Political Observer on the jaunty cynicism, and self-congratulation of that boulevardier.

Headline: The era of the unfixable problem

Sub-headline: Refugee flows, low birth rates and left-behind regions persist because there is no answer, not because politicians are useless

https://www.ft.com/content/2095fc43-abf7-4397-827c-0520d8977954

Confronting Ganesh in this essay ‘on the unfixable problem’ is not the end of his boulevardier phase, but something like the birth of a political impressionism and at some points an even more abstract version of that ‘impressionism’, as the simulacrum of actual thought, as a fog dispersing in the sunlight. A bit too highfalutin for his regular readers who treat his essays as revelation.

I’ll collect/select various parts of his essay that might be revelatory as to his methodology?

empire of high-powered quangos, to lead the mission- London and its halo of commuter counties -How does this lie about the political class manage to live on? -the problem of left-behind regions might have no solution- technological automation and the other global forces-Ask the American Midwest- the UK regions is going to flop, again-This is the era of the insoluble problem, the baby bust, too low to maintain populations at their current level- Nordic nations would be ultra-fertile- huge upfront fiscal cost, and the pique of non-parents- Moral exhortation?, a byproduct of affluence and secularisation- the ultimate case of an insoluble problem in the modern world- to accept all, or most, or even a large percentage of the people- in catastrophic climates or in bandit-ravaged failed states- the purest example of an intractable situation in the world today-There are such things as intractable problems- There is such a thing as rational despair- we arrive at a cynical and acrimonious atmosphere- I am well-located to understand that sometimes there is no good move- it can’t raise taxes to improve public services without compromising incentives and animal spirits in business- but there is little stomach for the national rancour involved in trying to undo it anytime soon…

The above collection presents the strangled music of the long abandoned aperçus, that once made Mr. Ganesh a stylist worth reading, for the real music he could offer once to the Reader!

Mr. Ganesh’s final paragraph, that resembles the jaunty cynicism and self-congratulation of that boulevardier.

Is there a high-income country on Earth that is so exquisitely checkmated? I can’t think of one. But this does make Britain a good place from which to observe a fact of world relevance. Some problems can’t be solved, just mitigated at the edges. Pretending otherwise isn’t “optimistic” or enlightened, it is poisonous to a nation’s civic health. Oh, for more of the can’t-do spirit.

Political Observer