John Hutton was putting forward his proposals for welfare reform yesterday at the CBI Public Forum. CBI boss Richard Lambert who only recently was arguing that private equity is jolly fine idea:"Private equity offers a new and compelling business model for the 21st century, free from some of the burdensome restraints of publicly-owned companies. It generates real benefits for the UK in terms of jobs, leaner and more efficient businesses, and wealth creation.”
Well, he should tell that to workers at AA, for instance......
But back to Hutton's proposals which are wedded in this idea of “rights and responsibilities”. This should be known as “guff speak” because it is meaningless spin. By creating incentives for companies getting claimants back into work, this will expose the increasing emphasis on how marketable we are for employment.
Even though Hutton warns companies from cherry picking the easier claimants it will be inevitable that they will indulge in “park and cream”, which means they will “park” people they consider hard to get into work while “creaming” off the profits of those will they consider easy to get into a job. Hardly treating people equally or responding to the needs of the claimants, is it? It will be also a complicated process as well.
But now we have Gordon Brown as LP leader who will push through reforms of the public services with further marketisation and privatisation, is he any better or worse than David Cameron? I would argue there is a distinct ideological difference between New Labour and the Tories. New Labour thinks that the working class can be integrated into corporate capitalist projects by using the state. The buzz phrase is the "enabling state". i.e. proposals about citizenship, for example.
Tories see the state retreating to a role of safeguarding property rights especially against the working class and those oppressed and marginalised by corporate capitalism (a kind of night- watchman state). Otherwise they view state activity and public spending as a fetter on capital accumulation. Low taxes and provision of the cheap and exploited labour and defending the rights of the bourgeoisie as a class.
The two ideologies can merge into one and distinction can be blurred but there is a significant difference. The Tories will accelerate and turbo charge their attacks for one thing. They don't have the contradictions and the pressure New Labour do and again the Tories have the interests of their own class to think about and supporting the poor isn't one of its goals.
I am not saying that New Labour are any better but they are an enemy with a fundamentally different approach than the Tories.
16 comments:
Louise
You have said this to me before: The Tories will accelerate and turbo charge their attacks for one thing. They don't have the contradictions and the pressure New Labour do and again the Tories have the interests of their own class to think about and supporting the poor isn't one of its goals.
BUt what evidence to you have for the fact that Tories will attack benfits faster?
And this thing about new labour beiing constrained by their links with working class organisations, what evidence is there for that?
Sure there are policy differences but only in the same way there are policy differences between the Lib Dema and the Tories.
New labour is a thoroughly bousgeois party.
I have to agree with AN on the nature of Labour. There's no evidence they've been hindered by the remaining base in the working class -- far from it, the labour bureaucracy has rolled over and done its best to hold back resistence to the neoliberal agenda. Like the CWU accepting liberalisation was only a matter of time, they're in a defencive mode but its not a tenacious d...
As for the tories, we'll Letwin has tried to clarify the principles upon which Cameronian Conservatism operates: yes, the "enabling state", but Letwin has used the word "framework". So, closer to nightwatchman, but no different than Blair/Brown vision of the state under neo-liberal capitalism.
Letwin has tried to argue that Brown is more to the provision side of things. The state as a direct provider. But seemingly, not a good one, as the recent announcement by the Public Affairs committee that a third of pensioners eligible to claim pension credits do not. That's a whopping 1.6 billion quid!
I think both Louise and Letwin are mistaking if they think there will be a fight over this issue between Labour and Tories. It's the kind of thing that best goes unspoken. I think the political territory for Labour/Tories in coming elections will not focus on the privatisation agenda at its core, but on peripheral issues.
I doubt they'll want to debate policy. Of course, "time for a change" will be the slogan, rather than "we have a slightly different neo-liberal model than labour". Cameron is deliberately insubstantial because the hollowing out of the state leaves politicans with even less formal control.
As for Labour's bourgeois nature, the McDonnell campaign was the last throw of the dice. A contest would have allowed Brown to win over the union bureaucracy with greater ease. I see it as a kind of pantomime. The big union bosses want some crumbs from Brown rather than a fight. The corrontation of Brown makes a fight more likely. Though if Cruddas does well...
Thanks Charlie
I also wonder whetehr by an enablig sate, New Labour are using the word to mean something ratehr different than we may think.
The implication is that it is enabling the disadvantaaged, but the reality is thhat they mean by it that the state, local government especially, acts as prime contractor for service position but lets out the services to private sub-contractors. Thus enabmling the private and voluntary sector to participate in service provision/
I think tis is actually what they mean.
Firstly, how can it be a straightforward bourgeois party when it is integrated with independent TUs (and we aint talking about staff associations)?
There is always the potential for the uneasiness between the two (LP and TU) bureaucracies for a political space to open up between them.
Under the Tories there will be profound changes. There has been this argument about how things are over regulated, for example. Potentially that could mean getting of health and safety requirements, employers liability, environmental laws and so on. This argument has not be used by NL. Also, NL, have not argued for the voucherisation of the NHS unlike the Tories.
In the States, there's Tort Reform that means it is pretty much impossible for the "little person" to sue big companies (protection of big business and property rights). At the core of NL's project it is integrating people into capitalism. For the Tories it is the defence of the bourgeois property rights.
I argued in my post that the Tories prefer a nightwatch man kind of state.
Partly what AN argues is correct re: enabling state but that's only a small bit of the narrative. To reiterate my point, for NL, the WC can and should be integrated into the corporate capitalist project.
One specific area where NL and the Tories are diametrically opposed is over tax cuts. The core ideology of a right-wing party is tax cuts.
The Tories gave up giving out tax cuts at the same time of screwing the economy. If they had been seriously cutting taxes then they could have won in the 1997. Has NL cut taxes?
Cameron will be about aggressively cutting public services under the guise of "value for money" .. while Brown's agenda is not to cut taxes while integrating people through private/state corporations.
Brown is essentially a corporatist and Cameron stands for state that does as little of possible other than maintaining bourgeois property rights. He has come from that wing of the party i.e Thatcherite.
On social issues: Tories have gone on about marriage and so, potentially, you aim your tax cut at married couples.
And it seems to me that the establishment prefers Cameron as opposed to Brown.
Well this is a sort of plausible sounding argument Louise, but you still give no eviidence to back it up, and without that it is abstract, and unconvincing.
Certainly I am very unconvinced concept that New Labour have an ideology about incorporating the working class, - I cannot think of any political writing by New labour politicican that expresses any view about class. Class is no longer in their vocabulary. So when you say: To reiterate my point, for NL, the WC can and should be integrated into the corporate capitalist project. . This sounds like Anthony Crossland and the traditional abour right, and not New Labour. I would be interested in what I have missed that you have picked up on that leads you to ascribe this view to New Labour.
I would recommend reading Jon Cruddas's critique of New Labour, which is much more convincing in terms of explaining the experience of the last few years.
And yes, you are correct that: There is always the potential for the uneasiness between the two (LP and TU) bureaucracies for a political space to open up between them . This is becasue the TU bureacracy has its base in the working class, and the Labour party's bureaucracy has its base in the state - ultmiataly they are wedded to antagonistic classes. And so yes space opens up between them, but what evidence can you give of this space actually leading to modification of New Labour policies towards the intersts of the unions? The examples I can think of are matrginal (minimum wage, etc) and are not outsdie the mainstream of polices by out and out right wing parties in Europe, the German CDU for example.
Neither at local or national level can I see any real infleucne by the unions on Labour party policy.
Yes a space can open up, but the utter fiasco of John McDonnell's campaign shows that the left in the party are in no position to exploit such an opening if it occurs. A spce of course opens up between the Unions and the Tories, so I am not sure what this argument proves.
You say the Tories stand for low taxes, but after ten years of Gordon Brown as chancellor,we already have low taxes on the rich (lower than under Thatcher), lower corportation tax than under John major, and a regressive tax burden on the poorest - there may be difference in details, but New labour already have Tory tax policies.
You say: Cameron will be about aggressively cutting public services under the guise of "value for money . BUt what is the evidence that this wil be any worse than under Gordon Brown. This is just an assertion. There are 104000 jobs threatened in the civil service, and 40000 jobs under threat in Royall Mail due to New Labour liberalisation of the postal market.
So maybe in the odd detail here or there the Tories may be worse, but they are basically the same beast.
AN: "You say the Tories stand for low taxes, but after ten years of Gordon Brown as chancellor,we already have low taxes on the rich (lower than under Thatcher), lower corportation tax than under John major, and a regressive tax burden on the poorest - there may be difference in details, but New labour already have Tory tax policies."
Yes, but the Tories will push for much much lower taxation in central government. Brown has not gone for super low taxes for the rich.
Well yes Brown has gone for very low taxes for the super rich.
There is NO high rate tax band for the super rich, so someone with £1 million income a year pays the same tax rate as someone on £35000 !
Add to which the coouncil tax is also regressive taxation, that falls hardest on those on low income, and there are council tax rebates for second homes.
Given that any Tory electoral win will not be an ideological victory for the right, then a cameron government would need to be carefull.
I don't see how any government could electorally afford to reduce the tax rate for the super rich below that of the tax rate paid by the managerial and professional classes in the £35000 to £60000 pa bracket.
In any event, if this is an area of policy difference it would not be an ideological difference with new Labour, as Gordon brown has chamoiioned low taxes for the rich, and his first budget cut Corporation tax to a lower rate than it had been under the Tories.
"In any event, if this is an area of policy difference it would not be an ideological difference..."
Of course it would be an ideological difference. Cameron is under pressure from the right of his party who believe he is far too similar to Brown and the Tories being the Tories want to see tax cuts.
And the Tories have been coy about their taxation policies. Brown has never been under that same pressure from the LP or TUs to cut taxes unlike Cameron.
Cameron is in a pickle, does he stil pursue his brand of so-called touchy-feely conservatism or will he capitulate to the right of the party?
Brown is not making deep cuts he's tinkering around with it using stealth taxes to keep the headline rate of income tax down. Cameron is keeping coy and he will be under enormous pressure to make deep tax cuts.
Oh come off it Louise :o)
You cannot with a straight face claim that Gordon Brown has an ideological differecne with the mainstream of Tory economics over tax, when he has presided over lower direct tax rates than Marageret thatcher and John major! If anything he has been more regressive, by forcing councils to jack up council tax and by indirect taxation falling hardest on the poorer.
To say that Camerian will be under enormous pressure. By whom? And how will the pressure be manifested.
When I have chatted to Tory councillors recently they have intimated they would happy for the right in their party to fuck off to UKIP. Which implies they don't feel very pressurised by the right.
Can you point to a single article in an authoratative publication like the FT or economist in recent months arguing for greater tax cuts?
So why do you say is cameron is a pickle? It seems you have started from the conclusiuon that you feel must be right, that there is a big ideological difference with New Labour and the Tories, and then constructed an argument based asserting those things that would necessarily true to match that conclusion. It is a reasonable way to build a hypothesis but then it would ned to be compared to the evidence of the actually existing world, and you haven't yet given any evidence to support your hypothsis.
You say: Brown is not making deep cuts he's tinkering around with it using stealth taxes to keep the headline rate of income tax down.
Exactly my point, this is ideologically a Tory policy, putting the burden of taxation on indirect taxes (hitting the poorest), in order to maintain an amazingly low top rate of income tax at 40% (rewarding the richest).
George Osbourne has pledged to cut the headline rate of corporation tax by 3p in the pound (even the FT have noted how quiet they are on tax).
My belief is that Brown cut corporation tax by 2p in the pound to head off the Tories. Why did Brown hold off until now at his very last budget. If he was a big tax cutter he would have done it before
In practical terms the commitment the Tories are making, for example, towards married couple is, in my belief, to push a tax break at them.
From their website, Cameron states:
"We need greater recognition of the importance of parenthood in our tax and benefit system, and part of that is the recognition of marriage as the clearest commitment a couple can make to each other, their children, and society."
Cameron has been banging on about the family for mths (have a read in the Daily Hate)and to me that could imply special tax breaks towards married couples. No mention of lone parents or unmarried couples.
It goes back to the central thesis of the ideology of New Labour is that you integrate people into the corporate capitalist function.
That is not the ideology of the Tories.
They are both the enemy but come at you at different directions.
Well Uk manufacturing is under siege by lower Corporation tax in for example the Irish republic, and other EU competitor nations, so there has been a general discussion about the need ot reduce it, and some debate within the Labour party over the last year between "Union Jack" McConnell and Gordon brown about McDonnell's desire to see Corporation tax cut. So it is just as likely the other way round, that the Tories are following labour on Corporation tax.
In any event. it was Gordon brown who slashed corporation tax back in 1997, and it had been higher under John major, which doesn't suggest this is a core ideological difference.
With regard to family values, this is something that New Labour have also tilted towards, and remember that back in the first couple of years of the Blair government there was an ideological offensive against single mothers.
Of course there are differnces, there are also differences between the Lib Dems and the Tories.
What we are left with is very slim nuances of difference, and in particular the ideologicall differrences between Cameron and Brown are much less than the differnces between McDonnell and Brown, or between Cameron and Tebbit.
Certinaly I can see absolutley no evidence that the differences are to do with different class interests operating on the parties.
BTW Loise,
I think you are mistatken to believe that the Tories have a single ideology, they have histsoricaly been a very prigmatic party, and the ideological driven agenda of Thatcherism was a sort of abberation for them.
Can i just say that the very first thing "blair's babes" did was vote for a cut in benefit payments to lone parents. The NeoLabourites will *talk* about things like reducing inequality etc, but only if pushed. And there are never any specifics.
The NLs feel on safer ground calling for migrants to be denied housing than calling for more social housing. For fuck's sake, councils can't even build schools anymore and Brown won't reverse this. The tories have been making a fuss about their leaderships abandonment of grammar schools in favour of academies - perhaps because they are too blind to see acadamies are a str8 tory idea.
The difference people imagine exists between Tory Blair and Gordon Blair comes from hope rather than reality. The argument the leadership used to its base in the trade unions was 1 more election victory, don't let the tories back in -- then it became, under gordon things will be different.
Charlie: I too don't believe there is any difference between Blair and Brown. Brown was the architect of New Labour. There would be no substantial difference between them. Both are scum bags of the highest order!!
The union bureaucracy are looking for crumbs themselves from Brown as they are utterly opportunistic by looking for some deal with Brown (which they probably won't get....)
Yeah and it was Harriet Harman who originally brought in these attacks on lone parents and now John Hutton with the Freud Review.
But I believe that the Tories will engage with far nastier and deeper cuts. As I have said, NL and the Tories are two enemies with somewhat different ideologies.
Louise,
Do you actually know what private equity is?
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