New order emerging as Corbyn policies popular with the people
It’s a funny world where a Prime Minister of a Western country with an advanced economy is moved to speak in defence of capitalism.
Maybe this is the natural conclusion to the financial collapse. We’ve never properly recovered. And for some reason, the great political fib about economic collapse being down to overspending of the profligate government of the time (and not the devious banking industry) has stuck.
So the country’s been left in a state of stagnant growth, where those in employment, across sectors, have found their wages – in real terms – falling.
At the same time, the banking industry has been hoarding money, while remaining unrepentant about its part in the credit crunch and all that came after it. Whatever. While it may have felt in 2008 as if capitalism was on the brink of collapse – that a great change in the way our economy would function was on its way – it survived and has limped on for a decade.
The economics of austerity was supposed to save us. And it has, to an extent, saved some.
But you might also argue, quite convincingly, that it’s also landed us with foodbanks, in-work poverty, insecure impermanent jobs and, probably most catastrophic of all, Brexit.
We’ve also got Trump in the White House, Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party and a political landscape that seems totally unpredictable.
And so in the aftermath of Corbyn’s speech at Labour’s conference this week, in which he proudly and without embarrassment celebrated socialist policies – and the prospect of a reformed economy which worked for many who feel forgotten – Theresa May felt moved to defend capitalism as the panacea for the world’s ills.
“A free-market economy, operating under the right rules and regulations, is the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created,” she told an audience marking 20 years of independence of the Bank of England.
On other hand, the day before Corbyn was the first Labour leader for a long time to use the word socialism without shame and with pride.
And while he lacks the polished oratory of Tony Blair, or weighty intellect of Gordon Brown, it’s clear he’s enjoying the leadership of the party and has confidence in its electoral prospects if Mrs May’s meagre hold on power in the House of Commons cracks any time soon.
For beyond the issues of personality and leadership qualities and philosophical questions surrounding political ideas and ideals, the truth of the matter is that Labour’s policy platform – taken one idea at a time – is popular with the public.
Most people, when asked, do want to see the rail system nationalised.
They do think the government should invest in public services.
They do think schools and the NHS should be awarded more cash.
They think public-sector workers deserve higher pay.
Put in those terms, these are hardly the policies of the USSR or even modern-day Venezuela.
And it’s not even as if Corbyn’s propositions are unprecedented – Germany’s successful rail network is in public ownership; rent controls exist in that capitalist metropolis that is New York; a system of a stateowned energy sector exists in countries around the world.
It’s just that after 10 years where things were allowed to get on with it, the prospect of intervention feels totally radical. Think back to 1997 and Tony Blair’s windfall tax on the utilities firms to create jobs for young people – it wouldn’t go amiss in a Corbyn Labour manifesto.
If an election were called tomorrow, there’d be a real prospect of a Labour victory and the potential for change in the way our economy is run.
It might be a frightening prospect to some. And an exciting one to others.
Corbyn may never be Prime Minister. Or he may be Prime Minister next month or next year.
What has changed, finally in the aftermath of the great recession – and across the political spectrum – is a belief that the old order is not necessarily the only order.