On centrist vacuousness

What would you think of a political party that promised to: cut unemployment by one million over two years; increase public investment; borrow more to finance extra welfare benefits and NHS staffing; increase foreign aid; promote worker coops; and aim for “a major extension of profit sharing and worker share-ownership to give people a real stake where they work”?

It’s pure Corbynism isn’t it?

Well, no. All these were in the 1983 Liberal-SDP manifesto. Back then, they were centrist policies.

Not that this was unusual. In 1924 – the year of picture opposite – Liberals called not just for workers to get a share of profits but also for the compulsory purchase of land for housing development and came close to advocating a land value tax.

By contrast, today’s centrists show no such enthusiasm for empowering workers. The LibDems had five years in government without expanding worker coops an inch. Change UK (remember them) were silent on them. And the Labour right are hardly deafening us with their calls for greater worker democracy.

I suspect there’s a simple explanation for this. Centrism is intellectually parasitic, preferring triangulation to developing its own ideas. Its support for coops and profit-sharing was a way of splitting the difference between the right’s belief in private ownership and the left’s in more full-blooded public ownership, and a way of trying to pacify a militant labour force. With workers having been defeated in recent years, however, centrists see no need for such pacification. Indeed, they don’t even need to use the language of “capital” and “labour” as they did in the 1920s. Instead, they’ve retreated into the comfort zone of acquiescence to capital – as demonstrated by the post-Westminster careers of Nick Clegg and the Cukkers.

This explains something else – centrists’ lack of interest in economic policy, or indeed policy generally. It’s clear what they don’t want – the sort of Corbynite policies centrists advocated in the early 80s. But it’s much less obvious what their positive agenda is. What, for example, are their answers to the problems of inequality, stagnant productivity and real wages, unaffordable housing and so on?

We heard this vacuousness from Peter Mandelson on the Today programme yesterday (2’19” in). Nick Robinson asked him what changes he’d like to see Labour make. “I’ll come to that” replied. But he didn’t.

Even when they have deigned to write down some ideas, political centrists have ignored such issues. Pretty much the only reference to economic policy in Change UK’s launch manifesto was to the need for the government’s “responsibility to ensure the sound stewardship of taxpayer’s money”, as if we were still in a  world of bond vigilantes. And Chris Leslie’s Centre Ground paper (pdf) made almost no reference to the fact that the financial crisis and subsequent stagnation in real wages and productivity requires centrists to re-assess the economic idea they had in the 90s.

Instead of intellectual analysis, centrists offer us two things. One is pure retail politics, accommodating itself to a selective perception of what voters want: Mandelson – once a Remainer – for example now thinks Labour must embrace “Brexit values” without also noting that higher taxes on the rich and more nationalization are also popular. Among its many flaws – among which is that this would alienate lots of Labour voters - this ignores the fact that public opinion is changeable: Brexit, for example, moved from being the obsession of a few cranks to the dominant issue in politics as a result of right-wing campaigning and economic stagnation. Taken opinion as given thus means skating to where the puck is rather than to where it is going.

A second strand of centrism is more common among media centrists. Take for example Jonathan Freedland’s anger at Johnson’s corruption. When given the choice between Johnson and the alternative centrists like Freedland ducked out, failing to appreciate that real life is sometimes a choice of the lesser of two evils. In this sense, centrism is a form of identity politics – an urge for what Richard Sennett called a purified identity which leads to a whine about “why can’t you all be sane, rational and honest like ME?”

Now, in saying this I’m not damning all centrists. If we look outside the political-media circle we can find signs of intelligent life such as in Radix or in Sam Bowman and Stian Westlake’s work. Much of this, however, underplays the class problem – of how to build support for policies such as land taxes or tougher competition policy in the face of hostility from rentiers.

That’s a separate argument, though. The fact is that even where centrists do have good ideas these have not (yet?) found their way into the political centre.

Hence Labour’s problem right now. Whilst people will vote for something, even if it’s lousy, they don’t often vote for nothing. The vacuity of the centre has left Labour with a clapped out leadership bereft of ideas without a vision or a coherent message. As Grace says: “Labour has a choice to make: socialism or Pasokification.”

Of course, it has not always been this way. It’s easy to forget that New Labour actually had an intelligent and coherent – if flawed – economic narrative. The challenge for the Labour right is to either discover a version of that narrative fit for the 2020s, or to remain the braindead quislings of rentier capital.

Comments

[Tony Holmes]

"an intelligent and coherent - if flawed - economic narrative." How would you sum that up narrative, and why didn't they tell us explicitly about making BoE "independent" ( a key part of their macro-economic narrative ?) in their 1997 manifesto. I also seem to recall commitments to stick to Tory spending plans for two years, which is one of the reasons I didn't vote for them...

[SCMelville]

"When given the choice between Johnson and the alternative centrists like Freedland ducked out, failing to appreciate that real life is sometimes a choice of the lesser of two evils."
Or maybe Labour can pick a leader with a coherent economic vision for the future without Corbyn's rank antisemitism? Is that too much to ask for?

[Scurra]

Consider, for example, Ben Houchen, the re-elected Tory Mayor of Teeside who is - as Will Hutton notes in the Observer - rediscovering Heseltinism (being one of the few branches of Conservatism to comprehend localism) and is doing well, and also places like Preston from the other side.
What they (and Burnham and Khan and even Andy Street) are doing is redefining politics at a much more local level.
And that, I think, is the only way out of the cul-de-sac of left and right we have got ourselves into.

[Kevin Carson]

Yeah, right. Good luck getting J.K Rowling to vote Liberal with a program like that (speaking of centrist vacuousness).

[rsm]

"Brexit, for example, moved from being the obsession of a few cranks to the dominant issue in politics as a result of right-wing campaigning and economic stagnation."

As Ben Friedman showed, amirite?

As an american, brexit made sense because the EU was so draconian in its treatment of Greece. I would want no part of such a union.

"answers to the problems of inequality, stagnant productivity and real wages, unaffordable housing and so on?"

Basic income and right to camp.

[Phil]

The last line is my new dictionary reference for "harsh but fair".

My favourite example of the vacuity of centrism - particularly on the economy - was Change UK's bland advocacy of a "mixed economy". While this would have hit the appropriate "neither right nor left" note in 1982, in 2021 implementing it would entail extensive nationalisation. Nobody in the media noticed, of course, but the vacuity of centrist media commentary is another matter.

[ltr]

Or maybe Labour can pick a leader with a coherent economic vision for the future without Corbyn's rank antisemitism?

[ This is a vile, vile lie. This is what horrid, horrid anti-Semitism actually is. ]

[ltr]

As I have explained before, I will never ever support a Labour candidate or party leader who does not respect and admire Jeremy Corbyn. I am so pleased at the beating Labour has taken, for it tells me would-be Labour supporters understand what decency and integrity are about.

[aragon]

Pasokification it is then...

The right wing of labour have already decided!

"This is because the Blairites have got what they wished for. Having long complained that Labour wasn’t being right-wing enough, that the leader wasn’t enough like their hero, they now have a man in charge who is advised by Tony Blair, and supported by Peter Mandelson. They haven’t got a leg to stand on."

[...]

"Otherwise, his sole purpose as leader is to function as a useful idiot for the Blairites who briefly lost control of the Labour Party and as a result were more prepared to destroy it than allow a Left-wing leadership to succeed."

Not that identity politics have a role.

It is much more entertaining to read Lionel Shriver struggle with monetry theory and practice while missing the big picture.

ROFL

"Economics is closer to religion than science. Without millions of individual citizens believing in a currency, money is coloured paper. Likewise, creditors have to believe that if they extend a loan to the US government they’ll get their money back or they don’t make the loan in the first place. So confidence isn’t a side issue. It’s the only issue.’"

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-true-cost-of-make-believe-money

Enjoy!

[rsm]

"creditors have to believe that if they extend a loan to the US government they’ll get their money back or they don’t make the loan in the first place."

Creditors know the Fed will buy and the Fed doesn't need money back.

[aragon]

It's the differences in perspective and understanding that make it entertaining to read.

If the Fed can't pay it's debts in the currency it creates, then you have a much bigger problem.

The Labour psycho-drama has been developing since Tony Blair was elected.

[Guano]

"Corbyn's rank antisemitism"

Evidence please.

[aragon]

source of quotes 8n my first post above.

https://unherd.com/2021/05/starmer-has-proved-the-blairites-wrong/

"If he can’t figure out why he wants power, and how to communicate why him being in power would be good for the country and will improve people’s lives"

[rsm]

I'm not following the British politics of what aragon is saying, but I clicked through to that article:

"But it’s the bigger picture that unnerves me. Zero interest rates have installed an accelerating debt loop. Governments, companies and individuals borrow because money is free. Central banks won’t raise interest rates, lest the cost of servicing all this burgeoning debt bankrupt the debtors. Governments, companies and individuals borrow still more because money is free. The Federal Reserve has already announced it won’t raise interest rates even if inflation climbs, while refusing to cite what level inflation would have to hit before reconsidering. I’ve plotted this story before. It doesn’t end well.

WRITTEN BY
Lionel Shriver"

So dismal! Inflation is easily insured using Cost Of Living Adjustments, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, and inflation swaps. The Fed can make markets in all of those, and mine, buy up, or crack down on cryptocurrencies if needed ...

[Nanikore]

"Brexit, for example, moved from being the obsession of a few cranks to the dominant issue in politics as a result of right-wing campaigning and economic stagnation."

And, like it or not, a surge in immigration. Importantly, however, this was economic immigration (labour flows), not humanitarian (refugees).

[Nanikore]

"The vacuity of the centre has left Labour with a clapped out leadership bereft of ideas without a vision or a coherent message. "

You've nailed it. The other problem comes from the intellectual side: neo-classical economics is fundamentally about modelling and forcing things into its framework of constrained optimisation. It's a fundamentally anti-social and unliberating (in the wrong sense) framework. It is not something that comes up with real ideas. For that it's got to look outside, to the other social sciences and take what they say largely as they do. It requires a fundamentally different way of thinking. Until that happens, it will fail to really understand capitalism and therefore offer a vision for the future.

Corbynism was also not the answer. There was nothing really new here, and a lot of it looked like give aways enabled by a huge fiscal stimulus.

I am not saying I have the answers, but I think a way Labour can create a new identity is focussing on decentralisation and empowerment. Empowerment to the regions and local communities. Johnson has a 'levelling up agenda'. But does this involve a real transfer of power from Westminster?

[Guano]

"And, like it or not, a surge in immigration. Importantly, however, this was economic immigration (labour flows), not humanitarian (refugees)."

Freedom of Movement within Europe was an inevitable result of being a member of the Single Market: it was in the rules devised and agreed to by Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980s. The scale of movement was due to the accession of southern and eastern European countries to the EU, which was a policy of all political parties and never contested by any parts of the media.

The surge in immigration was weaponised by the Eurosceptics and the right-wing press, claiming that it was something imposed on the UK by the EU and blaming it on "unnaccountable Euro-elites". Rather than pushing back against this poppycock, Labour began to mutter about "people's legitimate concerns" and by the 2015 election they had "Controls on immigration" on a tea-mug. The position of supposedly sensible people in the Labour Party at the 2016 referendum was the UK should stay in the EU but opt out of FoM, which was something the EU was very unlikely to agree to. One of the reason supposedly sensible people in the Labour Party disliked Corbyn was his support for FoM, but he was right: campaigning for Remain meant campaigning for FoM. The tragedy was that by then it was too late to explain to people that they had been lied to about FoM for 10 years.

For me, this is the epitome of the vacuousness of centrism: not pushing back against the myths about FoM but instead repeating talkng points like "legitimate concerns" that perpetuate the myths.

[ltr]

One of the reason supposedly sensible people in the Labour Party disliked Corbyn was his support for FoM, but he was right: campaigning for Remain meant campaigning for FoM. The tragedy was that by then it was too late to explain to people that they had been lied to about FoM for 10 years.

-- Guano

[ Surely and importantly and sadly so. ]

[James Charles]

"If there was a 'Labour antisemitism crisis', why did the evidence for it have to be manufactured?

10 obvious, easily checked lies here:

https://simonmaginn.medium.com/top-ten-labour-antisemitism-smears-f729646378e6

[Guano]

Repeating talking points like "legitimate concerns" that perpetuated the myths about FoM is the result of the misuse of focus groups. I once had a conversation with Philip Gould and it was clear that focus groups were being used to hear people's concerns and then devise talking points that resonated with those people and made it seem that the Labour Party was listening to those people. Whether those concerns were based on misconceptions, and whether there was a way to deal with those concerns, are barely addressed.

Immediately after the referendum, Rachel Reeves and Chuka Umunna made high profile interventions saying that Brexit must mean ending FoM. Then about a year later they both were demanding a second referendum. They were simply trying to signal to different groups of people that they were listening, without any analysis of the issues. They are both favourites of the commentariat, despite their ludicrous flip-flops.

Vacuousness indeed.

[ltr]

Corbynism was also not the answer. There was nothing really new here, and a lot of it looked like giveaways enabled by a huge fiscal stimulus....

[ What rubbish. Of course Corbynism was the answer which was the reason Corbyn needed to be maligned and ruined from the beginning. The problem was Corbyn was actually true to Labour principles. ]

[ltr]

If there was a 'Labour antisemitism crisis', why did the evidence for it have to be manufactured?

-- James Charles

[ Thank you. ]

[Blissex]

«Centrism is intellectually parasitic, preferring triangulation to developing its own ideas.»

Oh please, "centrism" used to mean just "thatcherism plus gay marriage", and now that gay marriage has passed, it means "thatcherism plus wokeism".

Here is cynical web guy dressed up as a "centrist" for Halloween:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2019/11/centrist/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/they_live
«Halloween, Night Five. I dressed as a centrist. See, my dress shirt isn't white, it's actually light purple! That's how you can tell I say things like "socially liberal but fiscally conservative"»

[Liz Centrist]

"By contrast, today’s centrists show no such enthusiasm for empowering workers. The LibDems had five years in government without expanding worker coops an inch. Change UK (remember them) were silent on them. And the Labour right are hardly deafening us with their calls for greater worker democracy." - this is not complete rubbish. The Purple Book had loads of ideas on this. Virtually every chapter.

"Its support for coops and profit-sharing was a way of splitting the difference between the right’s belief in private ownership and the left’s in more full-blooded public ownership, and a way of trying to pacify a militant labour force. With workers having been defeated in recent years, however, centrists see no need for such pacification. Indeed, they don’t even need to use the language of “capital” and “labour” as they did in the 1920s." - John Stuart Mill was a strong advocate of this prior to workers' struggle. This is not true. And the claim that they would have given power to workers by giving them controk of their firms... nah. Doesn't work, my friend. Try again.
"One is pure retail politics, accommodating itself to a selective perception of what voters want: Mandelson – once a Remainer – for example now thinks Labour must embrace “Brexit values” without also noting that higher taxes on the rich and more nationalization are also popular. Among its many flaws – among which is that this would alienate lots of Labour voters - this ignores the fact that public opinion is changeable: Brexit, for example, moved from being the obsession of a few cranks to the dominant issue in politics as a result of right-wing campaigning and economic stagnation. Taken opinion as given thus means skating to where the puck is rather than to where it is going." - 1) not what Mandelson said and he didn't use those words. 2) Yeah, nationalisation and high taxes are not popular enough for people to vote for them. This is just obvious. Two elections show it. Economically leftwing - most lefty - voter cohort voting Tory should've made you aware of that. (It is also true that competition in markets, free enterprise, low taxes on working class and middle class people - they are also popular too), 3) That is not true - Brexit had majority support in every single poll since 1992.
"In this sense, centrism is a form of identity politics – an urge for what Richard Sennett called a purified identity which leads to a whine about “why can’t you all be sane, rational and honest like ME?” - that is not what identity politics means.

Aside from that, great blog post!