I am already depressed by the Labour Party's leadership election. I should declare an interest: I could vote, I think, as I am a member of Unite. I have no idea if I will do so. That's because, so far, all the candidates appear to be offering the same analysis, and none of them come remotely near what is required, in my opinion.This is not because they are not competent: I am sure that in their own way they are. But they are not, in my opinion, competent to offer the choice that is required by the Labour Party. That is because what all have to offer is managerialism.
I will not actually rely on the candidates to illustrate the point. Andrew Rawnsley did it quite well in the Observer, saying:
There are already emerging divisions. Between left and right, younger generation and the old guard, northern and southern, those who think the imperative is to reconnect with lost working-class voters and those who emphasise the party's inability to appeal to the middle classes. More important than any of those divides is the split between those who seek refuge from their grief in superficial explanations for this defeat and those who understand that they must think hard about the existential challenge that now confronts the party.
Rawnsley, astute but certainly not unbiased, observer that he is has accurately reflected that this election is going to be about form, and not substance. No wonder Len McCluskey is not happy. The debate is already about presentation, triangulation and message management. What seems to have been forgotten is the message.
Rawnsley is right that Labour faces an existential challenge but he appears to be quite unable to spot what it is. He suggests that the crisis it faces comes down to:
Labour never found a good answer to the charge that it overspent when it was in government. Five years on, the contenders for the leadership are still being asked a question that should have been dealt with in 2010.
He's right, but only to a limited degree. The extent to which he's right is that because people believe this all the candidates now offering themselves for election all believe that they must ape the Tories because they do not think it's any longer possible to address this issue. The extent to which he and they are wrong is that this aping of the Tories is in itself the clearest indication of the existential problem that Labour faces. A political party that thinks it must offer the electorate a variation on the agenda of another party has no reason for being: it does not deserve to win. All it offers is presentation and managerialism (on neither of which issues has Labour shown massive ability) but is devoid of political content leaving an absence of purpose which, like it or not, voters detect.
I deliberately say in the title to this blog that this is like most of the debate I witness on tax. When tax debate is also reduced, as all too often it is, to what tax measures may, or may not, be most effective in raising or reducing revenues then that debate also entirely misses the real point of what tax is about. I have said it often, and will again, that tax is not just about raising revenue. It is about influencing behaviour to achieve the goals that we, politically, want to achieve in society. Politics and tax are inextricably linked and both are about choices to be made about the society we want.
Choosing the society we want is not a managerial decision. It is a strategic one: a politically strategic one. Of course it has to be considered possible that the strategy can be delivered. If it is not it is not credible. But the possibility that there is only one strategy within politics now, and that it is the neoliberal one that markets alone can determine appropriate outcomes for society is not just wrong, but dangerously wrong because it is so untrue. It is absolutely true that markets have an important and valuable role to play in society, but so too has the state. And on occasion it is just better in delivering solutions than markets. One occasion when that is true is when markets fail, as in 2008, when the states ability as both lender of last resort and as the creator of money can be exploited to sustain economic activity when most others have failed.
It would seem that this is not known by the managerialist school of politics, which includes commentators like Rawnsley. They have forgotten that there is political choice available and that they have tools, such as economic policy in what tax plays such a key role, that can help deliver those choices. Instead they now seem to think that their only role is to deliver the managerial options markets demand. But this is to deny something fundamental - which is that politics has any role in setting the strategy when that is its whole purpose. Managerialism is largely for civil servants.
No wonder then that Labour has an existential crisis. It's forgotten the choices it can even make, let alone explain them or argue their case. Until it recalls what it is for, why it has to offer choice, and that the alternatives to the neoliberal option are not just powerful, but successful in ways that nothing suggests neoliberalism to be, will it have a message that is worth hearing.
Right now Labour's instead just tinkering on the edges - as it did with its choice of tax policies in the election just gone, where from the options available it (by and large) selected the safe, cautious and rather innocuous. When it (and any other party facing a leadership election) realises this is the path to oblivion we might see a revival in the party politics of old.
If not, then let's bring on the new. And in the process the choices about tax, and what it is to achieve, will be vital components in the story to be told.
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My main gripe is these look uncomfortably like the Tory leadership elections 🙁
Labour needs, as John Cruddas says, to dig deep and rediscover its roots. I suggest they start with Keir Hardie, and a real appraisal of where the Labour Party came from and why, with less use of “warm words”, such as ” aspiration”.
The idea that we’re all middle class now, and that, except for a lumpenproletariat remnant, there’s no significant working class left is a wrong, and almost tragic, misreading of things.
For as Tony Benn observed, anyone who has no real control over capital, over the means if production, and who only has his own labour to sell and contribute to the mix, is, in effect, working class, whatever class he or she believes themselves to be.
It is these people – the working class both by the old, time-honoured definition, but also by the newer, wider, definition, that Labour should seek to speak for, which means re-discovering Hardie’s opposition to monopoly power based on assumed superiority, privilege and wealth, so as to release the talents and wealth-producing abilities of ALL those currently locked out of the charmed circle of the 1%.
I have to agree that I haven’t yet heard any of the contenders speaking this language of thoroughgoing empowerment.
“The idea that we’re all middle class now, and that, except for a lumpenproletariat remnant, there’s no significant working class left is a wrong, and almost tragic, misreading of things.”
Andrew, on this occasion I’m not sure I agree. Labour needs to redefine itself totally, it cannot any longer delve into its history and revamp it-in my view for the following reasons:
1) Mining, heavy manufacturing has almost disappeared and the culture that existed with it -remember McMillan’s speech in the Lords:http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/14/world/macmillan-at-90-rouses-the-lords.html?
2) The culture is now middle class or ‘failed to be middle class.’ There is no homogeneity of values anywhere else.
3) Anyone under 50 will have little memory of the old working class and old Labour and have grown up under a new narrative based on a variety of the American Dream (you are poor because you didn’t work hard enough).
4) Any party of opposition to neo-liberalism needs to install a vigorous education program that can put across in a straight forward way that there are REAL alternatives. Labour has been utterly clueless in this regard.
5) If Labour is floundering for lack of a vision then it deserves to be wound down to allow something new and vital -the spirit of 1945 cannot repeat itself because conditions are very different.
6) The issue of sustainability and global economic justice ( Varoufakis suggests a look at Keyne’s abandoned General Surplus Recycling mechanism) needs new mechanisms and a new vision that kills of the international rentier.
Labour cannot be Old Labour again, nor Blairite Labour -it must revamp entirely.
Simon,
I think I’ve been misunderstood here somewhat, in two ways a) my use of the word class/working class and b) the objective behind exploring Labour’s past.
As regards the first, I am well aware that the old idea of “working class” is largely an historical, rather than a present reality, but my point was that, in the light of the Tories’s neo-feudal project, ANYONE who is not in the 1%/new Baronage, is, in effect, working class, because they are the actual, or potential, serfs in the neo-fuedal state. Actually, you support my thesis by referring to the fact that “The culture is now middle class or ‘failed to be middle class.’. What these middle class failures (and even many of the middle class successes) have not cottoned on to the fact that they are, in fact, largely merely sellers of their labour in the marketplace, with most of their apparent freedom of action actually severely constrained by the 1%
Secondly, as regards my wish that Labour should explore its own past, that was not said in any sense of wish to re-run 1945 (if only!), knowing that is impossible, but that Labour might really understand 1) Where it came from 2) What it hopes to achieve and 3) How to achieve that. In a later post, below, Mark C expresses this so much better than I did, as follows:
“With that in mind you are right to appeal to the party to go back to Labour’s core reason to exist at all or as Ivan says ‘to go back to its roots’. What Labour needs is a type of reflective managerialism not a reactive one and — as the Guardian has said — not a rush to to find a new leader.”
Where I find myself 1005 in agreement with you is where you say:
“4) Any party of opposition to neo-liberalism needs to install a vigorous education program that can put across in a straight forward way that there are REAL alternatives. Labour has been utterly clueless in this regard.”
Labour have been worse than clueless on this – they have been almost literally criminally incompetent, thereby betraying the constituency they purport to exist for and whose well-being they should have strained every nerve to protect and advance.
Two points;
– I agree that if you can’t successfully distinguish yourself from other parties you have no reason to exist and would only add that the changes to boundaries that are coming, the division of their ‘natural’ vote by devolution considerations and the inbuilt disadvantage they face from the captured media might mean they never can be in a position to govern again.
– Isn’t this just one more step down the continuing road away from political party structures and towards issue-based politics? Failing to find an umbrella under which to comfortably shelter ones convictions is surely a sign that one is not possible any more and we can all concentrate on our pet projects from now on. Or should that wait until we have evolved away from seventeenth century political structures and can utilise 21st century ‘X Factor/Strictly Ballroom/’Help! I’m a D-lister in the jungle’ voting technologies?
If the right can find an umbrella why can’t the left?
Or are there only neoliberal umbrellas on sale?
I don’t know that the Right, as we like to call it, is necessarily Neoliberal. Baroness Warsi, hardly a well-known Leftie, is quoted recently as saying “This could have been a moment at which to raise our eyes to the sunny uplands of a future united cohesive nation, in which the opportunities that this country has to offer are available to all. A very Conservative vision. Instead, the plans felt like an attack on the very values we were professing to promote. And this has been the pattern of policy-making since the Blair years. More and more, authoritarian counter-terrorism strategies have undermined our values, yet not made us feel any safer. We’re told that our protection and our freedoms can only be secured by the curtailment of freedoms. And the battle of ideas is not fought and won by bigger and better ideas but by banning, silencing through legislation and securitising communities.” She’s speaking of Cameron’s proposals to curtail human rights http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/14/scrapping-human-rights-act-backbench-conservative-opposition-david-cameron_n_7281574.html Much of that was well-said, I thought. She’s a Tory too! I doubt she’s the only one who feels disquiet about the Neoliberal intentions of Cameron’s Cabinet. It’s not the Right who are the problem in this instance. It’s the Neoliberals, and they’re in both main parties.
What a thought. At this very moment one of the many entrepreneurs I’m told we have in this country is taking your idea and designing and patenting a neoliberal umbrella. What material will it be made of? Will it be collapseable? Will it turn inside out when its a bit stormy? Who knows. But it’s bound to be big seller.
🙂
I’ve very sadly come to the conclusion that at the moment, unless we are successful in convincing more of our fellow citizens of their own self-interest in building the better society, more of them will continue to vote for selfish and insular politics than progressive ones. Which means ‘Yes’ the left cannot and will not build a successful umbrella.
And while there are definite alternatives, in every possible way,to neoliberal offers they will not be successful in getting their message across to sufficient voters with the overwhelming bias of national media outlets against them. That is too much of a handicap to overcome. So ‘No’ there are alternatives to vote for but they will not be heard.
I’m sure you followed the ‘mediamacro’ posts that Simon Wren-Lewis put up around the election campaign, they are convincing.
Personally I’m spending my energy and other resources away from the political sphere and working with others to build a genuine alternative economy on the ground. When it is successful enough to be copied the politicians will ask us what we’ve done. And look to lead the parades I’m sure …
Simon Wren-Lewis is excellent
Your approach is an excellent one
I think the problem is also that the neo-lib umbrella is partially a sub-conscious one, that is, it is the protection of vested interests that have apparently ‘spontaneously’ arisen.
Whereas the left umbrella ALWAYS has to be a conscious one that has an intellectual, analytical base that challenges what appears to have arisen. Even the Daily Mail reported that those on the left have more ‘flexible minds.’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study–conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html
Richard, one has to be a realist about these things.
The Conservatives are already ramping up their proposals to further restrict unions ability to take industrial action.
Unless we have a Labour party that can appeal to the majority in this country, we will have successive Conservative governments with free reign to also go further and further in dismantling the welfare state.
That does mean recognising that there is a moderate majority in England which does accept the broad structure of the economy as is, and are not looking for major change.
You might call that “apeing” the Tories but it could be also viewed as making an election-winning offer to the public. Otherwise it is the 1980s all over again.
Scotland is another matter and I think the Labour party should seriously consider cutting loose the Scottish Labour party to be an independent force within the devolution framework (c.f. CSU/CDU in Germany).
Your argument is we should accept there is only one prevailing political narrative
I do not agree. I also think the prevailing narrative is wrong
But I agree they tell the best story
Does that mean no alternative is possible?
I don’t agree if that is the argument
At least Burnham supports LVT;o)
Managerialism has been a central feature of politics in this country and elsewhere every since the advent of the so called “New Public Management” in the 1990s, Richard. A core strand of NPM was always to de-politicise public adminstration: to separate policy formulation from policy implementation, and always of course to emphasise that the “three E’s” (economy, efficiency and effectiveness) should sit at the heart of public services – though in reality the focus was always on the first two.
In reality, of course, separating formulation from implementation – one done by politicians the other by civil servants/public sector managers – was always doomed to failure, as Jeremy Hunt has recently discovered with regard to the NHS. But NPM also provided the rationale and conditions for the entry of all kinds of ideas, practices, and technologies from commercial business to enter government and public admin, underpinned, of course, by the idealogical mantra “private good, public bad”.
Nobody much refers to NPM any more, or at least not in those countries that pioneered it, such as the UK, Australia, and the US, because there’s no need to. In large part the project to depoliticise what is in fact inherently political (even though it relies on the constant denial of reality and thus the maintenance of a lie) has been a greater success than its exponents could ever have imagined, because it’s also allowed politicians to knowingly or unknowingly depoliticise themselves and the function of the parties and/or government.
A case in point is illustrated by the interview with Labour leadership hopeful, Liz Kendall, in Saturday’s Guardian. This could just as easily be a Tory speaking as there’s no obvious difference between her prescription for the country (and thus why Labour failed at the election) than a “soft”, one nation, Tory. But that doesn’t matter because it all comes down to management, and Liz wants us to believe she’d be a better manager than Burnham, Cooper, and co. And thus she’d manage Labour into a place where it might stand a chance of winning an election.
In truth I suspect that this approach to politics means that Labour will only win an election when the Tories have turned this country into an economic and social mess. The people will say, “well, we might as well give a new set of managers a go, as they surely can’t make it any worse.” A bit like a political version of outsourcing, really. Award and five year contract to one party with various service level agreements attached and see how they go on. If they cock up, hand the contract to another party. But then, I was forgetting. By the next election so much of the state will be outsourced, that that’s exactly what we’ll be doing anyway.
I agree with your conclusion
On this basis we simply swap managers – like a football team owned by someone with no knowledge of the place after which it is named – every few years
You can probably tell that I’m not a football supporter, Richard, otherwise I might have thought of that analogy. It’s a good one, particularly as I do know enough to know that a good number of our football teams are owned by oversees enterprises, and I assume non doms and tax avoiders. In other words very much like our country – and that was before the fire-sale of our remaining public assets that’s about to be embarked on by our new “blue collar” Tory government.
I agree and will go further in saying that unfortunately the labour party are fully paid up members of the neoliberal school of thought. This has been evidenced many times including in the Blair/Brown years where they lumbered our NHS with £300billion worth of PFI debt, debts that will take 70 years to pay off and in no small way are at least contributing to their current woe’s.
As long as the financial markets in particular have such an influence on British politics we will continue to see the cash for access and all the other scandals of recent years. It saddens me to say this, but it is my belief that there will be no revival of the labour party as a major player in British politics unless and until it breaks it’s ties with markets and big money. That just isn’t going to happen in my opinion until the party reflect and remember why and on what basis it was originally formed. I fear that day will be a long time coming. However I have been wrong before and hope I will be proven so again.
Matt
I do not think we have £300 billion of PFI debt….
PFI has debt and service elements
I think both are wrong but stress we need to state both properly
Richard
Point taken Richard, I was taking my figures from an article I had read.
So I have done some research and the total combined value of PFI and service elements is £184.38 billion and the length of contract varies on each project between 22- 50 years according to Treasury database of current PFI projects as at 31st March 2013
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-finance-initiative-projects-2013-summary-data
I think that you are right to point this out. It is very worrying and I say this as a long term Green voter from now on. I’ve lost patience with Labour to be honest.
I would say one thing however about ‘managerialism’ (having recently finished an MBA). The concept has good and bad points.
There is no doubt that managerialism is the cause of many woes in modern business and indeed modern politics. But I would say that not all of it is crap, and the best bits are potentially very useful to Labour if they are to grow their credibility with voters again. I would say that ‘management’ has been somewhat mis-applied to the workings of democracy, usually be people of little substance themselves who try to reduce complex issues into soundbites. But there is a lot snake oil in management theory – you have to wade through a lot of it before you find the really useful stuff.
With that in mind you are right to appeal to the party to go back to Labour’s core reason to exist at all or as Ivan says ‘to go back to its roots’. What Labour needs is a type of reflective managerialism not a reactive one and – as the Guardian has said – not a rush to to find a new leader.
For example, the control of what politicians say by the centre of a party can be seen to stifle debate; however, you cannot argue with the fact that a party with too many opinions may not actually appeal to voters because voters ar not looking for debate: they are voting for solutions or action. Or a vision of a better life.
So the key is to know when to debate and when to promise on the delivery of policy (where there should be more unanimity at that point). I think that the Tories trumped Labour on this I’m afraid.
Managerialism used as a tool to manage an election campaign could be quite productive; being used to enable layperson politicians to become so called managers of complex public sector services however is not desirable at all IMHO.
Labour needs to define itself by asking who it is and who it is for.
Once it has that sorted that out (and I am not underestimating the size of that task) the organisation that managerialism can bring to that task can be fully harnessed. I believe that Labour (or even the Greens) could make use of marketing techniques for example more efectively once they know what they are wanting to
sell.
This needs to be done right. The Tories election campaign was one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen but there was no fightback from Labour over most of it. The progessives must be better armed for the next election.
The other issue is also one of tribalism; can Labour see itself as working with other progressive parties and sharing their agenda’s more? Or does it see itself working with others as a liability? Only time will tell, but they must reach in order to not be seen as the ‘Tory Lite’ party.
I detect a high degree of righteousness here; Labour operates in a post modern, post industrial, post crisis Britain with probably the most Right wing Media in Europe as we saw from the 4 months savaging of Ed Miliband by our national press. Moreover the BBC has promulgated an anti-Labour message in its coverage of the crisis, overspending and Pro-Austerity consensus.
Can you believe a moderate Labour set of policies were condemned as a Left Wing Experiment and as being dangerous to our society; the final fear factor was the idea of the SNP damaging the UK. Conservative resources were massive, targeted and unrelenting.
With so many seats behind and reduced majorities in the North and South it is pragmatic that Labour has to broaden its appeal unless we are to see a Tory Hegemony for the next ten years to 2025. It were good that those who now criticise Labour could suggest how we confront a Sun and Mail which preached hate and scorn for all the progressives for such media will always be there in all areas of England wielding disproportionate power yet from the progressives I rarely hear solutions to this ongoing problem.
There really was no message
I am afraid that was a gift to those selling the alternative message
You have to have something to sell before you can do so
Your blog is fantastic. Usually I don’t talk but I couldn’t contain myself. (haha)
It has me wonder, is the sum of the many layers of openness to election fraud, the emptiness of the message and the controlled opposition perhaps enough for at least some to start questioning if it could be legitimately called an election?
Systems can be developed for infiltration or outside control but there are no real examples of systems designed against it that didn’t get hacked. As the expression goes: there are businesses who know they’ve been hacked and those who don’t know it. Technically social engineering alone already qualifies as a hack.
In electronics/computers a signal can be highly distorted without affecting the transmission. Even if there is 90% error the transmission can simply be repeated often enough to guarantee validation.
Say we give everyone a pass-phrase then 1) have them vote electronically, by phone or by computer as the first layer. One downloads a voting certificate and at any time one can review (not change) if the e-vote was processed correctly by phone or by computer. 2) Send everyone a form, 2 copies. You fill out your name, vote and the validation number again. Keep one copy. The other is send by post and scanned into a database 3 times, first by government then by 2 randomly chosen businesses. (Its a great side project for any business, have a guy with a scanner and a mail bag & get paid. There should be many businesses around the world willing to do the work) If all 3 match a confirmation is send to the voter by each validating entity. If any errors are found the process is repeated and there will be an investigation. When there are errors again the process is repeated and the investigation will be more elaborate. Then we all go to the ballot box and confirm our vote, press “correct” vs “incorrect”. If someone managed to hack both the internet/phone vote and all 3 validating agencies there will be a full blown criminal investigation with huge fines and prison time. In most cases the voter will just be confused. He should have the electronic certificate with hard to hack fingerprints, his copy of the post vote and the confirmation letters.
It would also be great to have each candidate write a legally binding election program in text. Something like 4 pages. Some creative writing and some mandatory topics. These documents should be signed and legally binding. One can describe longer tea breaks, shorter tea breaks or that one doesn’t have a position on tea breaks. Only the later allows for flip flopping. If an actual choice is made the party shall not be part of any debate about the issue. This is to break the paradigm where one can stand for multiple contradicting things and get both sides of the vote.
Unless we want public opinion to be up to media engineering the voter should be able to compare at least some of each election program side by sides.
The web version could present the closest matching party after the voter checks some yes/no/don’t know boxes. One can submit the choices for polling purposes. That way parties can adjust their program to the things people want.
Each electable party could provide one or two mandatory questions for the other parties to answer with yes, no or we don’t know at this time and rate them from 1 to 5 by importance. This will give a lot of influence to the smallest parties.
Lets have the facts, lets see them put it in writing like: Free education?: No, Importance: 1 (not important) or the equally absurd: Free education: don’t know, Importance: 5 (very important)
Then they can try appeal to voters who also think the topic is important while they have no opinion about it.
I’m sure everyone thinks I’m crazy (again) so ill make it a bit more absurd:
It would even be possible to just have the facts. Have people give their opinion about the list of mandatory topics, and assign their vote based on those choices. Then they can be outraged that their vote didn’t go towards a candidate who doesn’t represent their views. That way we might even get a majority vote for an unknown candidate with all the right ideas.
It will be lovely to hear popular candidates instruct us how to check the boxes in stead of carefully avoiding the things other parties have at the top of their todo list. Tell people to vote everything: “I don’t know”, education, environment, health-care, etc. just put an X in the “I don’t know” box and mark it as unimportant.
I can dream right?
🙂
My concern is that your dream us about facts and politics is about vision
I doubt also that we have significant electoral corruption in the UK. Some, yes; significant, no.
Whatever the message our vitriolic Conservative press and its news agenda which permeates the broadcasters agenda too will prevent an alternative progressive message.For Labour and all progressives the English media is the elephant in the room which most will not confront whatsoever. Moreover while Miliband my have been the wrong choice it seems fair to say that many undecided voters were in two minds – we met this time after time on the doorstep. In the end they did not go for Ed with many choosing UKIP and the Tories instead and so we have Osborne until 2020 and possibly beyond. Within Labour we are deeply depressed and I take the view that the media pushed sufficient don’t knows into the right wing camps. You only need a small number in not many marginals. Crosby and the press delivered that for Cameron.
I am disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, at the prospective leaders all trying to move towards the Tories.
I wish the party as a whole would look long and hard at where they went wrong and their aspirations (to use an the word of the moment) for Labour.
I notice Jon Cruddas had an article in the Observer about doing this. Although I find that he also writes about social democracy when there ‘is no money’ and am disappointed by his outlook as well.
Well Richard, I totally agree with all the points you raised – why vote for a watered down version of what you aready have..
Unfortunately we do follow & are influenced by America and the Tory campaign was backed by a lot of money from business and these people will be expecting a return from their investment.
Take a look at this young man’s video – it has over 1 Million views.. it is really incisive, passionate and I would be so proud if he was my son. He is more aware than many people twice his age.
http://www.youtube.com/nxtgenuk. http://Www.facebook.com/mcnxtgen
I can’t find a video…
The voting system has changed. Union members (in unions affiliated to Labour) will now have to register individually (thought they won’t have to pay anything) to vote in the leadership election
Go to http://www.labour.org.uk/w/labour-party-supporters
Richard,
Spot on analysis. I am not a Labour supporter but its truly painful to see the narrow-minded ‘spad-ocracy’, as Diane Abbott calls them, take the helm.
Labour needs a leader with vision a vision of a fairer society. Can you imagine the headlines he/she would get if the next leader advocated a new voting system based on PR? Instead we learn this morning Yvette Cooper claiming Labour lost the election because they were too ‘anti-business’? You couldn’t make it up.
Yes Yvette, the SNP total annihilation of Labour in Scotland was because the Scottish people rose up to defend the bankers, frackers and wealth creators? As a comenter put in the Gaurdian today, they should just be done with it and dump the name “Labour” so and change it to what they really are: “Red Tories”!
PS I recommend this great article on what the Labour and all UK progressive parties should really be doing…
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/shaun-lawson/how-to-stop-boris-labour-liberal-democrats-and-what-left-must-now-do
I think Spadocracy is an excellent term
Richard,
In a 2013 blog post you said “I am what is now called a Modern Money Theorist”, which makes it disappointing that you imply above the primary purpose of tax is “about raising revenue”?
“Taxes are not needed to “pay for” government spending. Further, the logic is reversed: government must spend (or lend) the currency into the economy before taxpayers can pay taxes in the form of the currency. Spend first, tax later is the logical sequence.”
Randy Wray, “WHAT ARE TAXES FOR? THE MMT APPROACH”
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/taxes-mmt-approach.html
I am well aware that the reality is that this really means reclaiming money issued by the state
There is no way this can reach mainstream audiences yet
Very pleased to hear you are still on board with MMT.
The election shows that “mainstream audiences” back austerity and reject ‘tax and spend’ progressives. All because they believe government is broke.
That belief will never be broken unless true progressives (not the likes of the awful Labour leadership candidates) stand up and tell the awful unvarnished truth that the government can’t ever go bust. That takes courage, but please, as the author of The Courageous State, have another think about this.
Bill Mitchell is spot on with the Natalie Bennett’s pitiful own goal scored when she struggled on that radio interview to justify how the Greens would fund the building of 500,000 new social rental homes (my emphasis added)…
“She could have simply said — “If we are in government, then the British people will understand we issue the currency and we will pay for this by increasing the deficit and instructing the Bank of England to credit the necessary bank accounts to facilitate the purchases.”
That is the plain truth of it.
They can do that. If there is a need for 1/2 million more social houses then they should do that as long as it is within the real economy’s capacity to provide the housing.
If it is not in the capacity then they would have to assess priorities and perhaps have to raise taxes to withdraw spending capacity from the private sector.
Simple macroeconomics.
The reason she stumbled is that the Greens…cannot bear to talk about deficits etc because they are constrained by the current orthodoxy.
The consequences of that are (a) no social housing will actually emerge; and (b) she sounds like an idiot when being interviewed.“
I have worked very hard on the Greens to say that
I hope it will happen, soon
Bravo Richard! Wonderful news indeed if the Greens are listening AND understand the political folly of the ‘orthodox’ thinking Bill Mitchell criticised.
Of all parties the Greens have the right DNA to ‘get’ MMT: namely that the constraints on the government are real ones (e.g. the environment) and never numbers on a spreadsheet.
Give it time though
I am just talking to some key players
But I am being heard
Thanks and the very best of luck
FYI there are couple of less well known, but nevertheless very good MMT economists who also happen to be ecological / environmental economics experts. They are Steven Hail from Adelaide University and Associate Professor Phil Lawn from Flinders University.
What’s interesting in this context is they have been reaching out to the Australian Green Party on macroeconomics over this past year. So far without any luck, but hope springs eternal. Steven tweets pretty much daily on progress…
https://twitter.com/stevenhailaus
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