The Right (yet again) takes advantage of the crisis
The Left is in retreat or unable to break through. And there is more to come. These reversals have taken place in the context of a profound crisis of neoliberalism. Inequalities have grown over recent decades, made worse by the 2008 Crash and the weak global economic recovery. There is international paralysis over climate change, together with persistent regional tensions and conflicts that are fuelling mass migrations.
The pervasive crisis and growing disillusionment with the current ‘settlement’ has, however, been successfully harnessed by the forces of Right nationalism, authoritarianism and xenophobia. They have focusing on popular anger on selective features of neoliberalism – free trade, migration and political elitism. The result has been a Trump triumph in the US and a far-right surge in Western Europe. Here in the UK, the Conservatives have swiftly restored their political hegemony following the Brexit vote, but are now being driven by a narrow and backward looking nationalist agenda.
Left weaknesses – lack of vision, narrative and strategy
While the Left should always try to understand the strengths of the Right adversary, it must reflect on its own role in this dire situation. Traditional social democracy has to take a large part of the blame for having played along with neoliberalism and not offering an effective alternative economic or political project.
But there are weaknesses too with the new radical and digital oppositions and global social movements. The likes of Podemos, the Pirate Parties, Alternativet and Sanders’s Democrats while energetic, have yet to break through. Corbyn’s Labour Party has managed simultaneously to become the largest political party in Europe and to plumb the depths of political unpopularity not seen since the early 1980s, currently appealing to about 25 per cent of the electorate.
While global movements and networks of revolt can capture the popular imagination, they often are disconnected from the political parties and have a tendency to wax and wane. There are nevertheless exceptions to this dismal rule (e.g. Syriza and SNP) but, overall, the Left in its fragmentation is struggling to keep pace with globalisation and its crises and has little answer yet to the rise of Right authoritarian populism.
The problem lies not only with the nature of Left political parties, but with a fragmented and under-developed Progressive Project. The Left does not have a hegemonic strategy geared for the 21st Century and its conditions; certainly not in the same way as the neoliberal Right had for the end of the 20th Century. To win, and by this I mean stitching together coalitions of popular resistance, winning elections and building what in Gramscian terms is the ‘progressive historical bloc’, the Left in all its diversity will have to radically reflect on the content, style and structure of its politics.
Dimensions of integral development
In a new Compass publication I argue that political modernity is about much more than becoming digital and networked. New forms of organisation, communication and participation are a necessary part of future politics, but they cannot be a substitute for a hegemonic integral approach. This requires creating new combinations of ethics, vision, strategy and structure – what is referred to as ‘integral’ and collaborative approaches to overcome the dominant Right Bloc nationally and globally.
Ethics – our democratic values are on the line. In an increasingly authoritarian era we will have to piece together a ‘humanitarian coalition’ – a belief in the power of democracy and greater popular control; tolerance, mutual help and ‘love thy neighbour’; responsibility and looking to the long-term for our children and future generations. This coalition can run across large parts of the political spectrum, uniting the diverse traditions of the Left and way beyond.
Shared vision – bringing the past, present and the future together into a convincing popular narrative. The future concerns post-capitalist visions of accelerated automation and universal basic income; riding the wave of the fourth or even fifth industrial revolutions. But the present is about how we create meaningful and rewarding work for all that addresses global problems – climate change; ageing and poverty. That means creating a credible transformatory economic strategy – A Green New Deal – that can grab the popular imagination, particularly in the context of the inevitable failures of the nationalist new deals being peddled by the Right. Harnessing the past is showing how the local, regional and national can be outward not inward-looking – forging a progressive patriotism of pride of place, community and the public realm.
Collaboration is the key – political parties will not be able to do this on their own. Most political intellectual vitality is to be found in ‘radical civil society’ that is both national and global – movements, networks, campaigning organisations much of it digital. That is why we need to expand collaboration between parties and networks in which they create new strengths out of their differences – building a form of political ecosystem. Furthermore, in the English context, one major political party can no longer make a progressive future on its own. This is why the Labour Party has to face up to the need for a Progressive Alliance – the idea of Campsite comprising many tents rather than a single ‘Big Tent’.
My fear is that if we do not take the integral and collaborative road, there will be an era of defeats. The future of our societies and even humanity itself requires that we start to win.
These ideas are discussed in the new Compass publication ‘The Very Modern Prince’:the 21st century political party and the political formation’ by Ken Spours.
The problem is that the Left does not have the strength of its convictions. It all too easily concedes points to the Right if it thinks a Left idea does not have popular consent. Think of the last election when Ed Milliband refused to talk about the problems with current capitalism and about borrowing money for investment. Both ideas that are now being talked about by the Right. He also accepted an arbitrary cap on benefits because his focus groups told him it was popular. You cannot win arguments if you don’t argue.
Labour needs to get not just the poor and “just about managing” people on-side but also the money people or at least get them neutralized. To get them on-side the lessons of The Spirit Level must be argued, even if some aspects of it are currently unpopular. The argument should not be allowed to go by default. Everyone, including the money people have been shown by the Spirit Level to be happier in a more equal society.
To neutralize the influence of the money people it is essential that political parties are funded solely by their members. He who pays the piper plays the tune, which explains why the interests of the money people are given priority once an election is out of the way.
The left has got into the habit of only listening to people who can clearly say ‘Im alright Jack’s. Plenty of warnings were given of the problems faced by non racist working lower paid people . They were dismissed by the Middle class intellectuals as racist . Wrongly .The same thing is now happening to people who voted to leave the Eu . The assumption is totally wrong . Corbyn has the right answers , but as expected you all turn on him to seek personal power . So we keep losing to right wing neo fascist Partys , now the only hope for the ground down masses . Because the left is infiltrated by their own brand if Selfserveatives
You asked “what must progressive parties look and feel like the networked 21st Century?”
I want to answer the question “what should society look and feel like in the networked 21st Century?”
* Decentralised decision making to the lowest level possible
* Selection of different delivery models according to user preference (eg in-home care v residential; democratic free school v academy v crammer)
* Widespread innovation everywhere
* Networks of experts, practitioners and users for sharing issues & best practice and for audit
So based on that “what must progressive parties look and feel like the networked 21st Century?”
* Attracting increasingly more people (Dialogue not monologue)
* Convening safe meetings on important/ contentious topics
* Building decentralised democratic decision making everywhere
* Training people in all of the above (listening, questioning, facilitation, mediation)
I would like to suggest a reframing of the problem. Rather than seeing it as one of Left vs Right to more specifically identify it as one of intrinsic values vs extrinsic values. I would direct you to the Common Cause Foundation: http://valuesandframes.org/ who have done a lot of work in this area. My take on it is that intrinsic values are about seeing oneself as part of a greater whole and that for example hurting the planet, which is our ancestor, is hurting oneself, it’s about, sharing, equality, community and social cohesion. Extrinsic values (neoliberalism) are all about allowing the ego to create a separation from Nature. It’s all about me, me, me and striving for wealth at the expense of the environment and humans. It’s not possible for the extrinsic CEO of a corporation striving to make profits for share holders to at the same time hold intrinsic values such as caring for the planet. By reframing the discussion to one of values rather than political propoganda the public has a chance to consider their own values and the consequences – I believe this will be a very powerful way forward if it is embodied in a platform for change. Block Chain programing can allow for secure, none heirachical voting without politicians as the OUI SHARE conference in Paris earlier this year demonstrated.
A progressive party should look just like the Women’s Equality Party. WEP = WE
Agree with previous comments on need for decentralised democratic decision-making throughout society as argued for in the Spirit Level. The practical conclusion from their sociological position was that we needed many more worker co-ops in our working lives, replacing hierarchical structures with democracy at work. This could be beneficial in making us more confident, more articulate participants in politics at the national level as well.
There seems to be a certain convergence taking place among some on the left which could be a way forward. Richard Wolff’s ‘Democracy at Work: A cure for capitalism’, written from a modern Marxist perspective and Tom Malleson’s ‘After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st century’, written from a more centre left position both argue for worker co-ops and see them as the way to go.
The Green party are keen supporters of co-ops. Labour’s sister party, the Co-operative party, should be arguing for them too, instead of just joining the general call for more assistance for ‘small business’.
There are arguments being made from different perspectives calling for moves in the right direction, but they haven’t yet gained political traction. Labour needs to wake up, democracy is the key. Proportional representation in elections and worker co-ops as the typical form of employment in the mixed economy of the future. More and more democracy.
Ken Spours has provided a cogent analysis of our situation. But in this crisis we have very little time for intellectualism. We need to use cruder language.
There are of course many people whose instinct is for left-wing policies, but who have never felt any one political party is right for them. Now, the idea of a Progressive Alliance should inspire them, involve them in actual politics.
But the Progressive Alliance must draw on people who do have allegiance to a particular political party, and the Progressive Alliance, as opposed to a coalition, must draw not only on Labour members, and Green members, but also on Lib-Dems and members of the SNP.
Many Labour members detest the idea of alliance with Liberals; many Liberals detest the idea of alliance with Labour.
It is not a matter of asking them to renounce their principles. It is a matter of quietly and seriously thinking what an alliance between parties who disagree about a lot of things can achieve in practice for the benefit of the nation’s citizens.
Labour should not contest the Richmond by-election. They cannot win the seat, and by contesting it they are likely to give it to the Tories.
Ken Spours has provided a cogent analysis of our situation. But in this crisis we have very little time for intellectualism. We need to use cruder language.
There are of course many people whose instinct is for left-wing policies, but who have never felt any one political party is right for them. Now, the idea of a Progressive Alliance should inspire them, involve them in actual politics.
But the Progressive Alliance must draw on people who do have allegiance to a particular political party, and the Progressive Alliance, as opposed to a coalition, must draw not only on Labour members, and Green members, but also on Lib-Dems and members of the SNP.
Many Labour members detest the idea of alliance with Liberals; many Liberals detest the idea of alliance with Labour.
It is not a matter of asking them to renounce their principles. It is a matter of quietly and seriously thinking what an alliance between parties who disagree about a lot of things can achieve in practice for the benefit of the nation’s citizens.
Labour should not contest the Richmond by-election. They cannot win the seat, and by contesting it they are likely to give it to the Tories.
Ken Spours hits the nail on the head with “love thy neighbour; responsibility and looking to the long-term for our children and future generations”. Policies must be LONG-TERM. The equivalent in the UK to corruption, so prevalent in the Developing World, is short-termism which is THE temptation for our democracy’s parties and politicians, but no good for the country. Think of any issue in the context short-term versus long-term and it will be clear..
I have read through the two documents twice because my immediate response to them was so negative that I thought I needed to reconsider and revisit. I did not change my mind. What is wrong with them? Essentially two things: first other than a reference by Spoors to an economic crisis, in neither is there an underlying economic analysis founded on an understanding of class relations and processes of accumulation. Guff about communicative relations after Mason does not do. In the old industrial states which were the key locales of Labour and social democratic politics, deindustrialization has moved much of the sphere of accumulation into the secondary sector of property speculation (including increase in value of individual owner occupied homes which has sustained the private debt explosion which has funded what Crouch calls privatized Keynesianism), a tertiary sector of new tech – OK but call it what it is and look who takes the money from it, and most importantly a quaternary sector of financial speculation – the origins of the crash. At the same time in the new industrialized world of East Asia and the global South – never mentioned in either document – we have classical capital accumulation as we have in the pink collar sectors of employment in the old post-industrial industrial world. And this means exploitation is central to the lived experience, particularly of the young in the West – private landlordism back and thriving for example, let alone shit jobs and poor work. That is Experience I in Edward Thompson’s terms – it walks in the door without knocking and gives all derived stuff which is the focus of both pieces a kick up the arse and out of the way. Moreover despite a lot of stuff about culture there is no sense in either piece of the ways in which threats to the traditional culture of an industrial society, much of which was founded on labourism and resistance to exploitation, has been abandoned as a source of political mobilization. So weak on economic analysis and weak on culture and whilst Gramscii has things to say, those things are at the derived level of politics, not at the fundamental level of social relations in production and reproduction. If we must have this kind of scholasticism then perhaps Polyani has more value for us. By the way the SNP is not in any way a social democratic party. Its utter failure to use its quite real taxation powers to resist austerity demonstrates that. What is is is a second order nationalist party like the Gombeen nationalist parties in Ireland that seeks to reconcile business interests with some social provision. It did so on the basis of the bribe of the Bartnett formula and can do so no longer. Of course Scotttish Labour has so far proved wholly incapable of even pointing this out but things may well change. UKIP has no answer to the lived experience of the post-industrial working class and its threat in the English North is much exaggerated although the evident failure of Labour local government to do anything other than manage austerity is a real issue.
My previous comment seemed not to go so here it is again:
I read the documents by Spours and Adnam twice to make sure that my initial impression of them was correct. It was. They are as bad as I thought the first time. Their fundamental problem is that they locate all the issues merely in the sphere of politics. This is New Left Review crossed with Marxism Today and the offspring is as bad as the parents. What is missing from both is first any serious engagement with the character of the crisis in contemporary capitalism and second any real understanding of the way in which globalization has created a cultural crisis in the contemporary working class – a crucial factor in the failure of social democracy across what we have to understand as the post-industrial industrial world, the homeland of social democracy and rather more importantly labourism. Let us be clear about it – capitalism is in crisis. In the West the sphere of accumulation has shifted dramatically from realization of relative surplus value in industrial production – the basis of high wages and welfare in the Keynes / Beveridge era and the primary circuit of capital accumulation in 20th century capitalism, to a mix of absolute surplus value realization in pink collar low wage ‘flexible’ employment, property speculation including the driving up of household debt on the basis of increasing house values – the secondary circuit of accumulation and the basis of what Crouch has called privatized Keynesianism which sustained consumer demand before the crash, the development of intellectual property – the tertiary circuit, and the immediate driver of the crisis – realization of value in pure financial speculation – the quaternary circuit. Industrial production is now located largely in the Far East and the Global South – and notably the enormous new industrial proletariats of these places figure not at all in the thinking in these two documents. Old Western Welfare Capitalism as a complex system is undergoing a phase shift.
And this affects people in the reality of their lives. What Edward Thompson called Experience I ‘ walks in the door without knocking’. For younger workers acute exploitation is a reality of everyday life – private landlordism back and flourishing in the UK let alone the experience of poor work.
The idea of a communications world as presented in these pieces confines culture to the world of media and some interpersonal communication. Sure industrial culture to use Raymond Williams’ terminology is a residual cultural form but it is one with enormous saliency in all its components – notably for example in the UK in the value given to the NHS. Residual cultures matter because they can be the basis of a future which is different and better. People look back to what may be an idealized past although actually it was better and that nostalgia is a factor in seeking a different future.
Some other points worth making:
1. The SNP is not at all a social democratic party. It is a nationalist party on the lines of the dreadful gombeen Fianna Fail which presents a rhetoric of social inclusion whilst always favouring business. The utter failure of the SNP to use any of its devolved powers to tax as a basis for challenging austerity demonstrates that clearly. Scotland was bribed by generous treatment for public expenditure under the Barnett formula. The extra ordinary incompetence and low level local corruption of the Scottish Labour Party opened up a space into which the SNP has stepped but it cannot deal with the situation it faces because Scotland’s Oil no longer could bridge the fiscal gap and sustaining welfare capitalism in Scotland would require really radical tax based redistribution, not least in relation to land ownership and taxation.
2. Trade Unions matter. A fundamental failure of social democratic parties, particularly UK Labour, has been an abandonment of the principle that workers must be able to organize and defend their terms and conditions collectively – that an injury to one is an injury to all. Any serious left party has to assert that strengthening the capacity of workers to use industrial action is a fundamental part of a political programme. Poor work can be resisted by industrial action. Sure a high and enforced legal minimum wage and employment rights help but industrial action is fundamental. There was no real discussion of this in either document.