My thanks to young Strowger of Hebden Bridge for sending me to my bookshelves in search of the 1979 Labour Manifesto. Title as above. At the time, I can recall many of us thought the slogan a tad bland ( which it was) and in any case "Sunny Jim" Callaghan was well to the right of where most of us young trouble-makers were. You know what?
The sad thing is that Labour's middle-of-the-road, moderate 1979 Manifesto would now cause apoplexy in the ranks of New Labour. Public sector pay to be in line with the private sector, increased public ownership, backing for the nationalised Girobank and National Savings, increased investment in public sector railways, more money for council housing, long-term unemployed (12 months) to be offered a job or re-training - NOT benefit cuts.No new generation of nuclear weapons. These days, the LRC puts forward a similar programme and gets accused of being loony left. THIS was the policy programme agreed by Callaghan, Hattersley, Jenkins and Benn. The broad church we used to be proud of .
I quote the opening Manifesto paragraph:"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party and proud of it. We seek to build a stromger and more prosperous Britain - and we are determined to see that all our people share fully in that prosperity.We want a Britain which is open and democratic and which puts fair earnings for working people and the needs of the under-privileged before the demands of private profit." Wouldn't change a word. Would you?
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Frankly there's not much wrong with the first few paragraphs of the 1983 Manifesto, but the Left has to cure itself of this sentimentality towards heroic (and not so heroic) failures of the past. The last thirty years was not something the left had to "ride out". Society changed, all the old policies were challenged, and many were found wanting. New Labour was one attempt at a solution - the analysis great, the delivery poor.
Sadly, the failure of those who put themselves further to the left to come up with an equally good analysis, but also original and radical policies that don't simply revolve around a naive faith in the power of the State, that see a bigger public sector as an end in itself, treats "markets" as a dirty word, that promote "identity politics", etc., is one reason Labour has an ideological vacuum at the moment.
"Market forces" is a phrase which should still be anathema - this was the 1979 Manifesto - that's the whole point - a MODERATE Labour Government delivering a fair message today's neo-liberals would have sleepless nights over. Labour does not need to have an ideological vacuum.Its roots are still there
Susan, this is just bigotry: rather than engage in debate you merely restate your position, declaring yourself to be correct, and other opinions to be anathema.
You criticised Gordon Brown earlier today for his apparent position of "There Is No Alternative", so how hypocritical it is to state that yours is that alternative - the one and only permissible alternative.
For what it's worth, the free-market anti-capitalist tradition might not be strong in this country, but it's old, and yet it stands the test of time far better than the social democratic one you seem to represent, that dates from a time when the Soviet model seemed fresh, before it became blindingly obvious that centralised power corrupts whether it has a nasty Right or a nice Left-wing face, and whether the rent-seeking interest groups are corporations, unions, or sectional groups.
Then why did they not put that into practise, we have seen many labour governments say one thing and do another, it's why Thatcher stayed in power for eighteen years, nobody believed Labour.
B4L, WHAT "free market anti-capitalist tradition."
If you are in favour of the market and its forces being at the epicentre of your philosophy, in what way can that be anti-capitalist?? New labour has not in ANY sense been anti-capitalist - indeed brown talks incessantly of being in favour of "flexible" working practices and not wanting to bring back trade union rights or upset the City too much.
Callaghan's Govt was hardly socialist but in a Labour social democratic tradition believed in a mixed economy - but one in which the public sector and the State played a key role. It did not treat the unemployed as workshy criminals, it did not privatise key services, it also believed it was the job of the Labour Party to rein in capitalism anmd protect people from its worst excesses.To equate that mild Fabian -style model with the Soviet Union is frankly risible. 1979 was a long way from 1917 even if it seems like a long time ago to you.
Even the then new PM Thatcher would have baulked at some of the policies now being proposed by New Labour's more right-wing elements
Susan, have a look at the Mutualist Blog. The sample book chapters are well worth dipping into.
As I suggested, left-libertarian/mutualism is very poorly represented among the mainstream British left, with its suspicion of economics, naive faith in the benevolent State, and belief that the process by which Labour governments fail is through Ministers and MPs "selling-out" or being outed as "right-wing", rather than being connected to the ossification, bureaucracy, and colonisation by interest groups that is inextricably linked with centralised government.
I don't know why you continue to suggest I'm defending New Labour: I'm looking for something better, not to jump on any old wagon that appears to be going in the other direction. Similar point: you can't define Left and Right by what Thatcher might have done 20 years ago in a very different economic and political climate.
[Final point: if you support a mixed economy, you support a substantial private sector, so to balk at the term "market forces" doesn't make any sense. Which term would you prefer to use for the aggregated actions of individual economic actors?]
Centralised power within a democratic state is far more democratic than privately, often foreign owned companies.
Why the emphasis on foreign owned business? The parent companies have no ties to this country and have no qualms about ditching their stake to move to somewhere more profitable.
B4L, times have changed, but not for the better. For example tough TU laws weaken TUs and thereby more exploitation of the work force ensues.
How does this fit in with producing a free and fair Britain?
Sadly union bashing is not reduced to our sceptred isle. We have slave labour producing cheap products in horrendous conditions. How does that produce a fair and better world?
Labour laws are one thing, let’s take inflation. Normally a government can control inflation by increasing the rate of manufacturing. Since Mrs Thatcher's election successive governments have been hacking away at our manufacturing base. This weakens the government's ability to manage the economy. Having our own means of production will have a positive result on keeping unemployment under control. Employment stability leads to stronger and more cohesive societies.
We put our "naive faith" in the state as it is accountable to every voting person every five years, unlike the all powerful international corporations who are only accountable to their shareholders (most of whom are rich).
We believe in a mixed economy as some things are just too important to be left to the private sector.
That used to be the Labour way, but B4L it looks like you don't agree.
B4L, I do not support the private sector intervening in the NHS, in job provision, in education, in transport, the prison service, in social housing. Tbe above belong tpo the public sector. I'm not particularly a fan of capitalism at all -as Ravi said,"some things are too important to be left to the private sector." And you're wrong re the Thatcherisation of Labour policy -if it was wrong 30 years ago it's wrong now. The values on which the original Labour Representation Committee was founded are still the values we should adhere to today. I don't think there is anything naive about that - I think it's called integrity and being on the side of social justice.In power, Labour has embraced the capitalist ethos, lost sight of its moral compass and let down those whom it was set up to represent
I think that this speaks volumes. The thing is that NL have moved dramatically to the right of anything which could be remotely regarded as social democratic. In fact, they have dome this in the worst way possible by maintaining and increasing state interference in areas they should leave alone, but relying on the market for areas they shouldn't.
I think there were some major flaws in NL analysis and most of those come down to am uncritical faith in business and the market - and its that which has led to the current situation. Not government, but market failure.
Markets exist and can be used but they should be seem simply as a means to an end.
Can't see the problem with 'identity politics' - usually its the workerists of both right or left who use that term negatively. I want politics which reflect my identity and how I see myself.
The mutualist tradition is, if anything, even more outdated than the fabian or economic socialist ones, B4L. The problem with it is that it doesn't sit well with the nature of global capital - the greens are very much mutualist socialists and they tend to want to ask the world to stop whilst we get off! That mutualist/ethical tradition os often far from libertarian - it tends to be morally conservative and majoritarian, reflecting its ruralist and small-scale-bias. No wonder right wing think tanks like Civitas, and Duncan Smith;'s work, are so taken with it.
We put our "naive faith" in the state as it is accountable to every voting person every five years, unlike the all powerful international corporations who are only accountable to their shareholders (most of whom are rich).
Haven't you ever watched "Yes Minister"? Governments might be elected, but the State isn't. During the 1980s (e.g. during the Miner's Strike) this would have been obvious to any leftie, but ten years of Labour in power has clearly lulled people into a false sense of security.
For what it's worth, who do you reckon is most sensitive to public opinion: Tesco's or the British Govt.?
Since Mrs Thatcher's election successive governments have been hacking away at our manufacturing base.
Possibly, but it's been patently obvious for decades that Britain only has a competitive advantage in niche manufacturing, but throughout the service sector. It's sentimentality to be "proud" about heavy industry rather than "soft" jobs, and all the more ridiculous when Britain is so much better at the latter, and is richer as a result. Furthermore, by importing Chinese-manufactured goods, worldwide inflation is much less than it would otherwise be.
This weakens the government's ability to manage the economy.
Governments cannot manage free economies, and it's a fantasy to believe they can.
Having our own means of production will have a positive result on keeping unemployment under control.
You're talking about autarky, generally used by totalitarian regimes to prop themselves up through exploiting latent nationalism. The result is always the same: isolation, poverty, corruption, and concealed unemployment.
B4L, I do not support the private sector intervening in the NHS
That doesn't seem to bother the French Socialists though, does it? Either national peculiarities are more important than ideological differences (which they are), or the private v. public "battle" is just seen as less important elsewhere.
Market mutualism is an odd sort of utopian socialism. It isn't the best alternative to a centralised state available to socialist thinkers. Mutualism (and co-operation) is fine, but as soon as you conclude that market mechanisms are the best engines of decision-making and change, you (unintentionally) place power in the hands of a wealthy minority. The wealthy can always buy a market: market forces are not an alternative to a partial planning, they are a form of partial planning: planning by the wealthy in their own interests.
Mike et al.,
The success or failure of market mechanisms is the realm of the social science of Economics, it's not a matter of faith, and what concerns me about zealots from all sides - and, sadly, I have to lump Susan and the LRC into that category - is that by appealing to faith rather than social science, market mechanisms (political mechanisms too) are too often misapplied.
We condemned Thatcherism because it put the structure and ownership of a company or industry above its performance, and for ideological reasons. Fairly feeble, self-interested ideological reasons, for what it's worth, and reasons which (as I've mentioned) carried little weight in other countries, even those that purported to be on the same political mission. I apply the same criticism to zealots from the Left.
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The mutualist tradition is, if anything, even more outdated than the fabian or economic socialist ones, B4L. The problem with it is that it doesn't sit well with the nature of global capital - the greens are very much mutualist socialists and they tend to want to ask the world to stop whilst we get off! [...]
Don't forget the Cooperative movement: that's one pillar of Labour support, which has little to gain, and probably more to lose, from state control.
Mutualism is certainly an underdeveloped analysis, especially here in the UK, though at the very least it demonstrates that Capitalism and free markets are not the same thing at all: they may coincide, but they may very well also have opposing interests. It also demonstrates that state control is not the obvious counterforce to capitalism. On the contrary, the combination of strong states and capitalism has been an immensely destructive one.
Free markets might produce *instability*, but they cannot cause - nor can they even coexist with - authoritarianism, and that's been the most destructive force of the last century.
The wealthy can always buy a market: market forces are not an alternative to a partial planning, they are a form of partial planning: planning by the wealthy in their own interests.
With the greatest of respect: Prove It.
The idea that economies can be planned, and neutrally so, is a 20th Century conceit. Even when the planners make it explicit in whose benefits they are really seeking to arrange economic matters, only by eliminating individual (and therefore economic) freedom can they hope to be able to aggregate the millions of individual decisions that human beings make.
Only by sucking out that freedom can planners hope to shrink the economic life of a state until it's small enough for them to cope with.
I didn't even need to mention the opportunities for corruption that occur when it is time for planners to negotiate with business and unions as to how the plan is to be carried out.
The limitations of planning should be obvious (as, in fact, they are) to anyone for whom human beings are ends rather than means.
My problem with mutualist solutions, B4L , is that they can very easily became extremely conservative and inward-looking - they were designed for a much smaller-scale society.
Co-operatives, for example, have a history of not working - and lets forget about the Co-Op because thats like any other business these days. Actually, the John Lewis partnership is probably the nearest thing we have to a mutualist company of a reasonable size.
But things like small scale housing co-ops oftrn lead to disaster - I have a friend who is politically, a deep green, but admits that his practical experiences of co-operative working has been uniformly horrendous.
B4L, looks and sounds like you are more revolutionary than the rest of us!!
Mutualism is an economic theory found with anarchism.
To truly break the shackles of the state, all free people should depose government and live in communes, least that’s what anarchists say.
Since the Labour Party is a democratic socialist party I prefer to put my trust in the ballot box rather the armalite!!!
You are right about the growing power of supermarket chains, it does lead to the question what do we need governments for? Consumer power is King n’est pas?
As a Labour person I believe the state should be able to intervene where required. I have never understood why intelligent folk, like your good self have such fear of democratically elected governments maintaining decent standards of living and security to all.
You say we can't have free societies until we have free markets.
I disagree. We can't have a free society until it is free of disease, poverty, ignorance and inequality. The state is in a better place to deliver that than anyone else, not the market.
You mention, quite rightly, the use of Chinese imports to keep inflation low. Absolutely that is completely true. What is also true is that with the cost of living oil/fuel prices and demand for meat increasing, the Chinese workforce increasingly wants a decent living wage. This will result in manufacturers over there having to raise prices, adding to our woes here.
I just think it is daft as an island nation to reduce our manufacturing base. We import things from abroad we could make here, which will keep our unemployment low. Surely all that importing must take some toll on the environment?
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