{"id":2479,"date":"2019-03-15T13:54:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T13:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2479"},"modified":"2019-03-15T13:56:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T13:56:57","slug":"we-are-at-a-political-juncture-as-momentous-as-1945-and-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2479","title":{"rendered":"We are at a political juncture as momentous as 1945 and 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are currently in a political moment which could lead to a major\nparadigm shift in economic policy. There were similar moments twice in the last\ncentury, in the years around 1945 and 1979. In each case, a major economic crisis\n\u2013 or series of crises \u2013 led, in the words of the IPPR Commission on Economic\nJustice, to \u201ca significant reappraisal of how the economy works, and to a subsequent\nlarge-scale change in economic policy\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the economic, intellectual and political similarities between\nthese two moments? And what might they teach us about the moment we are in\ntoday?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The conceptualisation of crisis<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Each of these transformations was preceded by a period of mounting\nproblems, which came to be conceptualised as a \u2018crisis\u2019. The \u2018hungry 30s\u2019 and\nthe second world war preceded the watershed moment of 1945. For 1979, it was the\nwidespread talk of \u2018decline\u2019 that picked up from the late 1960s, the\nstagflation of the 1970s and trade union militancy culminating in the Winter of\nDiscontent of 1978-9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each case this \u2018crisis\u2019 was in part generated by problems in the British economy and economic policy; but it was also precipitated by external economic conditions, such as the Wall Street Crash of 1929, or the oil price hikes of the 1970s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Out with the old<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In both the 1930s and the 1970s there was a sense that traditional policy frameworks were inadequate to tackle Britain\u2019s problems. In the 1930s that was the orthodoxy of small government, free trade and the Gold Standard. In the 1970s it was the system of bounded national economies and, in domestic policy, an extensive welfare state, corporatism, and counter-cyclical demand management to keep unemployment low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Intellectual responses<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In each case, this period of \u2018crisis\u2019 gave rise to sustained\ncritique and debate among intellectuals, politicians and activists. There was\nnever a sense that the outcome was \u2018obvious\u2019 \u2013 it was always highly contested,\nwith a multiplicity of \u2018solutions\u2019 (some of which were basically the status\nquo) on offer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1970s has been called a \u2018marketplace of ideas\u2019 because there\nwas such a varied and heated set of debates going on. In both eras, prominent\nthinkers such as Keynes and then later Hayek and Friedman emerged, whose ideas\n\u2013 which they had been peddling for quite some time \u2013 came to seem to many to\nrepresent the best response to the \u2018crisis\u2019. They gave a convincing account of\nwhat the \u2018crisis\u2019 actually was, and what caused it, as well as the solutions.\nThese ideas were then taken up by politicians looking for answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each case, major shifts in the global economic and institutional environment, outside the British government\u2019s control, were also significant. And in each case, alternative solutions were discarded, such as the Labour left\u2019s Alternative Economic Strategy of the 1970s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.Lack of clear party alignment <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

These were complex and messy debates. In both 1945 and 1979, we\nfind bothheated partisan conflict between left and right, andsurprising moments where figures from left and right found common\nground across the political spectrum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Harold Macmillan\u2019s The Middle Way <\/em>(1938) advocated nationalisations on a scale at least as large as those proposed by Labour. And in 1976, Labour Chancellor Jim Callaghan abandoned Keynesianism in favour of monetarism (control of the money supply), famously telling the Labour party conference that it was no longer possible to \u201cspend our way out of a recession\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. New parties<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Because of this lack of clear party alignment, we find in each\nperiod a propensity for MPs to cross the floor and to form new parties and\nalliances more often than in other periods. Take, for example, Oswald Mosley\nleaving the Labour Party to form the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, or\nthe breakaway of the Social Democratic Party in 1981. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our political moment<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As the Commission on Economic Justice\u2019s report argues, we find\nourselves at a similar conjuncture now. Gramscian analysis would call this an\n\u2018interregnum\u2019.  At the level of ideas, there\nis widespread talk of deep problems in British politics, society and economics.\nRemarkably few people in the mainstream of politics will wholeheartedly defend\nthe core elements of neoliberalism. Politicians across the political spectrum are\n(to varying degrees) searching for ways to break out of this paradigm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debate about the nature of our problems and their possible\nsolutions often disrupts the traditional left-right axis of politics. On the\nleft, the Labour leadership is increasingly critical of contemporary capitalism\nand has set out a number of radical policy ideas, through its 2017 manifesto<\/a> and work on Alternative Models of Ownership<\/a>. Some\nof these ideas have also been promoted by those on the centre and centre-left\nof Labour, including Liz Kendall\u2019s advocacy of workers on boards in 2015 in her\nleadership campaign, and more recently Rachel Reeves in \u2018The\nEveryday Economy<\/a>\u2019 pamphlet, published in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are even some themes in common with the centre right, as in\nTheresa May\u2019s 2016 conference speech<\/a> where she\ntalked about putting workers on boards, signalled the importance of industrial\nstrategy, and made a critique of globalisation. Of course, these themes got\nlost after the 2017 general election stripped May of her majority and plunged\nher into even more difficult Brexit negotiations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A final parallel with those previous moments of economic paradigm\nshift is that we live in a time of the formation of new \u2018groups\u2019 and of MPs\ndefecting from their parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time may be ripe for a major paradigm shift, but an\nexamination of history suggests that this is far from inevitable. This is\ndespite the fact that after a paradigm shift occurs it may well come to be seen\nas \u2018common sense\u2019 to many. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we learn from the examples of 1945 and 1979, in the context of\na Gramscian \u2018interregnum\u2019 existing categories no longer map effectively onto social\nrealities; the political force that comes well out of such a situation is that\nwhich is able to convincingly define the crisis and offer clear solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here the Commission\u2019s report makes a hugely significant\nintervention: it defines precisely what the crisis consists in, showing how our\neconomy is underperforming both <\/em>on\ntraditional economic markers of success, and<\/em>\nin delivering economic justice as defined in the report. It analyses the causes\nof this underperformance, setting out a vision for both <\/em>how economic policy goals should be reframed and <\/em>how a sweeping set of policy reforms\nhas the power to deliver those new goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is this both-and <\/em>that\nis so important, moving us past technocratic tinkering and linking big\npolitical and ethical questions to the meat of policy. It is important to\nrecognise, though, that the report is situated in the \u2018marketplace of ideas\u2019 of\nthe 2010s, and what history also suggests to us is that it takes political\nleadership to pluck big ideas from that marketplace and sell them to the\nBritish electorate.  <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are currently in a political moment which could lead to a major paradigm shift in economic policy. There were similar moments twice in the last century, in the years around 1945 and 1979. In each case, a major economic crisis \u2013 or series of crises \u2013 led, in the words of the IPPR Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":2484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1395,1405,1396],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1520],"class_list":["post-2479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-comment","category-government","category-uk"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/We-are-at-a-political-juncture-as-momentous-as-1945-and-1979-National_Health_Service_prescription_stamps_form_1955.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2479"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}