SOCIALISM AND NEW LABOUR: CONTROVERSIES .BY JOSE LUIS SANTANA

Is New Labour a socialist party? This question can seem easy with a naked eye, and probably we can think It is not. Nevertheless, a group of key concepts is indispensable for our analysis. So, in this essay I am going to start explaining concepts like socialism and social democracy, because I think they are essential for understanding the main aspects around to old labour and new labour. After that, in a second point, I am going to resume some interpretations of labour party, and how are as its structure as its dynamic are. In a third part, I am going to comment about ‘The Third Way’ by Giddens[1] and the main characteristics of the renewal New Labour Party of Tony Blair. In a last part, as a conclusion, I will try to explain if the Labour Party have been or not a socialist party, and if the New Labour have meant or not the destruction of the socialist ideals.
What is exactly socialism? We need to understand first this question before doing any comment about it. According to Wikipedia Web Site, socialism is ‘a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control’[2]. So, there are enough disciplines and movements that understand socialism in their own way. We have utopian socialists like Owen or Fourier, who appreciate it like a perfect society –so utopian society- in where we can get the ideal harmony between equality, freedom and work; we have scientific socialist like Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels, who help to establish the modern socialism like a scientific evolution since capitalism, that would finalised with a socialist revolution[3]; and social democrats, who look at socialism like an end of capitalism, but from moderate positions, that means, they want to play the rules of modern and liberal systems, and doing reforms they want to introduce a social democracy.
Therefore, according again to Wikipedia Web Site, social democracy is “an ideal form of liberal democracy that can solve the problems found in unregulated capitalism”[4]. I do not completely agree with this definition, because I think social democrats preferred a strong state intervention in social and economics issues, so this does not agree with liberal democracy. For that reason, we have to take into account that social democracy is a form of socialist state, no radical like communist structure but it is not a conservative or liberal system. We must to take this concept in mind to carry out our analysis. The most important thing is that all socialist ideals have some issues in common: They try to reduce the power of the free market, and to give more control to the State, they want to develop values like equality and social justice and to achieve a social redistribution.
In that sense, we need to know a serial of interpretations of the Labour Party, and to look at its connexion with social democrats aspects. According to John Callaghan, the Labour party had to, at the beginning of the 20th century, change its strategies and adapt to the new circumstances, because liberal and industrial democracies demand this change. This author enumerates five main strategies: Materialist, ideational, electoral, institutional and synthetic[5].
With respect to the first strategy, the Labour Party had to co-operate with capitalist interests, so it had to moderate its demand for worker class. Moreover, working class had retired its support to the party because workers were going to identify themselves more and more with the middle-class. The ideational strategy, according to this author, was meanly labour party modified its ideology in relation with the ‘new ideological environment’[6]; I think it means that the liberal democracy demands liberalization of markets, and this goes against old socialist ideals, so they had to get rid of those ideas in order to adopt the new context. The third strategy, it is easy to understand, I mean, every party wants as many votes as possible to arrive to government, so it is obvious that Labour Party wanted to satisfy popular opinion. With respect to institutional aspects, the Labour Party adopted a strong hierarchy, so the author says that this is a conservative attitude. I consider that organization in a party is essential for its working, so, I do not think a strong structure intra-party is a conservative aspect. Moreover, the Communist Party in the Soviet Union was strongly hierarchical and centralized, and it was supposedly a revolutionary party. The last strategy is a mixture of the others, so it means that there are exogenous and endogenous changes in the Labour party. In according to Panebianco[7], the labour party has moved in three levels: Crisis of the party, coalition leading the party is discredited, new coalition is formed. So, this new coalition promoted the necessity of a substantial change.
Therefore, Can we consider the early Labour Party like a Socialist Party? I think that, although it had to do some changes, the essence of its values remain yet. Social democrats had to hand over in some aspects, but after Second World War they achieved the main success of their existence, the Welfare State, and a Keynesian economy. European States achieved a strong control of the markets and some guarantees for the poorest people.
Nevertheless, between 1960 and 1970 a trend called ‘New Left’ came up, that though socialist ideals were in risk in the Labour Party. In according to Callaghan, this thinkers was worried because for them Labourism was unable to develop socialist ideas in a capitalist context. I am quoting word by word a fragment to his book Interpreting the Labour Party: ‘The lack of availability of socialist theory to the working class, together with its exhaustion after Chartism, and the lack of any experience of a Jacobin alliance with a modernising bourgeoisie, were seen as contributing to a period of quiescence in the 19th, when other working classes in Europe were coming under the influence of Marxist ideas’[8].
So, the problems from the Labour Party seem derived to its historic and politic context. We can distinguish, for example, the French or German context with the English one, because in those two countries Socialist parties, like the author says, were more influenced for Marxist ideas and, so, they could develop their social qualities. I think British Labour Party had more difficulties to adopt a Marxist thinking and to apply it in the English society. Saville[9] does the next affirmation: ‘Labourism has nothing to do with socialism (…) the Labour Party has never been, nor is it capable of becoming, a vehicle for socialist advance, and (…) the destruction of the illusions of Labourism is a necessary step before the emergence of a socialist movement of any size and influence becomes practicable’. It is a pessimistic declaration about the socialist future of Labourism, but I consider it is not erroneous in whole, because New Labour has destroyed practically all socialist principles. But I am going to talk about this question later.
There are others interpretations about structure and dynamic of the Labour Party more or less optimistic. Harry B. Cole considers Labourism like ‘A functioning participatory democracy’[10], that is, the structure of the party is federal, and this achieves to give more power to the regional members. The participation of the members in important political aspects confers to the party credibility and it transmits confidence to the people. Moreover, according with Cole, ‘The Party has benefited in man and woman power from the educational and other advantages of an influx of membership from the Youth movement because of the effects of its advisory, educational, recreational and participatory[11]’. In that sense, we can rethink the Labour Party from other perspective, and consider that if the democratic aspects in its organization can tell us if the Labourism was actually a socialist party.
Therefore, we have seen different overviews about Old Labour Party, the most of them discrediting it, but I think it was after Thatcherism when Labourism finally died. ‘The Third Way’, using Giddens´ terminology, was adopted for New Labourism. This concept practically means a social democracy renewal. Giddens establishes a demarcation between two different trends, Old Social Democracy and the Neoliberal Outlook.
For him, Old Social Democracy ‘(…) saw free market capitalism as producing many of the problematic effects Marx diagnosed, but believed these can be mute or overcome by state intervention in the marketplace’[12]. Unlike this, Neoliberal thinkers were against a strong government and a meddling State. Giddens thinks they were according to globalizing forces. So, the author thinks New Labour had to renew its strategies, and to put itself between social democratic issues and Neoliberal aspects. In words from Giddens, ‘It is a third way in the sense that it is attempt to transcend both old-style social democracy and neoliberalism’[13]. That means, so, that Labour Party had to renounce to issues like equality or community and to accept others like individual freedom and economic globalization. Actually, according to Stephen Driver and Luke Martell, equality and community are concepts that are in the Party yet, but they have changed. Equality does not mean equality of outcomes, but equality of opportunities, that is, a system based on a meritocracy, and community does not refer to a working-class community, but the whole nation.[14]
Nevertheless, Giddens stresses that this renewal it is necessary for the party put a dent in the political agenda. The author does the next comment: ‘the overall aim of third way politics should be to help citizens pilot their way through the major revolutions of our time: globalization, transformations in personal life and our relationship to nature’[15]. So, for this sociologist, socialist ideas are obsoletes in the Labour Party, because the main points of the ‘third way’ are in contraposition, and they are the next: ‘Equality, Protection of the vulnerable, freedom as autonomy, no rights without responsibilities, no authority without democracy, cosmopolitan pluralism and philosophic conservatism’[16].
If we look at its economic politics, we can know the actual nature of New Labour, because they are extremely conservatives. Stephen Driver and Luke Martell are enough convinced in it: ‘On the economy, the party became increasingly pro-market, limiting the role of government to the enforcement of competition and to market failures such as training, research and development and regional development’[17]. With respect to social policy, for example in education, New Labour has continued with the policy of Thatcherism, so, values like meritocracy and individual freedom are essential in its action.
In conclusion, we can pose us the question again: Is the New Labour a socialist party? I think it is impossible that a party with an evolution like we have seen it can consider itself a socialist party. At the beginning, with Old Labour, maybe it had some socialist ideas, although it was not like other Left parties in Europe, but with its adaptation to the New Information Era, and the legacy of Thatcherism, the Labour Party is more a Conservative o Liberal Party than a Socialist Party.
If we compare Labourism with Socialism in Spain, for example, we can look at some points in common, but they are very different. Socialist Party in Spain has adopted some liberal aspects as well, and nowadays State has not a strong intervention in the market. Nevertheless, PSOE’s[18] government now is doing a lot of social politics about education progress, questions about the Reform of Constitution and homosexual rights. Socialism in Spain is more influenced by Marxist ideas, although the international context plays against this ideology. I consider the Labour Party can mix social politics with Liberal context, but the ‘Third Way’ is not the solution.



SOURCES

- CALLAGHAN, J. , FIELDING, S. , LUDLAM, S. 2003. Interpreting the Labour Party. Manchester: University Press.

- COLE, H.B. 1977. The British Labour party: A functioning participatory Democracy. Oxford: Pergamon Press Ltd.

- DRIVER, S. & MARTELL, L. 1998. New Labour: Politics after Thatcherism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

- GIDDENS, A. 1998. The Third Way: the renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998.

- LUDMAN, S. & SMITH, M.J. 2001. New Labour in Government. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy.

- http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=smithereens

[1] Giddens (1998)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism 6-11-06 15:26
[3] Communist system derives of Marx ideals.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy 8-11-06 16:51
[5] John Callaghan & Co. ( 2003)
[6] John Callaghan and Co. (2003)
[7] Panebianco (1988 cited by John Callaghan 2003)
[8] John Callaghan developing Anderson’s argument(1964:43)
[9] Saville (1967:67 cited by John Callaghan 2003)
[10] Harry B.Cole (1977)
[11] Harry B.Cole (1977, p. 56)
[12] Giddens (1998, p.8)
[13] Giddens(1998, p.26)
[14] Stephen Driver & Luke Martell (1998)
[15] Giddens(1998, p. 64)
[16] Giddens(1998, p.66 –scheme-)
[17] Stephen Driver & Luke Martell (1998, p.15)
[18] PSOE means Partido Socialista Obrero Español.