foreignpolicy--2020-04-03--Dismantling the World’s Largest Democracy

On Jan. 26 , a Sunday but also a national holiday , India celebrated its 70th constitutional anniversary .
The government hosted a grand military and cultural parade at Rajpath , a boulevard that links the stone arch of India Gate to the presidential palace in New Delhi .
Looking on , in a saffron turban , was Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) with his guest of honor , Jair Bolsonaro .
The president of Brazil had been snubbed by numerous democratic world leaders , but here he was , standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of honor such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama .
In another part of the capital , the Muslim neighborhood of Shaheen Bagh was also celebrating Republic Day .
The guests of honor there were two women wearing simple clothing and somber expressions .
Radhika Vemula ’ s son Rohith Vemula was a Ph.D. scholar who had taken his own life in 2016 after a campaign of harassment led by authorities at the University of Hyderabad .
Saira Bano ’ s son Junaid Khan was killed in 2017 , when he was stabbed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Both young men—one Dalit , the other Muslim—were victims of an ongoing , government-led agenda to establish Hindu supremacy in India .
After the two mothers unfurled the national flag , a crowd of hundreds of thousands of onlookers burst into a spontaneous rendition of the national anthem .
The two celebrations were animated by entirely different ideas of what India is and to whom it belongs .
They represented a divide that has been simmering for decades but which only manifested in nationwide protests since last December after a series of government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was not guided by the constitution .
Last August , his government revoked the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir .
That same month , it also announced the results of a count of citizens in the eastern state of Assam , which could render nearly 2 million residents stateless .
In November , the Supreme Court finally adjudicated on the matter of the disputed Mughal-era Babri Mosque , granting the land on which it was built to the Hindu petitioners even though it was Hindu extremists who had destroyed the mosque , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-awaited decision was entirely expected ; India ’ s once famously activist judiciary , like its once fiercely independent mainstream media , now often bends to the will of the prime minister .
Then , in December , the government passed a law that put persecuted foreign minorities—excluding Muslims—on a fast track to citizenship .
India ’ s once famously activist judiciary , like its once fiercely independent mainstream media , now often bends to the will of the prime minister .
All these actions are components of Modi ’ s overarching agenda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Hindu nation .
This ultimate goal violates the very foundation of the country , which was inspired by Mohandas Gandhi ’ s belief that people of many faiths could and must coexist peacefully .
Citizenship in India is based on birthright , not on blood or faith .
But Modi is grinding fundamental rights , such as the right to equality and the right to freedom of religion , into the soil .
India has already had one brush with authoritarianism , when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a national emergency in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be thought of as democratic .
Modi no longer seems to hold that aspiration .
He has consolidated power in his own hands , fired dissenters , installed pliant heads at major institutions , detained hundreds of opposition leaders , and responded to peaceful protests with violence .
To him , the women of Shaheen Bagh are actors in a plot to “ destroy national harmony.
” In March , Freedom House declared the situation “ alarming.
” It gave India the largest score decline among the world ’ s 25 biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the World ” report .
The speed with which Modi has been able to undermine democracy has frightened many people .
Indians now wonder what their constitutional rights really are .
Are they absolute ?
Or can the state revoke them in the so-called national interest ?
The speed with which Modi has been able to undermine democracy has frightened many people .
Seeking answers to these questions has , in recent months , made the Indian Constitution , which happens to be the longest written constitution in the world , a bestseller @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In New Delhi , a publisher told the Hindustan Times that he was selling as many as 5,000 copies a month .
At the nationwide protests , which until the new coronavirus outbreak were ongoing in many parts of the country , readings of the document ’ s preamble represented an opening ceremony that set the tone of the slogans , protest songs , and the call-and-response shouts of “ What do we want ?
Freedom !
” that inevitably followed .
The constitutional scholar Madhav Khosla ’ s new book , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy , therefore couldn ’ t have been timelier .
It delves into the mystery of how some 400 men and women who had spent their lives as colonial subjects went on to create a charter of such breathless ambition .
“ How did they approach the missing foundations on which self-government was widely thought to be predicated ?
” Khosla writes .
They “ met the imperial argument on direct terms .
They believed in the possibility of creating democratic citizens through democratic politics.
” These lofty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the historian Ramachandra Guha reminds us in his book India After Gandhi , given that they were articulated in the backdrop of “ food scarcity , religious riots , refugee resettlement , class war and feudal intransigence.
” India lived in its villages , Gandhi had declared ; people were divided by caste , subcaste , and religion .
They were beholden to whoever ruled the nearly 600 princely states in the subcontinent , and these states were in turn ruled by the British .
They had no direct experience of democracy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ same people were granted a lengthy list of rights .
Now they lived in a secular parliamentary democracy with universal adult franchise and a single integrated judiciary .
One reason for this breadth of ambition was the quality of the people involved .
Even before they ’ d settled behind the heated desks of the Constituent Assembly in Delhi for their first meeting in December 1946 , they ’ d already written themselves into the pages of history .
There was India ’ s first prime minister , Jawaharlal Nehru ; his deputy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hansa Mehta , a social activist and one of the few women present ; and , of course , Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , the brilliant lawyer who was born Dalit , or lower caste , and who oversaw the entire exercise .
But Khosla ’ s deeply interesting study also shows us what the document didn ’ t do .
For one , he writes , it did not “ explicate how modern citizenship could meet the problem of a divided society.
” Nehru had always rejected communal politics , but after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Islamic Republic of Pakistan , he came to view India ’ s secular policy as central to its identity .
He dismissed communalism in India , of which he ’ d had a ring-side view during the blood-soaked partition riots , as a “ myth.
” This rejection , Khosla writes , “ emerged from denial rather than engagement.
” India wasn ’ t just split along religious lines .
The economy “ during the last half-century of colonial rule had been in a stagnant condition , ” the historian Patrick French @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ with annual per capita GDP flatlining at 0.1 percent.
” Poverty sharpened social exclusion and made it harder for people to exercise their democratic rights .
One way to prevent that from happening , as Khosla points out , was through the improvement of social and economic conditions .
The Indian Constitution is unlike any in the world , in that it sought to teach democracy to a people who had never experienced it .
Yet for all that Ambedkar had to say on the subject , during a landmark speech he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at no point did he argue for enforceable socioeconomic rights , ” Khosla writes .
Instead , these rights landed in the Directive Principles of State Policy , which aimed to establish a welfare state but which , unlike fundamental rights , were not enforceable in a court of law .
( Another directive principle was the prohibition of alcohol . )
Ambedkar ’ s thinking , Khosla writes , was that “ even though the principles might lack ‘ legal force ’ and those in power ‘ may not have to answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law , ’ they would ‘ certainly have to answer for them before the electorate at election time.
’ ” There is another matter whose relevance is being felt now more than ever before .
The Indian Constitution made individual freedoms subservient to the authority of the state .
“ On the one hand , there is a grand proclamation in favor of a right , ” Khosla writes .
“ On the other hand , there is a strong statement enumerating the exceptions to the realization of the concerned right.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early on : “ Many of [ the ] fundamental rights have been framed from the point of view of a police constable.
” Indian protesters who are being detained in great droves on charges of sedition , criminal defamation , unlawful assembly , and even just using virtual private networks to access the internet , mostly in BJP-ruled states , are realizing just how true this is .
A constitutional clause allowing for “ preventive detention ” without trial of up to two years has been used to put away thousands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saxena had warned against the clause , calling it “ the darkest blot on this constitution.
” With Modi in power , the police now have virtually unchecked powers , and the courts are refusing to hear cases that challenge the decisions of the government .
“ The remarkable irony of the present crisis of constitutional democracy , ” Khosla writes , “ is its uncanny resemblance to the imperial ideology.
” The Indian Constitution is unlike any in the world , in that it sought to teach democracy to a people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ first and foremost a social document , ” the historian Granville Austin wrote in 1966 .
But like any contract , while it was meant to be binding , it could , of course , be broken .
“ If things go wrong under the new constitution , ” Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly when presenting the final draft of the document in November 1948 , “ the reason will not be that we had a bad constitution .
What we will have to say is , that Man was vile.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ print issue .

On Jan. 26, a Sunday but also a national holiday, India celebrated its 70th constitutional anniversary. The government hosted a grand military and cultural parade at Rajpath, a boulevard that links the stone arch of India Gate to the presidential palace in New Delhi. Looking on, in a saffron turban, was Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with his guest of honor, Jair Bolsonaro. The president of Brazil had been snubbed by numerous democratic world leaders, but here he was, standing in the same place as earlier guests of honor such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
On Jan. 26, a Sunday but also a national holiday, India celebrated its 70th constitutional anniversary. The government hosted a grand military and cultural parade at Rajpath, a boulevard that links the stone arch of India Gate to the presidential palace in New Delhi. Looking on, in a saffron turban, was Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with his guest of honor, Jair Bolsonaro. The president of Brazil had been snubbed by numerous democratic world leaders, but here he was, standing in the same place as earlier guests of honor such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
In another part of the capital, the Muslim neighborhood of Shaheen Bagh was also celebrating Republic Day. The guests of honor there were two women wearing simple clothing and somber expressions. Radhika Vemula’s son Rohith Vemula was a Ph.D. scholar who had taken his own life in 2016 after a campaign of harassment led by authorities at the University of Hyderabad. Saira Bano’s son Junaid Khan was killed in 2017, when he was stabbed in a train by some passengers. Both young men—one Dalit, the other Muslim—were victims of an ongoing, government-led agenda to establish Hindu supremacy in India. After the two mothers unfurled the national flag, a crowd of hundreds of thousands of onlookers burst into a spontaneous rendition of the national anthem.
The two celebrations were animated by entirely different ideas of what India is and to whom it belongs. They represented a divide that has been simmering for decades but which only manifested in nationwide protests since last December after a series of government actions proved beyond a doubt that Modi was not guided by the constitution.
Last August, his government revoked the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. That same month, it also announced the results of a count of citizens in the eastern state of Assam, which could render nearly 2 million residents stateless. In November, the Supreme Court finally adjudicated on the matter of the disputed Mughal-era Babri Mosque, granting the land on which it was built to the Hindu petitioners even though it was Hindu extremists who had destroyed the mosque, many with their bare hands. The long-awaited decision was entirely expected; India’s once famously activist judiciary, like its once fiercely independent mainstream media, now often bends to the will of the prime minister. Then, in December, the government passed a law that put persecuted foreign minorities—excluding Muslims—on a fast track to citizenship.
India’s once famously activist judiciary, like its once fiercely independent mainstream media, now often bends to the will of the prime minister.
All these actions are components of Modi’s overarching agenda, which is to turn India into a Hindu nation. This ultimate goal violates the very foundation of the country, which was inspired by Mohandas Gandhi’s belief that people of many faiths could and must coexist peacefully. Citizenship in India is based on birthright, not on blood or faith. But Modi is grinding fundamental rights, such as the right to equality and the right to freedom of religion, into the soil.
India has already had one brush with authoritarianism, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a national emergency in the 1970s, but even she wanted to be thought of as democratic. Modi no longer seems to hold that aspiration. He has consolidated power in his own hands, fired dissenters, installed pliant heads at major institutions, detained hundreds of opposition leaders, and responded to peaceful protests with violence. To him, the women of Shaheen Bagh are actors in a plot to “destroy national harmony.” In March, Freedom House declared the situation “alarming.” It gave India the largest score decline among the world’s 25 biggest democracies in its annual “Freedom in the World” report.
The speed with which Modi has been able to undermine democracy has frightened many people. Indians now wonder what their constitutional rights really are. Are they absolute? Or can the state revoke them in the so-called national interest?
The speed with which Modi has been able to undermine democracy has frightened many people.
Seeking answers to these questions has, in recent months, made the Indian Constitution, which happens to be the longest written constitution in the world, a bestseller 70 years after it was first published. In New Delhi, a publisher told the Hindustan Times that he was selling as many as 5,000 copies a month. At the nationwide protests, which until the new coronavirus outbreak were ongoing in many parts of the country, readings of the document’s preamble represented an opening ceremony that set the tone of the slogans, protest songs, and the call-and-response shouts of “What do we want? Freedom!” that inevitably followed.
The constitutional scholar Madhav Khosla’s new book, India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy, therefore couldn’t have been timelier. It delves into the mystery of how some 400 men and women who had spent their lives as colonial subjects went on to create a charter of such breathless ambition. “How did they approach the missing foundations on which self-government was widely thought to be predicated?” Khosla writes. They “met the imperial argument on direct terms. They believed in the possibility of creating democratic citizens through democratic politics.”
These lofty aims were all the more remarkable, the historian Ramachandra Guha reminds us in his book India After Gandhi, given that they were articulated in the backdrop of “food scarcity, religious riots, refugee resettlement, class war and feudal intransigence.”
India lived in its villages, Gandhi had declared; people were divided by caste, subcaste, and religion. They were beholden to whoever ruled the nearly 600 princely states in the subcontinent, and these states were in turn ruled by the British. They had no direct experience of democracy. Then, as though overnight, these same people were granted a lengthy list of rights. Now they lived in a secular parliamentary democracy with universal adult franchise and a single integrated judiciary.
One reason for this breadth of ambition was the quality of the people involved. Even before they’d settled behind the heated desks of the Constituent Assembly in Delhi for their first meeting in December 1946, they’d already written themselves into the pages of history. There was India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; his deputy, the nationalist stalwart Vallabhbhai Patel; Hansa Mehta, a social activist and one of the few women present; and, of course, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the brilliant lawyer who was born Dalit, or lower caste, and who oversaw the entire exercise.
Left: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind during the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in New Delhi on Jan. 26. Right: Protesters celebrate the same day at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi.
But Khosla’s deeply interesting study also shows us what the document didn’t do. For one, he writes, it did not “explicate how modern citizenship could meet the problem of a divided society.” Nehru had always rejected communal politics, but after the partition of 1947 and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, he came to view India’s secular policy as central to its identity. He dismissed communalism in India, of which he’d had a ring-side view during the blood-soaked partition riots, as a “myth.” This rejection, Khosla writes, “emerged from denial rather than engagement.”
India wasn’t just split along religious lines. The economy “during the last half-century of colonial rule had been in a stagnant condition,” the historian Patrick French writes in India: A Portrait, “with annual per capita GDP flatlining at 0.1 percent.” Poverty sharpened social exclusion and made it harder for people to exercise their democratic rights. One way to prevent that from happening, as Khosla points out, was through the improvement of social and economic conditions.
The Indian Constitution is unlike any in the world, in that it sought to teach democracy to a people who had never experienced it.
Yet for all that Ambedkar had to say on the subject, during a landmark speech he made in the Constituent Assembly, “at no point did he argue for enforceable socioeconomic rights,” Khosla writes. Instead, these rights landed in the Directive Principles of State Policy, which aimed to establish a welfare state but which, unlike fundamental rights, were not enforceable in a court of law. (Another directive principle was the prohibition of alcohol.) Ambedkar’s thinking, Khosla writes, was that “even though the principles might lack ‘legal force’ and those in power ‘may not have to answer for their breach in a court of law,’ they would ‘certainly have to answer for them before the electorate at election time.’”
There is another matter whose relevance is being felt now more than ever before. The Indian Constitution made individual freedoms subservient to the authority of the state. “On the one hand, there is a grand proclamation in favor of a right,” Khosla writes. “On the other hand, there is a strong statement enumerating the exceptions to the realization of the concerned right.” One member of the Constituent Assembly observed this early on: “Many of [the] fundamental rights have been framed from the point of view of a police constable.”
Indian protesters who are being detained in great droves on charges of sedition, criminal defamation, unlawful assembly, and even just using virtual private networks to access the internet, mostly in BJP-ruled states, are realizing just how true this is. A constitutional clause allowing for “preventive detention” without trial of up to two years has been used to put away thousands of Kashmiris. The freedom fighter Shibban Lal Saxena had warned against the clause, calling it “the darkest blot on this constitution.” With Modi in power, the police now have virtually unchecked powers, and the courts are refusing to hear cases that challenge the decisions of the government. “The remarkable irony of the present crisis of constitutional democracy,” Khosla writes, “is its uncanny resemblance to the imperial ideology.”
The Indian Constitution is unlike any in the world, in that it sought to teach democracy to a people who had never experienced it. It was “first and foremost a social document,” the historian Granville Austin wrote in 1966. But like any contract, while it was meant to be binding, it could, of course, be broken. “If things go wrong under the new constitution,” Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly when presenting the final draft of the document in November 1948, “the reason will not be that we had a bad constitution. What we will have to say is, that Man was vile.”
This article appears in the Spring 2020 print issue.


foreignpolicy--2020-04-03--The Tyranny of Property

The Tyranny of Property

Figuring , perhaps , that readers might by now have summoned the time and energy to read his previous world-shattering bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century , the superstar French economist Thomas Piketty is back with an even bigger , even more imposing encore—one that shares much of the good , and some of the bad , with its predecessor .
If you liked Capital , you ’ ll probably like the new doorstopper , which came out in French last year and recently hit the shelves in English .
Piketty makes the same data-driven arguments about wealth and inequality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broader canvas , and prescribes similar if even more pie-in-the-sky solutions .
In Capital and Ideology , Piketty seeks to do a couple of things he didn ’ t in the previous book : better explain why and how inequality persists and why even more radical solutions are necessary to reverse the trend .
As for the why , Piketty argues that so-called inequality regimes—systems that embed a cycle of inequity—generally exist almost everywhere across the map and in the history books until , in some happy cases , they are swept aside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t come about by accident but by design .
Whether in pre- and post-revolutionary France , colonial Haiti , belle epoque Europe , or Ronald Reagan ’ s America , the rules of the political and economic game are set up by people of property and privilege in order to propagate more property and privilege .
Inequality isn ’ t the natural , inevitable outcome of capitalism and the market , in other words ; it ’ s an outcome chosen by the haves .
“ Inequality is neither economic nor technological ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Piketty writes .
The rules of the political and economic game are set up by people of property and privilege in order to propagate more property and privilege .
At its heart , Capital and Ideology seeks to understand why the less advantaged masses , who ’ ve seen their share of the economic pie drastically shrink in recent decades , don ’ t unite to press for sweeping political changes that could bring economic justice .
It has happened plenty of times before , he reminds us : Unfair economic systems that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or early 20th-century Sweden , were swept away in a relative blink of an eye and replaced with something more fair .
In Piketty ’ s hands , that examination reads as though Michel Foucault were glossing Thomas Frank ’ s What ’ s the Matter With Kansas ?
: “ [ I ] ntractable multidimensional ideological conflicts over inequality , immigration , and national identity … have made it very difficult to achieve majority coalitions capable of countering the rise of inequality , ” he writes .
It wasn ’ t always—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difficult to overturn an unjust system , Piketty argues .
While the book dives into more places across a longer stretch of time than Capital , one of the most interesting parts concerns Sweden ’ s sudden transformation from one of the most unequal ( and underdeveloped ) countries in Europe to the polar opposite .
It wasn ’ t always—and doesn ’ t always have to be—so difficult to overturn an unjust system .
The class-based election system in 19th-century Sweden gave more votes to those owning more property and paying more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ villages a single landholder had more votes than the rest of the town combined .
These rules guaranteed that , decade after decade , there would be no distribution of property or wealth and little economic dynamism : Throughout the 19th century , Sweden ’ s top 1 percent controlled about 60 percent of private property , and the top 10 percent owned nearly 90 percent ; the bottom half of the population owned a paltry 3 or 4 percent of property .
After the rise of the Social Democrats in the 1920s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 80 years , that all changed : The wealthy came to control just over half the property , while the middle and lower classes owned the rest .
Piketty spends a lot of time on the United States , where inequality was rife in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , with levels not even approached again until this century .
The top 10 percent owned about 85 percent of property at the time of the 1929 stock market crash , for example , before a few decades of New Deal policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushed that share down closer to 60 percent .
After a series of tax cuts for the wealthy that began during the so-called Reagan Revolution , the share has crept back up to almost 75 percent .
( And the top 1 percent has done even better . )
The roller-coaster trajectory of society , and especially the rapid rise in inequality since 1980 , has the most bearing on the current state of affairs in the United States and Piketty ’ s proposed remedies .
If the years of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nixon featured much higher taxes yet produced higher growth and more equality , Piketty argues , it must be more than a correlation .
Likewise , the decades since Reagan have seen much lower taxes , especially on the rich , go hand in hand with greater inequality .
Piketty ’ s proposed solutions echo many that have taken center stage in this year ’ s U.S. presidential campaign .
Piketty ’ s proposed solutions echo many that have taken center stage in this year ’ s U.S. presidential campaign : A return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income and inheritances that were in place during those golden years from 1950 to 1980 would go some way to restoring economic equality and a measure of social justice , Piketty argues , as have Sens .
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren .
Piketty ’ s remedies , including what he calls “ participatory socialism , ” are grounded in part on his reading of the political—not economic—history of recent decades .
In years past , working-class voters sided with social democratic parties such as the U.S. Democrats , Britain ’ s Labour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic Party , whereas wealthier voters sided with the parties of property : Republicans , Conservatives , Christian Democrats , and the like .
Then , not just in the United States but across the Western world and in big developing countries like India and Brazil , working-class voters began to abandon center-left parties , which everywhere became the parties of the highly educated .
Those parties—Bill Clinton ’ s Democrats or Tony Blair ’ s Labour—sought to embrace a less regulated and increasingly globalized economic landscape , which brought plenty of obvious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the less advantaged .
And that ’ s why Piketty argues it was the center-left parties that abandoned the working classes and not that the working classes suddenly became raving racists and nativists .
While race did play a role for white working-class Americans as they began to abandon the Democrats in the mid-1960s over civil rights , the reversal of what center-left and center-right parties stood for , and to which part of the electorate they appealed , took place nearly everywhere , Piketty argues—even where there was no conflict over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To reclaim the votes of the less advantaged and start tackling inequality , Piketty argues , social democratic parties need to abandon market-friendly policies that favor the wealthy and carry out a root-and-branch reform of the entire political and economic system , even if that means amending constitutions and neutering supreme courts .
“ Our present problems can not be solved without major changes to existing political rules , ” he writes .
In Capital and Ideology , Piketty goes further than he did in his previous book , calling for radical steps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , put workers and owners on nearly equal footing inside corporations , and implement universal capital endowments , universal health care , and basic incomes—all paid for by sharply higher taxes on the incomes and estates of the rich .
As he outlines his vision of a global federation of socialists overcoming the narrow boundaries of nationalism to rewrite constitutions and join hands in raising taxes , it starts to seem as if many of Piketty ’ s remedies were genetically engineered in a laboratory with the goal of provoking the most virulent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
“ I am convinced that capitalism and private property can be superseded , ” he concludes , “ and that a just society can be established on the basis of participatory socialism and social federalism.
” In the end , as in Capital , Piketty ’ s new book seems more valuable when it is descriptive than when it turns prescriptive .
The reams of economic data he unearths are eye-opening ; many of his proposed solutions seem eye-rolling in the current climate .
But as he points out , radical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too—until suddenly they no longer were .
Given the starring role that inequality has assumed in today ’ s political discourse—in no small part due to his previous book—Piketty ’ s latest effort is a very welcome , very controversial , and , in another time and place , possibly even constructive contribution .
This article appears in the Spring 2020 print issue .

Figuring, perhaps, that readers might by now have summoned the time and energy to read his previous world-shattering bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century , the superstar French economist Thomas Piketty is back with an even bigger, even more imposing encore—one that shares much of the good, and some of the bad, with its predecessor.
Figuring, perhaps, that readers might by now have summoned the time and energy to read his previous world-shattering bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the superstar French economist Thomas Piketty is back with an even bigger, even more imposing encore—one that shares much of the good, and some of the bad, with its predecessor.
If you liked Capital, you’ll probably like the new doorstopper, which came out in French last year and recently hit the shelves in English. Piketty makes the same data-driven arguments about wealth and inequality as before, though on a much broader canvas, and prescribes similar if even more pie-in-the-sky solutions.
In Capital and Ideology, Piketty seeks to do a couple of things he didn’t in the previous book: better explain why and how inequality persists and why even more radical solutions are necessary to reverse the trend. As for the why, Piketty argues that so-called inequality regimes—systems that embed a cycle of inequity—generally exist almost everywhere across the map and in the history books until, in some happy cases, they are swept aside. And those inequality regimes don’t come about by accident but by design. Whether in pre- and post-revolutionary France, colonial Haiti, belle epoque Europe, or Ronald Reagan’s America, the rules of the political and economic game are set up by people of property and privilege in order to propagate more property and privilege.
Inequality isn’t the natural, inevitable outcome of capitalism and the market, in other words; it’s an outcome chosen by the haves. “Inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political,” Piketty writes.
The rules of the political and economic game are set up by people of property and privilege in order to propagate more property and privilege.
At its heart, Capital and Ideology seeks to understand why the less advantaged masses, who’ve seen their share of the economic pie drastically shrink in recent decades, don’t unite to press for sweeping political changes that could bring economic justice. It has happened plenty of times before, he reminds us: Unfair economic systems that seemed immutable, whether in Edwardian Britain or early 20th-century Sweden, were swept away in a relative blink of an eye and replaced with something more fair.
In Piketty’s hands, that examination reads as though Michel Foucault were glossing Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas?: “[I]ntractable multidimensional ideological conflicts over inequality, immigration, and national identity … have made it very difficult to achieve majority coalitions capable of countering the rise of inequality,” he writes.
It wasn’t always—and doesn’t always have to be—so difficult to overturn an unjust system, Piketty argues. While the book dives into more places across a longer stretch of time than Capital, one of the most interesting parts concerns Sweden’s sudden transformation from one of the most unequal (and underdeveloped) countries in Europe to the polar opposite.
It wasn’t always—and doesn’t always have to be—so difficult to overturn an unjust system.
The class-based election system in 19th-century Sweden gave more votes to those owning more property and paying more taxes, which meant that in many villages a single landholder had more votes than the rest of the town combined. These rules guaranteed that, decade after decade, there would be no distribution of property or wealth and little economic dynamism: Throughout the 19th century, Sweden’s top 1 percent controlled about 60 percent of private property, and the top 10 percent owned nearly 90 percent; the bottom half of the population owned a paltry 3 or 4 percent of property. After the rise of the Social Democrats in the 1920s, who ruled for roughly the next 80 years, that all changed: The wealthy came to control just over half the property, while the middle and lower classes owned the rest.
Piketty spends a lot of time on the United States, where inequality was rife in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with levels not even approached again until this century. The top 10 percent owned about 85 percent of property at the time of the 1929 stock market crash, for example, before a few decades of New Deal policies, progressive taxation, and political reform pushed that share down closer to 60 percent. After a series of tax cuts for the wealthy that began during the so-called Reagan Revolution, the share has crept back up to almost 75 percent. (And the top 1 percent has done even better.)
The roller-coaster trajectory of society, and especially the rapid rise in inequality since 1980, has the most bearing on the current state of affairs in the United States and Piketty’s proposed remedies. If the years of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon featured much higher taxes yet produced higher growth and more equality, Piketty argues, it must be more than a correlation. Likewise, the decades since Reagan have seen much lower taxes, especially on the rich, go hand in hand with greater inequality.
Piketty’s proposed solutions echo many that have taken center stage in this year’s U.S. presidential campaign.
Piketty’s proposed solutions echo many that have taken center stage in this year’s U.S. presidential campaign: A return to the very high tax rates on income and inheritances that were in place during those golden years from 1950 to 1980 would go some way to restoring economic equality and a measure of social justice, Piketty argues, as have Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Piketty’s remedies, including what he calls “participatory socialism,” are grounded in part on his reading of the political—not economic—history of recent decades. In years past, working-class voters sided with social democratic parties such as the U.S. Democrats, Britain’s Labour Party, and Germany’s Social Democratic Party, whereas wealthier voters sided with the parties of property: Republicans, Conservatives, Christian Democrats, and the like. Then, not just in the United States but across the Western world and in big developing countries like India and Brazil, working-class voters began to abandon center-left parties, which everywhere became the parties of the highly educated. Those parties—Bill Clinton’s Democrats or Tony Blair’s Labour—sought to embrace a less regulated and increasingly globalized economic landscape, which brought plenty of obvious gains to the highly educated but fewer for the less advantaged.
And that’s why Piketty argues it was the center-left parties that abandoned the working classes and not that the working classes suddenly became raving racists and nativists. While race did play a role for white working-class Americans as they began to abandon the Democrats in the mid-1960s over civil rights, the reversal of what center-left and center-right parties stood for, and to which part of the electorate they appealed, took place nearly everywhere, Piketty argues—even where there was no conflict over race or immigration to explain it.
To reclaim the votes of the less advantaged and start tackling inequality, Piketty argues, social democratic parties need to abandon market-friendly policies that favor the wealthy and carry out a root-and-branch reform of the entire political and economic system, even if that means amending constitutions and neutering supreme courts. “Our present problems cannot be solved without major changes to existing political rules,” he writes.
In Capital and Ideology, Piketty goes further than he did in his previous book, calling for radical steps that would essentially make property ownership temporary, put workers and owners on nearly equal footing inside corporations, and implement universal capital endowments, universal health care, and basic incomes—all paid for by sharply higher taxes on the incomes and estates of the rich.
As he outlines his vision of a global federation of socialists overcoming the narrow boundaries of nationalism to rewrite constitutions and join hands in raising taxes, it starts to seem as if many of Piketty’s remedies were genetically engineered in a laboratory with the goal of provoking the most virulent possible response among the broadest swath of people.
“I am convinced that capitalism and private property can be superseded,” he concludes, “and that a just society can be established on the basis of participatory socialism and social federalism.”
In the end, as in Capital, Piketty’s new book seems more valuable when it is descriptive than when it turns prescriptive. The reams of economic data he unearths are eye-opening; many of his proposed solutions seem eye-rolling in the current climate. But as he points out, radical solutions once seemed unthinkable in the past, too—until suddenly they no longer were.
Given the starring role that inequality has assumed in today’s political discourse—in no small part due to his previous book—Piketty’s latest effort is a very welcome, very controversial, and, in another time and place, possibly even constructive contribution.
This article appears in the Spring 2020 print issue.


Books in Brief

The Foreign Policy staff reviews recent releases on Chinese industrial espionage , the dissent channel in American diplomacy , and British anti-colonialism .
The Scientist and the Spy : A True Story of China , the FBI , and Industrial Espionage In September 2011 , years before U.S. President Donald Trump pushed the United States into a trade war with China , Iowa state police caught three men trespassing near a cornfield under contract with the agrochemical giant Monsanto .
The encounter caught the attention of the FBI and led it to the Chinese-born engineer Robert Mo , who became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is the focus of the journalist Mara Hvistendahl ’ s new book , The Scientist and the Spy—a nuanced look at some of the pawns in the U.S.-China rivalry .
The FBI suspected Mo and his associates at the Beijing-based agricultural company DBN of a plot to smuggle genetically modified corn seeds—closely guarded trade secrets—to China .
Through her reporting in China and the United States , Hvistendahl recounts the case with the vivid details and pace of a spy thriller .
Mo , who is initially reluctant to take part in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breeder as an unwitting accomplice in the cover-up , putting them both at the center of a story with global implications .
And an FBI agent finds himself crisscrossing Iowa to get to the bottom of it .
Amid the scale of the recent U.S.-China trade war , whose latest cease-fire involved China promising to buy $ 200 billion of U.S. agricultural goods , it ’ s easy to miss the products at the center of it .
Hvistendahl , who previously covered science and technology in Shanghai , starts with the seeds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to China ’ s food security and its growing middle class .
Most hybrid seed lines belong to just two companies : DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto ( now part of Bayer ) , on behalf of which the U.S. government brought charges against Mo in 2013 .
With scientific research and development booming in China , the state has prioritized technological innovation : It ’ s no secret why the seeds would be valuable in the hands of a Chinese firm .
“ Theft is expedient—especially if there is little chance of getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s case reflects the rising tensions between China and the United States , particularly over technology .
It also foreshadows today ’ s growing American suspicion of Chinese academics and scientists , setting a precedent by which espionage charges may be filed against those not working directly for a foreign state .
Hvistendahl digs into these issues and finds troubling evidence .
Through previously unreleased FBI documents , she traces a long history of racial profiling and botched counterintelligence on China .
To monitor Mo ’ s movements and bug his associates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—not initially intended for targets on U.S. soil .
“ If China is shaped by the dueling forces of copying and innovation , America is locked in its own internal struggle , between openness and security , ” she writes .
As these investigations increase , it appears that a perceived need for more security is winning out .
Hvistendahl presents Mo ’ s case as a Rorschach test : In the ill-conceived plot , one person might see an imminent security threat , and another might see a story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ echoed in the relationship between the powers themselves : If China and the United States are on the verge of a new cold war , she writes , it is a “ conflict with no clear winner.
” —Audrey Wilson Amid the chaos of the Vietnam War , the U.S. State Department established a formal system for diplomats to express opposition to policies they were tasked with carrying out .
In theory , the so-called dissent channel could help serve as a way to prevent foreign-policy disasters—such as the Vietnam War—by allowing even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and send a memo directly to the secretary of state ’ s inner circle to raise alarm bells over a U.S. policy .
Today , the dissent channel occupies an important place in the State Department ’ s psyche .
It ’ s a rarely used system yet one that U.S. diplomats often boast about as a testament to the strength and resilience of American foreign-policy leaders .
But in this day and age , does speaking truth to power make a difference ?
Elizabeth Shackelford , a former career diplomat , grapples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a personal memoir about her tour in war-torn South Sudan and her decision to resign on moral grounds in 2017 .
Anger , despondence , and resentment drip from the pages as Shackelford recounts how she and her colleagues at the embassy in Juba pushed Washington to condemn atrocities perpetrated by the South Sudanese government—after the United States helped midwife the country into existence in 2011—to little or no avail .
She pulls no punches in showing how South Sudan became one of the most stunning failures in modern U.S. foreign policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to sharply condemn government forces under President Salva Kiir Mayardit as they fought his former deputy-turned-rival , Riek Machar .
Accusations of mass killings , rape , and other war crimes by both sides were prevalent .
The U.S. government repeatedly called for calm and issued vague threats of reprisals that it rarely followed up on .
Shackelford presents familiar arguments on the dangers of Trump ’ s foreign policy , but the book really shines in her blow-by-blow account of what a U.S. embassy does in a time of crisis .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 20 hours a day trying to track down and evacuate U.S. citizens , sending cables back to Washington on the spiraling conflict , and interviewing survivors of mass killings and other atrocities—if for nothing else than for the historical record .
After returning home , Shackelford and some of her colleagues decided to use the dissent channel as a last resort , writing a memo for the secretary of state urging Washington to change course in South Sudan and lambasting the countless empty threats that only served to embolden that country ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , U.S. policy didn ’ t change , and Shackelford ran out of options .
The book deserves praise for telling the overlooked—though not untold—story of South Sudan ’ s stunning collapse and Washington ’ s refusal to recognize its own failures .
But The Dissent Channel also poses bigger questions about how diplomats and others in government can speak truth to power in an age when the truth , and those speaking it , can come under attack .
Shackelford ’ s assessment of the State Department ’ s dissent channel is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It means something , perhaps .
It ’ s a message of sorts , ” she writes .
“ One could generously describe it as a type of departmental suggestion box , though it would be more accurate to picture it as a shredder.
” —Robbie Gramer In 1843 , British Gen. Charles Napier seized the kingdom of Sindh , in present-day Pakistan , using the pretext of a local rebellion for a blatant land grab .
In response , the British satirical magazine Punch published a spoof news article claiming that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actions to London had been conveyed in a single-word telegram : Peccavi—Latin for “ I have sinned.
” The reference became so famous that later textbooks often reported it as a factual event .
It reflected , perhaps , a fundamental unease about the acquisition of empire—a feeling often underplayed in historical accounts .
From the beginnings of British rule , many in Britain itself could see the atrocities of imperialism , just as the Roman historian Tacitus had written of his own countrymen , through the words of a Caledonian chieftain , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ravage , to slaughter , to usurp under false titles , they call empire.
” Domestic opposition to empire is well documented , but the Britain-based Indian scholar Priyamvada Gopal ’ s achievement in Insurgent Empire is to tie together those movements with the resistance to empire on its bloody fringes .
The efforts of dissidents , rebels , and intellectuals in India , Africa , and the diaspora inspired , she argues , radicals at home—not just to challenge the empire but to fight the systems of power and oppression it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the birth of ideas of universal rights and economic injustice owed as much to foreign criticisms as domestic ones .
The figures—the new domestic insurgents—Gopal unearths are strikingly cosmopolitan ones in a period where various factions were often wrongly depicted as monolithic .
For example , Gopal presents the account of Shapurji Saklatvala , the third Indian to be elected a member of the British Parliament in 1922 .
Each of those Indians were Parsis , the Zoroastrian minority that played an unusually dominant role in trade but which also spanned the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s radicalism .
Saklatvala proved one of the most trenchant and influential critics of the empire that had brought him from Bombay ( now Mumbai ) to London—and was a founder of the multinational League Against Imperialism in 1927 .
One of the most moving accounts is that of George William Gordon , a businessman and landowner in Jamaica whose role in an uprising against the tyranny of the colonial governor led to his execution by the local authorities .
Gordon ’ s death prompted fierce dissent in London and several attempts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on trial for murder .
Insurgent Empire is a long book and not always easily digestible—especially for those unversed in the periods it describes .
Gopal has a sharp eye for forgotten characters and lost histories , but the information comes thick and fast , and the sheer scale of the book , going from early 19th-century India to the Harlem Renaissance , can make it difficult to keep track of .
The richest part is , perhaps , her description of London in the 1930s , when the imperial metropole became the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and even conventional British opinion began to smell the end of empire in the wind.— James Palmer

Audrey Wilson, Robbie Gramer and James Palmer

The Foreign Policy staff reviews recent releases on Chinese industrial espionage, the dissent channel in American diplomacy, and British anti-colonialism.
The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage
In September 2011, years before U.S. President Donald Trump pushed the United States into a trade war with China, Iowa state police caught three men trespassing near a cornfield under contract with the agrochemical giant Monsanto. The encounter caught the attention of the FBI and led it to the Chinese-born engineer Robert Mo, who became a suspect in the industrial espionage investigation that is the focus of the journalist Mara Hvistendahl’s new book, The Scientist and the Spy—a nuanced look at some of the pawns in the U.S.-China rivalry.
The FBI suspected Mo and his associates at the Beijing-based agricultural company DBN of a plot to smuggle genetically modified corn seeds—closely guarded trade secrets—to China. Through her reporting in China and the United States, Hvistendahl recounts the case with the vivid details and pace of a spy thriller. Mo, who is initially reluctant to take part in the theft, enlists a Midwestern seed breeder as an unwitting accomplice in the cover-up, putting them both at the center of a story with global implications. And an FBI agent finds himself crisscrossing Iowa to get to the bottom of it.
Amid the scale of the recent U.S.-China trade war, whose latest cease-fire involved China promising to buy $200 billion of U.S. agricultural goods, it’s easy to miss the products at the center of it. Hvistendahl, who previously covered science and technology in Shanghai, starts with the seeds. Corn—which feeds chicken and pigs—is essential to China’s food security and its growing middle class. Most hybrid seed lines belong to just two companies: DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto (now part of Bayer), on behalf of which the U.S. government brought charges against Mo in 2013. With scientific research and development booming in China, the state has prioritized technological innovation: It’s no secret why the seeds would be valuable in the hands of a Chinese firm. “Theft is expedient—especially if there is little chance of getting caught,” Hvistendahl writes.
Mo’s case reflects the rising tensions between China and the United States, particularly over technology. It also foreshadows today’s growing American suspicion of Chinese academics and scientists, setting a precedent by which espionage charges may be filed against those not working directly for a foreign state.
Hvistendahl digs into these issues and finds troubling evidence. Through previously unreleased FBI documents, she traces a long history of racial profiling and botched counterintelligence on China. To monitor Mo’s movements and bug his associates’ car, the FBI uses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—not initially intended for targets on U.S. soil. “If China is shaped by the dueling forces of copying and innovation, America is locked in its own internal struggle, between openness and security,” she writes. As these investigations increase, it appears that a perceived need for more security is winning out.
Hvistendahl presents Mo’s case as a Rorschach test: In the ill-conceived plot, one person might see an imminent security threat, and another might see a story of corporate overreach. That ambiguity is echoed in the relationship between the powers themselves: If China and the United States are on the verge of a new cold war, she writes, it is a “conflict with no clear winner.”—Audrey Wilson
The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age
The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age, Elizabeth Shackelford, PublicAffairs, 304 pp., .99, May 2020
Amid the chaos of the Vietnam War, the U.S. State Department established a formal system for diplomats to express opposition to policies they were tasked with carrying out. In theory, the so-called dissent channel could help serve as a way to prevent foreign-policy disasters—such as the Vietnam War—by allowing even the most junior officers to bypass bureaucracy and send a memo directly to the secretary of state’s inner circle to raise alarm bells over a U.S. policy.
Today, the dissent channel occupies an important place in the State Department’s psyche. It’s a rarely used system yet one that U.S. diplomats often boast about as a testament to the strength and resilience of American foreign-policy leaders. But in this day and age, does speaking truth to power make a difference?
Elizabeth Shackelford, a former career diplomat, grapples with this question in The Dissent Channel, a personal memoir about her tour in war-torn South Sudan and her decision to resign on moral grounds in 2017. Anger, despondence, and resentment drip from the pages as Shackelford recounts how she and her colleagues at the embassy in Juba pushed Washington to condemn atrocities perpetrated by the South Sudanese government—after the United States helped midwife the country into existence in 2011—to little or no avail. She pulls no punches in showing how South Sudan became one of the most stunning failures in modern U.S. foreign policy.
Time and again, Washington refused to sharply condemn government forces under President Salva Kiir Mayardit as they fought his former deputy-turned-rival, Riek Machar. Accusations of mass killings, rape, and other war crimes by both sides were prevalent. The U.S. government repeatedly called for calm and issued vague threats of reprisals that it rarely followed up on.
Shackelford presents familiar arguments on the dangers of Trump’s foreign policy, but the book really shines in her blow-by-blow account of what a U.S. embassy does in a time of crisis. She and other embassy personnel worked 16 to 20 hours a day trying to track down and evacuate U.S. citizens, sending cables back to Washington on the spiraling conflict, and interviewing survivors of mass killings and other atrocities—if for nothing else than for the historical record.
After returning home, Shackelford and some of her colleagues decided to use the dissent channel as a last resort, writing a memo for the secretary of state urging Washington to change course in South Sudan and lambasting the countless empty threats that only served to embolden that country’s government. But the report was shelved, U.S. policy didn’t change, and Shackelford ran out of options.
The book deserves praise for telling the overlooked—though not untold—story of South Sudan’s stunning collapse and Washington’s refusal to recognize its own failures. But The Dissent Channel also poses bigger questions about how diplomats and others in government can speak truth to power in an age when the truth, and those speaking it, can come under attack.
Shackelford’s assessment of the State Department’s dissent channel is blunt, grim, and convincing. “It means something, perhaps. It’s a message of sorts,” she writes. “One could generously describe it as a type of departmental suggestion box, though it would be more accurate to picture it as a shredder.”—Robbie Gramer
Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent
In 1843, British Gen. Charles Napier seized the kingdom of Sindh, in present-day Pakistan, using the pretext of a local rebellion for a blatant land grab. In response, the British satirical magazine Punch published a spoof news article claiming that the general’s report of his actions to London had been conveyed in a single-word telegram: Peccavi—Latin for “I have sinned.”
The reference became so famous that later textbooks often reported it as a factual event. It reflected, perhaps, a fundamental unease about the acquisition of empire—a feeling often underplayed in historical accounts. From the beginnings of British rule, many in Britain itself could see the atrocities of imperialism, just as the Roman historian Tacitus had written of his own countrymen, through the words of a Caledonian chieftain, nearly 2,000 years earlier: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire.”
Domestic opposition to empire is well documented, but the Britain-based Indian scholar Priyamvada Gopal’s achievement in Insurgent Empire is to tie together those movements with the resistance to empire on its bloody fringes. The efforts of dissidents, rebels, and intellectuals in India, Africa, and the diaspora inspired, she argues, radicals at home—not just to challenge the empire but to fight the systems of power and oppression it was built on. In her telling, the birth of ideas of universal rights and economic injustice owed as much to foreign criticisms as domestic ones.
The figures—the new domestic insurgents—Gopal unearths are strikingly cosmopolitan ones in a period where various factions were often wrongly depicted as monolithic. For example, Gopal presents the account of Shapurji Saklatvala, the third Indian to be elected a member of the British Parliament in 1922. Each of those Indians were Parsis, the Zoroastrian minority that played an unusually dominant role in trade but which also spanned the political spectrum from conservative pro-imperialist to Saklatvala’s radicalism. Saklatvala proved one of the most trenchant and influential critics of the empire that had brought him from Bombay (now Mumbai) to London—and was a founder of the multinational League Against Imperialism in 1927.
One of the most moving accounts is that of George William Gordon, a businessman and landowner in Jamaica whose role in an uprising against the tyranny of the colonial governor led to his execution by the local authorities. Gordon’s death prompted fierce dissent in London and several attempts to put Edward Eyre, the governor, on trial for murder.
Insurgent Empire is a long book and not always easily digestible—especially for those unversed in the periods it describes. Gopal has a sharp eye for forgotten characters and lost histories, but the information comes thick and fast, and the sheer scale of the book, going from early 19th-century India to the Harlem Renaissance, can make it difficult to keep track of. The richest part is, perhaps, her description of London in the 1930s, when the imperial metropole became the center of a tangle of resistance movements and even conventional British opinion began to smell the end of empire in the wind.—James Palmer


foreignpolicy--2020-04-03--A Train to Nowhere

A Train to Nowhere

In the town of Peterborough , the sole-surviving relic of Britain ’ s doomed venture into hovercraft train travel looms over the entrance to a derelict coal yard .
The RTV 31 , a sleek bullet-headed train painted with a now faded Union Jack , has the charm of a sci-fi movie prop—a testament to the expanding imagination of the 1960s and a world with its eyes turned toward outer space .
But for the RTV 31 , the future never arrived .
Once one of Britain ’ s most anticipated innovations , the test vehicle lay in a scrap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 40 years ago by a group of conservationists intent on transforming a redundant power station ’ s coal yards into a wildlife haven and museum .
In the 1960s , British Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised that a “ new Britain ” would be forged in the “ white heat ” of a new scientific revolution .
Combining the newly invented hovercraft with a linear induction motor , the tracked hovercraft train would ride on a cushion of air produced by fans .
In the 1960s , British Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be forged in the “ white heat ” of a new scientific revolution .
The track would be shaped like a T , with aluminum plates fixed on either side .
Four pads provided the lift , with four more pads placed above them , rotating vertically to keep the RTV 31 balanced .
Snow , rain , and debris would slide off the plates , keeping the train moving even in bad weather .
“ Like to travel by train at 300 miles an hour ?
We may do in a few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clip promised in 1966 .
Scientists hoped the RTV 31 would transport passengers from London to Glasgow in just two hours , outpacing the era ’ s conventional trains threefold .
The project was budgeted at 5 million pounds—the equivalent of $ 130 million today .
As the speed of test vehicles increased , scientists discovered that the hovertrain needed less energy to keep it in motion than its wheeled counterparts .
The monorail-style concrete blocks used on the track were simpler than existing railbeds , significantly reducing the cost of infrastructure .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The hoverpads required a lot of power and were so heavy they weighed down the train itself .
The linear induction motor was bulky—not only difficult to build but making any adjustments a big job .
The cost of building and laying new tracks was considered too high , and the project began to lose political support .
Eric Laithwaite , the inventor of the linear induction motor and an early proponent of the hovertrain , proclaimed it was “ far too dangerous ” to use , with the possibility of driving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using the linear induction motor , most notably early maglev ( “ magnetic levitation ” ) projects , were leading the way—and the hovertrain struggled to keep up .
In its first-ever test run , the train reached a discouraging 12 miles per hour .
Estimates in 1972 that the project wouldn ’ t be ready until 1985 delivered another devastating blow .
A test track was built near Ely , in Cambridgeshire .
In 1973 , the RTV 31 hovered a few inches above a concrete track for the very first time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mph—a significant improvement but a disappointment compared with its initial promise of being able to travel between London and Glasgow in just a couple of hours .
One week later , funding for the project was officially canceled .
Still , the excitement of the hovertrain ’ s development is remembered fondly by those who were young at the time .
It was a staple of news broadcasts , a promise that would revolutionize communities .
In the meantime , British Rail was advancing its plans to create the Advanced Passenger Train ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using hydraulic rams that could tilt the train as it turned to build up speed .
The government could not justify funding two separate high-speed rail projects , and the APT was chosen .
It proved to be equally doomed .
Elsewhere in Britain , the designers of the maglev train replaced the RTV 31 ’ s problematic hoverpads with electromagnets .
The tracked hovercraft now had to compete with the zero- energy , steel-wheeled APT and the lower-energy lift system of the maglev train .
But the British government never took up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries pushed forward with high-speed rail .
Today , maglev technology powers the fastest route in the world : the Shanghai-to-Beijing bullet train , traveling up to 268 mph .
In 2015 , Japan unveiled plans to introduce a new track between Tokyo and Osaka that would be able to travel at a record-breaking 314 mph .
The prospect of British high-speed rail , however , constantly hovers but is never realized .
This article appears in the Spring 2020 print issue .

In the town of Peterborough, the sole-surviving relic of Britain’s doomed venture into hovercraft train travel looms over the entrance to a derelict coal yard.
In the town of Peterborough, the sole-surviving relic of Britain’s doomed venture into hovercraft train travel looms over the entrance to a derelict coal yard.
The RTV 31, a sleek bullet-headed train painted with a now faded Union Jack, has the charm of a sci-fi movie prop—a testament to the expanding imagination of the 1960s and a world with its eyes turned toward outer space. But for the RTV 31, the future never arrived.
Once one of Britain’s most anticipated innovations, the test vehicle lay in a scrap heap until it was rescued more than 40 years ago by a group of conservationists intent on transforming a redundant power station’s coal yards into a wildlife haven and museum.
In the 1960s, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised that a “new Britain” would be forged in the “white heat” of a new scientific revolution. Combining the newly invented hovercraft with a linear induction motor, the tracked hovercraft train would ride on a cushion of air produced by fans.
In the 1960s, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised that a “new Britain” would be forged in the “white heat” of a new scientific revolution.
The track would be shaped like a T, with aluminum plates fixed on either side. Four pads provided the lift, with four more pads placed above them, rotating vertically to keep the RTV 31 balanced. Snow, rain, and debris would slide off the plates, keeping the train moving even in bad weather.
“Like to travel by train at 300 miles an hour? We may do in a few years’ time!” a news clip promised in 1966. Scientists hoped the RTV 31 would transport passengers from London to Glasgow in just two hours, outpacing the era’s conventional trains threefold. The project was budgeted at 5 million pounds—the equivalent of $130 million today.
As the speed of test vehicles increased, scientists discovered that the hovertrain needed less energy to keep it in motion than its wheeled counterparts. The monorail-style concrete blocks used on the track were simpler than existing railbeds, significantly reducing the cost of infrastructure.
However, trouble was on the horizon. The hoverpads required a lot of power and were so heavy they weighed down the train itself. The linear induction motor was bulky—not only difficult to build but making any adjustments a big job. The cost of building and laying new tracks was considered too high, and the project began to lose political support.
Eric Laithwaite, the inventor of the linear induction motor and an early proponent of the hovertrain, proclaimed it was “far too dangerous” to use, with the possibility of driving itself off the track. Other systems using the linear induction motor, most notably early maglev (“magnetic levitation”) projects, were leading the way—and the hovertrain struggled to keep up. In its first-ever test run, the train reached a discouraging 12 miles per hour. Estimates in 1972 that the project wouldn’t be ready until 1985 delivered another devastating blow.
The RTV 31 hovertrain “achieves a fair turn of speed” during a test run in Cambridgeshire, England, on Feb. 7, 1973.
A test track was built near Ely, in Cambridgeshire. In 1973, the RTV 31 hovered a few inches above a concrete track for the very first time. It reached a speed of 104 mph—a significant improvement but a disappointment compared with its initial promise of being able to travel between London and Glasgow in just a couple of hours.
One week later, funding for the project was officially canceled. Still, the excitement of the hovertrain’s development is remembered fondly by those who were young at the time. It was a staple of news broadcasts, a promise that would revolutionize communities.
In the meantime, British Rail was advancing its plans to create the Advanced Passenger Train (APT), a rival high-speed project using hydraulic rams that could tilt the train as it turned to build up speed. The government could not justify funding two separate high-speed rail projects, and the APT was chosen. It proved to be equally doomed.
Elsewhere in Britain, the designers of the maglev train replaced the RTV 31’s problematic hoverpads with electromagnets. The tracked hovercraft now had to compete with the zero-
energy, steel-wheeled APT and the lower-energy lift system of the maglev train. But the British government never took up the technology; instead, East Asian countries pushed forward with high-speed rail.
Today, maglev technology powers the fastest route in the world: the Shanghai-to-Beijing bullet train, traveling up to 268 mph. In 2015, Japan unveiled plans to introduce a new track between Tokyo and Osaka that would be able to travel at a record-breaking 314 mph. The prospect of British high-speed rail, however, constantly hovers but is never realized.
This article appears in the Spring 2020 print issue.