Should Blair step down?

QUOTE (alexliamw @ March 27, 2006 10:59 pm)

OK, I haven't written a dissertation on it, but I am also studying this as part of my university course too...

I accept some of what you're saying. However I do think that the ends have shifted to some extent. It will not do to say that the Labour party still values ‘social justice’ as so many do and assume this makes their basic ends the same. This is a vague and amorphous concept that could mean virtually anything, as demonstrated by the fact that it is not, in itself, something that one could be against. Where are the politicians arguing for ‘social injustice’? Particularly now that Cameron has also taken it up its distinctiveness is totally gone. The point which proponents of this view refuse to acknowledge is that for the Labour party of 1945 policies like public ownership were not simply a means to an end – they were a matter of principle in themselves. They were not subject to changing political circumstance (in the way that Blair argues based on the contingencies of the modern world), because they were moral beliefs. Social justice was only part of the picture, because what was considered to be social justice is not just a question of means - its a question of principle. Saying you're in favour of social justice is only slightly more revealing than saying you're in favour of good stuff. The question is what you consider to be social justice. And therein lies whether you are 'social-ist', as you put it, in any way. Socialism or even 'social-ism' is about a hell of a lot more than comitting to the concept in its vague form.

In fact the vast majority of Blair's justification for policy are exactly what he claims they aren’t – compromises of ends. He argues for markets on grounds of consumer sovereignty and efficiency, but commits to limiting them on grounds of inequity and morality. He simply asserts that equality of outcome is only an issue insofar as it affects equality of opportunity – an ideological, not methodical, issue if there ever was one. It is true that the ‘third way’ position is not just the same as Thatcherism. It is distinctly more communitarian, slightly more interventionist and redistributive, and for what it’s worth, has a greater role for social justice. However, to say that it maintains all the values of the Attlee government is to fundamentally misunderstand one of the two, if not both.

Incidentally, are you a 'marcusian' after Marcuse? You certainly don't sound it!

Vice versa i can appreciate some of what your saying...

"However, to say that it maintains all the values of the Attlee government is to fundamentally misunderstand one of the two, if not both."

I would never say this at all, Blair/Brown makes the link with people such as Crosland and the revionists of the 1950's/1960's.

"Socialism or even 'social-ism' is about a hell of a lot more than comitting to the concept in its vague form."

But therein lies the problem isnt it, many 'socialists' rigidly stuck to issues that people were have less and less concern about, particularly after Thatcher. You have to 'commit' to rigid lines of thought and promote the same issue that doesnt react to the world around it. I believe that i am a democratic socialist (and believe in social democracy), and take their critique of New Labour as very pertinent and something i accept, that by abandoning some of the social democratic principles (redistribution, universalist welfare, economic regulation and link with TU's) New Labour is in some ways abandoning social democracy in itself. This has been noted by Blair who now accepts that 'Third way' isnt about being 'above' left/right but a project of social democracy (i believe Brown will take this slightly further). I think Blair was the shock treatment needed to the Labour party, but i also believe that Labour must quickly return to a more social democratic position asap. This is where the link is, im not saying Blair has massive ideological links to some of Labour's past, but his links are with the pragmatic and revisionist way of politics that has been present throughout its history.

To say common ownership is a matter of principle is odd, i truly i believe that a return to common ownership will not help the economy (and will make it far less able to achieve 'socialist' aims). It was the same as Clause IV, another totem pole to 'prove' you were 'socialist' which as Roy Hattersley pointed out...

Well, Clause Four became, I think the phrase is an “aura flame.” It became a flame, which denoted who and what you were. Well, the greatest things about the old Labor Party, the Labor Party of 1979 and 1980 let’s say, is you had a number of things which you had to do to proclaim you are on the left wing of the Labor Party. What you had to do most to proclaim you’re on the left wing of the Labor Party was to say you were on the left wing of the Labor Party. It didn’t matter really whether you worked it out or thought about it or understood it, and one of the things that made you a left-winger, this glorious condition of political animal, is that you believed in Clause Four. And if you went to the local Labor Party meeting here in the Westminster constituency of London in a little room around the corner, I bet in 1980, there’d be twenty people, eighteen of them who said they passionately believed in Clause Four and not one of them could quote it to you. Well, believing in Clause Four was like a badge and as long as you said it, you were okay.

To say things havent changed from Thatcher is naive and is a very 'Bennite' view of the matter...I mean you HAD to react to thatcherism, much in the same parties reacted to Atlee's government.

Thanks for this, and please dont think im new labour wholeheartedly, i truly am not...

QUOTE (marcusian @ March 28, 2006 02:22 pm)

1) To say common ownership is a matter of principle is odd, i truly i believe that a return to common ownership will not help the economy (and will make it far less able to achieve 'socialist' aims).

2) To say things havent changed from Thatcher is naive and is a very 'Bennite' view of the matter...I mean you HAD to react to thatcherism, much in the same parties reacted to Atlee's government.

1) I'm still not sure about this, because common ownership wasn't just considered a way to help the economy, it was about democracy and putting things in the hands of the people, as against unaccountable, profit-seeking, exploitative business. To be sure, there are arguments against this - and just to be clear I'm not actually in favour of common ownership - but I think those arguments do rest upon some different principles, as well as methods.

2) I didn't say that things haven't changed from Thatcher - in fact I actually said that things had changed in my original post. However, I think that New Labour has been a compromise between social democracy and neo-liberalism, rather than a new way of implementing the same social democracy, if you see the distinction I'm making.

Nice to do this actually...

1, Who says that common ownership has some devine right to achieve 'democracy' and power in the 'hands of the people'? I know you do accept this, but the problem with saying that believing in common ownership is a matter of principle it naive to the fact that politics isnt really concerned with those issues nowadays. I mean the principle of believing capitalism is 'evil' is a valid one and something i do see much resonance in, but the 'principle' behind it relies on being naive to world we are in.

2, Of course im not of the opinion that New Labour is some bastion of Social Democracy, and the social democratic criticism of New Labour is the most pertinent. However, New Labour must be viewed as the start towards moving Labour towards a more social democratic position while harnessing the positive impact New Labour has made by bringing Labour into a more electable position. New Labour has at least meant that the Labour party can now try and be bolder in a social democratic sense in power and as a party that has shed some of its less desirable and certainly less popular with the public traits. i believe that the time now has come for Labour to shift the emphasis from neo-liberal economics being the positive force to help with 'social democratic' aims, to being the necessary 'evil' that must be willing to being reigned in at the expense of social democratic aims. The adoption of the market should be controlled by the premise that achieving social democratic aims (subject to the pragmatic/revisionist approach of Crosland etc) is the number one aim. The most justified criticism of New Labour, and Clause Four is a good example of this, is that it doesnt prioritize what 'social justice' aims are more important than the next.

Anway, thanks for the debate...its been a help i can assure you.

Marcus