Control is an Illusion

I've worked in larger and larger organisations and one of the key things I have noticed is that the bigger they get the less actual control the people at the top actually have. Increasingly they have to rely on influencing rather than true control. It seems to me that the economy is just the same. The Government don't actually have any "control" over the economy and they can only influence. Of course, influence relies on respect and they have precious little of that.

The stock market is much of the same. The value of any stock is related more to perception and crystal ball gazing rather than the value or performance of the company. The housing market shows very similar tendencies. I know the "value" of any property is only what someone is actually prepared to pay for it but that is influenced by so many intangible factors as well as real world issues like the availability of mortgages.

So given that golden Gordon seems to have lost his touch will the Tories be any better? I doubt it. People have no respect for politicians, mainly because they don't take any responsibility for their actions. On top of that they mostly seem interested in what they can get from their position rather than thinking of what they can do for the electorate. Unfortunately people don't seem to think there is anything they can do about it. I suppose the main problem may well be that we don't really live in a proper democracy. We do get to vote but only infrequently, the people we vote for are totally out of touch with the voters and there isn't much to choose between any of the main parties. So what to do? After all no Government is going to change the system which got it into power - it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. But after the performance of "President" Blair it does rather seem like the system is broken.

I think we need a root and branch reworking of our parliamentary system to make it more democratic; however, the starting point needs to be ensuring that anyone we vote for in the future takes responsibility for what they do and tells us honestly what they are doing with my tax money!