Opinion: Welcome to Nursery Britain
Written by Matt Michael on 21st November 2008 – 4:45 pmAre you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.
In 1945, perhaps in a desire to continue the communal spirit of the war, Britain elected its only Socialist government. Swathes of privately-owned businesses were nationalised, capitalism was abandoned in favour of state ownership, and Liberalism, which had taken Great Britain from a dreary archipelago at the corner of Europe to a global powerhouse of industry and enterprise, was abandoned. And while the Attlee government did some great good in the creation of the NHS, after six years the British electorate had come to hate the drab, rationed austerity of the 1940s. Perhaps in a desire to resurrect some vestige of imperial prestige, they re-elected a decrepit Churchill – like Britain, a tragicomic echo of his old self.
But once in power, the Tories did nothing to reverse the Attlee revolution. Instead, they effected the mixed economy, a dismal synthesis of state socialism and capitalism that proved to be sclerotic for free trade and launched the nation into a thirty-year spiralling descent that was only arrested with the wholesale dissolution of British industry and the sale of the City of London to overseas investors.
Since the brief experiment of Socialist government between 1945 and 1951, Britain has been faced with a choice between two essentially social democratic parties, both believing that the state can – and should – intervene in every aspect of public and private life in order to impose their vision of what society should be. And even the lady who believed that there was no such thing as society couldn’t control her instincts as a curtain-twitching busybody, prying into the most personal corners of our lives, enacting unfair taxation and betraying the promise of a Liberal revolution in favour of the continuation of the social democratic consensus.
For almost 60 years we’ve tolerated – actively encouraged – government that has infantilised us “from cradle to grave”, that has taken away our freedom of choice and encouraged us to become increasingly reliant on central government to direct us: a state of affairs that removes any incentive to act as grownups. This is the insidious mollycoddling of the nanny state, and it’s therefore hardly surprising that some British people are disinclined to go to school, get a job or take responsibility for their own lives – what’s the point? The state will pick us up, stick a plaster on our knee, pat us on the head and pop us back in the playpen.
The paradox is that most people, if pressed, would prefer to choose how to spend their money or live their lives rather than abdicate that responsibility to the state. But words and figures don’t match. And for all that The Guardian might claim that Blair-Brown have created a cosy consensus that means we’re happy to pay high taxes for ever-proliferating (and more costly) government, this is only because neither of the two largest parties is actively offering an alternative.
For all that Tories might claim they want to “roll back the state” there’s scant evidence in the previous 60 years to suggest that they have any desire to limit or undo what successive Labour governments have done. In truth, their centralising impulse – manifested in opposition to devolution, prurient laws to limit personal freedom and government management of exchange rates and international trade – belies the Tories’ claims. Though the emphasis differs, they believe in a state-controlled society as much as Blair or Benn or Brown ever did. David Cameron’s Conservative Party is a social democratic party, just as Major’s, Heath’s and Thatcher’s were.
Social democracy is the problem, not the solution. A definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It follows that electing either Labour or the Tories at the next election will simply prolong the pain. But Labour and the Tories have got us greedily suckling the milk of state welfare. Not only will Britain vote to prolong the pain, like an indulged child, we aren’t even consciously aware that there is another way. And so we’ll keep paying ever higher taxes for ever more inefficient services, giving up our freedoms, one by one, and living in Nursery Britain because the Government (Red or Blue) tells us that the world outside is a scary, dangerous place. But if we’re good children and we play nicely and do as nanny says, everything will be all right.
At the moment, the Liberal Democrats are part of this consensus. We don’t talk enough about reducing central government, empowering local communities to make their own decisions and shouting out that free trade and free markets, with socially responsible regulation, are far better at generating wealth and delivering efficient and effective services than the state has ever proved itself capable of. We don’t talk up the choice. In short, we don’t treat people like adults.
The state can’t fix every problem, and we shouldn’t perpetuate the illusion that it can. Of course there are many hard choices to be made, between taxation and public spending, the level of government provision of welfare, and about what kind of regulation is required to discourage irresponsible borrowing and unethical business practices. Devolution in itself is not the answer, without revisiting what the role and scope of central and local government should be – that’s simply exchanging one nanny for another. But to avoid debating these questions openly is to continue the infantilising of the electorate. It’s also deeply illiberal.
As a party, we are best placed to make the case for the constitutional limitation of government, the importance of devolution and the benefits of free-market capitalism. We have not been in government for almost a century and so have not been blinded to the limits of social planning by the exercise of power. We are not responsible for creating Nursery Britain. Liberalism offers the real choice for change. But only if we start talking about it.
* Matt Michael is a Liberal Democrat member in Lewisham.
Related posts:
Tags: david cameron
Posted in Op-eds
21st November 2008 at 5:43 pm
OK, I want you, Tom Papworth, and Charlotte Gore to take over the party. Please don’t hang about. The Lib Dem ship is getting tossed all over the place at the moment and it’s making me ill.
Great article.
21st November 2008 at 6:02 pm
What about me, Boyce? Where’s my piece of pie?
21st November 2008 at 6:04 pm
The problem with this article is that the first 3 paragraphs are garbage.
The Labour share of the vote was 49.7%, 46.1, 48.8 and the Tory share 36.2%, 40.0, 44.3 in 1945, 1950, 1951 respectively (Yes the Tories won in 1951 despite being 4.5% behind). To suggest that Labour lost because the public hated the situation is silly - clearly so because if it was true then Churchill wouldnt have stuck to Labour’s vision.
To suggest that this was the only period where there was any socialism or nationalisation is also daft… but not as silly as describing Thatcher as a social democrat!
And it’s not true to say that from 1950 to 1980 was a 30 year “spiral of descent”, or if it was true it was a very slow spiral indeed - that didnt go very far.
I generally agree with some of the thrust about excessive statism, but if you start off an article with such an untrue picture of the world you’re not going to get people to take the rest seriously…
21st November 2008 at 6:07 pm
Do you mean liberalism or libtertarianism because there is a clear difference.
I will support ‘rolling back the state’ when people stop using it as code for leaving people on the trash heap…
21st November 2008 at 6:13 pm
Oh Darrell, change the record.
21st November 2008 at 6:15 pm
No, why dont you??
21st November 2008 at 6:17 pm
Of course you’re right up there Julian. More girls please!
21st November 2008 at 6:20 pm
Charlotte, I believe, is not the one making repetitive comments on other people’s blogs (and spending hours of their week dreaming up bizarre conspiracy theories about fellow party members). But this is in danger of becoming embarrassingly childish, so a change of record from all, please. And back to the point - there is very little difference between the three strands of social democracy being offered to the electorate.
(Laurence: woo! We have a deal)
21st November 2008 at 6:24 pm
I think the Conservatives and their members will be very surprised to find they are a ’social-democratic’ party…they are patently not…the notion that they offer a social democratic programm is just a nonsense….why is any form of state intervention dammed as ’social democratic’ when even this article calls for;
“socially responsible regulation”…
sounds social-democratic to me…
21st November 2008 at 6:27 pm
“Hey there, ‘poor’ people, man up and sort yourself out. Want the state to provide you with healthcare, education and a safety net? Walk it off! Hey voters, Tories not Tory enough for you? Vote Lib Dem!”
… next.
21st November 2008 at 6:29 pm
Andy - by “provide” do you mean “subsidise” or “control”?
21st November 2008 at 6:31 pm
You’re getting the hang of it Andy!
21st November 2008 at 6:35 pm
Social Democratic is probably the wrong term, but the Social Democrats and Tories are essentially the same in methodology - the state is the solution and liberalism is to be opposed.
Social democracy is the adaptation of Tory means to socialist ends.
Both are authoritarian creeds, inextricably opposed to liberalism.
Darrell: Libertarianism is not about throwing anyone on the scrapheap, its about freeing people to live their lives without being thrown on the scrapheap and allowing people to cooperate to help each other. It seeks to strike at the root of the problems which cause poverty not to cover them up with the dirty plaster of more state action.
21st November 2008 at 6:40 pm
Tristan…
I think Andy summed up rather neatly what it is all about. How, in concrete, do you propose to ’strike at the root causes of poverty’ then?? To me Clegg best summed it up when talking about the Tories economic plans which amount to, in practice, doing nothing…
21st November 2008 at 6:44 pm
Andy:
Ummm no, more “Hey poor, rise up against your oppressors and those who keep you poor.
Rise up against the authoritarians who seek to control your lives.”
Plus a bit of “Hey politicians, stop taking money from those who work to pay for your lifestyles and grant favours to your mates”
The point is there should be no need for tax funded health care or social services. Poverty is actually a solvable problem but the biggest obstacle is the state and its actions which prevent the poor from improving their lives - or others from helping them (unless you happen to be very rich)
21st November 2008 at 6:50 pm
I think the Conservatives and their members will be very surprised to find they are a ’social-democratic’ party
Err, no. The brighter and more historically alert ones wouldn’t be surprised at all, although needless to say, they’d doubtless engage in some enjoyable factionalism about whether the persistent social democratic nature of their party within recent memory is a good thing or a bad thing. But I agree with the post that we are indeed experiencing a social democratic consensus of sorts, and I do think it would be fun, to put it no more strongly than that, to see what would happen if any mainstream party was brave enough to offer a serious alternative - especially at a time when the flaws of the current arrangements are being all too apparent.
21st November 2008 at 6:52 pm
Tristan,
“The point is there should be no need for tax funded health care or social services.”
But there so patently is because unless I am very much mistaken the reason the state had to step in and provide in the first place was because the ‘free market’ wasnt and still doesnt..and this is where my initial comments because this is where you end up in practice…
It’s bitterly ironic that Americans have just voted and decided overwhelmingly that there is a need for better and more universal provision of healthcare we want to travel in the opposite direction…
21st November 2008 at 6:54 pm
Please don’t tell me you think the US has a free market in health care. It doesn’t. And it hasn’t, for a VERY long time.
21st November 2008 at 6:55 pm
Bunny,
My point would be that the Conservative Party has never come out in favour of something like the nationalisation of the commanding heights or anything like that…they have accepted the consensus around the provison of health and education and basically the priciple that there must be a safety net because that has been the political consensus for a substantial amount of time….i don’t think around the welfare state this is something new at all….
21st November 2008 at 7:00 pm
It’s not bitterly ironic Darrell - the grass is always greener. But we can get there in stages. Vouchers and top-ups are the way to go. Let’s wean ourselves off the hard drugs and onto the Methadone, and then . . . who knows? One day we might even get clean.
21st November 2008 at 7:02 pm
Anon,
Of course I dont but Obama was clearly elected on a program of extending state subsidised provision wasnt he???
21st November 2008 at 7:06 pm
The tories as social democrats? Good lord. You don’t think it more likely that they learned to live with the NHS because that’s clearly what the overwhelming majority of the electorate wanted and expected, and to do otherwise would have been be to commit electoral suicide?
That’s the thing about libertarianism; it doesn’t even matter whether there’s any merit in the ideology, because the fact is there is on way on Earth that any party advocating it will ever get elected.
21st November 2008 at 7:06 pm
Laurence,
But where after the Methadone to accept your anaology?? Are the vouchers and top-up’s taken away?? How does the state even provide or is there no provision; making Andy essentially right??
21st November 2008 at 7:10 pm
Details, details . . .
21st November 2008 at 7:11 pm
Darrell:
Why do you mention Tory policy? Are you perhaps confused that the Tories might be libertarians? Far from it.
Libertarians aim to abolish the regulations which support the rich and harm the poor, which prevent entry into the market and raise prices. The Tories support these regulations whole heartedly (as does the Labour Party).
Far from doing nothing, libertarians would seek to actually roll back the state, allow people to keep more of their wages (ideally workers would keep 100% of the product of their labour).
We would move to a free market (which is nothing like what we have today) which would benefit the poor by breaking the monopolies which ramp up prices.
21st November 2008 at 7:13 pm
http://www.lpuk.org
21st November 2008 at 7:17 pm
“That’s the thing about libertarianism; it doesn’t even matter whether there’s any merit in the ideology, because the fact is there is on way on Earth that any party advocating it will ever get elected.”
Despite my comments here, I have much sympathy with this, Iainm. I am deeply suspicious of libertarianism. But it is in terms of direction of travel that I am cheering this on. I really feel this is the way to go, but for now I am still retaining membership of the “all the libertarians I know are tools” Facebook group.
21st November 2008 at 7:19 pm
Tristan,
Because there policies are actually important in determaining whether or not they are social democrats and I explained the qualification why they werent even though they accepted the consensus in my reply to Bunny…
You see, some of that sounds good to me…until it hits the snag that this would not break up the monopolies, they would still after all have their savings and vastly larger infrastructure, and they would be left holding the loot and turning the screws so to speak…i see a dichotomy between what you say ‘breaking up the state’ would achieve and what it actually would achieve in practice….you say that workers would be allowed to keep 100% of their wages which is fine until you come up against the fact that everybody gets different wages…so, would you for example curtail executive pay which is a regulation??
21st November 2008 at 7:20 pm
*sighs*
What free market? Before the NHS reams of regulation was brought in to restrict medical care.
The rest of the market was just as unfree.
Why do you think so many people were criticising the lack of free market in the 19th Century? Why they were doing so in the 1920s and 30s?
Where was this free market which couldn’t supply? Nowhere. It was never allowed to develop.
The myth of the NHS is powerful, but it is a myth, and it wasn’t what Beveridge had even planned (not that that stops people claiming the NHS is ‘liberal’ because a Liberal designed it).
As for the US - did people vote for anything other than ‘Change’? I know Americans who are steadfast against socialised healthcare, but voted for Obama because he was the lesser of two evils.
Do you agree with every position of the people you vote for? If you do you are a very strange person (or the candidate themselves).
I’d also like to note that Obama is against an NHS style health service - he opposes mandatory health insurance (which is at least a bit liberal).
I’m not really sure what your point is though. Some Americans reject their current, state dominated system, so the free market doesn’t work?
21st November 2008 at 7:23 pm
The chief attraction of President Obama is surely that he is not totally crazy?
21st November 2008 at 7:35 pm
Darrell:
Firstly, I said that Social Democrat wasn’t the right term, so I don’t know why you’re harping on about that - the point is that the authoritarian mindset dominates and the social democrats are the dominant form of that (I think of Social Democracy as the Toryism of the left - they’re the same methods, have similar results, just differing rhetoric).
You assume that in the free market we’d have the same institutions and systems. That is very very unlikely considering how dependent upon regulation these institutions are.
True, people earn different amounts, but that’s due to differing productivity in the free market (unlike today). That is not a problem however, overall wealth will be higher and I’d argue that inequality would be lower - largely due to the equality in authority which prevents privilege and abuse of power.
21st November 2008 at 7:39 pm
You can promote a free market by abolishing nonsense like VAT, thus bringing prices to market levels.
As someone who is certainly not a libertarian, that is something I’d put my own name to.
21st November 2008 at 7:51 pm
Tristan,
Just you asked why I mentioned Tory policy which I feel is pertinant to a discussion of what they actually are. I think the difference is I dont see the main ideological divide as being between ‘authoritarians’ and ‘liberals’…
So, you are saying they will just cave as the state withers?? This is where we are disagreeing because I dont see it happening that way….I dont agree, I think truly big corporations have more than enough resource wise to ‘go it alone’ regulation or none…
By what measure are you determaning productivity though?? Is it a social one?? Because in that case a nurse is more socially productive than an executive…is it in terms of producing new capital? Because if it is that discriminates against roles which are socially productive does it not?? What I am really driving at is that I feel there are different *kinds* of productivity and not just different levels…If you are saying inequality would be lower is this because all the money would trickle down??
How would that happen; because I cant see people at the top willingly relinquishing control of it?? They are going to say ‘well I did a deal worth say £50,000′ so under the principle that a worker gets 100% of their wages or what they produce I am keeping that entire pot because I did that deal and won all that money…
21st November 2008 at 8:01 pm
This is the heart of the matter: the rigged, loaded, weighted system that protects vested interests and strangles every economic entity financially to try to compensate the ‘losers’ is *not* a free market system. It’s not what *I* want, and it’s frankly what I’m trying to get away from.
The more ’stuff’ happening, the more jobs and wealth there will be. Our system guarantees very little ’stuff’ happening, with the benefits going to very few. The solution is not to squeeze those lucky few more. The solution is to liberalise. Yet no-one dares advocated because of knee-jerk reactions that any move away from the status quo is some kind of return to the victorian era. It’s like trying to tell some that the reason they have a bleeding arm is because they keep scratching it and the solution is to stop scratching - when all they want to do is find better and faster methods of healing the wound.
21st November 2008 at 8:11 pm
I should first point out that I’m approaching this topic as a Lib Dem voter, rather than a Lib Dem member, so there’s absolutely no reason for anyone to take on board what I’m saying, but there are a couple of points I’d like to make.
1) As Mark Wright points out at the top of this thread, the writer is either being imprecise in his use of post-war electoral politics as a contextual backdrop, or is historically illiterate.
2) I’ve got to say that I’m not crazy about deprived communities being described as a ‘playpen’, so please pick a better metaphor next time.
3) As is the case with so many critiques of the welfare state, this piece is conveniently vague. In the interest of seriousness, it’d be helpful to receive some kind of guesstimate of how much Job Seekers’ Allowance should be cut by, how much child support should be cut by, how much incapacity benefit should be cut by and how much money we should put into social housing (if at all). I’d also like a confirmation that the author - in keeping with a strictly liberal reading of economics - would abolish the minimum wage. When he’s done all that, I’d like some kind of practical hypothesis for how all this should improve the lives of those with no job, no qualifications, no skills and several children to support. When he’s done with that, I’d like to know which Lib Dem seats he’s happy to lose to the Labour Party.
Or is this just another exercise in political theory which isn’t meant to mean anything in practice?
21st November 2008 at 8:13 pm
Charlotte,
Somewhere in there im detecting some contradictions between what you and Tristan are saying…but maybe its just the contradiction I feel there is between your stated ends and the means you employ to get their….I dont think the means will take you to the place you are stating you want to be; I dont see corporations collapsing over night or is that not the end you want??
I feel that’s where your means leave you in practice…it might not be your stated goal but that’s the hard reality of where it would lead in my opinion…
21st November 2008 at 8:19 pm
Neil, I believe some libertarians support a Citizens Basic Income to replace many benefits. It would disincentivise having large families, & would be much simpler. It would also incentivise work by removing the benefits trap. I have entertained the idea myself. I think there should be DLA/incapacity benefit as before though.
Not really in the mood for links (have been working too hard), but it’s all there on the ’sphere: it began as a leftist idea but has been taken up by libertarians.
I can’t speak for any contributors to this thread though.
21st November 2008 at 8:24 pm
The piece reads rather like the outpourings of a naive FCS member from the early 1980’s after a long night in the union bar.
Clearly, the author is too young to have met anyone who remembers what life was like before the 1945-51 Labour government, otherwise he wouldn’t write such nonsense.
Does he really think the Tories would have returned to power if they had advocated the abolition of the NHS, or handing back the collieries to the mine owners, or the repeal of the town planning legislation?
Now, let’s give the guy his due. At least he accepts that the NHS is a good thing and that some “social regulation” is necessary (even Sir Sheath Joseph said there needed to be a “safety net”). I don’t suppose he would like to see 80 hour weeks and emlpoyers having the right to horsewhip slacking staff. Or condos along the Seven Sisters and Noddy houses in Wensleydale.
As I explained to the people who were advocating the lynching of the killers of Baby P the other day, if we didn’t have the state, we would have a free-for-all in which the most powerful would come out on top. Those who don’t believe me, go and visit Somalia.
21st November 2008 at 8:29 pm
Asquith,
Yes to citizens basic income, replacing most benefits. Keep benefits for incapacity and disability (but not in current form). Create unemployment and recession insurance markets.
No marginal tax rates trapping people in poverty. A smaller state can also be more redistrubitive and egalitarian.
21st November 2008 at 8:33 pm
Quite so, James Schneider, which is why I advocate the raising of the tax threshold, the abolition of VAT, (rather controversially on these pages) an anti-EU stance, & a lot more.
I also support the encouragement of various cooperative, voluntary & mutual institutions (including trades unions), & friendly societies etc.
I envisage a need for more state than the libertarians do though, since I do think there will need to be a safety net. & in the end I’d rather have a system with a few chancers abuse it than not have one at all.
21st November 2008 at 8:37 pm
“I’d like some kind of practical hypothesis for how all this should improve the lives of those with no job, no qualifications, no skills and several children to support.”
At some point in this argument . . . somewhere along the line . . . without wishing to sound like an evil Tory . . . we absolutely have to question . . . whether someone with no qualifications . . . and no skills . . . should be having several children.
Several children? Ought they maybe to consider having no children?
21st November 2008 at 8:51 pm
Laurence Boyce wrote:
“Several children? Ought they maybe to consider having no children?”
Yes, it would be great if unemployable, chain-smoking slobs didn’t reproduce. But here’s the rub. How do you stop them?
Readers may recall that in 1976 Sir “Sheath” Joseph ruined his chances of becoming Tory Leader by saying something very similar to Laurence.
21st November 2008 at 8:55 pm
Yes, there is nothing more lethal to a political career than stating the obvious.
21st November 2008 at 9:00 pm
Asquith,
Raising of the tax threashold - good
abolition of VAT - not on all products and gradually - but in principle yes
Anti EU stance - please explain
Co-ops etc - brilliant - we should be thinking of ways in which we can incentivize this sort of ownership structure - different corporation tax levels dependent on ownership structure?
21st November 2008 at 9:04 pm
Laurence/Sesenco - if we moved to a citizens basic income people would no longer be incentivized to have lots of kids if they can’t support them (i.e. need to get society to help out). This is very different from attempting to actively stop people reproducing, but more fairly reflecting what social cost their choices have on society.
21st November 2008 at 9:08 pm
Several children? Ought they maybe to consider having no children?
I wouldn’t disagree, Lawrence. But there they are, all the same, and they need feeding every once in a while
21st November 2008 at 9:36 pm
Asquith,
Raising of tax threshold - yes
Abolition of VAT - Yes
Anti-Eu - no, sorry I am pro-european…
Co-ops and voluntaries - yes lol, we discuss this many a time
21st November 2008 at 9:38 pm
Asquith,
Thanks for that, and I think there’s certainly room for a discussion about the Basic Income. My main problem with this piece and others like it (I’ve read too many since the Baby P thing, and the Shannon Matthews incident several months before) is that it diagnoses the welfare state as the problem. It isn’t. The problem is a normative one; generations of entrenched poverty and perpetual joblessness have led to negative social norms in deprived communities, which are being passed down with every generation.
As I see it, cutting welfare - or even just replacing it with a basic income - won’t, by itself, help/force someone with no job, education, experience or tangible skills to be in a better position to get a job than they were before. Nor will it necessarily lead to more stable familes, better lives for their kids and a drop in crime.
For me, the imperative is to re-establish in deprived/socially excluded communities some of the social norms of wider society. I don’t see how libertarianism/tiny state Lib Demmery is going to achieve that, but I can envisage ways in which a social democrat government could.
21st November 2008 at 9:39 pm
Actually, on tax thereshold do you mean inheritence tax or do you mean taking the bottom percentile out of tax?? If it’s the former im going to have to perform a public u-turn lol
21st November 2008 at 9:47 pm
Asquith,
In terms of the Citizens Basic Income how would you determine it??
I take your point and I think it’s an idea I could support depending on the specifics; however, can I raise the issue that incentivising people to work would also mean looking at wages in employment and conditions as well as benefits…
21st November 2008 at 9:49 pm
It’s rather strange to moan about the public sector when public sector ethos has been more or less abandoned in favour of managerialism cribbed from the private sector.
The article also ignores the infantilising effect of housing bubbles and the lure of easy money.
21st November 2008 at 9:53 pm
If the right to have children is to be dependent upon (1) having educational qualifications, (2) a moderately healthy lifestyle, and (3) employability, Miss Y gets through hoop No 1 (she has two GCSEs), and Craig Meehan gets through hoop No 3 (he was a supermarket fishmonger).
21st November 2008 at 9:57 pm
I really don’t think living in a jungle is more desirable than being imprisoned in a nursery.
There’s also no way in the world I wish to rehabilititate Malthus as a theorist - let him stay spouting polemics in academia.
Political parties are vehicles for activity which provide a forum for ideogical debate, they are not vehicles for the proselytising of ‘the one, true’ ideology as a means to clamp down on debate and suppress original thinking.
‘Annoyingly wishy-washy LibDems, not one thing or the other’ goes the standard criticism. Well thank jiminy, at least we are broad enough to allow for some balance and include contributions from across the spectrum.
21st November 2008 at 10:04 pm
Neil,
Now we’re talking. What would you suggest to tackle the problems endemic in deprived communities? I think a citizens basic income is one step as it removes some disincentives to work. Legalisation, regulation, and taxation of drugs would be another. These are not necessarily sufficient. What do you suggest?
Darrell,
The Citizens Income would be set by three criteria: the amount of redistribution desired, the amount of money we have after restructuring spending, the amount of money that it is deemed unacceptable for anybody to live without in a developed society.
The best figures I’ve seen involve turning most benefits into the CBI and scrapping things like the DTI (or its successor - already LibDem policy). This comes to around 6.5k per annum. We could also fund education out of this and remove child tax credit. Each child would also receive the CBI into a trust. The parents/guardian would then apply to a body which controls the trust to use that money for their kids until they turn 18. This would be used to fund education. It could be used to fund child care, health insurance etc. The CBI would tapper off so that the rich don’t also receive it.
What do you mean specifically by “incentivising people to work would also mean looking at wages in employment and conditions as well as benefits…”?
21st November 2008 at 10:05 pm
Sesenco,
Is anybody really arguing that one has to prove to the State your worth as a parent? Are we really going to condone interference in reproductive rights in this manner?
21st November 2008 at 10:29 pm
Darrell wrote: “Do you mean liberalism or libtertarianism because there is a clear difference.”
If he fancies the NHS, he’s hardly a libertarian. Unfortunately many Lib Dems seems to think, that that’s the best health care system Britain could get.
21st November 2008 at 10:35 pm
James Schneider,
Of course we can’t.
But don’t think we have never done so.
When my aunt was a health visitor in Glasgow in the 1950s, one of her clients was a young woman of extremely low intelligence who had acquired the habit of “sleeping around”. Unchecked, she would have produced a baby a year for the next 20 to 25 years, leaving the state with a menagerie of simpletons who would be a burden on the public purse for life. The state solved the problem by sterilising her.
21st November 2008 at 10:37 pm
James
That seems workable enough to me….though I have to confess to a little tierdness so I reserve the right to expand on that later :)…can I suggest however that something that could be included would be the possibility of ‘earning’ more by doing voluntary work etc (think Asquith will like that one ;))
I was talking in broad terms but wages would have to be at a level which made work the better option …i presume the minimum wage would still exist for example?? In terms of conditions we have to consider a whole range of issues; ie, measures that get people into work that suits them etc and that may include training etc, and incorporating education opportunities into the structure of the scheme…
21st November 2008 at 10:55 pm
Sesenco,
The State sterilized her? What?
Darrell,
Then voluntary work wouldn’t be voluntary. I don’t think I like that idea. How would it work?
21st November 2008 at 11:01 pm
James,
Yes it would; it would be entirely optional…maybe i didnt stress that enough. Over on Asquith’s blog we were talking about volunteering for the CAB;…is there not a way that if people chose to do something like that there would be a material benefit??
21st November 2008 at 11:13 pm
Oh dear. “The state will pick us up, pat us on the head and pop us back in the playpen.” Yes, and a lot more beautiful empty rhetoric besides. But what does it mean?
Should taxes be lower, if so how much lower, and what services shall we stop funding? You don’t give an opinion.
Shall we just scrap all benefits, and let people starve to death? You don’t give an opinion.
I dare say some people will like the mood music. I think most of us would prefer to see workable policies. Some of us might add that when the nation is in crisis, when ordinary people are worried sick about their jobs and livelihoods, we really don’t want to listen to abstract theoretical nihilism.
There are practical things we should be doing to make the State conduct its necessary business in a less bossy, authoritarian and centralised way. These need to be thought through and explored with care. Generalised preaching and exhortation won’t do!
21st November 2008 at 11:23 pm
Darrell,
Who decides what volunteer work counts? How much? How is this checked? How is this enforced?
It’s a nice idea, but I don’t see how it could ever work practically.
21st November 2008 at 11:25 pm
Darrell and James
The very definition of CBI is a “non-wthdrawable and unconditional” benefit, so you can’t randomly say “richer people don’t get it”. If you want to claw it back you use the tax system. An equivalent to CBI, you can use a “negative income tax” to do this more explicitly. Interestingly I read today that Obama seems interested in a negative income tax. That might at least rehabilitate the idea of CBI/Negative Income Tax in the UK as the three Obamessianic mainstream parties here rush to emulate his policy…:)
Darrell:
The point of having a CBI is that it gives labour a cushion on which they could just about scrape a living if not earning something else.
It very fundamentally, on its own, therefore shifts the balance of power from employer to employee because they have, at last, the economic freedom to say “stick your job, I can survive until I find a better employer”, and for many, this can also translate into “I can afford to stay alive while I build up my self-employed business” or “I can afford to stay alive while I go and get retrained for this better career” and so on.
The minimum wage would be removed - and before anyone gets all “but that’s essential anti-exploitation stuff” this is a position I understand to be accepted with approbation by groups even like Compass, from a blog post I read a year or so ago anyway.
Conveniently, taxing all land at full economic rent would provide just about enough cash to pay a CBI of about £100 per week to adults and a declining amount for under-18s down to infants.
21st November 2008 at 11:27 pm
I anticiapte having some mechanism for rewarding voluntary work in the form of local currency, indeed was talking to some of your fellow Oxford students about the idea last night at the inaurgural monthly meet and greet session of OxHub and OxSent…:)
21st November 2008 at 11:29 pm
James,
I dont see it being hard to check and enforce particularly; for JSA you have to provide evidence of looking for work etc. A timesheet signed and sealed would do the trick….when I worked for an agency it was all I had.
The first two are tricker to answer…i think i can be forgiven at least on the second for not nailing it down to a precise figure?? On the first one it may well be offered by advisers on the benefit itself, work that ties in with either aspirations or talents of the person in question…it could be part of a tailored package which includes the educational aspect??
21st November 2008 at 11:31 pm
Good stuff!
But the liberal party is not best known for its support of free-market capitalism.
You will wake up one day and realise you joined the wrong party!
21st November 2008 at 11:34 pm
James,
So, you invisage that it would drive up wages by increaseing bargaining power then???
I’m not going to leap on you because I can see the logic behind that position. However, I would ask how do you invisage this tieing in with other measures that improve the bargaining power of employees…?? I am thinking about specifically how our proposed works councils would be endowed or otherwise…and vis a vie trade union rights?? These things are kind of what i meant when talking about conditions…
21st November 2008 at 11:34 pm
James,
Assuming my imaginary government isn’t restrained by realpolitik, the following spring to mind:
- First, I’m operating on the basis that social dysfunction is something which happens over generations; it’s not entirely Labour’s fault, nor entirely the fault of Major/Thatcher. As such, there are some parents who simply aren’t up to the job of raising a kid, largely because their own parents weren’t up to the job, and so on. Now, bad parenting doesn’t always lead to that kid developing the kinds of behavioural problems which lead to truancy, and then crime, and then yet more broken families, but there’s still a strong connection.
- In 2007, the government piloted the Family Nurse Partnership in a few deprived areas. It operates under the increasingly accepted assumption that positive ‘Early Intervention’ in a child’s life is vital, and so nurses are dispatched to young families to offer the kind of advice and assistance in how to nurture their kids that their own parents might not have had. It’s won positive reviews thus far, and if it could be successfully expanded, you might see less need for social workers a few years down the line.
- The second thing is ensuring that SureStart remains comitted to its original goals of providing health & family support, community outreach etc, and doesn’t just contract into a glorified, state-run creche. Adult education in literacy, numeracy and computer skills is also important.
- After school clubs/youth clubs/etc. Parents (particularly single parents) aren’t always around when school finishes, and kids need somewhere safe to socialise, to avoid being dragged into gang culture.
- Somewhat related to that, I’d agree with you on drugs, though I also think there’s scope for expanded treatment of drug/alcohol misuse.
- The prison service needs radical reform to reduce reoffending: better drug treatment, psychological counselling, literacy/numeracy education and, most importantly, making sure prisoners have somewhere to live once they’re released.
Since this is a list, and I always leave stuff off lists, there’s bound to be something I’ve forgotten, but you’ve probably read enough. I realise this is enough to put me on a libertarian’s death list, but in defence of these ideas, I don’t think any of them need to be administered by Whitehall; they could be run just as effectively by PCTs & local government, and there’s a role for charities/social enterprises to play too.
Just to finish where I started, there is no quick way of resolving that which has festered for generations, and anyone who pretends otherwise is selling you snake oil. I’ll also fully accept that some of these ideas could be dismissed out of expense/impracticality. But they do, at least, address some of the root causes of social dysfunction which I touched upon earlier.
No ideology has a monopoly on good ideas, but whilst I’d love for it to be possible to diminish massive (and costly) social problems whilst cutting state spending at the same time, most of the proposals I’ve read for doing so rely heavily on magical thinking.
21st November 2008 at 11:34 pm
>I think a citizens basic income is one step as it removes some disincentives to work.
Isn’t that the minimum wage?
And what work is there to actually get? With hundreds of redundancies being announced every day at the moment?
Some of this thread reminds me of John Redwood, demonising single mothers.
Banning the poor from reproducing? Maybe we could just drop neutron bombs on sink housing estates and cut the numbers that way?
Or scrap their benefits and let them scavenge on rubbish tips.(It used to be coal tips pre-1945, but there aren’t any left).
>the parents/guardian would then apply to a body which controls the trust to use that money for their kids until they turn 18.
Teacher friends have kids turning up aged five who don’t know how to use a knife and fork. The parents have no education because they didn’t see the point when they were in school. They are unemployable, even if there were any jobs, and their idea of ‘parent power’ and involvement in the kids’ future is to go to the school and threaten violence if a teacher gives their kids a detention.
Unless you can engage today’s kids and get them to see life differently from their parents, the problems will perpetuate.
As for the NHS, the demise of NHS dentistry in many places has led to people pulling their own teeth out with pliers, because they can’t afford private insurance.
Lastly: if you think it’s so great, surviving without a welfare safety net, quit your job and try it.
21st November 2008 at 11:45 pm
Jock,
Could you let me know when the next meeting is taking place (through facebook probably).
Darrell,
What do you want to do with trade union rights? And yes I think a CBI probably would increase the bargaining power of low waged workers.
21st November 2008 at 11:49 pm
Glad if you all vote Lib Dem.
21st November 2008 at 11:56 pm
James,
I have a reply ‘in moderation’, which I guess is either for excessive linking or being a social policy dweeb. You’ll discover in due course.
22nd November 2008 at 12:01 am
James,
It would depend to me how our proposals on work councils panned out to be honest. Because our current position is merely to encourage their formation there is still going to be a need for them I would imagine.
I think i am correct in saying it’s our position to review the issue of union rights?? This is one of those issues where there has to be some kind of balance…there should be better protection for workers who participate in a lawfully constituted strike. I also think the process of balloting is unnecessarily complicated…
22nd November 2008 at 12:18 am
“You will wake up one day and realise you joined the wrong party!”
Yes, it is the repeated lament that the Tories are that unspeakable evil, a bunch of “social democrats”, that gives the game away.
Once upon a time, the Tories used to welcome bright young Vulcanites and right-wing ideologues, who could think the unthinkable to their hearts’ content. These people provided an intellectual smokescreen, while “privatisation” ran riot, and the Tories’ cronies made off with their ill-gotten gains.
But now, Cameron has taken over, with his “Don’t frighten the horses!” policy. Vulcanites are no longer welcome in today’s Tory Party. (Or at least, they had better pipe down until the election has been safely won.) So, what to do?
Well, why not look for a smaller party, run until recently by ageing leadership coasting along in the comfort zone, and try a bit of entryism?
Welcome to the Liberal Democrats. Proud, of course, of our formation from the Liberal - Social Democrats Alliance!
22nd November 2008 at 12:24 am
Well, why not look for a smaller party, run until recently by ageing leadership coasting along in the comfort zone, and try a bit of entryism?
Welcome to the Liberal Democrats.
Paranoid? Much! And somewhat insulting to be honest.
22nd November 2008 at 12:28 am
Neil,
I look forward to it.
Darrell,
Work councils? I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to. On the Union issue, I’m afraid this is an area I’m not very knowledgeable on so at this point I don’t have much to contribute.
22nd November 2008 at 12:32 am
James,
Ye, isnt one of our policy ideas in this area to encourage the formation of works councils; not make them mandatory but basically say they are a good thing and really should be done (something that incidentally could be encouraged fiscally maybe)?
I’m just thinking out loud really within the context of the debate we are having because I raised the issue of improving workplace conditions as an important part of incentivising people back to work….
22nd November 2008 at 12:37 am
“We believe that these models for works
councils are a good starting point for British businesses. We do not, however, feel they should be compulsory. Businesses which develop meaningful works councils will, we believe, be more productive and successful as the workforce will be more engaged with decision making and the future prosperity of the firm.” ….straight off the Lib Dem site…but OMG at it being from March 2005 -frown-
22nd November 2008 at 12:48 am
20 years after we get a proportional voting system the Liberal Democrats in there current form will have broken up and the successor party will look like this article. I suspect the green/left/community politics types will have migrated to and expanded and diluted Green Party.
While I enjoy the authors chucking of a hand grenade into the debate what he is proposing is impossible to put forward while we try to hold and expand the FPTP coalitions that get us our 63 seats. Why ?
- the partys cocaine addiction to oppertunism. Show me a Post Office, Shop or Bus route we won;t camapign to save.
- we have fished very heaviliy in the left liberal pool of public sector workers who rely on nursey Britain for there pay check. Just as I do !
- councillors dominate the party and just love councils whihc are a big chunk of nursery Britain
- many “liberals” didn’t go into politics to limit state power. They just want to use it to impose the values of the Guardian rather than the Daily Mail.
I often wonder which party i will join when it happens. The new Liberal Party or the Community Greens. The truth is it depends whioch mood I am in. Its that dilemma which is the best hope of keeping the party together post PR.
22nd November 2008 at 12:50 am
Darrell,
What is a work council? - Is this about industrial democracy? Please explain.
You won’t incentivize anyone to take on more work if the marginal tax rates are so high, regardless of how pleasant your employer is. Who’s going to work for effectively £2 per hour (after loss of benefits is taken into account) even if your boss is disarming, helpful, and takes you out for lunch. This is the crucial element.
22nd November 2008 at 12:53 am
David Morton,
How would the party fall apart post PR? What would happen to the other two? Which Lab or Con elements would merge with which LibDem elements?
Just a hypothetical, obviously.
22nd November 2008 at 1:08 am
James,
I refer you to my honourable friend, the Lib Dem rights and responsibilities at work policy paper;
“In Germany, France and Sweden well-established systems of information and consultation have proved to be a genuine success in developing effective partnerships in the workplace.
Meaningful dialogue
3.4 Liberal Democrats believe strongly that consultation in the workplace cannot be a device simply for legitimising decisions of employers,
especially where the workforce itself is unhappy with the outcome. The consultation process must also lead to the empowering of the employees
within the business for which they work.
Consultation should be a meaningful dialogue and not just an exchange of information.” So, it would probably have been quicker to say yes lol…and I am for looking at taxation too…i just think there is a place for the consideration of enviroment too
22nd November 2008 at 1:17 am
Ok fine.
What do you think about incentivizing co-operative ownership structures?
22nd November 2008 at 1:25 am
James,
I’m in favour of it; i have made some vauge noises on my blog about the concept of an ‘enabling state’ as discussions have evolved and my own views along with them…something which is somewhere between the two polarised positions just dismantling the state and total state ownership….
Going up and back a bit to my debate with Tristan I think that would be fertile ground for compromise…my main problem with what I guess would be called left-libertarianism is that i dont see it as practicable…and i see the means employed leading to the wrong places…
22nd November 2008 at 1:35 am
Darrell,
I think your debate with Tristan is not focusing on where it should be: gradualism. Your are both debating theoretical futures. Lets look for things that you would both support. See what its like when they are applied and then go from their. For example, the CBI is something that we can achieve broad support for. This could help bring about both a shrinking of the state, and an enabling process (whether you call that the state enabling, or the state being pull out of the way doesn’t really matter). Then we’ll inspect again. I think this should be the basis of debate. Anything we do will, and should be gradualist (even drug legalisation) so lets not get too het up about who is or isn’t trying to make people starve, scavenge for food, or engaging in entryism. We’re all liberals of one shade or another. No one is perfectly right. Lets recognize that.
22nd November 2008 at 1:42 am
James,
Well I agree and that’s where this concept comes from; but there is no doubt in my mind if a ‘maximum program’ of dismantling the state was Lib Dem policy and it was elected (which as other contributors have said, not very likely) and that is what happened then that would without a shadow of the doubt be the end outcome…
We cannot move to a state the size of a pea from day 1…it can only happen when the right structures are in place to replace those necessary ones that the state performs….would I call a CBI enabling? Yes I would because it is providing the opportunity for people to get what they need without that reliance on the state….
22nd November 2008 at 1:53 am
James,
Incidentally, the reason I introduce it is to make the point that the stated means contradict the stated ends…and in fact would lead in the opposite direction…this is the core of the point im driving at…
22nd November 2008 at 1:55 am
CBI seems to have a reasonably broad support amongst Lib dem bloggers and in comment threads. When I explain it to people, they are generally favourable. How can we popularize the idea and help make it policy?
22nd November 2008 at 1:58 am
James,
Good question. Have you ever penned an article for here as a starting point?? Then I think its a case of rolling it out to branches for discussion…getting motions in support etc,etc…
22nd November 2008 at 2:05 am
JS. I’d argue that the Liberal Democrats (probably reverting to the title Liberals) would still exist. Its just without the glue of FPTP coalition building that
- our protest voters will peel off to more radical alternatives
- many on the liberal left will have viable options to vote for and get people elected. eg the Green Party
its only in that context that a party like the one Matt Michael describes could be (re ?) born. At which point the community politicans would jump ship
I suppose I’m predicting a UK version of the FDP and the Greens.
Just look at what has happened in the list type elections we already have.
22nd November 2008 at 2:23 am
Darrell,
I’ll try to write something next week once I’ve got a few essays out the way with.
David,
Yes but under the system you suggest the labour coalition would certainly split. Would the liberal remnant that shall remain then join up with a former liberal-Labour faction?
22nd November 2008 at 8:53 am
James,
Goodo….:)
22nd November 2008 at 10:17 am
I’ve got a question about the Citizen’s income. Won’t it encourage moderately well-off people to exit the labour market? Effectively shifting the benefits culture upward. For example, someone with a modest savings pot could combine their savings with the income and live quite comfortably.
22nd November 2008 at 1:08 pm
David Morton,
I don’t recognise the split you hypothesise. Coming from private industry, I don’t have either the self-interest, or the self-loathing, that public sector people may feel when they think about the so-called “nursery state”. I just think we as a nation ought to spend more on schools, hospitals and the police, and less on blu-ray TVs, holidays in the Maldives, and a new mobe every year!
22nd November 2008 at 1:20 pm
I’ve got a question about the Citizen’s income. Won’t it encourage moderately well-off people to exit the labour market? Effectively shifting the benefits culture upward. For example, someone with a modest savings pot could combine their savings with the income and live quite comfortably.
That’s what achioeving financial freedom is all about. If it does, it will make labour more scarce and tip the balamce of power in an employer-employee relationship toward the latter, which is a good thing.
But the CBI itself would not be a “comfortable living” just an “emergency living”. The fact that it is non-withdrawable when one takes on some work means that unlike today those pople trapped in the benefits trap will be less discouraged from work.
22nd November 2008 at 1:51 pm
But if, as you suggest, wages rise due to people exiting the labour market, won’t that just lead to even more people leaving due to the security blanket offered by the CBI?
Suppose a society is losing 10% of its teachers every year because they’re saving up money and quitting their jobs to live off their investments and the CBI. If you increase teachers wages, they’ll just hit the sweet spot even faster and leave in greater numbers.
22nd November 2008 at 2:07 pm
Am I the only one who remembers that a form of Citizens’ Income was Lib Dem party policy until Conference explicitly voted to drop it in September 1994?
That was a sad day for me as CBI was one of my main reasons for joining.
22nd November 2008 at 2:18 pm
I quite like the idea of a CBI - not because it provides a security blanket which enables funding of an an unproductive lifestyle, but because it revalues jobs and rebalances the capital-labour equation to make vocational employment as valuable an option as professional employment and allow a truly flexible and personally adaptive market.
A word of warning though - it is extremely important how the financial mechanisms are set up to reflect real economic values otherwise the citizens may not recognise the origins of their stake in the system - which would reduce the ability of society to function as a whole.
Until this problem is resolved the case for CBI cannot be made successfully.
Get this right and it can also be exported as the means by which distorted wealth distributions across the globe can be equalised fairly. Get it wrong and we’re headed to hell in a hammock.
22nd November 2008 at 2:35 pm
Well, I go out (to work…) & a storm does indeed brew
I am not explicitly a supporter of a CBI, just someone who has seen the idea knocking around & is sympathetic towards it. I’d have to analyse any particular scheme before reaching a verdict on it.
Darrell, I didn’t actually say the voluntary work should be subsidised. What I actually said is that those on Jobseeker’s Allowance should be excused from looking for any old shyte job, provided they can prove they genuinely do work. This might get a bit bureaucratic (it is for the New Deal, & it’s acvtually quite hard for an organisation to get New Deal-registered) but it may work.
My specific example was one of law students getting credit towards their degrees for volunteering… but again, these should imho be schemes that don’t involve the state & I am against explicitly paying people for voluntary work as it introduces a whole new dynamic when people are there for cash (as opposed to helping others or “something for their CVs).
Especially in the recession, people can ride it out by helping others. They would obviously have to prove they are doing something good. Perhaps we could start seeing a whole new society in which people don’t simply engage with the cash nexus. Even with a CBI, very few would just sit around: perhaps they would be free to pursue their interests & it would benefit us all?
I repeat, I am wary of getting the state involved in these actions. Its “role” should be to back off & stop trying to bully vulnerable people into unsuitable jobs, rather give them space to sort themselves out with the help of supportive organisations.
22nd November 2008 at 2:36 pm
Paul Griffiths, I was not aware of this. What reasons were given?
22nd November 2008 at 2:40 pm
I thought it was 1991, but there we are - as recent as 1994. And the people who argued for us to drop it are still around.
Asquith, mostly “we can’t afford it”.
Oranjepan, that’s why I prefer to think of it how Henry George thought about it - collect all the rental value of land and disburse it equally to everyone minus whatever spending government has decided it needs to carry out its functions, which should decline over time because of the effect of “free land” on poverty reduction. “Rent sharing”, rather than “tax and benefit”.
22nd November 2008 at 3:20 pm
Asquith
Jock’s right. Basically, Conference was told that we couldn’t afford it.
I’ll quote from Opportunity and Independence For All: Proposals to Improve The Tax and Benefits System (Policy Paper No 7) which was voted on at the Federal Conference in September 1994. Obviously, Option B passed and the rest is history. Just don’t shoot the messenger …
In Common Benefit [an earlier Green Paper that introduced the policy in 1990], we proposed a partial basic income which was only slightly greater than the equivalent present personal income tax allowance. This would not initially have helped those on present benefits very much, but the intention was to progress to a partial basic income for each adult comparable to half the current Income Support payment for couples.
We have never supported a full basic income, sufficient for subsistence and enabling most existing benefits to be abolished, because income tax on all other income would then have to be levied at a very high marginal rate.
Option A:
We reaffirm our commitment to a partial basic income system for the following reasons:
(i) It would be more redistributive than the current tax system because the standard rate of income tax would be about 10 pence in the pound higher, although the majority of people would pay less than now after netting their tax credit against their income tax.
(ii) Some income-tested benefits would have to be retained, but they could be smaller than now and less steeply tapered.
(iii) It would be payable equally to all women and men, including those doing unpaid or intermittent work, as well as those earning full time.
Option B
We reject the option of a partial basic income system for the following reasons:
(i) It would leave most people now receiving means-tested benefits still in need of them and no better off.
(ii) The individuals who would benefit most – those with low incomes or no incomes but not receiving means-tested benefits – are not necessarily poor, because many of them live in households with good incomes.
(iii) An increase of ten pence in the basic rate of income tax is completely unacceptable.