Book review: Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere by Paul Mason

It will long be remembered as the year of ‘the protestor’; as uprisings originating in the Arab world swept across the globe like a wild bushfire. Paul Mason, the economics editor of Newsnight, is therefore well placed to draw on his wide-ranging reportage in 2011 to answer the key question; how has this happened?

The global economy, troubled by a ‘shortfall between stagnating wages and increased consumption met by credit’, was bound to ‘explode’ Mason argues. Thus the influence of economics on the protests of today draws parallels to those in history; inflation correlates ‘closely with revolt: the higher the cost of bread, the more revolutionary the outcome’. Indeed, economic concern was so widespread in 2011 that the protests were populated by an unprecedented range of participants. Mason proposes three distinct socio-economic groups; the ‘graduate without a future’ of the discontented middle class, organized labour and the urban poor.

However, Mason argues that we cannot rely on economics as an explanation alone. If the uprisings are rampant flames, then technology rather than economics is the fuel spreading the fire. Social media, Mason argues, helped the movements ‘grow with dizzying rapidity’, observing the events in Tahrir Square as ‘a revolution planned on Facebook, organized on Twitter and broadcast to the world via YouTube’. As such, technophobes may find themselves horrified at the prevalence of social media references – certain protesters are referred to by their Twitter names for example – but despite the fact that ‘there is no quantitative research’ on the impact of social media ‘on politics and political campaigns’ Mason is by no means guilty of hyperbole.

Influenced by sociologist Barry Wellman, who ‘long before Facebook’ noticed that ‘people preferred to live with multiple networks, flat hierarchies and weak commitments’, Mason argues that a ‘networked individualism’ allows groups to form with the aim of completing only a single task. In many ways, this poses an interesting paradox to the ideas of Robert Putnam, who in Bowling Alone (1975) argued that a breakdown of ‘social capital’ had caused a disconnect between people and forms of social organization. Perhaps then, we’re still bowling alone, but online we’re in the company of millions.

The book loses momentum in the latter half, as Mason travels through the mid-west of the United States and the slums of Manila, describing, at odds with the general theme of the book, people who rather than ‘kicking off’, are tolerant, if not satisfied, with the troubled lives they live.

Notwithstanding the value of such first-hand experience of humanity, the downfall of Mason’s connection with the grass-roots is that he is occasionally guilty of failing to take into account a wider picture. Despite his BBC connections, he is unashamedly Neo-Marxist in his critique of the global system whereby the root problem is ‘globalization, and the resulting monopolization of wealth by a global elite’. A theme throughout the book is that amidst ‘the near collapse of free-market capitalism’ a ‘desire for individual freedom’ is fundamental to the uprisings. However, if Mason is so dissatisfied with the former then surely his attitude fails to accommodate the desires of his subjects; for if Mason knows of a global system which provides individual freedom in greater abundance than liberal democratic capitalism, he is yet to reveal it.

The book, and the movements it explores alike, can therefore be credited for raising logical points and intriguing questions, but denounced for failing to suggest valuable answers or alternatives. ‘The future hangs in the balance’ warns Mason. Perhaps then, the forthcoming ‘Reflections on Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere’, will provide more evidence of the way in which Mason believes the balance should tilt.

Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions
Verso, 244pp, £12.99
Published January 2012, London

Robert Smith is Editor of Politiker. Follow on Twitter @RobertSmithUK

I Bid a Sad Farewell to Roger Helmer

Robert Smith explains why he is sorry to see Roger Helmer MEP leave the Conservative Party.

Amidst a modest meeting of young conservatives in a sparsely populated lecture theatre I ask a simple question to Roger Helmer, the controversial Conservative MEP for the East Midlands; ‘Have you ever considered joining UKIP?’. In response Roger expectedly bemoaned the escalating ideological gap between the Conservative leadership and its membership, and stated that on many issues, if not most, he was increasingly more aligned to those of the party led by Nigel Farage. Despite this, Helmer appeared as though he was content with remaining in a party where if he did not see eye-to-eye with its leadership, at least he did with a significant proportion of its members. His key argument being that ‘If all the conservatives left to join UKIP, where would that leave the Conservative Party?’

Fast forward twenty-four hours and the news comes through that Roger had done just that; left the Conservative Party and defected to UKIP. In this case though, it appears that he felt obliged to leave the party due to an internal tension with the leadership over his successor more so than with regards to policy. Last year, Helmer had revealed his plans to retire, only to then withdraw them at a later date. He had wanted his friend and fellow Eurosceptic Rupert Matthews to follow in his footsteps, yet on finding that this conflicted with the wishes of the Party Co-Chairman Baroness Warsi, Helmer withdrew his resignation stating that he was ‘not prepared to stand aside for some A-List Cameron protege from St. Johns Wood’.

The whole situation presents a common relationship whereby the tight-knit party leadership stand further and further at odds with the wider party. Roger clearly sees his politics as a purer form of conservatism. Admittedly, this does injustice to the views of the wider party, as you could most certainly argue that the Cameroon’s of the party are conservatives too, albeit of a different kind. However, Helmer’s defection to UKIP gives the impression that there is becoming an increasingly narrow definition of what it means to be a Conservative; something which does nothing to favour the party. The historical success of the Conservative Party owes much to the fact that it has traditionally acted as a big tent; absorbing opinion from the inside left and the inside right, and dismissing a narrowly formed vision of what it stands for.

Roger Helmer might not be the most diplomatic kind of politician. Many might deplore his views. Indeed, he stands further to the right than I would say the majority of the Conservative Party membership do. Be that as it may, anyone listening to him speak to the group of students on Thursday evening would agree that it is foolish to disregard the value which his input can have. Democracies and political parties alike work best not when a confined range of opinion is accepted as gospel, but when a sphere of views are presented and the populous decide on which they most agree with. Many Tories view the offloading of Helmer, often seen as a loose cannon, as a blessing, but because of the reasons stated above, it’s hard for me to see it as anything other than a loss.

Robert Smith is Editor of Politiker. Follow on Twitter @RobertSmithUK

* This article was first published at the now defunct Dale & Co.

Film review: The Iron Lady

Photo: Pathe Productions Ltd.

As the lights came on in the cinema, I let out a sigh, having spent most of the last hour and a half watching The Iron Lady through tear-filled eyes.

Just like the Iron Lady herself, this film has divided opinion, most notably from the ‘real Iron Ladies of Chesterfield’ who held protests outside a cinema condemning the biopic; despite none of them having actually seen the film.

Being someone who has, it is fair to say that politics was fairly insignificant, and that this was more a film about a woman so obsessed with politics that she paid the ultimate price for power. Many members of that audience were crying, but perhaps for the old lady who looked a little like Thatcher, rather than for Thatcher herself.

The film opens with Margaret having breakfast with her husband Denis, only for us to find out that she is actually alone, and was talking to his ghost. Throughout the film, she has conversations with Denis, whilst refusing to clear out his wardrobe, and hiding her hallucinations from her carers and family.

Cinema goers have no experience of what it means to be the Prime Minister, and cannot understand the life of a politician, never mind such a contentious and inflammatory Prime Minister. They might, however, be able to understand the fear of growing old, of losing a partner and of being alone. This film attempts to show the human side to Thatcher, not to discuss or criticise her politics.

Many people still remember the Thatcher years, and will either hate or love her for eternity. But this generation will eventually have gone, along with the Iron Lady herself. The film however, will still exist, and may very well become the common perception of Thatcher, her life, and her career. The key image is of a lonely old lady, who achieved so much, but is now more or less housebound despite her once resolute and determined character.

This is the ultimate price of power, and The Iron Lady shows Thatcher sacrificing throughout her life, whether it was constantly trying to make her parents proud, battling against the Opposition or her own cabinet, and ultimately straining her relationship with her husband and children. But she does not pay this price for herself, but rather for women everywhere. The Iron Lady shows Thatcher as representing middle-class women everywhere, and is a success story of feminism and social mobility.

Whilst many will take issue with this portrayal of Thatcher as not only a victim, but as a hero, I’m sure Thatcher herself would also disagree, having never seen herself as a victim or as a feminist icon. But the fact remains, a writer’s job is to write, to create, and to re-imagine, not to give a factual description. This is a film, written by writers, many of whom have genuine reasons to resent Thatcher, having either been brought up in mining areas, or with families affected by her policies, and so the sympathetic spin is not due to sympathy for her politics.

Instead, this is a film about growing old, being alone and dealing with grief. This is the story of the decline of a powerful woman, her struggle to deal with no longer having the power she once had, and realising that despite giving the country everything she had, she is now not only powerless to change anything, but she is almost forgotten. In the film, she tells the ghost of Denis that “If you take the tough decisions now, they will thank you for generations”. Whilst sage advice for Cameron and Clegg, who face the tough decisions of our generation, perhaps this line sums up the message of this film, and is the start of the rehabilitation of Thatcher. Or perhaps it’s just a blockbuster film tugging at the heart strings.

An incredible life, impressive achievements, and great success, reduced to a lonely old lady in front of the audience. Thatcher herself commented that life is always better with the Tories, but what about life after the Tories, when they have forgotten you, buried your achievements and pushed you aside?

Lizzie Hepworth

This article featured in the first issue of NuPolitics Magazine, which you can read here.

Reflections on Blue Labour

Photo: Kat Kam (Flickr)

Blue Labour was born in April 2009. Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour’s intellectual godfather, must have had his ‘eureka-moment’ in a dusty library, ‘surrounded’ by old ideas already written down, analysed and debated in the past.

Blue Labour, as described by Glasman, is ”a deeply conservative socialism which places family, faith and work at the heart of a new politics of reciprocity, mutuality and solidarity.” Just like the Big Society, Blue Labour has been the subject of debate. The idea raised a lot of questions: Do we still have a need for big stories? Do we want a blueprint that fits society? Is Blue Labour an acceptable alternative story to adopt for Labour? And what are the similarities with Philip Blond’s Red Tory?

Obviously the answer is yes. People welcome big stories and theorists tend to answer that call. The list of ‘Big Idea’s’ in Britain has been ‘updated’ thoroughly with Cameron’s Big Society and Philip Blond’s Red Tory. Now we can add Blue Labour to that list. Ed Miliband endorsed the idea (”it’s our families, friends and the places in which we live that give us our own sense of belonging”) so the expectations are high.

Glasman’s idea for a Blue Labour isn’t original; it’s quite the contrary actually. Blue Labour first of all tries to recover a Labour strand buried somewhere in the early 20th-century. Glasman’s idea is based on the idea that Labour’s fundaments have been obscured since the establishment of the welfare state since 1945. Glasman’s analysis comes straight from Blond’s Red Tory idea (‘Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It’). Blond stated that ”our ills” derive from the 1945 settlement which ”effectually nationalised society.” The welfare state carried on all the roles that community and family used to do. Blond labels this ”self sufficient individualism”.

Glasman used Blond’s conclusions and applied them to his own party. It’s left individualism that obscured Labour’s traditions and made disappear society as a ”functioning moral entity”. Glasman blames Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee, social democrats that shaped postwar Britain, for producing a bureaucratic state, which culminated in the ”managerialism” of New Labour. Blond blames the left as a whole for creating a top-down, technocratic and centralized state. Blairites drew the same conclusion from a different analysis, arguing for post-bureaucratic state.

Blue Labour is deeply opposed to globalised capitalism because it threatens their constituency. The starting point, Glasman says, is marked by the end of New Labour economics. In an article in The New Statesman (‘Dave must take the Red Tory turn’, 2 October 2011) Blond proclaimed that his idea tends to fill the ‘ideological poverty’ that has occurred after the eighties and nineties. It’s worth citing the whole phrase: ”When economics and social paradigms shift, the politics that prevails is the one that most quickly adapts to new circumstances in the light of its core beliefs. Labour determined the shape of post-1945 politics. Margaret Thatcher dominated after 1979. But nobody has yet come forward to shape the politics of the post-financial crisis era.”

Glasman tries to outplay the Conservatives with his idea but it seems Red Tory and Blue Labour are two of a kind. Glasman and Blond depart though when it comes to Christianity. Blond, a former theology lecturer at the University of Cumbria, argues that Christian values are essential to society (Oliver Kamm, writer and journalist for the Times, expressed his fear that the Red Tory hawks back to ”Christian paternalism”), Glasman does not mention them at all. Blue Labour is based on the traditional working class values. In that sense the big difference between Blue Labour and Red Tory is, paradoxically, socialism. Both have a different interpretation of the term ‘socialism’. It does not mean the ‘social movement’ or the socialist, former Marxist, settlement. Socialism means mutual solidarity, community and the values of family. They both reject the state focused theory of traditional socialism.

If we depart from the thesis that the welfare state was Britain’s, and indeed Europe’s, ”last great attempt to organize society from the common good” (‘Labour is already to Blue’, Guardian, April 2011), Blue Labour is quite a toxic because we don’t know what Glasman’s alternative is. What can we derive from his idea apart from the abstract theory on community and the revitalization of Labour’s postwar values? Does he want to abolish the welfare state? Obviously, that will empower markets. Does he want to stand up against markets? Obviously, you need a central authority in order to ‘tame the beast’. State and market will remain big powers either way and you can’t leave community to the mercy of both. Glasman should decide whether he wants to shape his idea trough the state or not.

Blue Labour is essentially the opposite of liberalism. Liberals could compromise with small c-conservatism but conservative socialism is a bridge to far. The rejection of individualism – Blond called liberalism (and the left) the first individualist ideology – is unacceptable for any decent liberal. Glasman’s idea is based on a notion of communitarianism which is by itself not necessarily incompatible with liberalism. But liberals believe that the communitarian vision is premised upon sameness whereas the Glasman does not see the value of the individual in relation to society.

I doubt if Blue Labour can be an alternative for the Labour party. It’s strongly reactionary concerning globalisation and internationalisation. At the same time it’s deeply nostalgic. What I want to argue is that Blue Labour has two main problems. First of all it’s extremely political (Cameron’s Big Society is quite the contrary!). It opposes right-wing liberals, social-liberals as well as the center left way of thinking and leaves no room for a compromise. Secondly, it builds on, as brilliantly expressed by Billy Brogg in The Guardian, an ”idealized insular vision of the past”. If Glasman wants to capture Labour politics, he needs to take off the old coat.

Daniel Boomsma

This article featured in the first issue of NuPolitics Magazine, which you can read here.

No Big Society without a strong government

When using ‘Big Society’ rhetoric, David Cameron must realise that it’s a government’s job to prepare society for more responsibility, writes Daniel Boomsma.

“It is a guiding philosophy, a society where the leading force for progress is social responsibility, not state control”. This is the very essence of the idea of the Big Society. Empowering communities should lead to a society where people can run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects. But since Prime Minister David Cameron launched his ‘Big Idea’ in July 2010, it has been subject of debate. Those who oppose the Prime Minister’s plans often state that it’s just a cover for substantial cuts in public services.

The most fundamental critique however, should be based on a long term vision of Britain’s future: mending a broken society. In order to do so, the Tories must realise that the Big Society is not the ‘mending-tool’, it’s the other way around: it’s a government’s job to prepare society for more responsibility. This approach would increase the chances of success of a project that more people than just the Tories are willing to endorse.

Britain has a tradition when it comes to radical thinking on state and society. In an elaborate essay, The Economist analysed this ”outsized role promoting radical thought” by falling back on the 19th century philosophy of John Stuart Mill and other New Liberals (also known as social liberalism). The night-watchman state was a generally accepted concept in Britain until the 19th century’s ‘wave’ of (philosophical) modernisation and reform. Mill and others couldn’t accept the fact that, with ”liberty flourishing”, still many people lived in poverty and misery. It was this thought that lead to the idea of aiming at an active state instead of a night-watchman state. This would eventually lead to compulsory education, laws on labour and other social legislation and an increase of tax-funded public services.

Anti-state sentiments – The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek (who, on his turn, influenced great economic theorists such as Milton Friedman and John Hicks) of course as one of the most famous libertarian works – rose again after the destruction of the Second World war, though classical liberal philosopher Herbert Spencer already rejected the 19th century ideas on reform and modernisation in his book The Man versus the State, written in 1884. These sentiments are still very much alive today.

The developments I mentioned above resulted in what we call the idea of the post-bureaucratic state, originally formulated by former Labour leader, and pragmatist, Tony Blair. It’s testimony to this way of thinking that the state itself is bureaucratic by definition. Therefore state services should be outsourced to third parties (in the private sector). You can also, in a way, call this a characterisation of Thatcherism.

So when we look at Britain’s history, the idea of a big society isn’t really new and it’s certainly not an original ‘Tory conception’.

It is relatively new however in the sense that it calls on localism rather than the same old right-wing creed of ‘more market less state’. That’s why most political parties do not necessarily reject the idea of a Big Society. In fact, they are even willing to endorse it.

Blue Labour for example is a movement within the Labour party that endorses the idea. Rethinking the creation of the welfare state in 1945 is Blue Labour’s central theme; It’s not just about redistributing the wealth but also about giving power back to local communities. ‘Intellectual godfather’ of this response to the Big Society, Lord Maurice Glasman, made some strikingly true comments on the post war welfare state: “1945 was a wonderful achievement of solidarity. But the sting in the tail of 1945 was that it broke all the mutual solidarity – the ways we took care of each other – and handed them over to the state.” It’s this historical perspective that makes the Big Society interesting and worth the effort for more people than just Conservatives or hardcore rightists.

However, you have to meet some very important criteria if you want the Big Society to work. Local communities can do a lot by themselves, I’m absolutely sure about that. But in order to enable communities, and society as a whole, to ‘regain ground’ you need resources and the helping hand of a government. Reshaping the order of communities as we know it isn’t just a matter of pulling out some stops.

In order to create a real ‘post-welfare state’ Britain – the idea of a big society obviously aims at reinforcing communities but will certainly influence Britain’s society as a whole, causing a policy that’s no longer focused on the state/market dichotomy – Cameron has to do something quite contradictory to conservative
policy: start at the left and slowly move to the centre. A so called top-down traditional leftish strategy.

Mending a broken society by cutting away vital elements of the state isn’t going to work. The New Economic Foundation (NEF) correctly pointed out that “if the state is pruned [too] drastically…the effect will be a more troubled and diminished society, not a bigger one”. That’s why Cameron should start working the other way around. He said it himself: “We should not be naive enough to think that simply if government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more. The truth is [that] we need a government that helps to build a big society.”

Daniel Boomsma

The end of growth?

Photo: Martin Pettitt (Flickr)

Our politics remains transfixed by growth in our gross domestic product, but it is only a half-baked measurement of success, writes Sam Boyd.

Amidst the ever-gloomier backdrop of an ensuing debt crisis in the eurozone, the highest unemployment levels in seventeen years, average wages likely to be no higher in 2015 than they were in 2001, and living standards falling at a rate unseen since the 1930s, politicians of all stripes unite in their unyielding desire for one thing.

The mystical elixir is referred to daily, with a fretful yearning. It is assumed as a panacea, uniquely capable of disentangling all our economic and social woes. If only we could achieve it, then unemployment would be all but eliminated, living standards set back upon their rightful upwards path, poverty alleviated, inequalities smashed and social mobility unlocked.

That thing in question, of course, is growth. Sustained growth in our gross domestic product (GDP), to be exact. And since the collapse of the global financial system in 2008, we’ve had very little of it – only 0.5 per cent in the twelve months to November 2011. 0.7 per cent is all that’s predicted by the OBR for 2012, and that’s their best-case scenario.

Politicians and commentators haggle and sneer over why we are not growing. The right blames extraneous global factors, the left blames austerity. The right continues to espouse “expansionary fiscal contraction” alongside further quantitative easing and the weakening of workers’ rights. The left cries out for a halting of austerity and a fiscally stimulating ‘plan B’.

The debate dominates political discourse. Yet, the crucial assumption on which it is based receives close to no examination. Namely, that growth is a desirable end in itself.

For growth, we are told, improves living standards. This may be so, especially when our population is expanding. But the reality is far more complicated. Since the late seventies, when the policies of free-market neoliberalism were adopted, unprecedented growth was celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. But who really benefited?

Overwhelmingly, it was the very richest. In the US, productivity increased by 119 per cent between 1947 and 1979, and by 80 percent between 1979 and 2009. In that first period, incomes across society rose largely in line with growth: the bottom fifth saw a 122 percent income rise, the middle fifth 113 per cent, and the top fifth 99 percent. After 1979, however, gains were almost entirely gobbled up by the top. The richest 1 per cent increased their incomes by a whopping 270 per cent, whilst median wages stagnated entirely in real terms. The bottom fifth even saw their incomes decrease by 4 percent.

In the UK, a similar – if less pronounced – picture. Since 1979, GDP almost doubled in real terms. Yet only the richest tenth saw their incomes grow accordingly – twice as fast as the middle and four times as fast as the poorest tenth. In 2008, inequality reached its highest ever level since comparable records began in 1961, having increased faster since the 1970s than any other rich nation.

In a 2010 survey of twelve major developed economies, the OECD found that the UK ranked last in terms of social mobility.

Recent trends are more worrying still: research by the Resolution Foundation indicates that despite GDP growth of 11 per cent between 2003 and 2008, median incomes, as in the US in the decades before, flat-lined completely. For men, they fell by 0.2 per cent. Jobs, too, remain portrayed as a solution to various social ills, particularly poverty. Yet, thanks to punishingly low wages, 60 per cent of adults in poverty live in working households, as do 57 per cent of our four million children in poverty.

Of course, in both the US and UK, thirty years of growth resulted in advancements that have improved all our lives, especially in technology. But it also brought stagnating living standards for many, soaring inequality and heavily entrenched social immobility.

Surveys show we’re less happy than we were fifty years ago – a trend replicated across the Western world. Whilst growth and jobs may well be necessary, these patterns show they are certainly not sufficient for across-the-board improvements in our collective well-being What’s more, in our ever-lasting quest for growth, few stop to question the very practicality of the notion: namely, can we grow forever? The International Energy Agency suggests that world oil supplies, the lifeblood of our capitalist economies, will meet global demand only until about 2030. Over the next two decades, then, either we must cease our drive for everlasting growth, or instead fuel it in a sustainable way. Which will it be? Neither option is seriously considered.

A more equitable capitalism demands the exploration of more substantive – and less monetised – measurements of success: well-being, happiness and access to opportunities. Ways must be found to achieve these social goals by means of a sustainable economy balanced away the City and the consumption of fossil fuels, and towards new innovations and technologies. Growth may well retain a key role in this new economy, but as an end in itself it is wrong-headed.

David Cameron, in 2010, said: “It is high time we admitted that, taken on its own, GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country’s progress”. At his behest, the Office for National Statistics is establishing some key indicators of well-being. Ed Miliband, too, has noted, “a focus on growth is important, but not enough”. The New Economics Foundation think tank, meanwhile, has created a National Accounts of Well-being, mapping 22 different countries. These are some welcome steps. But, on the whole, politicians and the media remain consumed by percentile changes in the value of goods and services we produce.

In 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of John, gave a speech in which he said that gross national product “measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”. “It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armoured cars for police who fight riots in our streets”; but it “does not allow for the health of our children … the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.”

Such words have never held more relevance. If the last thirty years of economic expansion – culminating in the largest global financial crash since 1929 – should teach us anything, it is that moving beyond our fetishisation of growth would mark a vital first step towards a new, fairer and sustainable breed of capitalism.

As Kennedy’s words reflect, it is something that should have happened a long time ago.

Sam Boyd

This article featured in the first issue of NuPolitics Magazine, which you can read here.