A regular commentator on this blog, G Hewitt, noted yesterday that the Imperial War Museum notes on their website that:
The Labour Party won the general election decisively, winning 393 seats, while the second-placed Conservatives only secured 197. With an emphasis on social reform, the Labour Party's manifesto was strongly influenced by the Beveridge Report and included a commitment to full employment, affordable housing, and social security and health care for all.
In contrast, the Conservative campaign focused on Churchill's popular appeal, lowering taxation, maintaining defence spending and encouraging private business interests. While Churchill acknowledged a need for social reform, he argued that this should be done privately rather than by the government, claiming that Labour would need 'some kind of Gestapo' to implement such reform.
Despite Churchill's concerns, the Labour Party's emphasis on social reform clearly appealed to many voters, who gave Labour a landslide victory at the polls and a clear mandate for change.
As G Hewitt then noted:
Well knock me down with a feather, plus ca change, it's deja vu all over again. The first para is what Labour should be majoring on, and spent the Blair/Brown years largely ignoring while adopting the Conservative policies in the second para. Maybe they should commission a new “Beveridge”, written by someone with MMT background, cull the Blair/Brown Tories within their ranks and address the issues of inequality etc which the 1945 manifesto highlighted and which are still here today and perhaps in 5 to 10 years, when Scotland and NI have gone they may be ready to bring England into a more equal, more socialist place.
If only, I say.
If only.
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A good point and great idea.
But:
1) No need to mention socialism. Just do it. No need to tell them what you are doing or its philosophical basis – just focus on the positive results and let them speak for itself.
2) It’s ‘fairer’ not ‘more equal’. See it from the electorate’s point of view. A dustman knows that he is no brain surgeon and accepts that society might place more value on the brain surgeon than his role.
All the dustman wants is a steady job, decent pay and not have his pay and conditions destroyed by the market or the investors in his newly privatised service who want HIS wages added to THEIR wealth. And these days we can’t even give him that which is a disgrace by the way.
And the dustman also wants to see his children and grandchildren either at least get the chance to be a brain surgeon or at least have a decent wage and working conditions in what ever they get the opportunity to do with their life.
The current market dominated driven madness means that the lower waged struggle to survive on less but the middle class are also over charged because of the price of property, good schools etc. And what do the middle class do as a result? Well they are more likely to evade tax or be the next overpaid manager or director who is prepared to run his company into the ground as long as they rewarded highly enough in order to keep affording the property prices or private schooling they are told is more superior to the state.
Everyone is being ripped off and harmed in some way by what markets are allowed to dictate. We need more intervention by the state – in fact anyone who will make them fairer.
Fairness is key
As you will recall David Cameron used the word “fair” whenever he could fit it in. A quote from The Telegraph 2012:-
“While emphasising there will be no let up in dealing with the deficit, Mr Cameron clearly wants 2012 to be different. He wants to establish a new “fairness” agenda that will, he hopes, resonate through everything his government does. This means getting tough – instead of just talking tough – on sky-high executive pay, reforming public services, attacking unfair use of human rights legislation …….”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9000253/David-Cameron-interview-those-who-work-hard-will-be-rewarded.html
To counter faux “fairness” of the Tory/UKIP/LibDems/NewNewLabour variety – you’ve written it! “Imagine a fair world. A commitment to full employment, affordable housing, and social security and health care for all.” Keep the message simple.
Or
“Imagine a world of efficient and welcoming public services, coordinated action on climate change, equality, workers’ rights, an economy that works for people and planet at a human scale, restorative justice, and real care for the future, including young people now.”
Green Party Manifesto 2015, the opening paragraph.
Indeed
Hi PVSR,
I think your point about not mentioning “socialism” is a very good one. Voters in the main don’t care about socialism, MMT, macro economics etc. To the extent that they are aware of socialism it can be used as a toxic label to get them to vote against policies that are actually in their interests. People care about what the government is going to do that affects their lives.
Parties of the left (and in FPTP/English terms that means Labour) need to produce a compelling narrative/vision of how things would be better with them in power that people can identify with, like: A fully funded NHS. Cradle to grave care (including social care). Dentistry brought properly within the NHS. Full employment and a focus on rising wages for median earners. Properly funded higher and further education. A guarantee of an affordable and decent place to live for everyone. A properly funded law enforcement and criminal justice system. A major drive to bring the petroleum age substantially to an end within a much quicker time frame (10 years?) than is currently hoped for.
If a lot of this could be done in 1945 then it can be done now. The parallel is quite striking, since it does seem as if war is currently being waged against the public realm.
In many ways I consider myself a simple creature. That’s why I find myself scratching my head at the convoluted reasons people have presented for Labour not dealing with the current downward spiral in the UK. I’ve read suggestions that Labour are economically naive (if not illiterate), or they DO know what needs to be done, they just need to softly insinuate themselves into government so as to avoid shocking the electorate with what will be an economic revelation… I don’t really agree with either statement. I think that, regardless of the government or the opposition’s understanding of the current economic and political tensions in Britain, there are simply too many powerful entities invested in the status quo who pull the strings of politicians for meaningful change ever to arise.
The UK is going to hell in a hand cart and, if I might be so bold, the reasons are very obvious and simple. They are the same reasons behind every conflict in the history of the world – distribution of resources and imbalance of power. People have been denied a decent slice of the pie for so long (Austerity, nobody’s had a pay rise since Gawd knows when, rising prices in the shops, home ownership is a wild dream if you’re under 40… the list goes on) and that has created a dissatisfaction with… well, pretty much everything.
Then there’s the fear of The Other. Immigration is a really obvious one – if someone doesn’t look like you or sound like you then you’re going to be a little apprehensive, even scared of them. Never mind the benefits of immigration… there are a lot of people speaking in a language you don’t understand. They’ve obviously got an agenda… Enter people like EDL or Farage (who I seriously believe are in this for no reason other than they just want to watch the world burn) and boom. Just Add Water Fascism.
Meanwhile, our politically elected representatives of whatever hue have allowed themselves to be hobbled. Austerity has increased their fears too (even though it’s a beast of their own breeding)… large business, wealthy individuals and pressure groups have convinced them to follow their agenda for so long that it seems to me that “The Right Thing” is no longer on the list of things to do. It’s all about self preservation. On top of that, we’ve got a political elite class (enter your BoJo/Cameron/Gidiot types) who’ve been bred for power through the public school/Bullingdon system who view Politics as a game to be won. They are in power for the sake of it, not to effect change.
Look at the root of all of these things. People don’t have enough resources at their personal disposal. The resources exist, but the control is concentrated in the hands of a ridiculously small number of people/organisations, who are apparently comfortable Letting Them Eat Cake.
We need to redistribute things a bit. Take the foot of the necks of the poor and make some bold decisions. Provide a health service that actually works. Raise wages to a living standard, ending the gig economy and zero hours contracts. Build more housing so people can live in dignity. Reverse the overwhelming national feeling that we are impoverished and (worse) being robbed by the 1%. Whenever anyone says “But tell me how you’re going to pay for it”, just say “It will be paid for. Don’t worry about the details – we can afford this. It’ll be OK”. Then implement sensible financing options made available through PQE and watch as the pressure gauge drops.
Do that and I guarantee – I ABSOLUTELY PROMISE – that we could stay in the EU and we could convince Scotland not to leave the UK, so we can try to build a happier world together rather than apart. People won’t be so quick to seek knee jerk reactions to bad situations if their situations are made less bad. Seemples, right? Give an unemployed person a job and an employed person a pay rise and voila – they won’t see Brussels or Westminster as the cause of all their woes. We could relieve the fear of immigration and we could re-engage people with politics in a meaningful way.
That last point about John and Jane Everyman re-engaging with politics is key. THAT’s how you take back control.
We won’t see it though. Everyone is too scared and too angry. It’s a shame too, because we could do all of this without putting the current 1% types in the poor house. OK, their £1tn might become £500bn, but they’re still not shopping at Lidl. It’s enough that we win… nobody has to lose.
Spot on
“Everyone is being ripped off and harmed in some way by what markets are allowed to dictate. We need more intervention by the state — in fact anyone who will make them fairer.”
It is extraordinary how much of the ‘modern’ 21st century political narrative is still conducted through the crass, exploded ideologies of the 19th and early 20th centuries: ‘socialism’ or ‘free enterprise’, presented as the authoritative, either/or, binary representation of the whole “truth”: no options available. This is quite obviously completely absurd.
These vulgar ideologies have no authority over anything, least of all over history, or knowedge: over the real world. They are the purest form of political propaganda; and the public should simply laugh at the absudity of the proposition with which they are currently presented in Britain, and the ridiculous, comically incoherent people who peddle them, at ‘the very top’ of our major institutions: but public opinion is mediated by the British media, and the agenda it serves promotes the simple, hapless binary choice of self-serving ideologists, representing major institutions or narrow, vested interests. We are slowly drowning in a monstrous fabrication of reality.
Both socialism and free enterprise; unfettered and unregulated, and fed by unprincipled populists or ideological dogmatists, lead inevitably to the callous exploitation of ordinary people by authoritariannism, intolerance or at best, “elective dictatorship”. This is Brexit Britain. Welcome to a world of misrule, of wanton risk (with your lives and prosperity), of the leadership of bunglers, and banal, simple-minded politics inspired by mere fools: all now carrying the authentic stamp of its country of origin: Made in Britain.
Cui bono? Not ordinary people.
Agreed
However the message, from whatever source, is framed, articulated and reported – it’s a battle for our minds and it’s going to get even nastier than it is already is, with outcomes that are impossible to predict. Maybe time to batten down the hatches as you ain’t seen nothing yet – https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-bannons-plan-to-hijack-europe-for-the-far-right.
Bannin is a serious threat
And he has backing
Robert & Rebekah Mercer (Cambridge Analytica), via off-shore funds, ofc. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/steve-bannon-paradise-papers-offshore-cash. These people are seriously wealthy & dangerous for democracy of which they have a visceral dislike. They will be a life-line for any far-right, nationalist group. And there’s no shortage of those in Europe. But how to neutralise them other than be cutting off their funding, which isn’t going to happen, is it? Bizarrely a strong Labour Party in our FPTP electoral system could be a bulwark against them becoming too influential in the UK. But, they will create instability and fear wherever they can. As we’ve said oft times – it’s Shock Doctrine. And it’s effective in times of uncertainty. All this should motivate and empower the LP to adopt the progressive fiscal policies suggested by you and others here. It’s certainly no time for pussy-footing around.
You are living in a new world radically different from the one you have known. Government now is not as you understand it. Beveridge had the same problem. See my Movers and Shakers of 14 March 2018 and Death Taxes And Deceits of Wednesday 31 March 2010. I met him once but only a matter of minutes as one of a group at the LSE after he had given a talk there. He wrote his report in the hope of a world which would be at peace. In 1945 we did not get peace we got a cold war and a UK under the thumb of the USA dumping out of Empire and with an economic structure the ruin of two recent World Wars. Also and do not forget it, he was a child of The Raj. Another, like him is many respects and also a child of The Raj, Montgomery, who I met once as one of a group in the War Room of an Armoured Division HQ. They were both very polite and decent and of their time. Monty never got to Moscow, the world had gone nuclear and Beveridge’s master plan for the economy and society was never to be. We got Hollywood and TV instead.
Thanks
Pilgrim – you made the point about fairness a while back, and I thought you were onto something then. As both you and Geearkay suggest it’s not that people expect everyone to be perfectly equal. They do expect decent pay and conditions and decent public services, and not to be ripped off or see companies or individuals making obscene amounts of money.
I wonder how the likes of Danny Dorling, whom I’ve read and heard speak last week, would respond to the idea that we should perhaps talk a bit more about fairness rather than inequality.
Robin Stafford says: “I wonder how the likes of Danny Dorling, whom I’ve read and heard speak last week, would respond to the idea that we should perhaps talk a bit more about fairness rather than inequality.”
Both concepts have their problems, perhaps largely of definition. What is fair? Maybe you’ve read his book ‘Do we need economic inequality’? In Ch 6 he gives some answers to the question “What are the alternatives to inequality?” and as far as remuneration is concerned he thinks a ratio of 1:8 is about right. Of course inequality/fairness is more than just wages and he touches on pollution, transport, taxes and several other issues, including the idea that “great economic inequality leads to bad decisions being made”.
He ends his brief analysis with some hope: “Once progressive alternatives to inequality are taken up they are quickly accepted as normal and there always comes a time when we forget that all inequalities were once passionately argued for by their advocates, from the time of the very first slave holder justifying his slave holding through to the rich today trying to justify their riches.”
If those on the right have dissed the concept of “inequality” then that’s a very good reason to keep it. But yes, lets develop the notion of “fairness” and explore its meanings.
Interesting G Hewitt.
To me and out here, the term ‘inequality’ seems to relate to an observed numerical difference between numbers. It is a highly technical term in my view. It is stripped of its human impact. It is almost sterile in tying to look objective and scientific. I think that is why people do not bond with it. It also gets mixed up with racial inequality and gender inequality too – there are lots of competing claims on inequality!!
When real people are getting poorer (as I am, and others more so) I’m not sure they are always thinking of others who are doing better but thinking about how unfairly they are being treated and how they must adjust. – having their income and rights taken away in the name of austerity for example as the result of 2008 which was a private banking disaster – not a Government overspend but is treated as such.
As a woman whose is facing a pay cut in Robert Reich’s documentary ‘Inequality of All’ says to the camera (and I do paraphrase):
‘I don’t mind others being richer than me – I accept that. But why do they want the little bit of wealth that I have too? I only have a little bit – and they want to take my little bit away. Why? Why can’t I keep it? Why do they need it?’.
And this was from a Republican voter who for the first time had to cancel their dental plan for the family in order to make savings due to wage cuts. I wonder if that family ended up voting for Trump?
But I mean – what a beautifully poignant reflection from this woman? She could not have said it more clearer – the plight of real working people of today summed up right there. That statement was about fairness – not inequality.
Sure – the fascist right wingers can always tell us whose fault it is (immigrants, people born on the first Monday of every month even ad nauseum). The Tories used the concept of fairness to get those working set against those on benefits – yes – fairness as a concept can be abused – no doubt about that G Hewitt. And they got the support they needed for their awful policies. It worked.
I feel that the Left has totally bought into the inequality orthodoxy. Yes, it sounds intelligent, yes it is well intentioned but it is just too technical and complicated (also too varied) for many out here. It also treats the people the Left supposedly care about as scientific subjects to be studied, examined and classified like experimental subjects and turns the Left into nothing but distant technocrats.
We have to learn from the Tories and talk about fairness at the level of the street and use that language to connect with people about what is really going on in their lives and how the wonderful and promising ideas here can put things right.
We can do that you know. This is after all meant to be a heterodox site. I’m afraid out here in the real world fairness rules folks. Dorling needs to adopt that language to in order to communicate his excellent work to others who need his help. Lets not do it to them – but how about ‘with them’?
last time I checked the UK has not been threatened by invasion recently but I suppose you might argue that austerity has been as bad…
The Labour Manifesto of 1945 had to be countered and it was with “governments have no money of their own!” This has worked amazingly well with lazy voters and politicians under-educated in economic and monetary system matters. The UK has become a land where the majority of the populace actively connive in under-mining their own best interests!
Margaret Thatcher speech 1983:-
“One of the great debates of our time is about how much of your money should be spent by the State and how much you should keep to spend on your family. Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay–that “someone else” is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.”
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105454
David Cameron speech 2015:-
“Frankly, it is wrong for a Government to spend money like it is growing on trees because we all know that there is no such thing as public money – there is only taxpayers’ money and it should not be spent on bureaucracy or crackpot Government schemes but on you, your families and your futures.”
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Prime-Minister-David-Cameron-visits-Kingswood/story-26291292-detail/story.html
Theresa May Parliamentary Question Time exchange with Jeremy Corbyn:-
“An exchange on public-sector pay followed, with Corbyn asking for specifics on a pay rise for NHS staff, which May did not provide. Instead there was a mini-lecture on public finances — “the government has no money of its own” — which allowed Corbyn the obvious retort that finding £1bn for the DUP’s support had not proved problematic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/18/pmqs-verdict-corbyns-easy-win-on-the-economy-should-worry-tories
Thanks
The reason that Danny and other academics use the term ‘inequality ‘ is because it can, to some extent, be measured by a variety of statistical analyses . ‘Fairness’ is a perception – which I would agree is acquired by many of us at quite an early age. But not all. People like Rees-Mogg are educated to believe in gross inequality as the natural order of human society. Others like Gove believe that free market capitalism will eventually result in a fairer world. Whether we can use ‘fairness’ as a persuasive political tool, I’m not so sure. It brings to mind the kid at school with his constant whine – ‘it’s not fair.’
Rees Mogg is simply living out the fact that he failed to achieve what psychotherapists and psychologists call differentiation which is the product of satisfactory caregiving received as a baby and child. When received the child grows into an adult who recognises a well-rounded human being balances out caregiving for self with that for others very simply because he/she has been taught to understand other human beings have the same needs as himself or herself. Teaching a child to differentiate is hard-wired within human beings because we’ve become over thousands of years ultra-social creatures. This hard-wiring, however, can easily be short-circuited, post-natal depression, for example, and the ensuing neuroticism passed down generations (See Attachment Theory). In sort we wouldn’t be ultra-social if we didn’t do that balancing!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3471369/
Do you believe the public is ready for a MMT manifesto? A prerequisite for understanding MMT is understanding the current monetary system and that does not exist among the electorate.
In 1945 Labour were preaching to the choir. The left were electorally outmanoeuvred in the 1930s but had an incredibly strong social base. The 1945 manifesto covered ground that working class voters were already familiar with from their work place, their trade union, their church, their social club, their pub and their barracks room. The issues raised in the Beveridge report were the problems voters faced when they woke up every single day.
We now live in atomised society where Thatcherite dogma dominates the media that provides the vast majority of information to voters. Very few voters have the comprehension skills to understand MMT or even generally how monetary policy affects their lives. The Beveridge Report had an impact because millions of people directly experienced poor housing, sickness and hunger. How can MMT possibly have the same appeal.
We are a nation of consumers and largely apolitical. The way to appeal to voters is to offer to improve the public services they rely on in their everyday lives.
I believe the public are ready for real change
And the promise that we pay for our well-being by working for it
I.e. by creating high paid jobs
Getting down to basics we need nothing short of a revolution in ideas.
We need a party that can offer a major change in system beliefs to take us into the future of a rapidly changing work environment.
All receive a basic education and then they go to work. A guaranteed job of whatever description. A fairly paid job not subject to market/business pressures to reduce wages and other benefits. A national income guarantee for those who are unable to work through health/disability. Education/training to be a lifelong process so that individuals can learn/train and progress in life.
Further, everyone should be entitled to a decent secure home at an affordable rent/cost.
And of course the best NHS and social care that the nation can provide.
Of course this would be dismissed by many as pie in the sky just as the Beveridge Report was but we need a party with beliefs and arguments and policies to pursue those beliefs.
Fairness is the right word, people need to know that their lives can and will improve, i.e. Hope.
By the way Richard I have stopped receiving emails again.
The email issue was because I took the weekend off!
We do need New thinking
Sorry, I didn’t realize that you took time off!
Sometimes….
Rarely, but sometimes….
Who would you trust to write the Second Beveridge Report?
There is no such towering figure today; and a great many people, all major parties, who find it all too easy to follow the focus groups and chase the approval and the propaganda in the Daily Mail.
I admit I would have to muse on that