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Political Ideas and Policy in the Labour Party, 1983-1992

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Political Ideas and Policy in the Labour Party, 1983-1992 POLITICAL IDEAS AND POLICY IN THE LABOUR PARTY, 1983-1992 ROGER WICKS DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 2000 PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. POLITICAL IDEAS AND POLICY IN THE LABOUR PARTY, 1983-1992 ROGER WICKS DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 2000 Abstract This thesis examines the political ideas of the Labour Party between 1983 and 1992. It adopts two detailed case studies: Labour’s economic policy and Labour’s social policy. Part I provides an historical context of Labour’s political ideas and Part II analyses the political ideas content of Labour’s social and economic policy between 1983 and 1992. This includes the work of ‘Labour intellectuals’, ‘thinker-politicians’ and official party documents, notably the Policy Review. The thesis shows the need for an historical context based on three factors. First, the history of Labour’s political ideas, discussed in Part I, illustrates the extent to which former debates re-emerge; to a large extent, Labour continued in the 1980s to be pre-occupied with traditional arguments. Second, Labour’s economic and social policy thinking was, at least in part, a reflection on its own ‘record’ in government. An historical context inevitably includes an analysis of Labour’s own post-war economic and social policy thinking. Third, the immediate political context between 1983 and 1992 is also central to an understanding of Labour’s ideas over this period. This includes the impact of Thatcherism, its policy and ideas, as well as the effect of fundamental economic and social change. However, it is the first which is most important. The history of Labour’s ideas is noticeably neglected in the literature on the period. This thesis constitutes an attempt to redress the balance. Contents Introduction 3 - 8 Chapter 1 Political Ideas and the Labour Party: Theory and Literature 9 - 30 PART I A History of Labour’s Political Ideas Chapter 2 Historical Context: Origin and Formulation 32 - 58 Chapter 3 Historical Context: Anthony Crosland, Socialism and the Labour Party after 1945 59 - 84 PART II Labour’s Political Ideas, 1983 - 1992 Chapter 4 The Political Ideas of Labour’s Economic Policy 86-133 Chapter 5 The Political Ideas of Labour’s Social Policy 134-177 Conclusion 178-195 Bibliography 196-208 2 INTRODUCTION This doctoral thesis examines the political ideas of the Labour Party between 1983 and 1992. It adopts two detailed case studies: Labour’s economic policy and Labour’s social policy. Part I provides an historical context of Labour’s political ideas and Part II analyses the ‘ideational’ content of the party’s social and economic policy between 1983 and 1992. The thesis demonstrates the need for an historical context based on three factors. First, the history of Labour’s political ideas, discussed in Part I, illustrates the extent to which former debates re-emerge. It is contended here that an assessment of Labour’s political ideas demands an examination of the history of those ideas themselves. To a large extent, Labour continued in the 1980s to be pre-occupied with traditional arguments. Second, an historical context inevitably includes an analysis of Labour’s own post-war economic and social policy thinking. Labour’s economic and social policy thinking between 1983 and 1992 was, at least in part, a reflection on its own ‘record’ in government. Third, the immediate political context between 1983 and 1992 is also central to an understanding of Labour’s ideas over this period. This includes the impact of Thatcherism, its policy and ideas, as well as the effect of fundamental economic and social change. However, it is the first which is most important. The history of Labour’s political ideas is noticeably neglected in the literature on the period. This thesis constitutes an attempt to redress the balance. 3 The study is based on three primary contentions. First, the debates and issues surrounding Labour’s political ideas over this period have an historical context which is imperative to their understanding. Second, whereas other research scrutinises Labour’s institutional and policy changes, the distinctive examination offered here analyses the highly significant developments in political ideas over this period. Existing interpretations of the Labour Party highlight the lack of an ideational examination. Third, it is both valid and important to structure an analysis of Labour’s political ideas, but this requires an historical context. This raises an important question, however, for how do we comprehend the political ideas of a political party? Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical issues raised by an attempt to structure such an analysis. The thesis adopts a conception of ‘political ideas’ which lies between a ‘structuralist’ account, that relegates ideas to a subordinate level, and an ‘idealist’ account, which takes the diametrically opposite view that ideas have explanatory power. Part I provides an historical context of Labour’s political ideas from the early thinking of R. H. Tawney, G. D. H. Cole, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson, through to the ideas of William Beveridge, Anthony Crosland and John Maynard Keynes. It is demonstrated why it is important to examine the work of liberals as well as socialists. It is shown that it is both feasible and instructive to trace a conceptual history of Labour’s political ideas. The most important issues and arguments within socialism, and then within the Labour Party after its birth in 1917, resonate from, and are explained by, various key political ideas. The resolution, and attempted resolution, of conceptual debates which emerge and re-emerge at different times are traced. Part II analyses the ideational content of Labour’s social and economic policy. This produces a complicated account which sees the discarding of former conceptions and ideas, the resurrection of old themes and the formulation of new thinking. The study of Labour’s political ideas is a much neglected area in the political science literature. The literature review in Chapter 1 highlights the fact that there has been very little, and certainly no fundamental, 4 analysis of Labour’s political ideas between 1983 and 1992. The literature concentrates on either institutional change within the party or on policy. A key reason for this is the conception of ‘Labour’ that is taken; what are the fulcrums of the Labour’s political ideas? It is taken here to include both formal and informal contributions to the party’s political thinking. The formal side covers official party publications, mainly policy statements. There is a direct engagement of ideas with policy in Labour’s Policy Review which took place between 1987 and 1989. I examine the political ideas content of Labour’s economic and social policy between 1983 and 1992. It is equally important to encompass the individual work of senior party figures and academics, described here as ‘thinker-politicians’ and ‘Labour intellectuals’ respectively1. The existing literature concentrates on official party documentation, notably the Policy Review. It certainly neglects the work of Labour intellectuals, such as the ‘market socialists’. The changes in the political ideas of the Labour Party were disparate and un-coordinated. There was no ‘school of thought’ or pioneering university department formulating a new chapter in the history of socialist ideas. Neither was there one hallmark text, describing contexts and setting agendas in the way that Tawney’s Equality and Crosland’s The Future of Socialism had so marked previous generations. Despite this, the political ideas of the Labour Party underwent a process of analysis and change as significant, if not more so, than these earlier generations had seen. Five inter-connecting conceptual comparisons are at the core of the historical context. First, the relationship between the means and the ends of socialism. Second, the argument over which one of the two most fundamental means socialists should pursue: democracy or revolution? Third, the relationship between the ethical and the economic. Fourth, the interplay between the state and the market. Fifth, the relationship between the state and the individual. An historical examination of Labour’s political ideas 1 The obvious constituency excluded from the thesis is the party’s broad membership. For an analysis of recent developments, see P. Seyd and P. Whiteley, Labour’s Grassroots: The Politics of Party Membership, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992. 5 indicates the re-emergence of older concerns, the resolution, or attempted resolution, of which may inform an understanding of later disputes. It will be demonstrated how this set of relationships dominates the history of the Labour Party’s political ideas. For one generation, one relationship may be of overriding concern, while others may not rise to the fore of the contemporary debate. Rodney Barker uses the term “recessive themes” in the second edition of his Political Ideas in Modern Britain. Its usage is analogous with biology: “...a gene may pass from grandparents to grandchildren via the intermediate generation in whom it has no great consequences, where it is recessive. In the same manner themes in political thinking can be dormant, subordinate, or recessive, yet become powerful components of the thinking of later generations”2. It is not necessarily the case, therefore, that the debate of the day will be couched directly in terms of all of these relationships, though sometimes it will do so explicitly.
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