Leftist Tories?

Have the Tories gone soft? At the weekend, George Osborne spoke about taking steps to reduce corporate tax dodging. And today (in the Times £) Tim Montgomerie supports a mansion tax. 

What's going on here might be more than just an effort to "detoxify the brand." It's what we saw in Disraeli's "one nation" Toryism, Bismarck's creation of the welfare state and in the Tories' acceptance in the 1950s of most of the welfare state built by the 1945-51 government - an attempt to buy off discontent.

Yes, the Tories are the party of the rich. But it is not always in the collective interests of the rich to get immediately even richer.This aim must be balanced against the aim of ensuring the social stability which allows the rich to stay rich in future. As James O'Connor wrote:

The capitalistic state must try to fulfill two basic and often contradictory functions - accumulation and legitimization...This means that the state must try to create or maintain the conditions in which profitable capital accumulation is possible. However, the state also must try to maintain or create the conditions for social harmony. (The Fiscal Crisis of the State, p6)

Osborne and Montgomerie fear that a backlash against inequality might lead to support for harsher redistributive policies which hinder capitalist accumulation. So they want to enact such policies on their own, milder terms. It's a form of vaccination: introducing a small amount of the disease of redistribution can protect the capitalist organism against the bigger disease of even greater equality.

Insofar as the Tories have been successful down the decades, it's because they've been able to balance accumulation and legitimization; Thatcher stressed the former, Disraeli the latter, but they are two legs of the same beast.

This raises two questions. First, how strong are the material pressures on the Tories to adopt a more egalitarian stance? I'm in two minds here. On the one hand, working class power is sufficiently weak that it can be ignored, which means there's little need to "bribe the working classes", in Bismarck's phrase. But on the other hand, the social norm against corporate tax-dodging is strong, and the hope that enriching companies would encourage investment and growth seems to have been dashed - both of which point to the need for more legitimization policies.

Secondly, if redistributive policies can be adopted by the "right" (eg Disraeli, Bismarck), and if they can be shunned by the "left" under pressure from capital (eg New Labour), could it be that we over-rate the importance of the colour of the government, and under-rate that of the social norms and class power which constrain governments? At least some economic research (pdf) suggests the answer might be: yes.

Comments

[Luis Enrique]

It's not obvious (to me) this is about serving the interests of capitalists. It could just be about a political party enacting popular policies in a bid to retain power.

Here's what makes me think that. If the Tories take up a soft-left positions, won't they move the Overton window, or otherwise nudge Labour towards the hard-left (Milliband wanting to distinguish his party from the Tories) with the result that if Labour win the next election things will be even worse for capitalists?

I suppose it could work out that the Tories enact some soft-left policies and those matters are perceived as somehow dealt with, so the teenage attention span of the public & press moves on to other matters taking Labour's policies with it.

Still, if I was a capitalist pig, I might be nervous that ceding ground to the opposition isn't the astute tactical move you take it for.

Although no doubt you are correct that, taking a historical sweep, the rich and powerful have appeased the workers, or whomever else is making trouble, to preserve that status quo. Perhaps that's not such a bad mechanism for progress. I might be outing myself as a reactionary, but I'd rather a wet Tory than the SWP.

[bill]

Capitalism is a very broad brush term. Looking specifically at Osborne's position on tax avoidance, the beneficiaries of this are the large multinationals, most of whom are NOT British. Meanwhile, British SMEs get disproportionately hit under the current system: the local independent coffee shops in Cambridge pay their taxes, whereas the Starbucks opposite doesn't. Starbucks can negotiate aggressively on price/wages with their suppliers and employees. The local guy can't do this. Moreover, the SMEs comprise the traditional Tory base.

[Keith]

You are far too intellectual chris. This left wing talk is all puff and no action. When they do some thing progressive I will consider your argument.

In the real world huge numbers of the poorest and most deprived will be hit by huge Housing benefit cuts which will pauperise them. All to cut tax for millionaires.

Do get real. Tory = Scum.

[gastro george]

Talk is cheap.

[Luis Enrique]

Keith,

you're making me regret my comment about preferring wet Tories to the hard left. Even if you accept the right-wing case that the welfare state errs on the side of "too generous" in some aspects, that doesn't justify choosing to "fix" that in the middle of a recession.

and as you & gg say, they probably won't enact anything meaningful in any case.

[gastro george]

One possible advantage is that talk moves the agenda. Ed M should take the opportunity to piggy back on Osborne's words to try to frame the game, and force the issue towards real action.

[Adidas Porsche Design S2]

Maybe you have never really understand my existence.

[Dipper]

The answer is blindingly obvious isn't it? The government is borrowing £,2000 per person per year. This is an absolutely enormous amount that left unchecked can only end in economic disaster. The government are desperate to cut this number and are taxing everything they can.

Am I missing something?

[gastro george]

Yes.