World War Two means different things to different people. For some Allies it an imperialist war, for others a war of liberation. In order to bind the population to the government the two wars had to be lost in each other. Nevertheless at some points the two different interpretations came to clash, the Greeks know all about this. Having liberated themselves from the fascists the British came… and rearmed the fascists.
Different post-war settlements meant various states went part way to meet working class demands and reabsorb the organised working class in the bourgeois hegemonic system in time for the cold war. World War Two became the key reference point it is today.
Of two key arguments the first was “He’s a Hitler”. If an anti-colonial leader wasn’t obviously a communist he was a fascist, and that’s why we must go to war on… sorry, intervene in this particular country. Here’s an example, John Reid on why the Iraq
The second argument, more prevalent in the past few years has been “The rules have changed”. In this example Tony Blair was announcing to the world he was going to eff up any suspicious brown people he wanted to.
This argument has become more significant under the long-term crisis of profitability. The current depression has made it all the more urgent (from the bourgeois point of view) to reorganise the economy and society, to transfer more wealth by various means from bottom to top and prop up the general rate of profit. The current strategy is called Austerity. All checks on executive power, both democratic and bureaucratic must be removed.
This is what David Cameron meant when he said Britain
An aside: look how far we’ve come from the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention. Trade equals war. It’s a fundamental weakness in the basis of capitalism. Due to the nature of commodities trade is simultaneously mutual and a form of competition, the source of all conflict. When Cameron talks about bureaucracy what he actually means is oversight:
"Government can still be far too slow at getting stuff done…Consultations, impact assessments, audits, reviews, stakeholder management, securing professional buy-in, complying with EU procurement rules, assessing sector feedback – this is not how we became one of the most powerful, prosperous nations on earth. It's not how you get things done. So I am determined to change this."Strange as it may seem, according to Cameron this bureaucracy has its roots in democracy.
"There are understandable reasons for that. When you have lobby groups lined up to criticise every action you take; parliamentary select committees ready to jump on every bump in the road; then the rational choice is to be cautious - even over cautious. But for the sake of our country's progress we have got to cut through this".He's also seeking to pass the parcel in terms of blame for the economic and social catastrophe he has engineered. It's not that we've too much austerity, no, the government would dish out more, if only the bureaucrats would stop pandering to 'lobby groups' and get on with it!
This is no argument for bureaucracy, but there are good reason and then there are real reasons, and the real reason Cameron is saying this is he wants to rig society even further in favour of his party and the rich.