Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- George Monbiot writes that the erosion of government for the public good stands to lead to an authoritarian state:

All that remain as widely shared, commonly accepted sources of national pride are our public services: the NHS, the BBC, the education system, social security, our great libraries and museums. But all have been gutted, disciplined and undermined by those who roundly assert their patriotism.

When the enabling state, providing robust public services and a strong social safety net, is allowed to wither, what remains is the authoritarian state, which must coerce and frighten. Consider the decline of neighbourhood policing – essential for preventing crime and gathering intelligence on everything from vandalism to planned terror attacks – and its replacement with ever more draconian laws.

As the enabling state shrinks, the flags must be unfurled, the national anthem played, schoolchildren taught their kings and queens, and more elaborate pieties offered to dead soldiers, because nothing else is left with which to hold us together. National pride becomes toxic, and is used as a weapon against anyone who seeks to express their love for the country by reforming it. The institutions charged with defending the national interest become its deadly enemies.

- Jonathon Rothwell examines the connection between sheltered industries and economic inequality. And Howard Gold discusses how the U.S. Republicans are looking to make matters far worse with a tax giveaway to the wealthy. 

- Meanwhile, Branko Milanovic makes clear that degrowth isn't an option to address global inequality.

- Nicholas Kristof highlights how moralistic public policy only tends to lead to exactly the social breakdown it's intended to prevent, while investments in public services allow people to make choices which better suit their needs.

- Finally, Umair Haque writes about the dopamine economy which leaves consumers constantly seeking instant gratification.