‘Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ is a 2-part workshop on 18 & 25 February, 7pm-9pm in Birmingham.

This is a free event, but registration is required: click here to register.

Want to see a fairer society, here in the UK and around the world? Feel like you’re constantly fire fighting against things you don’t agree with? Fed up of media and politicians saying there is no credible alternative to austerity?

 

‘Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ is for you!

 

Everyone knows about austerity and its effects are all too evident. But austerity is part of a wider approach called neo-liberalism* which is based on five very short and easy to understand principles: free markets; small state; low tax; individual liberty; and big defence.

 

The aim of ‘Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ is to set out a concise, inclusive and easily understandable alternative to neo-liberalism’s five principles. As opponents of austerity and neo-liberalism, we need to do this because we have lots of policy ideas and evidence, and there’s lots of vital single-issue activism BUT we’ve not set it out in a short, simple, inclusive and collectively understood form.

 

Doing this will:

 

• Help us work together more effectively
• Help us talk to others about our views
• Help us overcome divisions over small points of difference by focusing on bigger points of agreement
• Give us a stronger collective message which can be more quickly understood
• Ensure that our diverse campaigning is all pushing in the same direction and supports each other’s efforts

 

‘Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ requires us to do politics differently. It means:

 

• Coming together on the basis of shared values and concerns (leaving our organisational, political and other labels outside)
• Emphasising what we agree on (not points of disagreement)
• Seeing co-operation and compromise as strengths (not weaknesses)
• Being positive and focused (not just criticising, looking at negatives, discussing problems and being a talking shop!)
• Being curious about different views, listening and ensuring everyone has their say
• At all times acting with care, compassion and respect for all

 

 

This is a free event, but registration is required: click here to register.

 

 

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*’Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ is about setting out an alternative to neo-liberalism, not talking about the neo-liberal approach itself. It is based on the following understanding…

 

Neo-liberalism is a simple but absolute belief in markets and competition as the drivers of growth, requiring market principles to permeate all aspects of life. Neo-liberalism has five very short and easy to understand principles: free markets; small state; low tax; individual liberty; and big defence. Neo-liberalism is sometimes referred to as ‘Thatcherism’, Reaganism’ or ‘the Washington Consensus’.

 

Neo-liberalism has gone through different phases: an early period of retrenchment under Margaret Thatcher called ‘roll-back’ neo-liberalism; a subsequent ‘roll-out’ or embedding phase i.e. New Labour governments from 1997-2010 had far greater concern with social justice but still adhered to core neo-liberal economics; subsequent to the 2008 economic crisis a new ‘roll-over’ period emerged with a strongly neo-liberal economic agenda based on austerity and further cutting of the welfare state.

 

The current government adheres very much to the five neo-liberal principles. Neo-liberalism means an on-going policy prescription of privatisation, marketisation and dismantling of public provision. Neo-liberalism isn’t new – it’s credited to work by Friedrich Hayek in the 1940s.

 

Hayek’s argument in favour of classic free market economics ran counter to the post-war welfare state and it was not until the 1970s that politicians such as Thatcher adopted his approach to which in 1980 she (in)famously declared ‘There Is No Alternative’.

 

Despite the many alternative policies, principles and manifestos from opponents of neo-liberalism, public and media opinion seems unable to recognise alternatives, because these are not set out in a succinct, easily understandable and broadly supported form.

 

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‘Anti-Austerity: But Pro What?’ is a West Midlands Politics of Networks initiative supported by Compass, Equality West Midlands, Jubilee Debt Campaign Economic Justice Project, Localise West Midlands, Quaker Peace Hub Central England and Unlock Democracy Birmingham