good morning! good morning!
horsemouth's face is feeling a little rubbery today. (as if he were not fully awake).
horsemouth has finished seeing by jose saramago (a book he initially claimed was called the silence). he has finally (second or third reading) registered the end. spoiler: there are assassinations conducted by the democratic state in the name of democracy. the political strategy, reintegrate the people who issue blank votes by returning to a moment of national trauma and using that to bring the people back together is a smart one, but what is pathological in the response is then to attempt to view it as causal and look for a plot driving it, for conspirators, and to assassinate them.
and this is where the book leaves us.
the original title in portuguese is not seeing (or even the silence as if it were by ingmar bergman) it is ensaio sobre a lucidez, literally. essay on lucidity (but ensao having more the meaning of assay). similarly blindness was in fact originally titled ensaio sobre a cegueira, meaning (much more straightforwardly) essay on blindness. lucidity is strange there.
yesterdays find (whilst on an utimately unsuccessful attempt to find a route to walthamstow parallel to the industrial estate route without a map) was a book box on flempton road. in it a copy of the NLR may/ june 2021, a book of a strange optimism.
(interestingly enough, continuing the portuguese theme, this copy of the NLR also features an essay on pessoa.)
'neo-liberalism is ebbing away. the state is returning to the centre of the economy...' - goran therborn (june 2021)
like a lot of wedges, sagely remarks horsemouth, the thin bit initially seems the least impressive.
that is the historical trend, in the short cycle of capitalism (as it rampages through the different sectors) - the markets have a gambling party and take their winnings home, the state clears up the mess, there is always a role for the state in neo-liberalism. it's just that they don't sing about nanny state tidying up after the party in their songs of self-actualisation and buccaneer capitalism. it has to be there in practice but it's not there in the ideology (except negatively as a kind of evil old witch that stops good things from happening).
there is however the part of the cycle when the beast needs a bigger kick to get up in the morning - and here a role is seen for the state, as contractor in chief, signer of cheques, banker of last resort when it all goes tits up (nor do the bankers sing about this). and so it was during the pandemic, and during the financial crisis and er, whenever anything goes the slightest bit wrong really.
after years of neo-liberal propaganda it is tempting to view every appearance of the state onstage and actually being useful in the drama as a renaissance in the concept of democratic control (but it is not).
tomorrow we probably get thatcher's mini-me liz truss as new leader of the tory party and thus (unelected) as prime minister of the country. her position within the tory party is weak, her ideology is thatcherite, the tasks require the state to step forward (to get out the cheque-book and to foot the bill), her ideology is to step back.
and so is sunak's. this is, in fact, the point of the article, to reveal the extent that the motors for political action are not entirely economical (that would be at least the beginnings of a rational management of capitalist excesses - an amelioration of capitalism after the fact).
in many ways we would have been better off with boris because he doesn't have a political idea in his head he just likes being important. (still, the way things are looking he'll probably be back soon).
the sun shone and horsemouth sat in leyton jubilee park contemplating the people.
the tide of neo-liberalism ebbs and it flows too. ultimately neo-liberalism is a capitalist fantasy, a myth of time when it does not need the state. we are stuck with the entomologist and the woman of the dunes in an experience of unfreedom (and with bookpilled who reviews it).
horsemouth had written more on social landlords being limited to an annual rent increase of between 3% and 7% for the next one or two years by the government but he'll come back to that another time.
today (a sunday). horsemouth does not now what he is up to (another wander round maybe).
monday morning (the relaunch of the good ship week) horsemouth goes to a meeting (about meetings) on insulation. this means he will have to postpone his usual wander with TG.
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