Where did it all go wrong? The Labour Party after the second coming of the Messiah

As Labour MPs pick up the pieces after their battle with the left wing extremists led by their leader and his enforcer John McDonnell, it may be time to take stock and assess where to go from here.

The (second) election of Jeremy Corbyn (to his supporters, the second coming of the Messiah) demonstrates a deep shift in party politics. The question is whether this transformation of the Labour Party heralds a fundamental change in the attitudes of the wider electorate as well, signaling the long expected ‘move to the left’ once announced by Corbyn’s predecessor Ed Milliband.

There can be no doubt that societies in the developed world have undergone a significant alteration of the political radar since the economic crisis in 2008. What used to be an attitude to wealth and income inequality best described by Tony Blair as ‘relaxed’ made way to a vibrant debate on social justice. At the forefront of this debate is the issue of wage stagnation since the 1990s in the US and  as Thomas Piketty argued, the growing income inequality fuelled by rising income from assets.

Where the picture veers into the strange is when we look at the responses to the crisis by the individual parties. Centre right parties moved gradually to the centre and tried to develop policies to counter wage stagnation, broadly trusting in the power of the economy to lift everybody’s boat at some time.

The left of centre parties, many of which were in fact in power when the crisis hit, showed a staggering lack of ideas. Gordon Brown’s inaction at the moment of economic disaster was symptomatic. Tired of Brown’s dithering, his chancellor, Alistair Darling, had to take the reigns and protect the banking sector by bailing out some of the largest lenders. The next two years were largely wasted with inactivity by the Labour government. Not a single policy was launched by the Brown government to counter the growing wage gap. It was as if Labour politicians who had started their tenure in 1997 with so much gusto were frozen like rabbits caught in the headlights before the car bumps them off the road.

Following the 2010 election, the Conservatives continued to move into the centre with modest welfare reforms under George Osborne, the introduction of the national living wage and fiscal consolidation. The next five years are generally acknowledged to have been a wasted opportunity for the Labour Party. Under Ed Milliband’s leadership an endless number of policy reviews was conducted with very little outcome or impact. As the next election was nearing, Labour struggled to put a manifesto of pledges together that amounted to a coherent programme for government. Instead it opted for an oversized tombstone inscribed with several vacuous statements that prompted ridicule and laughter in the wider public.

Thus, in a sense, Jeremy Corbyn’s election to leader was actually the first proper response of the Labour Party to the economic crisis and its related problems such as wage stagnation and income inequality. And this is where the story assumes surreal proportions. Instead of embarking on a profound reassessment of Labour policies and a wider debate on how to tackle social injustice under conditions of low productivity, how to address the disappearance of low skilled jobs and the rise of the professional classes under conditions of a fiscal straightjacket that is likely to continue for the next decade, Labour members opted for a type of unrestrained sloganism, a simplistic populist left wing version of Donald Trump. The most notorious aspect of this move to populism is the striking absence of any hard thinking about policies, the slavish adherence to abstract slogans, and a determination not to let reality impinge on the simplistic worldview those slogans purport.

An important side effect of this return to the 1970s is that Corbyn’s ideas show little traction with the working class voters he pretends to represent. As so often before, the proletariat appears to refuse to play along with the Marxist leaders. Corbyn acolytes appear to be mainly young middle class voters who should have little investment in a Marxist worldview that assigns to them a diminishing political role as the proletariat ‘gains class consciousness’. But then, as so often, paradoxes abound in English Socialism, once led by an aristocrat, Tony Benn, who virulently campaigned against the very educational standards he benefited from.

Where does that leave the political landscape in England? Labour’s move to the extreme left may just open up some electoral space for moderate social democrats and liberals. LibDem’s leader Tim Farron seems to sense that when he appealed to disenchanted moderate Labour voters to join the Liberal Democrats. It is customary in the British media to write off the LibDems but the party still has a significant number of councillors and some parliamentary representation (at Westminster and in Cardiff), more than other fringe parties such as the Greens and UKIP. Councillors are usually the knights in shining armour when it comes to trudging through the English rain to deliver leaflets to potential voters or placing calls to the ‘pledged voters’ to go to the polling booths. So, the LibDems are electorally in a better position than the Greens and UKIP.

The biggest threat to Conservative rule is however amy come from inside the Tories themselves, through a prime minister who ditches the moderate compassionate Conservatism that served David Cameron so well in the last 6 years. Part of the reason why Labour shifted to the extreme left was that the Conservatives firmly occupied the centre ground with progressive policies once popular under Labour, such as national minimum wage, welfare reform and the academy programme. The biggest mistake Theresa May could do is to vacate this centre ground and encourage moderate Labour politicians to formulate their own policies. Let’s hope she is a closet Cameroonian.

The phoenix of Marxist delusion

Growing up in East Germany sometimes felt like living in a fantasy world. It was not so much that East Germany was a land of plenty but rather that some people spoke a language that appeared to hover over reality without ever really touching it. In public, people seemed to engage in an elaborate linguistic game with strict yet inscrutable rules, juggling words without any meaning.

'Imperialist plots' were constantly afoot which were designed to prevent the 'vanguard of the working class' to march unhindered towards a 'glorious communist future'. Ultimately, however, resistance was futile since the Marxist logic of the march of history was undeniable.

In other words, some people appeared to live in a parallel reality. The question was whether they really believed the elaborate conceptual constructs they used in public speech. The end of communism answered that question, so I thought, and political and social affairs took on an air of pragmatic realism again. Or, as my grandmother put it: 'Looks like things will be normal again from now on.'

This normality of politics for long has informed the broader consensus in European politics. Cut through the ideological nonsense and find solutions to problems has been the motto of European politicians ever since they put their signatures under the Treaty of Rome.

The first extreme leftist Greek European government, in coalition with an extreme right wing party, (who says political extremes are polar opposites!) is a sign that this consensus is about to end. Listening to the Greek Prime Minister it reminds me of East Germany. It sometimes sounds as if he really believes the hollow phrases of neoliberal evil-doers and Greek comrades being humiliated by the international finance capital. Mixed into this melange of ideological clap-trap borrowed from the darkest Stalinist times is a good dose of eternal victimhood that traditionally curries favour with the Greek populace.

Seen as a clash between pragmatists and ideologues, the negotiations between the troika and Greece could only have one final destination: a confrontation between nationalist and ideologically charged rhetoric and shock and disbelief by European governments about the Greek Prime Minister for refusing to accept the basic framework of pragmatic European politics, resting on negotiations and compromise. Yet, we shouldn't be surprised. The attractions of living in a fantasy world have always be strong. And, you know, no one has yet conclusively proven that Marx was wrong.

On class

The concept I have struggled most in my academic life is class. Not that I have felt I should join demonstrators on the streets tomorrow. Rather, I have never quite understood the concept itself. Definitions are plenty if you only look for them. Marx himself had a complex notion of class, extending the concept beyond income and societal positions to his idea of group consciousness. Given this diversity of approaches, class may not be a suitable topic for a blog but since it has reared its (ugly) head again in recent debates on equality I might just give it a try. 

Let us start with the most common definition of class: a social division determined by income or resources. There can be no doubt that class in this sense is still very much with us. Equality of opportunity was supposed to reduce class divisions, and some progress has undoubtedly been made in this respect. Young people growing up today can become doctors or university professors with salaries in the top 5% income group. In other words, there is no professional area that is categorically barred to anyone because of ethic origin, religious affiliation or anything else that used to hold people back in life. 

This does not mean however that all is well. Equality of opportunity itself is still limited in the sense that if you go to a school with poor teaching and few resources you have to work much harder than somebody attending a school which has the best teachers in the land. The principle itself, however, that people have to make their own way in the world must be the correct one. This idea of course should also apply to those who are born into rich and resourceful families. This is the flipside of equality of opportunity which often receives less attention. In essence it may justify higher inheritance tax than we currently have; something that is fiercely resisted by all who ever built up a little something to pass it on to their children. 

So does this mean that class divisions will always be with us? I grew up in a society where some signs of class, such as ostentatious riches, were not on display. That did not mean however that classes did not exist. On the contrary, access to education, careers and opportunities were severely restricted to those ‘worthy’ in a socialist society. So, the mechanisms that created class divisions were out of your hands, and in the control of a small political elite. Far from making everybody equal, it achieved a breathtaking degree of inequality and injustice. So much for Marx’s notion of overcoming class divisions in the brave new world of socialism. 

Yet, although socialism failed to eliminate class divisions, liberal societies do not much better on this. Social mobility, the extent to which people born into lower income groups of society can rise in the ranks, is in decline across the Western World. Moreover, it is far from clear what the best vehicle for social mobility is. Some commentators favour selective education, others talk about more general access to social, political and economic resources. 

I guess there is no simple answer since success in life is an individual project; in which some will fail, others will succeed. And I doubt that we can eradicate all inequalities that we encounter in our quest for a more just society. At the end of the day, all we can do is to support each other to provide a more level playing field. That may not be enough for all, but perhaps it works for an ever increasing number of people to achieve their dreams. This way, class may still be with us, but become more a reminder of our aspirations rather than a barrier to our dreams. 

The blind spot in Marx's notion of capitalism

The most fascinating aspect of the current debate about capitalism is the general lack of ideas about any alternative. I have previously in this blog talked about why this may be the case. However, one interesting detail of the debate has so far escaped my attention. It is the view that, as Tristam Hunt pointed out in a Newsnight debate, 'capitalism can never be moral'. 

There is no doubt that this a widespread view amongst socialists. Capitalism, they maintain, is all about the generation of profit. Whether this happens within a tightly regulated environment and whether or not tax revenue from profits are used to alleviate some of the ills of capitalism, does not alter the fundamentally amoral quality of the capitalist market system, so the story goes. 

Although we often speak of the failure of the vision of Marxism, the paradox is that this opinion, that capitalism is fundamentally amoral, echoes Marx' view. In a sense then, even those who defend capitalism yet concur that capitalism is amoral express nothing less than a Marxian view. 

The curious result is that the debate about capitalism is actually fought on a premise that is profoundly Marxist, and, so I would say, profoundly false. 

How did Marx arrive at the thesis that capitalism is amoral? Famously, he turned Hegel upside down, or, as he said himself, 'turned Hegel's view from standing on its head back to its feet again'. What did he do? 

Marx argued that there is a clear distinction between the economic sphere (the substructure of society) and its social and political dimensions (the superstructure). The former, so he maintained, determined the nature of the latter. He endorsed nothing short of economic determinism. The separation between these two spheres allowed him to extricate the questions of morality and ethics from the actual moral constitution of societies. In essence, he superimposed on his economic and political analysis a simplistic moral framework that rested on the notions of exploitation (immoral) and equality (moral). How did this represent a change to Hegel's notion of society? 

Hegel's notion of society offered a far more complex and sophisticated account than Marx's. For Hegel, morality was an aspect of human interaction which manifested itself in the development of human freedom. One critical aspect of personal freedom, according to Hegel, was to engage in economic exchanges, or what he called 'civil society'. 

So, in contrast to Marx, entering an economic relationship with somebody to exchange goods represents a fundamental aspect of being free. Today we would say, the market therefore presents people with the opportunity to realise their personal freedom in society. Capitalism hence is an essential expression of personal freedom. As we engage with others in economic activities, we not only manifest the extent of our personal freedom, but also establish the ethical quality of society. Capitalism is moral, as long as it permits us to engage freely in economic exchanges. 

This demonstrates how much we have accepted an arguably skewed picture of capitalism that originates in Marx's analysis, rather than in Hegel's liberalism. We should always bear in mind, that Marx never accepted the economy as an arena of personal freedom. How wrong he was. 

On the poverty of anti-capitalist imagination

Europe is in turmoil. The financial system is close to collapse and the watchwords are solidarity, anti-capitalism and greed. You could be forgiven to think that this is a scenario written by Marx and his followers. Yet, the default position of every politician in East and West is repair and reform, not revolution. Why? What happened to the convictions of the left? Where are the radical plans for the social and political transformation of our societies? 

The most striking aspect of the deep political, economic and social convulsions across Europe and America is the almost complete absence of communist, socialist and leftist voices in the debate about how to change our societies for the better. To be clear, there are many who are bearing the anti-capitalist banner. The anger and disillusion with capitalism is real and palpable. Yet prick those anti-capitalist discussions and the hot air escapes instantly, deflating the big balloon of anti-capitalist rhetoric. There is not a single serious proposal for social, economic and political re-structuring that has not been either already adopted by the moderate centre ground (banking reform; taxes) or is itself a beacon of moderation (pension reforms in the public sector). 

What happened to the great ideological struggles, the antagonistic clashes of the past? And where are the socialist blueprints of Jerusalem? After the election of Tony Blair, many commentators complained that the main political parties had become less tribal, crowding together in the centre ground. Has the population followed suit? Are we becoming more moderate in our political convictions? 

There are several factors that may have contributed to the slow death of socialism as a radical political transformative force in developed countries. The first is welfare and the increase in wealth. As a greater section of society becomes better off, those who only have to loose their shackles (Marx) become fewer. The most vocal supporters and campaigners for a left cause are now sons and daughters of the middle and upper middle classes, and you cant help feeling that their convictions have more to do with youthful rebellion against their parents than with their familiarity of the Marxist analysis of the accumulation of capital. 

Another important factor is the decline of labour struggles as manufacturing, and the friction that comes with employment issues, has been exported to China and the emerging economies. In its wake Western societies have become far more adept at developing mechanisms for resolving labour conflicts, while governments have also largely accepted that the spill over effect of prolonged labour disputes into the economy should be avoided. This tempers everyone’s taste for fights on the streets. 

The most important factor however may be something else: a widespread acceptance that communism does not work, a lesson learned across Europe as the legacy of Post-Communist Revolutions makes itself felt. You only have to visit Lithuania, Estonia or Poland to see the remarkable transformations of those societies that have toiled for decades under communism. They are the striking examples of how communism worked under a false premise: that making everyone more equal economically also meant that everyone was better off. Under communism all these countries faced an enormous amount of problems: economic, social, political, and environmental. What killed ‘real existing socialism’ in the end was the inability to change. 

That’s why socialism is so absent from our debates on how to change societies today. Socialism has no answers to the most important question for the survival of any society: how to maintain change. It is essentially a doctrine of stasis, simultaneously failing to demonstrate a path to a better society and, once established, how to keep it alive through constant reform. 

Marx was deeply hostile to the idea of reform and change. He fought many of his philosophical struggles against those who developed a blueprint for gradual change of capitalist society. This lack of thinking about change became the achilles heel of communism. Only radical and sudden revolutions could bring about communism, and once established, there were no plans to evolve in the face of difficulties. It was a recipe for ossification. 

Hence socialist and communist proposals on how to deal with the current crisis are absent. The idea that we simply throw out anything we know and start with a blank sheet on Monday has lost its appeal long time ago. Those who blame capitalism for the latest crisis know this and therefore their shouts for anti-capitalist solutions never advance beyond those words. Regret it or not, he highpoints of our debate on solving the current crisis are provided by Red Tories and Blue Labour philosophers. We have lost a radical critique of capitalism but perhaps we are the better for it.