Andy Beckett: The new left economics
For almost half a
century, something vital has been missing from leftwing politics in western
countries. Since the 70s, the left has changed how many people think about
prejudice, personal identity and freedom. It has exposed capitalism’s
cruelties. It has sometimes won elections, and sometimes governed effectively
afterwards. But it has not been able to change fundamentally how wealth and
work function in society – or even provide a compelling vision of how that
might be done. The left, in short, has not had an economic policy.
Instead, the right has
had one. Privatisation, deregulation, lower taxes for business and the rich,
more power for employers and shareholders, less power for workers – these
interlocking policies have intensified capitalism, and made it ever more
ubiquitous. There have been immense efforts to make capitalism appear
inevitable; to depict any alternative as impossible.
In this increasingly
hostile environment, the left’s economic approach has been reactive – resisting
these huge changes, often in vain – and often backward-looking, even nostalgic.
For many decades, the same two critical analysts of capitalism, Karl Marx and
John Maynard Keynes, have continued to dominate the left’s economic
imagination. Marx died in 1883, Keynes in 1946. The last time their ideas had a
significant influence on western governments or voters was 40 years ago, during
the turbulent final days of postwar social democracy. Ever since, rightwingers
and centrists have caricatured anyone arguing that capitalism should be reined
in – let alone reshaped or replaced – as wanting to take the world “back to the
70s”. Altering our economic system has been presented as a fantasy – no more practical
than time travel.
And yet, in recent
years, that system has started to fail. Rather than sustainable and widely
shared prosperity, it has produced wage stagnation, ever more workers in
poverty, ever more inequality, banking crises, the convulsions of populism and
the impending climate catastrophe. Even senior rightwing politicians sometimes
concede the seriousness of the crisis. ...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/25/the-new-left-economics-how-a-network-of-thinkers-is-transforming-capitalism
