LONDON: Across a diminished party the debate is always the same: is New Labour’s glass half-empty or half-full? Good deeds have undoubtedly been done, but the overwhelming sense is one of missed opportunity. The huge majorities of 1997 and 2001, the strength of the economy and the weakness of the opposition have all been unnecessarily squandered. And at every turn the war in Iraq drains away the government’s moral legitimacy. The first term is remembered fondly, the second is best forgotten, and a third holds out little hope of anything better —- other than stopping the Conservatives. While leaders and their lieutenants may go on for some time, the New Labour “project” is over. Since discarding the third way, New Labour, embarrassingly, offers no ideological framework.. It therefore lacks coherent policies that would endure a change of government. And there are no shock troops for New Labour because none were created. Triangulation can win power, but not friends. Unless things change quickly, Labour will look as washed up as the Tories did after winning in 1992.
It didn’t have to be this way. New Labour happened for a reason. Globalization, decentralization, changes to class and the end of deference required a new politics that the old Labour party was incapable of delivering. After four election defeats Labour needed to be modernized. So there is no going back.
But under the dark shadow cast by Thatcherism, New Labour moved too far from the politics of equality and collectivism while refusing to modernize the culture and practice of old-style politics. So we get neither traditional values nor a modern setting. The ideological vacuum leads to the prioritisation of power over principle. The election battle cry of New Labour is in essence the same as the creed it sought to replace — that of “one more heave”. It is time to stop living in the darkness of neoliberalism.
The challenge of left modernization is both ideological and organizational. First, the democratic left demands a vision of the good society and the good life. If we can’t inspire ourselves with the belief that another world is possible, then how can we hope to build a popular movement for change? Paradoxically, it was Friedrich von Hayek, the architect of neoliberalism, who reminded us of the power of dreams when he said: “The main lesson that the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialist is that it was their courage to be utopian that gained them the support of the intellectuals, and thereby an influence on public opinion.”
The politics of time, caring, friends, family and a sustainable environment provide the basis for a utopianism that can inspire radical realism. This goes with the grain. More than 3 million people, who can afford to, have made the decision to downsize their lives in reaction to the empty promise of turbo-consumerism. When you have enough to live on, happiness is about more than money. The left must aspire to a world where all people are genuinely free because they are sufficiently equal. Second, it needs to define a “new collectivism”. If the old collectivism of top-down centralism no longer works, what are the new ways that people can be free to create their world together in ways that are impossible acting alone? How can a collective voice triumph over individual choice as the means of making public services both morally superior and more responsive?
Finally, we must devise an alternative political economy. Left to its own devices, capitalism eats up the space for a public realm in its relentless search for profit. Social democrats are not anti-capitalist but seek to make people masters of markets. This has been inverted by New Labour, whose main goal is to ensure people fit the demands of global markets by making labour flexible. Instead, the democratic left seeks — globally and locally — to harness enterprise for the good of society.
But ideas are just the start. Serious politics demands power. Lenin reminded us that “the victory of ideas needs organizing”. We are still hamstrung by the scars of opposition in the 80s. Then, dishonest divisions helped Labour lose. But the only dissident voices now are the frustrated majority who want Labour in power, but for a purpose. Now constructive debate must flourish if defeat is to be avoided.
Everyone is anxious, about jobs, homes or pensions. The only response from all party leaders is more choice and more markets — the very forces that create insecurity in the first place. Building a popular but principled alternative to the sad decline of New Labour is a tall order. But to do otherwise means giving up on the belief that something better is possible.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.
