

dream. It may not quite be 99% but an awful lot of people are open to something

different and better.

But, we live in a utopia now its just not mine and maybe its not yoursits a utopiaof those who dared to dream of a world where the rich get richer, markets are

beyond democratic control and we behave like donkeys on a treadmill following a

carrot we dont want spending money we dont have.

Please can you have better dreams than that?


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This speech was given at Central St. Martins College to around 200 second year

students. It was an interdisciplinary gathering to challenge them into thinking in

different ways about different things.

Dan and his partner (Scribers) were outside the lecture hall listening via a speaker

and did these drawings while Neal spoke. They do amazing work and can be

reached at: www.scriberia.co.uk

neal lawson - 'the power of dreams' - with illustrations - nov 2011

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