Utopianism is a charge I lay against the ‘everyone-for-themselves-individualists’ who are all too powerful today, those who use the rhetoric of individual self-empowerment as a cover for a power grab for a tiny rich elite. My ambition is based on realism, even if it is a clear departure from the societies we currently have. It is to build a society built around the needs and aspirations of those who keep it ticking, day after day: working people, rather than one organised around the need for profit of a tiny elite at the top. It is to extend democracy to every sphere of life. It is to recognise that the individual flourishes when she or he is supported by a thriving society that unites us, rather than setting us against each other. That might sound utopian to some. For me, it is the only future for humanity.
Friday, 14 August 2015