Jonathan Rutherford and Richard S. Grayson are the editors of a new book, After the Crash Re-inventing the Left in Britain, available to download as an e-book here. Here they write about why they think all progressive voters need to join together to defeat neo-liberalism in all walks of life.
The election approaches and Britain begins the long haul out of deep recession. In such a crisis, one would expect an alternative to neo-liberalism to be riding high in the polls. Instead, the party which is ahead, the Conservative Party, offers no alternative. The Labour leadership differ only by degrees. It too shares the same desire to minimise change.
And yet the political fault-lines of a new era are beginning to take shape.
On one side are those who continue to believe that the market and individual choice are the most effective means of governing people and maximising individual freedom.
On the other side are those who believe that individual freedom must be rooted in greater equality, social relationships and the democracy of public action.
This fault-line cuts across party lines and divides them from within: Thatcherite politics versus compassionate Conservatism; market Liberal Democrats versus social Liberal Democrats; neoliberal New Labour versus social democratic Labour.
In the decade ahead we will need a progressive government that is much more resilient than New Labour in identifying its enemies and standing up to them. Real change will require a strong government and a stronger democracy that has widespread active support. This can only happen if we build alliances and develop a broad progressive consensus of opinion and rediscover our capacity for collective change.
There are tens of thousands of members of the Labour Party, Green Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the SNP, along with progressive people in no party, who are prepared to discuss this kind of coalition politics.
Social Democrats, social liberals and greens have some fundamental political aims in common. We all want to build a society in which individuals have more life chances, and we all fear for the future of the planet. We all believe that a more equal society is absolutely essential to secure these aims, and we all believe that greater democracy is crucial in giving people power, voice and the ability to secure more freedom and a sustainability economy.
The future of progressive politics in Britain is too important to leave to political parties alone. They are necessary but they are not sufficient.
Whatever the result of the next general election, we need to create a common ground for a progressive coalition of ideas and action. Without this coalition the political agenda will remain unchallenged. Without this coalition, there will be no deep rooted hinterland of support to sustain a future progressive government. It will be quickly blown off course by events. It will buckle beneath the sustained attack of the right wing media or it will be sabotaged by a conspiracy in the money markets.
Our task is to reverse the decades long transfer of wealth and power from the great majority of people to the financial sector, global corporations and a tiny rich elite. It means defeating neo-liberalism, not just politically, but in the spheres of intellectual life, culture, society and economy.
* ‘After the Crash Re-inventing the Left in Britain’ edited by Jonathan Rutherford and Richard S. Grayson is available to download, free, as an e-book here. Contributors: Jon Cruddas, Caroline Lucas, Steve Webb, Neal Lawson, Stuart Hall, Doreen Massey, Richard S. Grayson, Jonathan Rutherford, Alan Finlayson, Jonathon Porritt, Leanne Wood, Richard Thomson, Stuart White.
2 Comments
Having read a few of these chapters, I see very little evidence of original thinking and significant evidence of purely academic political theoreticians being unable to let go of Marxism. Marxism can never be a framework for the progressive left, because it’s bound up with an economic system that doesn’t produce results for the worst off in society – even more so than capitalism. It’s a shame, because there’s the beginnings of interesting ideas in there, which are swamped by an unwillingness to put down Das Kapital and recognise the need for a wholly new economic theory.
Up until 2007 there was a new generation of Liberals emerging who did not bear witness to the appalling attacks on liberty by the Thatcher government of the 1980s, but instead had their opinions formed by what appeared to be the solution to the economic problem; neo-liberalism. one of their heros was the economist Phillipe Legrain, who celebrated capitalism and free markets.
For the first time we saw signs of prosperity in what was previously called the third world, and by 2007 we even saw significant economic growth in Africa.
No wonder it became popular across the political spectrum to support neo-liberalism.
Indeed within the space of 10 years we have seen 2 major right wing ideologies fail; neo-Conservativism and neo-Liberalism. The idea that after the cold war we had reached the “End of History” with the US model as the winning ideology has now failed.
Neo-liberalism was flawed because unfettered markets go for short term profits. If you decide instead that your prioirities are really in the longer term, the danger is that your competitors take your market share in the short term and eat up the finance that you would otherwise put in your long term investments. Adam Smith’s metaphor of “The hidden hand”, interpreted by comtemporary neo-liberals as meaning that markets are self-correcting clearly lacks credibility after the banking crises caused by “light touch” regulation.
I believe the collapse of neo-liberalism will usher a new politics within the political system. Even within the Tory party there is “Red conservatism” which has a critique of neo-liberalism. This is a fringe position within the Tories for now, but may grow if the Tories win the general election and attempt to introduce policies that will create a double dip recession.
It shows how much authority Vince Cable has that he can advocate the nationalisation of Northern Rock as an emergency measure AND criticise the Tories for wanting to sell it off too quickly. He advocates that we should maintain ownership for years, maybe decades. Libertarians ought to be furious about that, but instead they have hardly said a word, at least as far as I have noticed.
I think that market liberals are shifting their opinions towards the social liberal position. I see that with Vince Cable who is more clearly in favour of redistributing wealth than he was previously when he led the campaign to change the Lib Dem policy on taxing the rich more on income tax.
I even see that in the case of David Laws, who in his introduction to the Equality pamphlett pubilshed recently by Demos he acknowleged the contribution of the Spirit Level, a book of research that also demonstrates an overwhelming case for redistributing wealth.
So are social liberals happy now? Certainly happier about the position of the Liberal Democrats compared to a few years ago. We are not wasting money on replacing Trident for example.
I am concerned that our thinking remains rather skewed a this moment in time. Vince has identified “low priority” spending that can be cut, although I am not sure it is low priority. Why in any case are the difficult choices being made about spending, and not increasing taxes? Surely both have to be done? And as for the charge of “Marxism”, I would simply ask “What Marxism?” This is not about nationalising the commanding heights of the economy.
I think if anyone makes specific points about Marxism, they should back it up with quotations so we know what they are talking about.
I am pleased to see Richard Grayson teaming up with Jonathan Rutherford for this publication. The death of Robin Cook has left a void within the Labour party of what I would call liberal socialists. Jonathan’s position is closely alligned with John Cruddas and he may well be the new standard bearer of liberal socialists. My one concern is that he did not support STV in the recent vote in the House of Commons and I would be interested to know more about what happened there.
I hope we are seeing an emergence of a left liberal politics. However the hardest thing of all is to turn that into a popular politics that wins elections. I am constantly reminded how hard this is when I canvas people and they raise the matter of immigration, even in parts of London where the BNP got less than 3% at the last European elections.
There is a lot of thinking to be done after the next general election.