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zürich

your fat rich s t e p d a d w h oisnt fond of you.

when travelling in impoverished regions in galling luxury, as I have done,

you have to undergo some high-wire ethical arithmetic to legitimise your

position. If you can’t geographically separate yourself from poverty, then

you have to do it ideologically. You have to believe inequality is OK. You

have to accept the ideas that segregate us from one another and nullify

your human instinct for fairness.

Edward Slingerland, a professor of ancient Chinese philosophy at Stanford

University, demonstrated this instinct to me with the use of hazelnuts. As

we spoke, there was a bowl of them on the table. “Russell,” he said, scoop-

ing up a handful, “we humans have an inbuilt tendency towards fairness. If

offered an unfair deal, we will want to reject it. If I have a huge bowl of

nuts and offer you just one or two, how do you feel?”

The answer was actually quite complex. Firstly, I dislike hazelnuts, con-

sidering them to be the verminous titbits of squirrels. Secondly, they were

my hazelnuts anyway; we were in my house. Most pertinently though, I felt

that it was an unfair offering when he had so many nuts. He explained that

human beings and even primates have an instinct for fairness even in sit-

uations where this instinct could be seen as detrimental. “You still have

more nuts now than before,” he chirped, failing to acknowledge that all the

nuts and indeed everything in the entire house belonged to me.

We then watched a clip on YouTube where monkeys in adjacent cages in a

university laboratory perform the same task for food. Monkey A does the

task and gets a grape – delicious. Monkey B, who can see Monkey A, performs

the same task and is given cucumber – yuck. Monkey B looks pissed off but

eats his cucumber anyway. The experiment is immediately repeated and you

can see that Monkey B is agitated when his uptown, up-alphabet neighbour is

again given a grape. When he is presented with the cucumber this time, he

is furious – he throws it out the cage and rattles the bars. I got angry on

his behalf and wanted to give the scientist a cucumber in a less amenable

orifice. I also felt a bit pissed off with Monkey A, the grape-guzzling lit-

tle bastard. I’ve not felt such antipathy towards a primate since that one

in Raiders of the Lost Ark with the little waistcoat betrayed Indy.

Slingerland explained, between great frothing gobfuls of munched hazelnut,

that this inherent sense of fairness is found in humans everywhere, but

that studies show that it’s less pronounced in environments where people

are exposed to a lot of marketing. “Capitalist, consumer culture inures us

to unfairness,” he said. That made me angry.

When I was in India, a country where wealth and

poverty share a disturbing proximity, I felt

a discomfort in spite of being in the exalted

position of Monkey A. Exclusive hotels require

extensive, in fact military, security. As we

entered the five-star splendour through the metal

detectors, past the armed guards, I realised

that if this was what was required in order to

preserve this degree of privilege, it could not

be indefinitely sustained.

These devices that maintain division are what my

friend Matt Stoller focused on when I asked him

what ideas he had that would change the world.

I first met Matt in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan, in

the middle of the Occupy Wall Street protest in

2011. Matt understands power: at the time, he

worked as a policy-wonk for a Democratic con-

gressman and his days were spent in the cogs of

the lumbering Washington behemoth. Beneath his

cherubic, hay-coloured curls and proper job, he

detested the system he was trapped in.

Since then, he has regularly prised apart the

clenched and corrupt buttocks of American poli-

tics and allowed me to peer inside at its dirty

workings. I asked Matt for ideas that would aid

the revolution; his response was, as usual,

startling and almost proctologically insightful.

“No more private security for the wealthy and

the powerful,” he said. I nervously demanded he

explain himself. He did: “One economist argued

in 2005 that roughly one in four Americans are

employed to guard in various forms the wealth of

the rich. So if you want to get rid of rich and

poor, get rid of guard labour.”

This may be the point in the article where you

start shouting the word “hypocrite”. Don’t think

I’m unaware of the inevitability of such a

charge. I know, I know. I’m rich, I’m famous, I

have money, I have had private security on and

off for years. There is no doubt that I as much

as anyone have to change. Revolution is change.

I believe in change, personal change most of

all. Know, too, that I have seen what fame and

fortune have to offer and I know it’s not the

answer. Of course, I have to change as an indi-

vidual and part of that will be sharing wealth,

though without systemic change, that will be a

sweet, futile gesture.

Now let’s get back to Matt Stoller, banning

private security and ensuring that I’ll have to

have my own fist fights next time I’m leaving the

Manchester Apollo.

“The definition of being rich means having more

stuff than other people. In order to have more

stuff, you need to protect that stuff with sur-

veillance systems, guards, police, court systems

and so forth. All of those sombre-looking men in

robes who call themselves judges are just sen-

tinels whose job it is to convince you that this

very silly system in which we give Paris Hilton

as much as she wants while others go hungry is

good and natural and right.”

This idea is extremely clever and highlights the

fact that there is exclusivity even around the

use of violence. The state can legitimately use

force to impose its will and, increasingly, so

can the rich. Take away that facility and soci-

eties will begin to equalise. If that hotel in

India was stripped of its security, they’d have

to address the complex issues that led to them

requiring it.

“These systems can be very expensive. Ameri-

ca employs more private security guards than

high-school teachers. States and countries with

high inequality tend to hire proportionally more

guard labour. If you’ve ever spent time in a

radically unequal city in South Africa, you’ll

see that both the rich and the poor live sur-

rounded by private security contractors, barbed

wire and electrified fencing. Some people have

nice prison cages, and others have not so nice

ones.”

Matt here, metaphorically, broaches the notion

that the rich, too, are impeded by inequality,

imprisoned in their own way. Much like with my

earlier plea for you to bypass the charge of

hypocrisy, I now find myself in the unenviable

position of urging you, like some weird, bizarro

Jesus, to take pity on the rich. It’s not an

easy concept to grasp, and I’m not suggesting

it’s a priority. Faced with a choice between

empathising with the rich or the homeless, by

all means go with the homeless.

He continues: “Companies spend a lot of money

protecting their CEOs. Starbucks spent $1.4m.

Oracle spent $4.6m. One casino empire – the Las

Vegas Sands – spent $2.45m. This money isn’t

security so much as it is designed to wall these

people off from the society they rule, so they

never have to interact with normal people under

circumstances they may not control. If you just

got rid of this security, these people would

be a lot less willing to ruthlessly prey on

society.”

Matt here explains that at the pinnacle of our

problem are those that benefit most from the

current hegemony. The executors of these new

empires that surpass nation. The logo is their

flag, the dollar is their creed, we are all their

unwitting subjects.

“People can argue about the right level of guard

labour. You conceivably could still have public

police, but their job should be to help protect

everyone, not just a special class. If you

got rid of all these private systems, or some

of these systems of surveillance and coercive

guarding of property, you’d have a lot less in-

equality. And powerful and wealthy people would

spend a lot more time trying to make sure that

society was harmonious, instead of just hiring

their way out of the damage they can create.”

Matt’s next idea to create a different world was

equally cunning and revolutionary: get rid of

all titles. “Mr President. Ambassador. Admiral.

Senator. The honourable. Your honour. Captain.

Doctor. These are all titles that capitalism

relies on to justify treating some people better

than other people.”

Matt is an American, so when it comes to de-

ferring to the entitled, he is, let’s face it,

an amateur compared with the British. Look at

me, simpering to Professor Slingerland. I can’t

wait to prostrate myself before his sceptre of

diplomas. Plus we’ve got a bloody royal family.

What’s he going to say about that?

“One of the most remarkable things you learn

when you work in a position of political in-

fluence is just how much titles separate the

wealthy and the politicians from citizens. Ordi-

nary people will use a title before addressing

someone, and that immediately makes that ordi-

nary person a supplicant, and the titled one a

person of influence. Or if both have titles, then

there’s upper-class solidarity. Rank, hierarchy,

these are designed to create a structure whereby

power is shaped in the very act of greeting

someone.”

I’m getting angry again. Matt’s right! Titles

are part of the invisible architecture of our

social structure. I’m never using one again. If

I ever see Slingerland in the street, I shall

alert him by hollering: “Oi, fuck-face!” and

then throw a hazelnut at him.

What does Matt propose?

“One thing you can do to negate this power is

to be firm but respectful, and address anyone

and everyone by their last name. Mr, Ms or Mrs

is all the title you should ever need. This

allows you to treat everyone as your equal, and

it shows everyone that they should treat you as

their equal.”

This is a provocative suggestion – particularly

to those of us who live in monarchies. I mean,

in England, we have a queen. A queen! We have

to call her things like “your majesty”. YOUR

MAJESTY! Like she’s all majestic, like an eagle

or a mountain. She’s just a person. A little

old lady in a shiny hat – that we paid for. We

should be calling her Mrs Windsor. In fact,

that’s not even her real name, they changed it

in the war to distract us from the inconvenient

fact that they were as German as the enemy that

teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted

actually, to die fighting. Her actual name is Mrs

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha!! No wonder they changed

it. It’s the most German thing I’ve ever heard –

she might as well have been called Mrs Brat-

wurst-Kraut-Nazi.

Titles have got to go.

I’m not calling her “your highness” or “your

majesty” just so we can pretend there isn’t

and hasn’t always been an international cabal

of rich landowners flitting merrily across the

globe, getting us all to kill each other a

couple of times a decade. From now on she’s Frau

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Come on, Frau Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, it’s time for

you to have breakfast with Herr Saxe-Coburg-Go-

tha. And you can make it yerselves. And by the

way, we’re nicking this castle you’ve been doss-

ing in and giving it to 100 poor families.

Actually, you can stay if you want, they’ll need

a cleaner. You’ll have to watch your lip, Herr

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, some of ’em ain’t white.

We British have much to gain from Matt’s title-

less utopia.

He continues: “If this became common, you’d

shortly see sputtering rage from the powerful,

and increased agitation from the erstwhile meek.

People need to mark their dominance; that is the essence of highly unequal capitalism. If they

can’t do so, if they aren’t allowed to be dominant, to be shown as being dominant, then the system

cannot long be sustained.”

Matt’s ideas are like the schemes of a cackling supervillain from a Bond movie. At first, they seem

innocuous, but then they elegantly unravel the fabric of society. He suggests we start now: “This

is something that anyone and everyone can act on, a tiny act of rebellion that takes no money,

influence or social status. You just need courage, and every human has that.”

This is an edited extract from Revolution by Russell Brand,

Z-00117 MAY 2015

Zürich.your fat rich step dad who isnt fond of you.extract from Russell brand (Revolution).Dean Ira