Deregulation is a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading. It is unsurprising that all conservative parties claim to hate big government.
Interpretation
Deregulation shifts power from the oppressed to the powerful, often benefiting the latter under the guise of reducing government size.
In this quote, George Monbiot highlights how deregulation, which is often advocated by conservative parties as a means to reduce government intervention, can actually lead to an increase in power for those who are already dominant in society. This transfer of power suggests that while the rhetoric may focus on curtailing governmental oversight, the reality may result in greater inequality and concentration of power among the elite, leaving those who are already marginalized further disadvantaged.
In practice
In a debate about government policies, this quote can serve to illustrate the potential dangers of deregulation.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
Irish tory employers hid[e] their sweatshops behind orange flags, and Irish home rule landlords us[e] the green sunburst of Erin to cloak their rack-renting in the festering slums of our Irish towns.
Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress.
The White House is a bully pulpit.
Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. "We have a single system," he wrote, and "in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses."
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous.
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