In an article in the Observer this morning Julian Coman says:
Why are the failings of capitalism only being exposed by the right?
It used to be Labour that fought against the moral inadequacies of the free market. It must rediscover its voice.
Well, he's right that Labour has not made nearly enough noise on this issue.
But some of us have been critiquing capitalism for some time. The Tax Justice Network has played an enormous role in this - so I'll claim a little credit for that.
Then there's been the Green New Deal group - which called the whole malaise before it happened and offered solutions before anyone thought they needed them, and again I'll claim a little credit.
The critique has been there all right.
Now Labour must embrace it.
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and the GEER group as well
…er, and if you cast your net a bit wider, the Alter-Globalisation/Anti-Capitalist movement was doing so a decade ago, all of what we said has come to pass… Easy to forget we had 24,000 people attend the European Social Forum at Alexandra Palace in 2004 under the banner ‘Another World is Possible—for Global Justice, Peace and a Sustainable Society’
I was one of them…
I do remember!
Good to hear it! If only we could get back to that now! Soon I hope! 😉
The Labour Party is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Its (ex-)leaders have jumped on the roundabout taking them from government to lucrative positions in the banks and, they hope, back again once the party is back in power. It’s too late to reform the party – Vote Green.
I believe that Labour is unable to function as a proper Opposition. They can’t attack the government on tax havens because they did nothing during their 13 years in power.
They can’t criticise government cuts because they wanted cuts too. They can’t properly oppose health privatisation because they paved the way for it.
Labour cannot attack the government on inequality because this worsened during the Labour years. They cannot advocate the cancellation of Trident.
We are therefore left with the 3 main parties all advocating the same broad policies.
I agree with your interlocutor David Williams: vote Green!
I think you ignore the capacity to learn and change
Mind you – so has Labour right now and has to do both to become relevant
The Green New Deal has deliberately ignored, even while being fully aware of it, the big issue of labour liberalisation, which is now a key capitalist strategy to destroy any power that organised labour has.
But of course so has the Labour Party – it set it all up, and, at the Brussels level, it was set up by Mandelson in his EU role.