새벽길의 그냥그저그래 3

-------------------------------------
좌파, 무엇을 할 것인가? (<주간 진보신당>/레디앙, 2009년 08월 11일 (화) 10:24:54 번역 / 장석준)
선거조직과 레닌주의적 전위를 넘어…녹색뉴딜 중심 선거연합부터 
    
오늘날 영국 좌파는 과거 자신의 모습의 그림자다. 과거 영국 좌파의 모습이란 분열되고 무정형적인 이견들의 집합체였다. 그래서 주류 정치에 조직적으로 참여하지도 못하고 여론의 쟁점에 별다른 영향도 끼치지 못했다.
 
좌파가 고려해야 할 네 가지 시간지평
어떻게 해야 이러한 영국 좌파가 유의미한 정치 세력으로 탈바꿈할 수 있을까? 이 질문에 답하자면, 어떠한 시간 지평을 다루는지 분명히 해야 한다. 그리고 정책과 프로젝트를 면밀히 구분해야 한다. 사회 경제 체제의 문제가 다름 아닌 우리 행성의 미래와 충돌하는 우리 현실에서는 다음과 같은 네 가지 시간 지평을 구분하는 게 적절하다.
첫째, 단기. 간단히 말하면, 12달 앞까지의 일들.
둘째, 중기. 4년 앞까지의 일들. ‘정상적’ 의회 임기 동안.
셋째, 장기. 몇 차례의 의회 임기, 말하자면 한 세대 혹은 25~30년간.
그리고 마지막으로, 먼 미래. 오늘날 서구에서 태어난 아동의 기대 수명에 따른 생애주기를 단위로 하는 시간 지평. 더 나아가서는, 생물권에 대한 인간 활동의 영향이나 생태계에 대해 사고하기에 적합한 수 세기나 천 년 단위를 단위로 하는 시간 지평.
 
좌파 재건 프로젝트는 이 모든 시간 지평에 걸쳐 있다. 틀에 박힌 정치는 단기와 중기만을 다룬다. 정치인 집단과 언론을 지배하는 것은 이러한 단기와 중기의 시간지평이며, 이들의 관심은 차기 선거에만 쏠려 있다. 만약 이게 당신의 시간지평이라면, 당신은 필연적으로 자본주의의 지속 발전과 정당 정치의 급박한 현안과 관련된 쟁점들을 다루는 데만 관심을 집중하게 될 것이다. 이것은 현존 사회 질서를 관리하는 것이 우선적인 관심사인 사람들이라면 누구에게나 당연한 시간 지평이다. 물론 현 체제를 관리하는 것만도 충분히 어려운 일이며, 그것을 잘 하느냐 못 하느냐 역시 중요하다. 그러나 프랑스 대혁명 이후로 좌파는 사회를 바꾸길 열망해왔고, 이것은 훨씬 더 어려운 과제다. 그리고 사회주의자(한때 좌파의 중핵을 이뤘지만 지금 서방에서는 거의 정치적인 멸종 위기종인)에게 이것은 탈자본주의 문명을 지향하는 것을 뜻했다. 
 
우리 중 일부는 이것이 여전히 우리의 목표여야 한다고 믿는다. 물론 이것은 조만간 성취 가능한 것은 아니다. 하지만 그렇다고 이것이 탈자본주의 이상이 오늘날 우리가 직면한 문제들과 아무런 관련도 없다는 것을 뜻하지는 않는다. 우리가 단기․중기 지평을 넘어 전망하고 자본주의 이후의 삶을 사고해야 하는 이유는, 만약 그렇게 하지 않는다면, 기존 질서의 폭풍과 파도에 휩쓸려 침몰해버리기만 할 것이라는 데 있다. 우리 스스로 선택한 목표를 향해 항해하지 못하고 말이다. 달리 말하면, 좌파에게는 중․단기 지평을 위한 정책들뿐만 아니라 장기와 먼 미래를 향한 프로젝트 또한 필요하다.
 
물론 정책들과 프로젝트는 서로 연결되어야 한다. 오늘날의 문제들에 대한 해법으로 장기 목표만 떠들어대는 것은 쓸데없는 짓이다. 왜냐하면 이 경우 현 상황에 개입할 여지가 없을 것이고, 따라서 다른 정치 세력들이 상황을 주도하면서 현실에서 벌어질 일들을 결정하게 될 것이기 때문이다. 하지만 우리는 장기 과제를 무시하고 오늘날의 문제들에 대해 순전히 실용적인 방향에서만 대응(요즘 유행어로 말하면, ‘되는 일 하기’)해서도 안 된다. 왜냐하면 이럴 경우 현존 사회 제도, 문화 패턴 그리고 권력 관계에는 어떠한 변화도 일어나지 않을 것이기 때문이다.
 
장기와 먼 미래 사이의 구별은 자본주의의 변형과 그 지양을 구별하게 해준다. 미국의 전 지구적 지배권이 종말을 향해 다가가고 신자유주의의 제단이 치명적인 손상을 입은(비록 파괴된 것은 결코 아니지만) 이때에 자본주의의 변형이란, 무엇보다도, 신자유주의를 새로운 조절된 ‘사회적 시장’ 정책 체제로 대체하려는 공동의 노력을 뜻한다. 반면 자본주의의 지양은, 문자 그대로, 탈자본주의 사회를 건설하는 것을 뜻한다.
 
자본주의를 종식시킨다는 과제를 준비하는 것보다는 정책 체제의 변화를 지지하는 쪽에 현재 더 광범한 세력들을 동원할 수 있다는 데에는 이론의 여지가 없다. 하지만 전체 좌파는 단지 중․단기를 넘어서는 전망을 갖추는 데 머물러서는 안 된다. 자본주의에 대한 진지한 반대 세력은 신자유주의 반대 투쟁의 동맹군들에게, 만약 괴물을 죽이지 않고 가둬놓기만 한다면 괴물의 힘이 점점 더 세져서 결국에는 쇠창살을 부수게 될 것이고 그래서 위기, 조절 그리고 탈조절의 순환이 반복되기만 할 뿐이라는 점을 설득해야 한다.
 
선거 기계도, 레닌주의적 전위도 아닌 당, ‘현대의 군주’
남는 것은 흔히 주체의 문제로 알려져 있는 것을 고려하는 일이다. 여기에는 실제로 세 개의 물음이 존재한다. 신자유주의를 폐위시키거나 자본주의를 지양하는 데 이해관계를 지닌 사회 세력들은 누구인가? 이러한 세력들을 안정적인 역사적 블록으로 발전시키기 위해서는 어떤 종류의 조직이 필요한가? 그리고 그람시의 표현에 따르면 ‘현대의 군주’라고 할 이런 조직들이 출현할 출발점들은 무엇인가? 진보적인 역사적 블록의 잠재적 구성 요소들을 확인하는 것은 어려운 일이 아니다. 노동조합, 빈민과 철거민, 환경 그룹과 운동가들, 세속적인 입장에서든 종교적인 입장에서든 소비주의를 비판하면서 보다 의미 있는 사회 관계와 더 나은 삶의 질을 추구하는 사람들, 성별이나 인종 혹은 성적 정체성에 따른 사회적 차별에 도전하여 인권을 지키려는 운동들 그리고 보다 공정하면서 덜 분열된 전 지구적 질서를 추구하는 운동들이 바로 그것이다.
 
이러한 사회 세력들은 항상 저항의 기반을 제공하면서 다른 세상을 추구해왔다. 1649년 영국 청교도 혁명 당시의 제러드 윈스턴리와 디거스(Diggers)로부터 1970년대의 루카스 항공기사(社) 현장위원들에 이르기까지 이들은 현존 경제 ․ 사회 조직 형태에 대한 급진 민주적이고 평등주의적인 대안들을 제공하곤 했다. 비록 일시적이고 지역적인 토대에 국한되었을지라도 말이다. 문제는 어떻게 해야 이들 서로 다른 집단들이 자신들의 특수한 분파적 입장을 넘어 성장하도록 설득할 수 있는가 이다. 어떻게 해야 이들을, 우선은 신자유주의를 대체하는 것을 목표로 하면서 장기적으로는 새로운 탈자본주의 문명을 건설하는 것을 지향하는 공동의 전국적 (그리고 국제적) 투쟁으로 결집시킬 수 있을 것인가?
 
이 문제는 저절로 해결되지 않는다. 지적 도덕적 지도력이 필요하다. 이 지도력은, 민중 운동에 직접 뿌리를 두면서 선거 경합과 승리가 아니라 사회 전체를 포괄하는 헤게모니 프로젝트를 다지는 데, 광범한 동맹의 중핵 역할을 할 프로그램(강령)을 발전시키는 데 우선적인 목표를 두는 사람들의 헌신적 조직에서 배출될 것이다. 간단히 말하면, 선거 기계나 레닌주의적 전위가 아닌 그런 정당 말이다. 이런 정당은 지적 문화적 과제에 진지하게 임해야 할 것이다. 또한 당 내 절차가 철저히 민주적이어야 하며 다른 조직과 관계를 맺는 과정에서 분명히 비종파적이어야 할 것이다. 높은 수준의 성실성과 일관성을 견지하면서, 한편으로는 지속적인 반대 세력으로 존재하면서도 반대를 위한 반대로 전락하지 않는 길을 찾아내고, 다른 한편으로는 여론의 신뢰를 얻으면서 공동의 입장과 정책들에 대한 합의에 도달해야 할 것이다. 
 
현재 존재하는 정당들 중에는 이러한 요건에 들어맞는 당을 찾아볼 수 없다. 최선책은 궁극적으로 ‘현대의 군주’를 출현시킬 일련의 과정에 착수하는 것이다. 우리 앞에 놓인 한 가지 길은 노동당 좌파의 남은 세력, 과거 공산주의자와 트로츠키주의자, 녹색당원, 스코틀랜드와 웨일즈 민족주의자, 자유민주당 내 불만 세력 그리고 무당파 활동가들로 이뤄진 느슨한 선거 연합을 만드는 것이다. 이 연합의 중심 축은 신자유주의적 주류 정치에 대한 반대이고, 그 중심 실천 과제는 선거 개혁과 녹색 뉴딜의 캠페인을 벌이는 일일 것이다.
 
어떤 형태로든 비례대표제를 도입하지 않고서는 이러한 선거 연합이 총선에서 상당한 성과를 내길 기대할 수는 없을 것이다. 하지만 녹색당이 거둔 일정한 성과에서도 드러나듯이, 지방선거는 좀 더 많은 기회를 제공해준다. 게다가 스코틀랜드와 웨일즈에는 진보 연합의 여지가 존재하며, 이것은 잉글랜드 정치의 재편을 촉진하는 역할을 할 것이다. 이것이 연방 전체에 어떠한 영향을 끼치든 말이다. 게다가 총선에 뛰어들어 경합을 벌이는 것이 별다른 의미를 갖지 못하는 곳에서도 선거 연합을 구성하기 전에 우선 그 잠재 구성원들 사이에서 토론을 시작할 수 있다. 단지 목표와 전략뿐만 아니라, 어떻게 해야 좌파가 기후 변화 대책을 경제 회복 프로그램의 중심에 놓는 강령을 기반으로 선거에 개입할 수 있을지가 토론 주제가 될 것이다.
 
불황기에는 민간 지출 감소를 대신해서 공공 지출과 차입[적자 재정]을 늘려야 한다. 기후 변화와 여타 생태적 도전에 직면한 상황에서 이러한 공공 지출 증가분은 생태적 문제들을 해결하는 프로그램에 집중 투입돼야 한다. 하지만 여기에 머물지 않고, 현 위기에 대처하는 과정에서 전혀 다른 사회, 사회적으로 정의롭고 생태적으로 지속 가능한 사회로 나아가는 데 도움이 될 토대 또한 구축해야 한다.
 
우리는 GDP 성장의 회복을 추구하거나 현재 대부분의 논평가들이 예견하는 것처럼 과거의 관행을 그대로 반복할 게 아니라 보다 완만한 실질 성장률을 지향해야 하며 장기적으로는 안정적인 정태적 경제를 향해 나아가야 한다. 우리는 삶의 질에, 우리 동료 시민들의 웰빙에, 또한 세계의 나머지 사람들의 삶에 관심을 집중해야 한다. 현재 우리에게는, 보다 평등한 사회일수록 보다 행복하고 건강한 사회라는 증거가 풍부히 존재한다.
 
최근 폴리 토인비가 지적한 것처럼, 스칸디나비아 국가들의 보건, 교육 그리고 사회 서비스 수준은 이 나라들의 공공 지출 및 과세 수준에 의존한다. 그리고 공공 채무 수준이 실제로 문제적 상황에 이른 경우에라도 이것은 지출 삭감이 아니라(물론 트라이던트 핵 미사일, 항공모함 그리고 최근의 대형 교도소 신축 계획 같은 위험하고 쓸데없는 항목들은 삭감 대상이지만) 적절한 누진 과세 제도를 통해 해결해야 한다.
 
사상과 비전이 모자란 것이 아니다. 일단 이들 사상과 비전이 추진되기만 한다면 잘 작동할 것이라는 증거가 부족한 것도 아니다. 우리의 문제는 차라리 정치적인 것이다. 유일한 이유는 현재 녹색 뉴딜의 주창자들이 소수여서 주류 정치에 영향을 미치지 못하고 있다는 것뿐이다.
 
따라서 우리는 대중적 논쟁의 용어들을 바꾸고 정치적 세력 균형을 바꾸기 위해 우리가 할 수 있는 일들을 해야 한다. 분명 어려운 과업이지만, 이것 말고 다른 어떤 길이 있겠는가? 구좌파에게는 새로운 전국적 헤게모니 프로젝트가 없고, 신노동당의 프로젝트는 전혀 좌파의 것이 아니다. 그리고 노동당 바깥의 좌파는 광야에서 헤매고 있다. 지금은 우리의 과거 역사에서 교훈을 얻고 미래를 탈환해야 할 때다.

------------------------------------------------------------ 
Feelbad Britain and the future of the left (Red Pepper 9 June 2009, Pat Devine & David Purdy)
This article is based on Feelbad Britain: How to Make it Better, edited by Pat Devine, Andrew Pearmain and David Purdy (Lawrence and Wishart, 2009)
 
If the left in all its diversity is to develop the coherence to meet the new challenges posed by the implosion of the capitalist financial markets, then it needs to overcome the weaknesses that allowed neoliberalism to triumph in the 1980s. Here Pat Devine and David Purdy suggest strategic thoughts for the future, drawing from their analysis of what they see as the left’s lack in the past of a positive project for social change
 
As we ponder the shape of post-crash politics, we should not lose sight of the wider aspects of the crisis besetting neoliberal capitalism, nowhere more evident than in Britain. It is not just that our long consumer boom depended on inflated house prices, reckless mortgage lending, debt-fuelled spending, record balance of payments deficits, misbegotten financial ‘innovation’ and inept regulation. The whole consumer confidence trick rested on a body of ideas about freedom and the market that have guided the policies of successive Conservative and Labour governments over the past 30 years, but which experience shows to be deeply inimical to personal well being, social cohesion and environmental sustainability.
 
Neoliberalism was forged in opposition to Keynesian social democracy, the fusion of social democratic politics and Keynesian economics that governed public policy during the ‘golden age’ of post-war capitalism from 1945 to 1975. But neoliberalism was always more than a recipe for quelling inflation, corralling the public sector, replenishing corporate profits and restoring the primacy of market forces in economic life. Behind its harsh remedies for the economic failings of the old regime lay the idea that the good society is one in which individuals enjoy maximum (and, in principle, equal) freedom to seek their own salvation in their own way so long as they do no harm to others. According to neoliberals, the form of society that best enshrines this ideal is one based on private ownership of productive assets, free contracts, competitive markets, commercial money and generalised commodity production. The only legitimate role for government is to establish (or re-establish) the institutions and norms that underpin these conditions.
 
The bursting of the house price bubble, the near collapse of the financial system, the onset of global recession and the emergency measures improvised by governments around the world to bail out banks and shore up spending – at heavy cost to the public purse – offer a stark reminder, if one were needed, that capitalism is plagued by boom and bust. But what makes the economic crisis so intractable in Britain is the human and social damage caused over the past 30 years by the neoliberal model and its continued hold over policymakers. Unhampered by this crippling legacy, government could set about rallying public support for a green new deal aimed at promoting economic recovery by combating climate change. As it is, our society lacks the cohesion and confidence needed to escape from recession, begin the transition to a low-carbon economy and restore faith in government.
 
The state we’re in
Even before the crash, there was abundant evidence that rising per capita income had failed to improve people’s sense of well-being. On average, people felt no better off than 30 years before, and growing material prosperity had been accompanied by a range of personal and social disorders: family breakdown, mental illness, personal insecurity, social inequality, declining trust, addiction, obesity and crime.
 
Perhaps the most telling evidence that Britain has become a stressed and dysfunctional society comes from international comparisons of child welfare. In a survey of 21 rich countries based on 40 indicators, ranging from babies’ birth weights to how often children talk to their parents, Unicef placed Britain in bottom place, just below the United States (Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries, Unicef 2007). Young Britons fared badly in each of the six broad categories into which the data were grouped – material prosperity, family and peer relationships, health and safety, behaviour and risks, education and subjective well-being – and fared worst of all in the sections on their social lives. Only 43 per cent were willing to describe their peers as ‘kind and helpful’. Britain’s teenage pregnancy rate is five times that of the Netherlands, whose children fared best overall.
 
The poor shape of British society is matched by the decadence of our politics. Spin, sleaze and smears are merely sordid surface symptoms of a deep-seated disease. The triumph of neoliberalism has pulled the entire political spectrum to the right, leaving a desert on the political left while the mainstream parties cluster around a narrow range of variations on a common commitment to global competitiveness, job-centred consumerism and perpetual economic growth. Historically, the division between left and right centred on the causes and consequences of social inequality and the scope for overcoming it. These ethical and philosophical issues have lost none of their bite, but they are no longer reflected in our politics. There is a gaping hole where the democratic green left ought to be.
 
Our political institutions too have been hollowed out. As the battleground of politics contracts, the techniques that parties use to poll or target voters grow ever more sophisticated, while the messages they communicate grow ever more manipulative. In the digital age, the career politicians and professional functionaries who control our parties no longer need activists to fight elections or argue a case. No wonder party membership has dwindled, party funding is a disgrace and the political class is discredited.
 
First-past-the-post voting makes things worse. Critics of this system have long argued that it exaggerates the winning margin, handicaps minor parties and forces millions of voters to choose between voting for no-hope candidates, voting tactically or not voting at all. Now a fresh charge can be added: that the system leads to tactical electioneering in which the parties effectively ignore most of the electorate and target swing voters in key marginals. The combined result of all these factors – elite consensus, deracinated parties, media-led politics and disproportional representation – is a rumbling crisis of legitimacy. When the two main parties each receive roughly 35 per cent of the vote on a turnout of 60 per cent, it is perfectly possible for one of them to win a working parliamentary majority with the support of little more than 20 per cent of the electorate.
 
The one source of hope in an otherwise bleak political landscape is that with nationalist parties in office for the first time in Scotland and Wales, the UK is ceasing to be a centralised, Union state, and even in England the old system of two-party politics has started to dissolve. With the Conservatives back in power at Westminster, as seems increasingly likely, whether alone or in tandem with the Liberal Democrats, and with the SNP returned for a second term in Scotland, a further loosening of the Union is a strong possibility and the strange death of Labour England cannot be ruled out. In these circumstances, space would open up for a new political formation of the left. Before examining this prospect, however, we need to consider how Britain arrived at its present sorry plight and what needs to be done to revitalise the left.
 
The fall of the post-war settlement
The post-war settlement rested on three pillars: the maintenance of full employment by means of counter-cyclical demand management; a mixed economy with a major role for public ownership, national planning and market regulation; and a welfare state that provided a range of tax-financed social services and cash transfers, the former available to users mostly free of charge, the latter subject to various qualifying conditions or means tests. At the same time, the ongoing management of the national economy became the joint responsibility of government and the corporate organisations of employers and workers. This tripartite system of ‘industrial politics’ was largely informal and operated behind closed doors, in contrast to the open forms of ‘social partnership’ that flourished elsewhere in western Europe but in keeping with the paternalistic and technocratic character of the British state.
 
Prior to 1945 capitalism had relied on periodic mass unemployment to contain wage pressure and maintain work discipline. With wages determined by collective bargaining, the consequence of removing this built-in stabiliser was that the growth of money wages persistently outstripped the growth of output per worker, pushing up labour costs per unit of output. Typically, employers sought to claw back the wage increases they had conceded by raising their selling prices in order to protect their profit margins. In the 1960s, though, as the pressure of international competition intensified, profit margins were squeezed, curtailing investment and hampering firms’ ability to compete with rivals overseas. Higher prices simply provoked fresh demands for higher money wages. Thus, as long as fiscal and monetary policy was dedicated to preserving full employment, wages and prices went on chasing each other upwards in an endless spiral.
 
There were two, but only two, solutions to this problem. One was to abandon the wages ‘free-for-all’ and introduce some form of pay policy, not as a temporary expedient, but on a permanent basis. The other was to abandon the commitment to full employment and institute an old-fashioned deflationary purge. The former offered the labour movement the chance to exchange concessions on pay for advances in economic democracy, at economy-wide, enterprise and workplace levels. Tragically, the chance was spurned. The idea of tackling the country’s pressing economic problems by extending democracy into the citadels of economic power held little appeal for most of the left and the labour movement. Thus, initiative and responsibility for resolving the crisis passed to the right, which seized them with alacrity.
 
Capitalism unleashed
The first wave of the neoliberal revolution, presided over by Margaret Thatcher, was largely concerned with dismantling the old regime. Incomes policy and demand management gave way to monetary discipline and fiscal retrenchment; nationalised industries were privatised; financial markets were unshackled. The voluntary system of industrial relations dating back to the days of Lloyd George was replaced by a legal framework, emasculating the unions, deregulating the labour market, expelling the TUC from the corridors of power and undermining the position of the labour movement as an ‘estate of the realm’.
 
The aim of the second wave, initiated under John Major, but pursued with missionary zeal by New Labour, was to build a market state. On the macroeconomic front, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown consolidated the work of their predecessors by handing over responsibility for setting the base rate of interest to the Bank of England and introducing fiscal rules designed to keep public borrowing within ‘prudent’ limits. It was in the field of social policy, however, that New Labour broke new ground, seeking to embed the ideal of homo economicus more deeply into everyday life.
 
To reduce welfare dependency and avoid inflationary labour shortages, the government launched a series of welfare-to-work programmes targeting groups who were or risked becoming disconnected from employment. To promote self-reliance, it sought to shift provision for retirement pensions away from the state and towards the private sector; it also introduced student loans and top-up fees. Above all, New Labour set out to reform public services by separating finance from provision, creating quasi-markets, expanding consumer choice and encouraging managers to adopt commercial norms and practices.
 
The overall result of this sustained exercise in social engineering was to unleash capitalism, just as its architects intended. What they did not reckon with were the human, social and environmental consequences. If I am persuaded to dedicate myself to owning, earning and spending, no one should be surprised if I end up caring only for me, more, now. If the scope of the market is extended into areas of economic and social life from which it should be excluded, from public utilities and social services to unpaid care-giving and mutual self-help, we increasingly experience and think of ourselves as atomised market participants – employees, customers or consumers, as the case may be, rather than as citizens, neighbours, colleagues and associates. And if we buy into the fantasy of boundless economic growth, we put both human civilisation and life on earth at risk.
 
The story of Britain over the past 30 years echoes Karl Polanyi’s account of the development of capitalism during the period from 1815 to 1845, when a similar drive to establish a ‘self-regulating market’ gave rise to similarly destructive consequences. (The Great Transformation, 1944, Beacon Press edition, 2001). Modern economists, Polanyi noted, study market systems in abstraction from culture, society and politics. But all economies, including those based on the supply-demand-price mechanism, are embedded in specific forms of social life. The vision of a free-floating, self-regulating market system is an impossible object, like one of Escher’s images. Attempts to bring it into being are both futile and destabilising, for they provoke protest and resistance, though the forms these take and the ends they serve are diverse. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, for example, when laissez-faire was discredited by the Great Depression, three rival political projects battled for supremacy: fascism, an authoritarian collectivism of the right; communism, an authoritarian collectivism of the left; and a liberal collectivism of the centre-left, exemplified by Roosevelt’s New Deal and Sweden’s ‘historic compromise’ between capitalism and socialism.
 
The lesson of the 1930s, as of the 1970s, is that in periods of organic crisis a progressive outcome is by no means guaranteed. To be sure, fascism was eventually defeated and, in the west, Keynesian social democracy gave capitalism a new lease of life, but only after ten years of worldwide economic carnage and six years of total war. And both the 1930s and the 1970s highlight the importance of moral and intellectual leadership in framing new policy paradigms and mobilising support for radical reform. In the end, the reason the British left failed to counter the rise of neoliberalism is that it had no alternative hegemonic project of its own.
 
What is to be done?
The British left today is a shadow of its former self, a diffuse and amorphous body of opinion with no organised presence in mainstream politics and little impact on public affairs. How can it become a serious political force? In thinking about this question, we need to be clear about timescales and distinguish carefully between policies and projects. In a world where questions of economic and social organisation impinge on the very future of our planet, four timescales are relevant:
the short run – roughly speaking, anything up to 12 months ahead;
the medium run – up to about four years ahead, the length of a ‘normal’ parliament;
the long run – extending over several parliaments up to, say, a generation or 25-30 years; and
the very long run – subdivided into the human lifespan, as measured by the expected lifetime of a child born in the west today; and eco-time, the timescale appropriate for thinking about eco-systems and the impact of human activity on the biosphere, measured in centuries and millennia.
  
The project of rebuilding the left spans all these timescales. Conventional politics deals only with the short and medium run. This is what preoccupies the political class and the media, their eyes fixed firmly on the next election. Inevitably, if this is your time horizon, you will be mainly concerned with trying to cope with the issues that are thrown up by the ongoing development of capitalism and the exigencies of party political conflict. It is the timescale natural to anyone who is primarily concerned with managing the existing social order. Of course, managing the system is difficult enough and may be done well or badly. But ever since the French Revolution, the left has aspired to transform society, an even harder task. And for socialists – once the core of the left, but now in the west almost an endangered political species – this has meant working towards a post-capitalist civilisation.
 
Some of us believe that this should still be our aim. It will not, of course, be achieved any time soon, but this does not mean that the idea of post-capitalism has no relevance to the problems we face today. The reason we need to look beyond the short and medium run and think about life after capitalism is that if we do not, we shall simply be buffeted about and carried along by the prevailing winds and tides, rather than steering towards a goal of our own choosing. In other words, the left needs not only policies for the short and medium run but also a project oriented towards the long run and the very long run.
 
Naturally, policies and project must connect. It’s no use proclaiming long-term goals as the solution to today’s problems, because that gives you no purchase on the current situation and simply means that other political forces will take charge and decide what actually happens. But neither can we afford to ignore the long run and respond to today’s problems on a purely pragmatic basis – ‘doing what works’ in the current vogue phrase – because that does nothing to change prevailing social institutions, cultural patterns and power relations.
 
The distinction between the long run and the very long run turns on the difference between transforming capitalism and transcending it. At a time when US global supremacy is coming to an end and the neoliberal temple is badly damaged (though certainly not destroyed), transforming capitalism involves, above all, a concerted effort to replace neoliberalism with a new regulated ‘social market’ policy regime. Transcending capitalism means, quite literally, building a post-capitalist society.
 
Undeniably, a wider range of forces can currently be mobilised in support of a change in policy regime than are prepared to work for the end of capitalism. But just as the left in general needs to look beyond the short and medium run, so serious opponents of capitalism need to convince their allies in the struggle against neoliberalism that if the beast is merely caged and not killed, pressure will eventually grow for the bars to be removed and the cycle of crisis, regulation and deregulation will repeat itself.
 
Hegemony, agency and alliances
It remains to consider what is usually known as the problem of agency. There are really three questions here. What social forces have an interest in dethroning neoliberalism or transcending capitalism? What kind of organisation is required to promote the development of these forces into a stable historic bloc? And what are the sources from which such an organisation, a ‘Modern Prince’ as Gramsci called it, might emerge? It is not difficult to identify the potential components of a progressive historic bloc: trade unions; the poor and the dispossessed; environmental groups and campaigners; secular and religious critics of consumerism who are looking for a more meaningful social relationships and a better quality of life; movements seeking to uphold human rights and challenge social divisions, whether of gender, race or sexual orientation; and movements seeking to create a fairer, less divided global order.
 
Social forces such as these have always offered resistance and looked forward to another world. And from Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers in 1649 to the Lucas Aerospace shop stewards in the 1970s, they have sometimes offered radical democratic and egalitarian alternatives to prevailing forms of economic and social organisation, albeit on a temporary and local basis. The problem is how to persuade these disparate groups to rise above their particular sectional standpoint. How can they be brought together in a common national (and international) struggle aimed, in the first instance, at replacing neoliberalism and, in the long run, at building a new, post-capitalist civilisation?
 
This problem will not solve itself. It calls for moral and intellectual leadership from a committed body of people who are themselves rooted in popular movements and whose primary aim is not to contest and win elections but to articulate a hegemonic project covering society as a whole and to develop a programme around which a broad alliance can coalesce: in short, a political party that is neither an election machine nor a Leninist vanguard. Such a party would need to take cultural and intellectual work seriously. It would also need to be scrupulously democratic in its internal procedures and resolutely non-sectarian in its dealings with other organisations, striving to uphold the highest standards of honesty and integrity, to win public respect and to reach agreement on common positions and policies, while finding non-antagonistic ways of living with disagreement.
 
No existing party comes anywhere near meeting these requirements. The best we can do is set in motion a process from which a ‘Modern Prince’ might eventually emerge. One way forward is to work towards the formation of a loose-knit electoral alliance drawn from the remnants of the Labour left, former communists and Trotskyists, greens, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, disaffected Liberal Democrats and unaffiliated activists, united in opposition to the neoliberal mainstream and dedicated to campaigning for electoral reform and a green new deal.
 
The alliance could not hope to make much headway at Westminster until some form of proportional representation is achieved. However, local elections offer more fertile ground, as demonstrated by the modest success of the Green Party. There is also scope for progressive alliances in Scotland and Wales, which would help the cause of political realignment in England, whatever happens to the Union. And even where there is no point in contesting parliamentary elections, prospective alliance partners can still engage in talks, not just about goals and strategy, but about how the left might intervene in elections around a platform that puts measures to combat climate change at the heart of a programme for economic recovery.
 
In times of recession, public spending and borrowing must increase, to compensate for the downturn in private spending. Faced as we are with climate change and other pressing ecological challenges, the increased public spending must be focused on programmes to address these. But in the course of responding to the present crisis we need to lay the foundations for moving to a very different society, one that is socially just and ecologically sustainable.
 
Far from aiming to restore GDP growth and resuming business as usual, as current forecasts assume, we need to move towards a slower material growth rate and in the longer term a steady state economy. We need to concentrate on the quality of life, on the well being of our citizens and also those of the rest of the world. There is now overwhelming evidence that happier, healthier societies are more equal societies.
 
As Polly Toynbee has recently pointed out, Scandinavian levels of health, education and social services depend on Scandinavian levels of public expenditure and taxation. And to the extent that the level of public debt really is a problem, this should be dealt with not by cutting expenditure (apart from dangerous or useless items such as Trident, aircraft carriers and now mini-Titan prisons), but by a proper system of progressive taxation.
 
There is no shortage of ideas and vision, or of evidence that these ideas would work, if only they could be implemented. Rather, our problem is political. For the moment green new dealers are a minority with little influence on mainstream politics. 
 
We must, therefore, do what we can to change the terms of public debate and shift the balance of political forces. It will be hard work, but what is the alternative? The old left has no new hegemonic national project, New Labour’s project is not of the left and the non-Labour left is lost in the wilderness. The time has come to learn the lessons of our history and reclaim the future.

---------------------------------------------- 
Essay response: A new vehicle (Red Pepper 9 June 2009 )
 
The old, failed internal combustion engine of politics is not the way forward, argues Alex Nunns
 
There is an unseemly break in Pat Devine and David Purdy’s argument between their masterful sweeping narrative of Britain’s post-war political economy and their recommendations for the future of the left.
 
At the heart of their analysis is the contention that the neoliberal right was able to seize control of Britain at the end of the 1970s largely because the left had no alternative hegemonic project, no compelling vision of how society should be ordered to offer a way out of Britain’s crisis. Thirty years later, as neoliberal hegemony collapses, they argue the left must develop a new hegemonic project if it hopes to influence the future. Yet the mechanism they advocate for achieving this, a new party of the left, doesn’t follow.
 
If the left lacks a hegemonic project, it is not short on parties. Indeed, until recently it made up a large chunk of the Labour Party. Yet according to Devine and Purdy its lack of vision allowed the right to triumph. So if the absence of a hegemonic project is the root of the problem, why do we need another party? Is a new party, with its meetings and conferences, really the missing element that will crystallise our vision? A hegemonic project, as Gramsci explained and Devine and Purdy know, has a much wider scope than a single party. It is something that must be developed, extended and expanded by a broad range of intellectuals and activists, ultimately seeping into every crevice of society.
 
The British branch of the neoliberal hegemonic project (for it was a global phenomenon) did not depend on a party. It gathered pace from the works of disparate economists and thinkers who were on the right but not necessarily Conservative (Milton Friedman, who unfortunately died in 2006 just two years before being proved wrong, was American), and was implemented politically by a small group around Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph. Most Tory MPs and many members of Thatcher’s first cabinet were not neoliberals, or “one of us” as Thatcher expressed it. In fact the ideological flavour of neoliberalism was distasteful to genuine Conservatives.
 
Devine and Purdy might counter that even if a new party isn’t a prerequisite to establishing a new hegemonic project, it is still necessary for responding to events in the short term and positioning for the longer term. But this raises practical issues. Who will put in the enormous time and energy to build a new party? Why will it work now when it hasn’t worked before?
 
Aside from sectarian wrangling, the common explanations for the British left not getting it together are the first-past-the-post electoral system and (as a consequence) the dominance of Labour. The problem of first past the post raises the question of whether a new party is the best use of resources when it would only have a chance in local and European elections (except in Scotland and Wales).
 
As for Labour’s dominance, this excuse shouldn’t hold weight anymore. New Labour has long since ceased to have anything to do with the left. While some may still have the residual notion of the Labour Party as a limb of the wider labour movement or as a rainbow coalition, for younger people the party is just not seen like that. As the annual Labour conference shows, there is neither room for the left nor democratic avenues open to it.
 
Despite this, attempts at electoral coordination in the form of the Socialist Alliance and Respect have not broken through nationally (excepting George Galloway’s individual success). First past the post and the dominance of Labour cannot fully explain this. Perhaps there is a deeper factor, rather painful to admit. Many European socialist parties were initially formed as loose electoral alliances and their success was phenomenally quick. Even in Britain, with its specific electoral rules, Labour was able to form a government just a quarter-century after its foundation.
 
This was because socialist parties had a ready-made constituency – the industrial working class. In 2009, the working class has less awareness of itself as an entity. This makes the job of forging a new political base ten times harder than it was for early socialists and demands fresh methods.
 
Given these bleak conditions, to present a new party of the left as the only option is somewhat demoralising. It may be true that climate change will focus minds and bridge the gaps between greens and socialists and between the generations. But part of Devine and Purdy’s purpose is to break with what they see as the failed tactics of the 1970s. It seems strange, then, to advocate the organisational form of that time – the political party – for the future of the left, especially when faith in political parties is at rock bottom (see David Beetham, Red Pepper June/July issue).
 
Of course the left must know its history and never forsake the painstaking work of previous generations. But just as the internal combustion engine must give way to hydrogen fuel cells or electric cars, so it must be worth trying to innovate a more appropriate vehicle for political representation.
  
------------------------------------------------- 
Essay response: Many paths (Red Pepper, 9 June 2009)
 
A revitalised left needs to consider what exactly it wants before it can determine how to achieve it, says Siobhan McGuirk
 
Pat Devine and David Purdy offer a reasonable assessment of our current social and political landscape, benefiting from their historical analysis. Their call for a revitalised left is welcome, as is the debate they are stimulating. But their conclusions are shaped by too narrow and pessimistic a view of our diversely politicised landscape.
 
By concentrating on party-based organisations, they fail to recognise the breadth of activity on the left, ignoring non-party political approaches precisely at the moment when new ideas are needed. As a result, they discern only one path towards a post-capitalist world where there are many. For them, government and hegemony are unquestioned terms. Yet their roles in this new society require debate. We must consider what we are uniting and striving for – not just how to achieve it.
 
Disillusionment with the existing party political choices should not imply that a new party is needed. The political system itself is under scrutiny and has been found wanting. There is a strong desire within sections of the left to break comprehensively from business-as-usual style politics, and certainly to go beyond our current party-political system.
 
The insightful historical view that Devine and Purdy present is not matched by sufficient recognition that today’s context is dramatically different from that of the past. A shifting political climate calls for new ideas. Already, movements they have overlooked have found new ways of working. Their ideas demand attention, as steadily growing numbers are embracing non-dogmatic and genuinely open, bottom-up approaches.
 
Cooperation at local levels is being fostered through community agricultural projects, skill sharing, non-monetary trade systems and creative initiatives. This includes the production of newsletters and independent magazines, both in print and online. The internet has genuinely altered the way that political groups coordinate and communicate. ‘User-generated content’ has opened up spaces to publicise stories and events shunned by mainstream media channels. Freeware initiatives provide computer users with programs at no cost while the copyleft movement promotes creativity and information sharing without concern for monetary gain.
 
Hierarchies and leaderships are increasingly uncomfortable for many. Where the notion of top-down democracy is regarded as oxymoronic, a diversity of ideas finds space to emerge. Online networking and forum sites are allowing important debates to take place progressively and openly. Email lists facilitate horizontal organising, reflecting the non-hierarchical approach increasingly important to the left.
 
Where decision-making processes are by consensus, rather than majority-vote led, a return to party politics is a retrogressive step. We must consider what post-capitalist solutions imply for electoral politics: is there a place for majority rule in a just and equal society? For many left movements the system is inherently problematic and in need of abolition, not reform. This raises an important question: why play the system if we have post-capitalist solutions now?
 
Strong international networks have been built through increased interconnectivity without compromising autonomy. Yet the need for an internationalist anti-capitalist movement receives only a nod from Devine and Purdy, who fail to look far beyond the components of the ‘Union’. Further afield, genuine post-capitalist solutions are visible in both experimental and functional forms. The experience of the Argentinian communities functioning self-sufficiently post-economic crash in 2002 is an instructive case.
 
Devine and Purdy avoid questioning the role of nation states in what would presumably be a comprehensively different world. We must consider the type of government, if any, an alliance of the left should form. What would the transformation, and ultimately transcendence, of capitalism imply for apparatuses of the state, such as the military? What type of rules and regulations could be set in a free society? Would we seek self-sufficiency on a local or global scale? What would be the limits of the state? Fundamentally, can governance as we know it have a role in a post-capitalist future?
 
Despite these unacknowledged questions, Devine and Purdy insist that a cohesive and electable party-political force is the only route for the left. They presume that we have lacked the hegemonic project necessary to transcend capitalism, but leave the constitution of that project obscure. Perhaps the bigger issue we face just now is finding ways of working together on the basis of shared values and acknowledging rifts that will not be easily surmounted. Our differences do not have to be divisive, and may well be overcome through a plurality of approaches, working in conjunction. As a first step we should recognise that calls to ‘rise above sectional standpoints’ must entail genuine openness to ideas. They cannot only demand the collective rallying around a particular and predetermined solution.
 
The idea that party politics is the central practical issue for the left will do little to revitalise it. And if party politics is as important as Devine and Purdy believe, they may do well to reassess the Green Party as a viable alternative. It certainly shares their aims of electoral reform and a green new deal.
 
The revitalisation of the left will not be top-down. It can only occur through meaningful dedication to openness and the desire to work collectively, beyond existing and embedded systems – both political and capitalist. The abandonment of rhetoric and comfort and a willingness to work with non-definitive answers may in fact be the new alternative. We must build our projects together before we unite behind them.