One of the reasons why debate here at Funding the Future has focused so heavily on issues around the term the politics of care, and its potential replacement by the term politics for people in the last few days, is that I have realised several things as a result of events we are witnessing this year.
The first is that events are moving very fast, with the politics we have been used to for decades being increasingly discredited, almost by the day. Mandelson is just the latest in a long line of so-called politicians who actually look far more like amoral grifters than anyone who deserves to be in government, who have helped deliver this outcome.
Second, this is not, of course, just a UK phenomenon. Trump is bringing mayhem, chaos, fascism and Gestapo-style policing to the USA, with unknown consequences, although we can already be sure none of them are good. The need for a different narrative in that country, which the Democrats seem, so far, unwilling or unable to deliver, is very strong.
Thirdly, the work I am doing is attracting a lot of attention. I have mentioned little of this explicitly here so far, and doubt I will do so much as yet, because nothing concrete is happening, so far, and so no risk of conflicts of interest is arising, but the number of organisations asking about the availability of my advice seems to be growing very rapidly. Those enquiries are both from within and well beyond the UK. This adds urgency to the requirement to formulate what I am saying in a more structured fashion, as soon as possible.
Fourth, that has concentrated my mind on turning what I am producing into a book, either for a mainstream publisher (please form an orderly queue) or to be self-published, which may be my preferred option, not least because that process is much easier to control and vastly quicker.
Fifth, we realise that those same ideas now need a new organisation and plan for our YouTube channel, and both James and Tom are keen to provide the backbone for that.
So far this morning, I have explained the background to our new thinking and have introduced the term Politics for People, which we plan to use as an overarching description of what we are trying to develop. I have not yet introduced our redefinition of neoliberalism as the political philosophy we primarily oppose. That is because I felt it would be more useful to summarise the foundations on which Politics for People and the political economy of care are built before doing so. I had actually been working on these ideas for a while as part of my thinking on the politics of care, and they have now been adapted to this new formulation. Comments on what follows are welcome.
Politics for people and the political economy of care: the core principles
1 - Care is foundational, not residual
Politics for people begins with a simple truth: well-being and care for people are not added once markets have taken their share. They are the conditions that make everything else possible.
People cannot work, learn, create, or participate democratically unless they are cared for when young, ill, disabled, ageing, or simply exhausted. The political economy of care, therefore, treats well-being and care for all not as a discretionary cost, but as essential social infrastructure. Any political system that seeks to minimise care spending is, by design, destructive. Politics for people does the opposite: it provides for everyone.
2 - Interdependence replaces the myth of independence
Politics for people rejects the fantasy of the self-sufficient individual.
We are dependent across the whole life course: children on adults; adults on public systems; the healthy on the sick; the present on the future; the elderly on the young; communities on one another; nations on other nations.
The political economy of care, therefore, designs policy around relationships and mutual reliance, not around isolated economic agents and issues assumed to exist outside society's reach.
3 - The economy exists to sustain life, not the other way round
In politics for people, the economy is a means, not an end.
Markets are tools. They are not moral authorities. The political economy of care insists that economic activity be judged by whether it supports well-being and whether it maintains social and environmental capital. Growth has no intrinsic virtue. It is acceptable only where it strengthens our collective capacity to care and protects ecological stability.
4 - Care work is real work and must be valued
Care has been systematically undervalued because it is labour-intensive, relational rather than transactional, disproportionately undertaken by women and migrants, and poorly measured by GDP.
The political economy of care recognises care work as genuine economic production. Politics for people, therefore, demands decent pay, secure conditions, and strong public provision where markets exploit or fail. It also acknowledges the vast amount of unpaid care that will never be remunerated, but without which society could not function.
5 - Universal provision beats residual charity
Politics for people rejects well-being and care systems based on luck, charity, or stigma.
Neither opportunity nor care should depend on family circumstances, accidents of birth, birthplace, postcode, employer goodwill, or punitive means-testing. Universal public services are not inefficiencies; they are the most reliable way to ensure care for everyone. The political economy of care, therefore, prioritises universal access to health and healthcare, education, housing security, workplace and income security, and social care.
6 - Time matters as much as money
Politics for people recognises that care requires time as well as funding.
The political economy of care challenges overwork, insecure employment, excessive commuting, and punitive welfare regimes that strip people of time and energy. Politics for people recognises that labour rights, working-time regulation, and income security are as central to care as hospitals or care homes.
7 - The state enables care; it is not a household
Politics for people rejects the household analogy for government.
A caring state does not ask how care can be afforded in narrow financial terms. Instead, the political economy of care asks what care is needed, what real resources exist, and how they can be mobilised without inflation or ecological harm. In the political economy of care, public finance is a tool for coordinating the delivery of well-being and care for everyone, not a moral constraint imposed on society.
8 - Democracy must work for people
Politics for people recognises that care requires listening, responsiveness, and accountability.
As a result, it values lived experience alongside technical expertise, designs institutions capable of learning, and resists technocratic governance that treats people as data points. Politics for people and the political economy of care are inseparable from democratic participation and responsibility, which, in turn, must embrace them both.
9 - Care extends to the future and the planet
The political economy of care is necessarily ecological.
Politics for people recognises obligations to future generations, non-human life, and the material systems on which all care depends. Environmental destruction is not an external cost; it is a failure of care across time. The political economy of care embraces ideas of duty, including to our planet and to those whom we hope will live on it.
10 - Care is a political choice, not a private virtue
Finally, politics for people insists that care is not simply about kindness. It is about power, priorities, and institutional design.
Politics for people asks who bears risk, who receives support, who is protected when markets fail, and whose needs are treated as optional. The political economy of care makes these choices explicit. Pretending they are neutral or inevitable is itself an ideology.
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This bit gladdens my heart:
‘2 – Interdependence replaces the myth of independence’.
It’s all very good, a bit of tweaking here and there, but a good start to the point where I don’t care what you call it (but accept that search engine behaviour must figure).
For some reason, I’m trying to locate resource accounting in PfP (BTW, there is a housing association called ‘Places for People) because PfP should care about where things have come from, as well as where we are going or what may happen in the future because of the past. This applies to resources as well as people.
The PfP concept should also be built on the history of human advancement and survival in that it is essentially built on co-operation. Von Hayek’s ignorance of altruism and kindness was simply ahistorical and does not describe the human condition. I think going forward the message should be that this is not new – it is something that we have lost and need to regain.
I assure you accounting can and will fit in.
There are tweaks required…this is a journey right now.
This reads like a fabulous manifesto for the politics of well-being for people and planet in a society and economy that cares.
What do Steve Keen, Stephanie Kelton, Katherine Trebeck and Kate Raworth think about this and could this be a collective manifesto from you all?
Give me time!
But, thank you.
All to agree with! I think Politics for People will resonate with most people.
To look at one little aspect, I have found a physio who has transformed my well-being by liberating tight muscles and stiff joints, making my job much more comfortable and the rest of my life too. I have slept like a baby since receiving enough treatments to turn things around.
I am very fortunate I can pay for this – I am nowhere near ‘bad’ enough to get NHS treatment. I imagine what relief would be felt by so many if the NHS physio service could be expanded to meet need.
No-one becomes a physio to get rich. Even with some private clients, you are just one person with one pair of hands. Just one example.
Agreed.
And thank you.
Might it morph into this? Many may associate it anyway.
https://thepeoplesparty.com/
No.
I don’t do party politics.
Point 2 on interdependence: “the healthy on the sick; the present on the future”
I’m pretty sure the first of those should be the other way round, and I suspect the second should be as well?
But this is very impressive work, and your hint that others are taking notice gives me real hope.
How did I miss that? These were bullet pints at first and clearly changed meaning in an edit.
“5 – Universal provision beats residual charity”
#5 is my favorite point.
I have always thought the idea of ‘Universal Basic Income” should be replace with the idea of “Universal Basic Benefits”.
Noted
Universal Basic Services is to be preferred I think.
‘Benefits’ in the UK at least immediately calls to mind unemployed and other people in need, getting ‘hand outs’ (after a horrible and ongoing evaluation process).
What does YouTube think of the word honest?
Ask ChatGPT
Agree with every point. Those that enter politics should be obliged to sign up to all 10 points. & mean it.
I watched “the plumber” selected as the Green candidate for the Manch’ by-election – she seems the sort of person that UK politics needs more of.
Absolutely
Agreed
Well done to you and Team.
I hope the the wide range of people who post here have helped shape the thinking and give you support.
Thanks
Appreciate this is a high level framework – and excellent it is too. Being a practical person I need some ‘how’ alongside the ‘what’ and ‘why’ to be able to visualise something actually achievable.
I’d suggest that care extended to in infrastructure we own in common that provides the environment for society to flourish. That’s physical structure like buildings and built environment and software infrastructure like laws, regulations and institutions and the relationships in-between.
With that in mind I would make the explicitly adding community wealth/Community Wealth Building (CWB) to the politics of care.
CWB and the politics of care are deeply intertwined. Both aim to dismantle top-down, extractive economic models in favor of localised, inclusive, and regenerative systems. Both are fundamentally about society taking back control.
Community wealth building provides the practical, place-based economic tools to fund and sustain those services politics of care sets out to deliver.
Others will require the accounting and fiscal tools, which I know you’ll include.
All noted. Thanks
Good statement of principles.
Thanks
It’s a start. It will, undoubtedly, be reworked and developed.
I think the principles you lay out here are excellent. But I think your branding is wrong.
The ‘politics of care’ is not original but it is deeply resonant. It connotes empathy, and therefore sets up its camp opposite those on the right who have said that empathy is the sign of a weak society. In my view, a society without empathy is not a society at all.
‘Politics for people’ is a little vague and general compared with ‘the politics of care’. Precision is helpful in politics.
‘Politics for people’ is a little too close to the ‘Your Party’ brand. I know you agree with that lot on a number of issues, but what you stand for should be clear and distinct.
There is a faint connotation of the vicious inter-factional fighting between the Judaean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judaea. Humour can be good in politics, but it’s easier to ridicule a ‘politics for people’ (isn’t it all supposed to be?) than a politics of care. Ridiculing care is to stand naked brandishing your heart of stone. Not many want to be seen to do that.
Lastly, the words ‘care/caring/cared’ appear 40 times in your statement; the word ‘people’ only 19 times. It seems like you are bending that way already….!
There isn’t much chance of your forming the next government, whatever your brand, but, if Reform does get in, and fails, utterly fails, as it will, to provide for the masses that currently support it, there you will be at the barricades, not with a gun, not with a snarl, not with an empty slogan, but with a list of principles that directly address what people really do want and require, and you can show how this is grounded in economic theory. Not a bad start, I’d say!
You seem to have missed the point: the politics of care is not being abandoned. What is needed is a social media approach that works when it does not on YouTube and elsewhere. Sorry, but I have to live in the real world, and reach into it.
The political economy of care recognises care work as genuine economic production, yes ,but it was once provided by the NHS but now largely privatised as also foster care. The profits are attracting private equity in as it is so lucrative I read in the Guardian of a couple of days ago. Cost of fostering in council care is £26 k but double in private hands. My council tax is likely to increase by 11% in Somerset for all the council provided services from income which has already paid tax