Politics is confusing for most of us. Voting can feel futile. Politicians seem to act according to a rule-book kept away from the general public's gaze, bar the
occasional exception. Economic capitalism has morphed into
political capitalism which " punishes those who aren’t elite or can’t organize to extract favors from politicians. Sadly, it gives a bad name to both politics and capitalism."
Being the first intrinsically expansionary system that has to grow in financial value by at least 3 per cent per year, capitalism is "in complete contradiction to a finite planet", according to Mikaela Loach & co. Being about quantity and not quality, wellbeing is irrelevant.
Neoliberal economist Milton Friedman said: “Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
Despite an opposite orientation, I think this captures the essence of Morrissey's political pot-pourri. He has voiced alternative views from the beginning, and planted suggestions that the mainstream society is not all it's cracked up to be, because it pits people against each other, nudges us towards hegemonic thoughts and routines, and makes life harder and duller for nature in general. He's proceeded by observation and intuition, and by trial and error, with some human baselines in mind, more honestly than the sleek-schooled educated criminals working within the law, while also displaying what Friedman described: preparing cultural ground for change.
He would probably agree with
The Raven that "We need to build a society and economy based on kindness and mutuality, that emphasizes cooperation over competition."
Thousands of scientists and academics are now backing a degrowth movement for survival and sanity:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/degrowth-new-roots-economy/
&
https://gceurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Manifesto-for-a-post-growth-economy.pdf
Many icebergs later, predications are being born out, and island countries like
Tuvalu anticipate becoming submerged & wiped out by rising oceans. In such cases, Morrissey should not change his plea to guilty.
Neither Morrissey or the Smiths make it into this list of the 25 most political bands, in which some entries may surprise -
https://www.yardbarker.com/entertai...t_political_bands_090323/s1__32785829#slide_1
