Revolution (14 page)

These devices that maintain division are what my friend Matt Stoller focused on when I asked him what ideas he had that would change the world. I first met Matt in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan, in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011.

This corporate square in the middle of the financial district had become a lurid and buoyant shantytown of placards and canvas. I was magnetized down from my Tribeca apartment by a curiosity that will not yield, that will not be sedated by my ego’s ongoing acquisitive quest. Among the many stimulating encounters with cockeyed optimists and hard-core anarchists, my meeting with Matt stood out. Matt at that time worked for the government. He understands power: as a policy wonk for a Democratic congressman, his days were spent in the cogs of the lumbering Washington behemoth. He told me the establishment was afraid of Occupy. They were afraid because, typically, protests are backed by nonprofit organizations, themselves accountable to foundations who have boards, who have members who can be harassed and intimidated. Occupy doesn’t work like that. It is a spontaneous, leaderless co-operative, and that makes it harder to squash.

Any of you that saw
Brand X
, my U.S. chat show, will recognize Matt, because I kidnapped him from that square and forced him into my life. I did this because I instantly identified him as a peculiar radical: good old me. I saw that beneath his cherubic hay-colored curls and proper job, he detested the system he was trapped in. I suppose as a man who was in Manhattan making a movie and had trotted down to the protest site dressed in jogger’s Lycra, I identified
with his quandary. Since then he has regularly prized apart the clenched and corrupt buttocks of American politics and allowed me to peer inside at its dirty workings. I asked Matt for ideas that would aid the Revolution; his response was, as usual, startling and almost proctologically insightful.

“No more private security for the wealthy and the powerful,” he said. I nervously demanded he explain himself. He did thusly:

“One economist argued in 2005 that roughly one in four Americans is employed to guard in various forms the wealth of the rich. So if you want to get rid of rich and poor, get rid of guard labor.”

This may be one of the many points in this book where you are shouting the word “hypocrite” as you read. Don’t think I’m unaware of the inevitability of such a charge. I know. I know. I’m rich, I’m famous, I have money, I’m being paid money for this book, I have had private security on and off for years.

There is no doubt that I as much as anyone have to change. The only thing I can offer you in the face of this legitimate accusation is that change is something I’m good at. I know that change is a necessity. I have had to change to survive. I’d also like to add, by way of mitigation, that I could’ve just written
Booky Wook 3
, not mentioned global inequality, ecological meltdown, or the complicity of the entertainment industry in holding together a capitalist machine that exploits the vast majority of people, and collected my check.

When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality.

Revolution is change. I believe in change, personal change most of all; at this time, however, we must coordinate a massive change, so, please, shout “hypocrite” at an inanimate object if you must, but please don’t dismiss the ideas in this book.

Know, too, that I am prepared for change, that I have seen what fame and fortune have to offer and I know it’s not the answer. That doesn’t diminish these arguments, it enhances them. Of course I have to change as an individual, and part of that will be sharing
wealth, though without systemic change will be a sweet, futile gesture.

Now let’s get back to Matt Stoller, banning private security, ensuring that I’ll have to have my own fistfights next time I’m leaving the Apollo Manchester.

“The definition of being rich means having more stuff than other people. In order to have more stuff, you need to protect that stuff with surveillance systems, guards, police, court systems, and so forth. All of those somber-looking men in robes who call themselves judges are just sentinels, whose job it is to convince you that this very silly system in which we give Paris Hilton as much as she wants while others go hungry is good and natural and right.”

This idea is extremely clever and highlights that there is exclusivity even around the use of violence. The state can legitimately use force to impose its will and increasingly so can the rich. Take away that facility and societies will begin to equalize. If that hotel in India that I went to was stripped of its security, they’d have to address the complex issues that led to them requiring it.

“These systems can be very expensive. America employs more private security guards than high school teachers. States and countries with high inequality tend to hire proportionally more guard labor. If you’ve ever spent time in a radically unequal city in South Africa, you’ll see that both the rich and the poor live surrounded by private security contractors, barbed wire, and electrified fencing. Some people have nice prison cages, and others have not-so-nice ones. But when there’s inequality, there’s got to be someone making sure, with force, that it stays that way.”

Matt here, metaphorically, broaches the notion that the rich too are impeded by inequality, imprisoned in their own way. Much like with my earlier plea for you to bypass the charge of hypocrisy, I now find myself in the unenviable position of urging you, like some weird, bizarro Jesus, to take pity on the rich.

It’s not an easy concept to grasp, and I’m not suggesting it’s a priority. Faced with a choice between empathizing with “the rich” and “the homeless,” by all means go with the homeless. It is reductive,
though, not to acknowledge that all are encompassed by this system and none of us are free while it endures. I’m not saying it’s worse to be one of Bernie Ecclestone’s kids than Jason, the homeless bloke who lives under the bridge at the end of my street; I’m saying that the two are connected and everyone will benefit from change. I should also point out that empathy, sympathy, and love are limitless resources, energies that never deplete, and at this time of dwindling fuels we should cherish and explore these inexhaustible inner resources more than ever.

“Companies spend a lot of money protecting their CEOs. Starbucks spent 1.4 million dollars. Oracle spent 4.6 million dollars. One casino empire—the Las Vegas Sands—spent 2.45 million dollars. This money isn’t security so much as it is designed to wall these people off from the society they rule so they never have to interact with normal people under circumstances they may not control. If you just got rid of this security, these people would be a lot less willing to ruthlessly prey on society.”

Prudently Matt here explains that at the pinnacle of our problem are those that benefit most from the current hegemony. The executors of these new empires that surpass nation. The logo is their flag, the dollar is their creed, we are all their unwitting subjects.

“People can argue about the right level of guard labor. You conceivably could still have public police, but their job should be to help protect everyone, not just a special class. If you got rid of all these private systems, or some of these systems of surveillance and coercive guarding of property, you’d have a lot less inequality. And powerful and wealthy people would spend a lot more time trying to make sure that society was harmonious, instead of just hiring their way out of the damage they can create.”

How clever of Matt to offer a policy that will require further change, that has built into it a kind of doomsday device that ensures further fairness. We get caught up in abstruse nomenclature but we’re talking about pretty simple stuff here: fairness, sharing.

My mate Nik said if you were in a school playground with twenty kids in it and a couple of ’em took all the toys, you wouldn’t just say, “Oh, well, that’s life.” You’d explain to them that sharing is a basic
human value and redistribute the toys. Let’s overlook the fact that in this allegory we’re hanging around a playground with unsupervised children; we might be teachers, or lollipop men; don’t just assume we’re pedos—that’s not the point.

The point is, with children you know that kids who don’t share are in a way suffering as much as the kids who are deprived of Barbie, or Xboxes, or whatever the hell it is they have now. The minority that are hoarding resources are misguided in their belief that it can make them happy, and we have to be the adults and help them. By dismantling the machinery of capitalism, winning over the military with our flower-power claptrap, and redistributing all their wealth.

It’s much easier in the allegory, where all you have to do is snatch a Rubik’s Cube off a toddler and give it to some whimpering coward in a sandpit. Even with the pedo allegations.

Given that Matt’s first suggestion has brought about a terrifying free-for-all and likely reignited the war between India and Pakistan, I was curious to see what else he had up the sleeve of his Harvard blazer. Yes, he did go to Harvard. The bloody hypocrite. His next idea to create a different world was equally cunning and revolutionary: Get rid of all titles.

“Mr. President. Ambassador. Admiral. Senator. The Honorable. Your Honor. Captain. Doctor. These are all titles that capitalism relies on to justify treating some people better than other people.”

Matt is an American, so when it comes to deferring to the entitled, let’s face it, he’s an amateur compared to the British. Look at me simpering to Professor Slingerland whenever he’s mentioned; I can’t wait to prostrate myself before his scepter of diplomas. I’m a right little lickspittle sneak down the doctor’s an’ all. “Yes, Doctor; no, Doctor; please don’t let me die, Doctor; charge what you must, Doctor; stick your finger where you fancy, Doctor.” Plus we’ve got a bloody royal family. What’s he going to say about that?

“One of the most remarkable things you learn when you work in a position of political influence is just how much titles separate the wealthy and the politicians from citizens. Ordinary people will use a title before addressing someone, and that immediately makes that
ordinary person a supplicant and the titled one a person of influence. Or, if both have titles, then there’s upper-class solidarity. Rank, hierarchy—these are designed to create a structure whereby power is shaped in the very act of greeting someone.”

I’m getting angry again. Matt’s right! Titles are part of the invisible architecture of our social structure. I’m never using one again. If I ever see Professor Slingerland in the street, I shall alert him by hollering, “Oy, fuck-face,” then throw a hazelnut at him.

What does Matt propose?

“One thing you can do to negate this power is to be firm but respectful, and address anyone and everyone by their last name. Mr., Ms., or Mrs. is all the title you should ever need. This allows you to treat everyone as your equal, and it shows everyone that they should treat you as their equal.”

Right. Fair enough—I went in a bit hard there on ol’ Teddy Slingerland. Or just “Mr.” Slingerland, according to Matt’s polite Revolution. His suggestion of equal titles for all of us is provocative.

Particularly to those of us who live in monarchies.

I mean, in England we have a Queen, for fuck’s sake. A Queen! We have to call her things like “Your Majesty.” YOUR MAJESTY! Like she’s all majestic, like an eagle or a mountain. She’s just a person. A little old lady in a shiny hat—that we paid for. Or “Your Highness”! What the fuck is that?! What, she’s high up, above us, at the top of a class pyramid on a shelf of money with her own face on it? We should be calling her Mrs. Windsor. In fact, that’s not even her real name; they changed it in the war to distract us from the inconvenient fact that they were as German as the enemy that teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted, actually, to die fighting. Her true name is Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha!! No wonder they fucking changed it. It’s the most German thing I’ve ever heard—she might as well have been called “Mrs. Bratwurst-Kraut-Nazi.”

Titles have got to go.

I’m not calling her “Your Highness” or “Your Majesty” just so
we can pretend there isn’t and hasn’t always been an international cabal of rich landowners flitting merrily across the globe, getting us all to kill each other a couple of times a decade.

From now on she’s Frau Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

“Come on, Frau Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, it’s time for you to have breakfast with Herr Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. And you can make it yerselves. And by the way, we’re nicking this fucking great castle you’ve been dossing in and giving it to a hundred poor families. Actually you can stay if you want, they’ll need a cleaner. You’ll have to watch your lip, Herr Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; some of ’em ain’t white.”

We British have much to gain from Matt’s title-less utopia. He continues:

“It is a small thing, seemingly inconsequential. But it’s not.”

No, not to the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, they’re well fucked.

“If this became common, you’d shortly see sputtering rage from the powerful and increased agitation from the erstwhile meek. People need to mark their dominance; that is the essence of highly unequal capitalism. If they can’t do so, if they aren’t allowed to be dominant, to be shown as being dominant, then the system cannot long be sustained.”

Matt’s ideas are like the schemes of a cackling supervillain from a Bond movie; at first they seem innocuous, but then they elegantly unravel the fabric of society. He suggests we start now:

“This is something that anyone and everyone can act on, a tiny act of rebellion that takes no money, influence, or social status. You just need courage, and every human has that.”

I
T WAS LIKELY ONE OF MY EARLY MARCHES IN WHICH
I
NOTICED THE
police were actually normal blokes in unusual outfits. Trafalgar Square on a bright spring day; emerging from the Underground, bleary-eyed and tousled like the kids in
Peter Pan
, to the fairground mayhem of a protest on the brink. Horses galloping and paving slabs ripped up. Everything all different but the same, like my face on acid or the last day of school, when you can bring games and not wear a uniform. Or an ancient Roman carnival where the servants and the masters change roles. Carnivals and fairs are a break in the norm, to let off some steam.
Carne
means meat and refers in this context to celebrations that center on a feast. The allotted reapportioning of meat so the people that got prime cuts get sausages and them that feast on bangers get steak, overseen by Hermes or Mercury or whatever trickster deity was germane to the culture. That’s probably why we enjoy
I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!
or when a politican gets egged, or scandalized.