We are in dangerous times.
Theresa May rails against wealth and privilege, but she will only make the most minimal and tokenistic reforms to ensure very slight improvements in economic equality.
In the meantime, she will weaponize the economic anger and resentment she is stoking up; these negative popular sentiments, in turn, will interact with other prejudices, frustrations and resentments, in a kind of multiplier effect.
I ask all my fellow Liberal Democrats and UK people (citizen and migrant alike, for I must insist on including everyone): are there any historical precedents for such ‘right wing socialism?’
This is a new era, beyond the Darwinian Thatcherism of the past.
A chance has now arisen to opportunistically appeal to the legitimate economic frustrations of people in the UK. May’s ‘reaction’ against market fundamentalism will certainly change things…
But not, I fear, in the way she would like people to (half) believe.
As Liberal Democrats, we need to understand the nature of what we are confronting. We need to provide a genuinely progressive and rigorous economic approach that will speak convincingly to the fears of low income and low asset people here in the UK. We also need to show how economic progressives need not and must not stoke up hatred, bitterness, resentment and terror.
Four Theses on Theresa May’s Right Wing Socialism
- Right socialism involves strategically condemning abuse of wealth and power & privilege, but actually doing very little about it!
- Right socialism means railing against privilege & wealth, but doing only the bare minimum about it, in order to weaponize popular fear & rage!
- Right socialism means seeking power by tapping into fears, INCLUDING economic insecurity, without actually doing much to mitigate the latter.
- Theresa May’s Conservatives prove there is nothing intrinsically ‘progressive’ about railing against economic privilege. Talk is cheap.
* Jonathan Ferguson is a PhD student. His socio-economic views are progressive/left liberal, with strongly libertarian leanings on non-interventionism, privacy and freedom of speech.
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26 Comments
Forgive me is this an attempt to hint at National Socialism. Do you not think it’s all just, I dunno, a smidgen OTT?
Thank you for your opening comment Glenn.
First of all, I would say that there is certainly a lot of uncertainty about the future of the UK lying before each one of us here. No-one can say ‘X, Y or Z’ MUST happen, or ‘A, B, or C’ will definitely NOT happen.
This is not about some kind of historical inevitability, but about certain ‘symptoms’ or ‘factors’ that are extremely disconcerting to anyone with even a basic high school education in BBC history.
So I have to emphasize:
It is not a matter of saying simplistically ‘Oh, the Tories are fascists, they always have been!’ I haven’t got into that cheap and misleading rhetoric at all here.
I am, however, pointing out that the behavior of the Conservative Party is extremely worrying, and that there are certain analogies that can be drawn. How consequential these analogous factors are likely to be in the long run, is not so easy to say.
I will at least say this:
If I thought we were on the verge of some horrendous inevitability tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, there perhaps be little point writing anything about it, if such horrible tragedies could not be averted.
I am counselling vigilance and serious introspection and observation, at what appear to me to be a very crucial turning point in the history of the UK: the Snooper’s Charter, controversial wars, jihadist terrorism, anti-immigrant sentiment, an EU exit may well end up either in a boom or bust rather than anything in between.
I am advocating courage and active engagement to preserve so much that is worth preserving; rather than doom-mongering and preaching fatalism.
There are many good people here, and many friends and well-wishers across the globe, who are not prepared to let things seriously deteriorate.
As always, the future is in our hands alone, and not in the hands of any deity that may or may not exist.
I like the way your brain works. I think your views deserve a wider audience and I suggest you campaign vigorously in Witney.
Whisper it quietly, but what the heck are you going to do if she actually does something about it. Obviously this is politics, so there will be many “not enough, could do more etc” speeches, but that will prob not be enough to register.
As Liberal Democrats, we need to understand the nature of what we are confronting. We need to provide a genuinely progressive and rigorous economic approach that will speak convincingly to the fears of low income and low asset people here in the UK. We also need to show how economic progressives need not and must not stoke up hatred, bitterness, resentment and terror.
Totally agree on the “need to provide”, just that it seems that currently no one actually has ” a genuinely progressive and rigorous economic approach”. In such circumstances, I suggest the best approach is to talk, take the people with you – especially those you actually need to stay on board, namely those with “wealth and power & privilege” and use the popular mood to take steps and I mean steps to address the issue. Over time the goal posts can be moved again, the art and risk is keeping everything civil, because once you have the revolution the socialists keep going on about, there can be no certainty of either journey or outcome…
Thank you. Judging by this link, the Lib Dem candidate for Witney (Liz Leffman) is campaigning on how the Liberal Democrats are the truly pro business party. I think a lot of voters will be wanting substantial economic progressivism AND a constructive relationship with business, rather than nihilism. In other words, a center left movement that is not right wing (in any of the various sense of this word), but is certainly not far left either. http://www.witneylibdems.org.uk/european-movement-backs-liz
Thank you for the point you raised. What will I do if May does do something about privilege, abuse of wealth, etc.? Well, I very much doubt she will do something huge. I expect she will try to smooth off and massage some of the very roughest corners of the current system, without necessarily doing anyone really substantial. Perhaps I am wrong; but this seems more plausible to me. I realize that some Conservative PMs such as Harold MacMillan have been economically pragmatic rather than true-believer market fundamentalists, but I think it would be very surprising to see May do much of real substance, as distinguished from making some minor (and perhaps very ambiguous) reforms, while continuing to talk tough on the big issues.
Correction: without necessarily doing *anything really substantial.
There is a long tradition of this sort of populism, combining attacks on the weakest with railing against “Elites”, particular if they are on the fringes of the real Money & power. The best examples of “Stable Populism” come from Latin America but such approaches have always been part of mainstream politics, even in Britain.
May is unusual in trying to run a whole Government on populist lines, if she makes it work then it could do for Britain what it did for Argentina, slow, long-term decline into poverty. Argentina in 1900 was regarded as a developed economy, on a par with France. Even in the 1920s & 30s it attracted hundreds of thousands of emigrants from “backward” Italy, its hard to imagine now.
Politics has the power to transform societies, over time & movement doesnthave to be forward.
I’m in fundamental agreement with you, Roland. I don’t think being ‘anti-wealth’ is any panacea to our problems. There is a place for anger, satire, all kinds of things… but I still believe that some kind of heavily qualified ‘partnership’ between government, business and employees (union-represented and non-union-represented) is necessary, however difficult this may be.
I am not naive; conflicts of interests cannot be simply wished away.
But petulant and inflammatory threats to raise the minimum wage to £10 (remember it is much lower than that right now) will both anger and frighten even good faith and accommodating employers, and will also hurt precisely the very people it is supposed to help.
The Liberal Democrats are better placed, I believe, to not go down that road.
Thanks Paul, those are very thought-provoking insights. Who are the ‘elites’ who are really at issue? Presumably, this kind of politics requires a very selective (and thus deeply, deeply self-interested) approach. I take it that not all ‘elites’ are going to be equal here. Expediency will surely play a large role here…
In which case… who might the soft targets be? And who might be the untouchables? That is not so clear. I imagine arms manufacturers will be OK.
Jonathan,
“We need to provide a genuinely progressive and rigorous economic approach that will speak convincingly to the fears of low income and low asset people here in the UK.”
See the brief review at https://libdemsalter.org.uk/en/article/2012/0611160/why-people-fail-to-understand-land-value-taxation
Britain is about to go bust.
So what exactly are the Lib Dem policies regarding the `working poor` so to speak and those that are caught up in the system? First, I would argue that controlling migration is a first step. It’s only by doing so that you can create an environment where the squeeze on wages is lifted for those at the bottom. Before you answer with some sort of kneejerk liberal left answer ask yourself this question `when last did you have to apply and compete for a living wage job?`
Second, what if the public think that it is a preequisite to actually lifting them out of poverty?
Third, stop being an old-fashioned `yes party`. One that is fighting for a better yesterday rather than embracing the future. What are the hard radical questions that need answering that will prick the publics concsience and get you in the media?
Here are a few:
1. Radical review of JSA before Matthew Taylor gets his say. Easy win – free envelopes and stamps for bona fide applications, free copying of references, home internet paid for as long as you can prove you’re job seeking targets.
2. How to not only devolve power also devolve economic opportunity to those outside London/SE. Move Parliament to the Midlands/North? Move civil service too? Ensure that there’s a target for moving company HQs to other hubs.
3. More runways perhaps three (London, Gatwick and Manchester/Birmingham)
4. Vociferously arguing for better rail services in the Northern Powerhouse area.
5. Stop banging on about refugees – most people agonise enough about their plight they understand you have to have fairness and a strong economy here before you can sustain their support that should be planned so that they can be looked after.
6. Stop thinking that local gains are the same as national gains. They are very welcome as we all know how hard Lib Dem cllrs work yet those votes aren’t transferrable when people shop around from election to election.
7. Stop going round putting worst case Brexit scenarios – they make you look old-fashioned when it’s pretty obvious most think it’s the EU that’s at fault with their blind ideological adherence to free movement of Labour. Ask for planned sectoral limits and planned for anything with jobs less than say 20k.
7.
I find this an odd opinion piece.
What is very disturbing about Teresa May is that she led from the front of the most racist Tory party conference anyone can remember.
So yes there is a lot to be terrified about.
But on economic policy she has presented us with a welcome critique of capitalism, and proposed to redistribute wealth and power to the workforce. She is set to become the first prime minister since 1979 to reject neoliberalism.
In other words the kind of things I would hope Tim Farron might say one day.
Now of course it could go all wrong. Her party is full of free market fundamentalists who might persuade her to row back. Lets see what she tries to deliver. But I would say it is too early to conclude.
Maybe her aim is to appeal to disillusioned Labour Brexit supporters before UKIP get them?
@Joeburke – I see the author of the article you linked to, fails to understand the true historical purpose of ‘Common Land’…
@Geoffrey Payne “… the kind of things I would hope Tim Farron might say one day.
Now of course it could go all wrong. Her party is full of free market fundamentalists who might persuade her to row back.”
But isn’t the kind of thing Tim Farron says today, “The Liberal Democrats are now the free market, free trade, pro-business party.”, so which party has the “free market fundamentalists”?
Peter Watson
Liberal Party- free trade, free market, but also social justice.
I agree with Geoffrey Paine – “I find this an odd opinion piece. … But on economic policy she has presented us with a welcome critique of capitalism, and proposed to redistribute wealth and power to the workforce. She is set to become the first prime minister since 1979 to reject neoliberalism.
In other words the kind of things I would hope Tim Farron might say one day.”
It is also worrying that Peter Watson can post ‘Tim Farron says today, “The Liberal Democrats are now the free market, free trade, pro-business party.”’
It would be great if Tim Farron was presenting a social liberal economic policy that supports a legally enforceable living wage at the living wage rate, that has incentives for companies to employ unemployed people and those who claim Employment and Support Allowance, that provides enough training courses for the UK to meet the expected need we will have for trained professionals, and that supports fiscal measures to support the economy rather than relying on current monetary policies.
Thanks for more good comments. I will reply in more detail soon. Keep them coming!
1. I’m all for commenting on innovative ideas like the Land Tax (it may not be new, but it’s innovative in the sense that it is arguably not very orthodox; which of course is no argument against it!) Another example might be UBI.
2. “First, I would argue that controlling migration is a first step. It’s only by doing so that you can create an environment where the squeeze on wages is lifted for those at the bottom. Before you answer with some sort of kneejerk liberal left answer ask yourself this question `when last did you have to apply and compete for a living wage job?”
I will have to speak for myself here, and not any other party member. I am not a politician, but a grassroots member. I myself am on a very low income, and most of the journalism I have done thus far has been unpaid. Although I am not an economist, I believe that there is a hard-headed economic case for sustaining a high level of immigration; but there is arguably also a hard-headed economic case for reducing the level of immigration to some degree, IF it would help with the wage squeeze. I am not sentimentally attached either to increasing, maintaining or reducing immigration; as far as I am concerned, it is a pragmatic question, and not ‘right and wrong’ on principle. I don’t have an answer as to what the best immigration policy should be; it’s difficult to square these two matters of dependence on immigration vs the wage squeeze. Perhaps once the question of what SOVEREIGNTY OVER immigration will mean becomes clearer, the distinct question of HOW TO CONDUCT POLICY on immigration will be clearer.
(Capitals not intended as shouty capitals; just for emphasis, as I can’t do italics here).
@Jonathan Ferguson “Capitals not intended as shouty capitals; just for emphasis, as I can’t do italics here”
Oh yes you can!! 🙂
Before the italicised text type
less-than i greater-than
and afterwards the closing “tag” is
less-than forward-slash i greater than
If you use b instead of i you get bold or even both
Thanks Peter! Useful to know! 🙂
The May version of Social Nationalism appears to be more presentation than substance. She has refused to drop the planned cuts in Universal Credit which cut as much as £1000 p.a. from people with Children on very low pay.
Good evidential point there, John! I also like the term ‘Social Nationalism,’ as (more so than the older, discredited ideal of National Socialism), it suggests nationalism with a veneer of social ‘varnish.’ I think that term cuts to the marrow of what is going on here…