I wrote recently about the Social Consensus, as I call it, setting out the high-level principles that should, in my opinion, guide the operation of the style of government that we actually have, rather than the fantasy one that almost all politicians on the right and some on the left think we should have instead.
My proposal attracted a lot of comments on and offline and I have considered them all. The structure of what follows looks similar to the first version, but there have been many small tweaks to, I hope, improve the suggestion and address the concerns raised, most of which I did in some way take into account.
Please remember when commenting that these are meant to be principles and not policy proposals.
Further comments are still welcome.
The Social Consensus
Proposition one
The state shall recognise each individual within it as having equal rights. This includes the right to choose a government that fairly reflect the views of all within its jurisdiction, in whose individual and collective best interests any government shall be tasked to act, seeking to reconcile these claims as best it is able.
Proposition two
The state will create law to reflect the ethics of the society within its jurisdiction as determined by its properly elected government.
In pursuit of this goal the state will:
- require that any government within its jurisdiction and those who act on its instructions shall abide by these principles;
- provide mechanisms to hold a government to account if it does not adhere to these principles, including by the operation of an independent judicial system capable of demanding remedy for failure to do so;
- provide for freedom of speech unless it promotes harm towards or hatred of another person;
- secure the availability of diverse news media that reflects the range of opinion within its jurisdiction.
Proposition three
The state will uphold the rule of law and provide access to all citizens who wish to seek remedy under that law, whatever their means.
Proposition four
The state will maintain peace within its jurisdiction and seek to secure peace internationally.
Proposition five
The state will uphold the right to own and trade property, whilst ensuring that its own property rights are respected and upheld.
Proposition six
The state will eliminate poverty, whatever its cause, and ensure a fair allocation of resources so that all might participate fully within society.
In pursuit of this goal a state will seek to provide appropriately rewarded work for all who want it and education throughout life to all who might wish for it and can benefit from it.
Proposition seven
The state will protect each person from harm whether that be from:
- Physical risk;
- Discrimination;
- Preventable disease or illness.
Proposition eight
The state shall secure those resources that it needs to fulfil its obligations, in pursuit of which it shall:
- manage the macroeconomy of its jurisdiction, including its currency, currency creation, taxation and deposit taking to provide sufficient economic stability to achieve this goal;
- limit the power of those who seek to exploit corporations or positions reflecting artificial competitive advantage including through the exercise of monopoly power within marketplaces;
- regulate terms of exchange, trade and sharing to promote fairness;
- encourage the free movement of people and ideas within and beyond its jurisdiction.
Proposition nine
The state shall recognise the limitations that the availability of natural resources imposes upon it, managing its affairs to ensure that future generations enjoy the opportunities available to those currently alive.
Proposition ten
These propositions shall be interpreted within the framework of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
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I have never before read one of your blog pieces and found no comments attached. I am doubly surprised that this one, addressing as it does the fundamentals of a code for governance, has yet to attract any suggestions. Let me try one very simple change.
In Proposition Six you write “In pursuit of this goal a state will seek to provide appropriately rewarded work for all who want it and education throughout life to all who might wish for it and can benefit from it.”. I’d suggest that you simply drop the last five words in that sentence. Apart from the inherent difficulty of assessing how any individual might benefit from education, at any point in their life, perhaps it would be more realistic to assume that the vast majority of people will always benefit from (further) education, rather than devote considerable resources to making individual assessments of their potential to benefit. The mess already made of carrying out assessments for benefits claimants would count as a salutary example of how badly this could be botched.
Can there be an open-ended commitment to education though, on demand?
Are you sure about that?
If we can have, as in Proposition three, what appears to be an open-ended commitment to “uphold the rule of law and provide access to all citizens who wish to seek remedy under that law, whatever their means”, we can probably have a similar principle of providing education to the same extent. It may be that you intend all of the Principles to be constrained by what might be called “sensible limits” to prevent waste or misuse, but in that case something along those lines might also need to be spelled out.
Even if it is only contributing to the health and sanity of an individual’s mind, education is likely to always be of benefit to the individual – and may have benefits for the society in which they live. Unless, of course, it is education at one of our public schools, which is increasingly being shown to have an astonishingly high rate of success at producing non-productive and anti-social people.
I see little point in saying things that are implausible
Education on demand without limit is implausible
Why state as a principle something that cannot be delivered?
Looking good – no doubt there are more iterations to come.
I want to ask a more basic question. Is it
(a) a manifesto
(b) a statement of what the UK (or even global) social consensus currently is
(c) a statement that is partly “manifesto” but could get 80% of the population to line up with.
If it is (a) then it is just us talking to ourselves. It is not (b) – if I showed this in my local pub it would probably not be the consensus.
So, it has to be (c)… in which case we need to take care that it is not just a bunch of left leaning blog commentators writing a wish list but that it is also attractive to those on the centre-right. We are marking out the pitch on which the competition of ideas will take place, not actually engaging in the competition (yet).
So, (for example) Prop 8 “encourage the free movement of people and ideas within and beyond its jurisdiction” will be contentious. Is it essential? Could it be re-phrased? Could it be dropped? I don’t have the answer (personally it IS important to me…. but I I do understand that there IS a debate).
Let me think again…
It is (c), ultimately
It was also just going to be a couple of pages in a book that I wanted to get right
Clive, I think you express better one of the things I tried to say in my comment on Richard’s first draft of this. There isn’t a distinction between what is a function of any modern state regardless of its politics (e.g. “the state will create law[s]”), those that describe the Western democratic consensus (e.g. “each individual … having equal rights”) and those that form a non-partisan manifesto* which decent public-spirited citizens (readers of this blog) could sign up to as common ground that should be expected of any government regardless of political leaning.
It is the latter that has potential to be most valuable in shaping debate.
[*I previously used the word “aspiration” which was probably too weak for what Richard intends].
Noted
I think I’ve already reached the upper limit of any intellectual faculties I have to appraise these objectives but I am still not entirely happy with Proposition 7.
A lot of ‘harm’ done to people over the years in this country and generally in the West has been economic harm. Again, I can only express the revision of the proposition by stating the problem: We have seen jobs go, wages decline and pensions come under pressure. People affected by these matters are then unable to compete or take part in society (we used to use the word ‘social exclusion’ in more enlightened times) . We have seen these people further punished and marginalised by this Government of Goons since 2010; theirs is a different society – zero hours contracts, low paid work, multiple jobs but still poor with all its negative impacts.
I think saying something about this in the proposition is a form of recognition of the issue of the income crisis for working people in the West and addresses the rampant mal-distribution of wealth; it addresses the issue of the ‘precariat’ – those more likely to support fascism or other dodgy ideas like UKIP; it underpins the use of MMT to ‘print enough money for our needs’; it actually interlocks with Propositions 8,9 & 10 and even 1; the growing use of automation is still going to be threat to paid work and that also needs to be dealt with head-on.
Finally my last attempt is an intellectual argument: slavery – the opposition to.
I refer to Nancy Maclean’s book ‘Democracy in Chains’ (2017) which to me was a very important book. This book actually charted the rise of Neo-liberalism (or its historic intersection with) the U.S. slave state mentality of The South through to modern America and the West. To me it charts the exploitation by Wealth of human beings from before the American Civil War to the present day. We know that the American South’s economy was built on free slave labour. It’s a matter of historic record. MacLean’s book tells us that that war has never really stopped. But instead of it being constrained to a small geographical area of the States, it is now an attitude that has been exported the world over in Neo-liberalism and the work of cod-academics like Charles Buchanan.
That exploitative element of Wealth still exists. We know that every wage lost to a worker, every pension, every right, goes straight into the pocket of a wealthy investor, pension fund or wealthy owner so that their wealth – and more importantly – their POWER increases. The wealthy are in other words still fighting ordinary working people for their bit of wealth. In short, The Wealthy believe in slavery. And whether you are black, white – whatever, we are all expected to be slaves now and in the future if we are not careful, if we do not somehow contain the Rich.
This is why I have continuously and consistently depicted this phenomenon as a ‘war’ – and that the American Civil War never really stopped – just its methods changed from guns and artillery to using and moving money around, it’s battlefield became the world financial system and its armoury the wealth of vested interests – and – as already stated – it became a global war. Never mind rising again: The South never stopped. It’s spirit lives on in the mega Global Rich whose disdain for ordinary people matches that of the slave traders and plantation owners of old and in the Universities where Neo-liberalism hold sway.
These propositions are about the power of the law of the sovereign. But money is also power – and the State has to realise that it has an adversary in the power of private wealth and its acquisitive and rapacious nature. The State has to realise that this war of greed exists and it needs to manage it and even cancel it out.
Otherwise what will happen? The State will end up carrying the tab for people who are just not needed or wanted or under valued, which then will be depicted as a burden that it cannot afford and then people will be left to rot or subsist as they already are in too many countries below levels unseen in the West as yet. As yet.
Make no mistake that this phenomenon of ‘economic harm’ exists. The income crisis is real. It may not look as bloody and as horrendous as a battlefield in the Ukraine. But just ask those living with its consequences or who are facing a choice between eating or heating this year. And also ask yourself how many more of us are 1,2 or 3 pay days away from being no different? I for one am in that category so I know its real. The drop in the value of my labour (and my wealth) and that of my colleagues in the public sector this last 12 years has been precipitous and without any factual or causal basis; niggardly welfare payments which are not inflationary even if generous are not based on any factual or causal basis.
Taking money away from the general population is economically stupid: everyone’s income is someone else’s income. That is how the harm is amplified.
And the Neo-liberal/Southern answer: Credit – the new slavery – it’s like the Rich giving you money – but it has to be paid back with interest of course. C’mon now – we all know what debt is – and one of those things it is that it is an imbalance of power – another basis by the way – for war.
I think the issue re economic abuse is covered in 6 and 8
What am I missing?
Richard
Thank you for your patience. I’ve just taken a step forward on the word ‘sovereignty’ in another posting in support of Jim.
To me, what is missing is the ‘naming of parts’; plain language to describe abuse; that which will not be tolerated; that which can then be turned into more defined clauses.
We did not know how to at first describe the Nazi extermination of the Jews or what after became know as BREXIT until we were faced with it and processed it.
‘economic harm’
‘economic disadvantage’
‘social exclusion’
We’ve learnt such a lot over the years from the Tories about what should NOT be done. Let’s say it.
That’s all I can offer.
OK….noted
I will think on it
These are a great set of propositions and resonate well with the concept and principles of ‘Bildung’ and inner development as outlined in ‘The Nordic Secret’ by Andersen & Bjorkman, and Bjorkman’s followup book ‘The World we create’. We need a government that promotes and helps to develop life-long learning for all citizens. He’s worth talking to about your proposations.
Thanks
I like the look of all of that Richard.
Perhaps you could address the issue of sovereignty within your proposals, in order to make clear to governments where the power within the state belongs. For me, that is firmly within the hands of the people. And also to make clear the relationship between governments and the people.
Therefore I would add a statement within Proposition 1 to the effect, “In this state the people are sovereign. All governments within this state serve the will of the people.”
I will look at that again
I agree with Jim that the word ‘sovereignty’ has to be included. I said so in the first invitation to comment as like Jim I think it has to act as a reminder to those who see otherwise (corporations and the rich mostly but also those Neo-liberal dick weeds who dominate too much of our discourse on these matters). I think it should make it clear that we mean sovereignty in a legal sense as well.
The modifications however that you made about ruling for ALL citizens in a balanced way I think helps to under pin the point on sovereignty.
Let’s just remind ourselves however how sovereignty works now:
Sovereignty is about State power – absolute, final arbiting power to make things happen – as a concept it is a throwback to the ancient and enduring power of ‘the king’.
Sovereignty is omnipotent and belongs to a country.
The only thing that changes in a democracy is the people or the nature of the people who are empowered by this omnipotent sovereignty to rule.
To change those who enjoy the use of this sovereignty (political parties, say) we have open elections and that group which has the largest vote gets to use the sovereignty. It all sounds wonderful doesn’t it?
However, what has tended to happen is that this system is abused. Sometimes a party gets in using the democratic vote and then turns its back on those who empowered it through the vote and listens instead to a narrow band of the electorate and uses the sovereignty to meet these narrower objectives.
In fact, what I’ve just described is also known as Thatcherism or Reaganism or Neo-liberalism.
This is what needs to be addressed somehow. You evidently want the State to help people. Well, it does that through its sovereignty and it’s sovereignty to do so must be beyond question. It must be legally and ethically secure.
It’s a tall order I grant you.
OK…
I was wondering how these propositions could help to prevent a continuation of the plague of lies and liers we have been suffering. These suggestions might help.
Perhaps add, under 2, to ensure ‘the news’ is not distorted by deliberate omission:
Ensure that impartial journals of record are available.
And under 3, to ensure open government:
All citizens will have free access to information and records of state activities.
Thanks