I have already this morning discussed the idea that the Tories have failed because people have realised that they have not delivered on their rhetoric, let alone their promises.
I have also discussed the idea that Labour will fail over the next five years for exactly the reason.
In both cases I am quite sure of my case. The reason is that both parties are profoundly neoliberal, and neoliberals are quite certain that government cannot deliver. As a result, when they secure office they set out to deliver on that belief, and as such will always disappoint an electorate that thinks that not only should government exist, but that it should do so for good reason, and should deliver as a result.
To explain this requires that I revisit an explanation of just what neoliberalism is. George Monbiot did this very well in 2016, and although he has a new book out on this theme, I doubt that he will do much better than this:
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
He added:
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
He also said this:
Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980 in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich. Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents, privatisation and deregulation.
That, pretty succinctly, summarises what the neoliberal thinks. In particular, neoliberalism is defined by what it is against (the rights of most people) rather than what it is for.
What that means is that we get what I described as ‘cowardly politicians' in my 2011 book, The Courageous State.Whenever neoliberal politicians identify a problem they think that government intervention will only make matters worse. They think the market can solve the problem that market failures, inevitably, created. They therefore walk away from anything of real concern declaring it nothing to do with them: it is for the market to address.
They are wrong, of course. But that does not matter to ideologues. Keeping the true faith is all that matters to them. And so we get Labour offering policies virtually identical to those the Tories have failed with over the last fourteen years. They seek to justify this by claiming, utterly bizarrely, that ‘stability is change'. Read that as meaning ‘nothing is going to change'. And it can't. The shared neoliberalism of the Tories and Labour guarantees that.
This is why I can say with some confidence that Labour will fail to deliver as the Tories have failed to do so over the last five years. If Labour does almost the same things as the Tories did and uses the same excuses for inaction that must be the case. This is what seems likely.
Given that the far-right are essentially in this same mould, they too cannot deliver the government people in this country desire.
The consequence is that only someone, or some coalition of parties on the left, can deliver what people need now. Only they can break the hegemony.
I am not saying I know how as yet, given all the problems inherent in first-past-the-post and given that electoral pacts are exceptionally hard to negotiate, but sometime soon those who do want to break this exceptionally disruptive behaviour by our two leading parties will have to agree on how to do so. This is the true work required of the next parliament.
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I do hope so. All the classic economic/political “isms” assume availability of a limitless supply of the Earth’s resources, which for me is a fundamental flaw in all of them (and I include socialism in that). Sophie Raworth’s Doughnut Economics seems to me to offer the basis of a way forward.
Sorry, Kate Raworth!
Sister confusion
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Yesterday evening, I watched French TV and saw where neoliberalism in France, a country I know well and have ancestors from and whose tongue I speak as a first language, Germany, the EU and US has led or is leading us to. I think this is where Starmer leads us.
This morning, I read a tweet from Will Hutton and was amazed how deluded centrists remain.
Re the last, so true
Thank you, Richard.
About thirty years ago, when writing a masters on central bank independence, I received help from Will Hutton and your dear friend Larry Elliott and bought their books. Larry’s were co-written with Dan Atkinson.
I noticed how Larry identified even then Hutton’s centrist tendencies. I had yet to pick that up.
For that masters, I got help from MPs Peter Hain and Roger Berry. Labour had good thinkers on the backbenches. I don’t I think I could do the same now, although the likes of Miatta Fahnbulleh and the lady from the FT and whose name escapes me may soon be elected and Faiza Shaheen hopefully will.
Fast forward thirty years, I noticed the likes of Liam Halligan and Gerard Lyons referring to Peter Shore when talking about Brexit in the City.
Whilst I profoundly disagree with neoliberalism and believe that it is cruel and damaging, it might have some intellectual and moral legitimately IF it’s proponents were consistent. They are not.
They espouse competition, except where it affects the profits from their financial interests. The examples are too numerous to list, but here are a few. Further to recent discussion, it’s OK, to neoliberals, to subsidise banks by paying interest on reserves. It OK, to neoliberals, to have monopolies (as long as they own shares). It is OK, to neoliberals, to have ineffective regulators of natural monopolies, leading to shit in rivers and the sea. It’s OK, to neoliberals, to favour large companies over small ones. It right, to neoliberals, to give more tax relief to the wealthy (pension tax relief, if that’s not obvious). And on and on and on.
I believe that competition, in the right context, can be good. But it needs to be fair and consistent. There is no market without regulation, without government, without police, without laws and much more. Therefore, there is no market, and no fair competition, without taxation to (indirectly) pay for it.
Neoliberalism is ethically and morally bankrupt. There is little purpose in trying to define it accurately because this only serves to legitimise it. It is the philosophy of might (or wealth) is right, the philosophy of the robber Barron, the bully, and the crook.
Hi Richard,
Here’s what I’m wondering.
As it stands, capital interests control production and therefore choose how we build the nature of the future world. The mechanism for this is money creation by banks.
Green Party (Positive Money) policy, as I understand it, is that money would be created by the state, so that the state would have control of how money is spent and therefore the way we build the future world. You have previously pointed out some big practical problems with that. But even if it could work smoothly, there would still be an issue – politicians and the government could be captured, just as they are now, by capital interests. Probably there is a Green Party policy to prevent that, but it is difficult to erase the spectre of a malign state.
Jason Hickel has a different eco-socialist vision in which workers and communities decide what to produce. He talks powerfully about the democratisation of production, e.g. here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_3j3sHP6eg.
As a follower of both you and Hickel, I’d really like to know what you think of this idea!
It’s nice
And it’s not gfoinmg to happen for a very long time, if ever
So I deal with the world that is going to exist
That’s interesting, and I like that you are bringing this back down to earth. The financial markets do seem quite fragile, though, and will be coming under quite a buffeting from climate change, surely in the near future, as food supply gets hit, migration increases and there are tectonic shifts of assets. As long as we are asking this question, we have communities and workers – but capital interests and the monetary system seem more shaky.
I would also say that this can and does happen, on a small scale, through the co-op movement etc. And if we only make a difference at the margins, it’s still a difference, and still worthwhile, in the absence of a perfect/all-encompassing solution. It at least chips into the hegemony, even if it doesn’t break it.
Whether we like it or not degrowth, in some form, is inevitable.
It is simply physically impossible to utilise resources beyond depletion, or the environmental collapse their exploitation entails.
Green growth using GDP type metrics is simply not going to deliver a fully circular economy.
It is not just shifting the goal posts that is needed here, but revising the rules of the game.
Net zero corporate capitalism, which addresses neither resource utilisation nor the continuing inexorable destruction of the ecosphere, is utterly inadequate for this challenge.
That there is a totally unbalanced global power dynamic between the industrialised Northern Hemisphere nations, and Southern Hemisphere resource supplying and extracting nations, which is still rigidly post colonial in mindset is another complicating factor.
There really is no choice.
It will be a forced revolution, and happen sooner with early climate collapse, or later if sufficient remediation actually takes place. That can allow an evolutionary approach.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the actions necessary to even approach net zero are not being made – CO2 emissions have actually increased over the last decade since Paris, and the global economy is still predominantly geared to fossil fuels.
The long lead in times for this kind of transition, inevitable pushback, and general awareness of what will be required, means the whole subject of sustainability has to parallel the immediate priorities of net zero transformation. We need the debate now.
Ideally, the concepts would be discussed and alternative routes formulated in advance of an evolutionary change to degrowth. Hoho, very likely, but still an aspiration.
This would have to go deep and include such as the end goals – for example, how do we define wellbeing instead of wealth-being as the generic personal aspiration ?
A cunning plan then also has to include restructuring both social and economic institutions and provide a route map for these adjustments.
At the present time only the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, all 17 of them, with their 169 targets, provides a ready made template for … err… “stepping on the gas”… with this essential and existential challenge.
Well, if thed Tories collapse then while I would prefer the Greens to bed HM Loyal Opposition it mahy well be that the Lib Dems will be in the hot seat.
Interesting times indeed
We know that neoliberal has failed because the last 14 years shows it.
Tim Kent so right to remind us that there is plenty of state intervention/rescue for banks, failing privatised utilities, light-touch regulation or non-regulation .
And also with the corrupt insider/mates VIP lane for govt PPE and other contracts -difficult to conceive of anything less like the ‘perfect competitive market’.
But I still can’t help seeing our whole situation in the light of this last weekend’s Radio 4 re reading of Nineteen Eighty Four .
It’s not only that both (all?) parties subscribe to the Neoliberal concept but that it is an implicit Thought Crime for politicians and also for any BBC interviewer – or main stream media to even hint that there may be another way of looking at the economy.
They will just not enter into any discussion about whether there may after all ‘be money’ to invest in public services – that could help to actually boost the economy .
What is so chilling, is not that they will refute – they won’t even engage – this is just the complete opposite of what we learn from our education – to be curious, to ask questions , to discuss, to explore ideas.
Its as though we are already living in some future dystopia – as Richard puts it – ‘hegemony’.
I cant see the ‘coalition of the left’ emerging before some almighty crisis/explosion – as the internal contradictions build up in the system resulting from Labour’s failure to deliver.
But that will also be the occasion of greatest danger – of some Brexit-style right wing coup – …..
Monbiot described neo-lib in terms of effects, ditto many of the commentators.
“Late Soviet Britain” describes neo-liberalism as a utopian project – which could never succeed since its assumptions are based on fantasy (e.g. rational economic man).
It is & always was la-la economics. Even one of the founders (Hayek) made, as Judt observed, a category error (Austria 1930s as a model applicable to all other places).
Frankly, we don’t need to go much further than that. Neo-liberal economics: trash from start to finish.
It seems that we have further to fall yet. Further to fall before eyes are opened. Will the media be asking how we are to pay for this fall?
In all seriousness we may have another decade of rot.
Hi Richard, I think that like a lot of people I’m just ready to see a Labour government despite its ludicrous, obsessive caution.
We all know the risk in Starmer being radical, even though that’s what the country now needs. The Tory Party itself is now bust as an electoral force, but the corrupted British pro Tory media is still out there.
Note the noisy fuss made of two recent hoo-hahs: Diane Abbott’s candidacy and the manufactured Angela Rayner tax farrago. Leave aside the merits of each issue, in the universe of major problems the country faces they are but two minute specks of cosmic dust, yet predictably the media went after them for days on end.
As you know, this is the wild, anti-democratic pro Tory hysteria all Labour leaders (and the country itself) has to deal with.
What do you think Starmer could have done differently in the offering and messaging given that level of corruption of the media?
How about talking about his convictions and economic reality? The voters know he is not talking about either. And the media are not that important.
I believe Labour need to take on the vested interests in the MSM, but doubt that they are likely to do it from the opposition benches. If and when they eventually do so, and you probably think that will be never, they would find huge support from the UK public, who are inherently centrist and will not be conned again by right wing snake oil salespeople and we have no appetite whatsoever for fascism of any description.
But Labour does not care what people think. It only cares what thos with power thinks.
I’m wondering which of the parties is the least neoliberal?
Of those garnering 3%+ in the polls.
There must be a way to rank them from most to least given how much time academics have spent defining and refining the term.
The Greens
Then Plaid
Then SNP
The rest are all neoliberal entirely
I’ve come to the conclusion, over many years of watching, reading and thinking, that it is vital to separate those aspects of Government and political policy which lend themselves to competition and markets and those which do not.
My vision of an effective Government is one which runs the country in a way that is fair, and which provides and/or promotes the best life achievable for as many of its citizens as possible. This seems to be the opposite of neoliberalism; although neoliberals will tell you that’s what markets and competition do.
They are profoundly wrong on every level.
Competition is what drives “winning”. Winning might be making a profit for your business; or getting the best deal on something. Other than at school sports days, competition is inevitably about money. Competition pits people against each other, and for every winner, there are inevitably many more losers. It is therefore inherently both exclusionary and destructive. By its very nature, competition only benefits the winner.
That is the polar opposite of doing the best you can for the greatest number of your citizens.
Health should not be a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. Social care, welfare, hospitals, education – these are all fundamental to us as human beings. Deny us equitable access to those and you deny us the dignity of our humanity.
The Conservatives have sold us their neoliberalism by disguising it as freedom from State control. In actual fact, the State (or the Conservative government) by submitting us to the whims of the markets has imposed on us the sort of external influences it says it despises.
That was a very long tirade against neoliberalism. I suppose my point is that Starmer is wedded to the very policies which have failed us catastrophically and which we know people hate.
It is a tragedy for the millions of people who desperately need a total reversal of this headlong tilt into the void that the only thing on offer is Keir Starmer.
Spiked – not a publication I normally read – did offer this assessment of Starmer. It’s actually very interesting and on point.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/06/09/keir-starmer-the-making-of-an-arch-technocrat/
Not a publication I like
Nor me. I usually avoid it. However, I did read the article (which was sent to me without attribution) and it actually nails Starmer
No organisation has done more damage to public discourse than bannon funded orban promoting Spiked – don’t touch it unless it’s to point out its ludicrous lack of evidence based argument. Mirza was in Johnson govt FFS