Liberté, égalité… fragilité?

Rory Hamilton

So people are fed up. Living standards have been squeezed since 2008, with public services facing significant cuts, and daily costs such as energy, water, transport and food bills all increasing. Meanwhile, significant long term considerations for the ordinary person grow ever more distant - the increasing of the state pension age, the costs of home ownership and interest rates on mortgages. All this, and not to mention the stagnation of real-term wages compared against the inflating prices of CEOs and private shareholders. People are crying out for an alternative which will put money in their pockets now, give them a social security net, and support their long term prospects.

I’m going to do something very strange in this context. I’m going to praise Keir Starmer. Praise is maybe going a bit far. But this week he said that things have to get worse before they get better, and in this context he said he needed 10 years in government to turn things around. Now, I don't agree with his framing, and I don't agree that things have to get worse before they get better, but I do believe that it is important that politicians think in the long term, not in terms of election cycles.

Firstly, we’re not going to turn things around instantly in any scenario. Obviously I don't believe that Keir Starmer’s austerity measures will turn anything around, but let’s say that he was planning to implement Common Weal’s 25-year green new deal plan - we would be asking for patience because the development of infrastructure and the material benefit to society and planet alike would require patience. The difference is that a green new deal requires investment, which in turn stimulates local economies through pay packets and jobs opportunities, whilst public spending cuts push more people into unemployment leaving less liquid cash to move through the economy and therefore less ability for the economy to grow (the merits of this can be found debated in a number of previous newsletter articles). Even by its own measures, austerity is a failure (we have 14-6 years of evidence to prove it).

Very few ordinary people - people like you and me - have much to gain from austerity politics. So why are the likes of Rachel Reeves, Shona Robison, Keir Starmer and John Swinney in the UK, and even Emmanuel Macron in France, insistent on pushing forward with ‘tough choices’ - tough choices for whom, Craig asked a mere two weeks ago? Why is the burden never brought to bear on ‘those with the broadest shoulders’ in Keir Starmer’s own words? It is tied up in this elusive idea of growth. The steadfast belief in trickle down economics which drives much (neo)liberal growth-centred arguments puts faith in the innovation, creativity and competitive advantage of business leaders. This is why us ordained folk must make sacrifices in our lives, but the wealthiest cannot be taxed in the name of redistribution - this taxation stifles innovation supposedly, and we must be led by business in the design of society and the economy. Again this is flawed thinking even on its own terms - the cuts to public spending inevitably have an impact on the groups of people able to access or rise to positions of power which are meant to be the leaders of the growth economy. More cuts to public spending prevents blacks kids on council estates in Lewisham from gaining the opportunities and skills needed to pursue a successful career in business. Cuts to public spending prevents Bangladeshi girls in tenement flats in Govan from climbing the ladder in industries traditionally dominated by white men. The diverse range of experiences and ideas which are prevented coming into the world of business by austerity is probably unmeasured.

I previously argued that the British electorate are not stupid, and they can read good ideas when they see them, in particular highlighting Jeremy Corbyn’s 2017 manifesto. In France, we have just seen the Nouveau Front Populaire win the largest number of seats in the French parliament (193) on a similar platform. Their ‘legislative contract’ with the French public was built around a restoration of the French welfare state, lowering the state pension age, rebuilding public services, an increased minimum wage after tax, and a freeze on essential prices like energy. 

Yet France now finds itself in the bizarre position where, despite having won the majority of seats, the largest bloc is being denied the vestiges of power by the President on the grounds that the other (combined larger) blocs in the Parliament would vote down every piece of legislation. However, given one of these blocs is led by the President’s own liberal party, the conflicts of interest become ever clearer. Shortly after the latest round of negotiations with the NFP’s nomination for Prime Minister Lucie Castets, Macron confirmed a meeting with the Rassemblement National’s Marine Le Pen. Macron would rather make a deal with the far right, and open the door to fascism than see policies which redistribute wealth to those in France who need it the most. In the same timeframe, the UK press shared news that Keir Starmer was planning to make changes to the internal leadership election process to prevent a ‘Liz Truss style’ moment occurring again - i.e. the members cannot be trusted. This is a clear move to prevent other left-wingers like Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party ever again.

Macron and Starmer come from the same creed - they are weak centrist politicians with a vested interest in pushing a pro-business, anti-state agenda. Therefore they cannot be seen to be compromising with the forces that would seek to challenge this status quo with a pro-public programme. You’d think though that centrists are not extremists - they are not out to deny democracy so blatantly as the far right would be (evidenced by Donald Trump’s klan in the US). But the weakness in centrism makes its defenders perpetually paranoid that their grip on power will slip and their profit-based agenda will be halted. Paranoia and weakness leads to authoritarianism - the people cannot be trusted, therefore we must make decisions for them, we know what is best for them. So far they have been able to spin this as “technocratic governance”, but rather than governance by those with technical expertise as this term would lead us to believe, this actually belies a governance without transparency. And so much for expertise - if the Scottish government’s addiction to private consultancy service design is anything to show for this method, its clear that this expertise is attempting to apply corporate models to areas of life which should be alien to the ‘free market’. 

Macron’s moves, just like Starmer’s, are drawn directly from the shock therapy playbook. Covid and Ukraine presented the economic shock which justified the conditions for emergency (austerity) measures - ‘a state of exception during which the rules of democracy could be suspended and economic control could be temporarily handed over to the team of experts’ (Klein, 2007: 156). It is becoming increasingly clear that, as Naomi Klein argued, neoliberalism is incompatible with democracy - the redistribution of wealth upwards, the cutting of public spending and the privatisation of foundational resources, are not popular policy platforms, so much so that they have to be forced on people by subverting democratic checks and balances.

It is centrists who will lead us to fascism, as they have already brought us to authoritarianism. So it must be socialists who lead the movement for democracy, and who mobilise the anger of the masses into removing centrist authoritarianism from positions which endanger our economic and political rights.