THINK PIECE #94

Beyond monopoly socialism: why Labour needs to learn to live with complexity and seek power with others, not over them

Neal Lawson

March 2018

THINK PIECE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neal Lawson is the Chair of Compass. #94 ​

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

This paper was written to help the Labour Party think through its approach to power so it can build relationships with other parties and

forces it is bound to require if it is not just to gain office but have and use power for Published March 2018 by Compass transformative effect. By Neal Lawson

© Compass Equally is was written so that Green, Liberals, All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages feminists and all other progressives can find a for the purpose of criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievable system, place and voice in a politics that values and or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, welcomes difference. mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Compass. Neal would like to thank Frances Foley, Compass Francesca Klug, Rebecca Gibbs, Remco Van 81a Endell Street London der Stoep, Nick Mahony and Ken Spours for WC2H 9DX their comments on early drafts, although, as [email protected] ever, the final version and all its faults are www.compassonline.org.uk down to him.

Compass is a home for those who want to build and be a part Compass is keen to keep exploring these key of a Good Society; one where equality, sustainability and democracy are not mere aspirations, but a living reality. issues and would welcome any comments or ideas about how. We are founded on the belief that no single issue, organisation or political party can make a Good Society a reality by Compass Think Pieces are shorter, sharper themselves so we have to work together to make it happen. ​ ​ Compass is a place where people come together to create the and more immediate responses to key issues. visions, alliances and actions to be the change we wish to see The ideas and the thoughts are always those in the world. of the author, not Compass. They can cover any topic that helps us understand better what a good society should or could look like and how we might get there. We welcome suggestions for future publications, especially from women and any groups or people in society who are under-represented in the field of political thought and action.

Please contact [email protected] in ​ the first instance.

3 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ With many people feeling a asking all the difficult questions about the desperate material and moral need extent of new council house builds and the for change, the thought of a Labour impact of overrunning construction government, especially a more projects on housing and community left-wing one, in any circumstances facilities. Another ‘me too’ payroll Labour is understandably compelling. But councillor would not have the motivation it isn’t just different policies our and may not even be allowed to ask the country needs, but a very different difficult questions and get the best out of form of politics, based not on these projects for the community. competition and control but cooperation and collaboration. Here is the disclaimer: Siân is on the Otherwise the benefits of any Management Committee of Compass – change in government will be slim the progressive cross-party organisation and short-lived. A new that I chair. But as a long-time Labour government must not build a cage member I see only the immense value that from any future electoral victory, people like Siân bring to radical politics, but the foundations for a very new and the danger of extinguishing their politics and therefore a very voices. different kind of society. In neighbouring Islington, Caroline Russell One of three local councillors for the plays a similar role as the only Green Highgate ward in Camden, North London, councillor in that borough. Indeed, brims with radicalism. She is an astute Caroline is currently the only non-Labour campaigner, media operator and thinker councillor on the whole authority. But her who is hard-wired with the values of social seat will also be remorselessly and and environmental justice. In many ways relentlessly targeted come May, leaving she is more Momentum than Momentum. Labour with absolute monopoly control And yet Labour is out to oust her in the and the zero levels of accountability that local elections in May. goes with it. This is not just bad for democracy, but bad for Labour. This is Siân Berry and Siân is a Green. Ipso facto, for Labour, she is the enemy of What makes Siân and Caroline necessary the Party and therefore the people, and to Labour is precisely the fact that they are must be removed and replaced with one different to Labour, starting, as they do, of their own. Missing out on the seat by from a different foundational philosophy. only 75 votes last time, the Labour The cause that got them into politics was juggernaut is now well-placed to get its not ending inequality, but saving the way this time. Siân is the only Green on planet, which they happen to know is now Camden Council and one of only four key to ending the very inequalities that across the whole of the capital. The Labour supporters tend to start from. first-past-the-post voting system Indeed, the environment and equality are eventually and necessarily smashes the so interlinked it is now impossible to do smaller parties, but why does Labour red politics without green politics, and vice believe in the obliteration of all political versa, as air pollution, flooding, droughts competition and its own monopoly control, and rising food and energy prices hit the when variety is not just the spice of life, poorest first and hardest. But the fact that but makes for better political outcomes? Siân and Caroline start from the green end of the telescope, and not the red, In Camden Siân has been a constructively means they bring a whole different critical friend of Labour on issues such as perspective, set of values, ideas and the Community Investment Programme, behaviours to the table. We need both

4 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ traditions - and more - to enter into is just another example of market failure – dialogue, if we are to deal with the scale in which competition trumps cooperation and complexity of the challenges we face. to the detriment of the common good. This variety makes the broader left Innovation, critique, accountability, stronger - not weaker. challenge all go out of the window in a competitive, winner-takes-all-system that Back to Islington and Camden, where as delivers acquiescence, conformity and early as 2011, first Caroline in Islington monopoly control. But Labour is against and then Siân in Camden introduced the competition and monopolies, right? idea of ‘citizen science’ projects to their boroughs to get local communities Labour’s struggle with pluralism monitoring their own deadly air pollution. Now every council in London and beyond Of course, not everyone in Labour is a is looking at air quality seriously, but it monopolist. Some, like Clive Lewis, Lisa needed innovators from outside of Labour Nandy, Jon Cruddas, Jonathan Reynolds to break ranks, mobilise communities and and others, have an instinct for pluralism. challenge the status quo. Labour But the predominant sentiment of Labour, politicians will of course claim to be green from left to right, is the electoral too, and of course many do care about the extermination of anyone and everyone environment. But one of the central who isn’t a card-carrying member of the problems with social democrats is that Party. This is the logic of the market. they don’t have planetary limits built into their DNA, as Greens do. The This isn’t, of course, just about the Greens environment was not a systemic issue at – it’s about Labour’s actions, beliefs and the start of the last century, when social attitude to everyone outside the Party - democracy was developed. Rather the and indeed everyone inside it too. opposite - social democrats still carry with Labour’s attitude towards others operates them the DNA of redistribution through on a spectrum from suspicion to hostility – growth. Climate change, environment and in business, the community, other fields species depletion can’t be add-on issues, and other parties. Internally, as we are luxuries to think about after resources seeing, it is not good enough to be just a have been redistributed via a growing member of Labour: you have to be the economy. Greens therefore confront social ‘right’ type of member – you have to be in democrats with a central contradiction at the faction within the faction, the tribe the heart of their own politics. Labour can within the tribe. The Blairites and Progress embrace this contradiction, working with outmanoeuvre the left, and then in turn the Greens like Siân and Caroline - and Corbynites and Momentum outmanoeuvre thereby develop the Party in crucial ways - them for the all-important control of the or ignore it, at its peril. machine. In this world, control of the party means control of the state, which in turn For now, Labour is out to defeat Siân and means control of the country. With such Caroline, just as they will any progressive brutal competitive simplicity, it is easy to competition across the capital and the see how ends justify means. It is a politics country. Just as they will Caroline Lucas in of ‘by any means possible’. Brighton Pavilion at the next election – a sparkling jewel in the diminished crown of It is a world in which failure, when history Parliament. The competitive dynamic of is judged subjectively and objectively ‘to the party political system seems to dictate be on our side’, that can only be explained this. If the seat is there to be contested, by betrayal at the hands of others, often then there will always be someone who those close by, and everything is about wants to win it in Labour’s ranks. But this replacing ‘the wrong people’ with ‘the right

5 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ people ’ – inside and outside of the party - socialism approach, but it will be fleeting to gain the purity of monopoly control. In and further from real power than ever – this mechanical world everything is because power is now about complex instrumental – it’s about how it helps the networks, not pushing the buttons of party or a particular faction in the party. simple machines. To change society, With this perspective, as Friedrich Labour must first change the way it does Nietzsche wrote, “a politician divides politics in a very fundamental way. mankind into two classes: tools and enemies”. Jeremy Corbyn already does some politics differently. His call for a kinder, gentler This instrumental approach to politics and politics is as important as his more radical governance will be Labour’s undoing. policies, acting as an antidote to the timid Such a closed tribalism is the product of a centrism that preceded it. And his particular time and place that is now frontbench team aren’t subject to the receding in the rear view mirror as the same mind-numbing controls as their New 21st century, with all its complexity and Labour era counterparts. But the lurking ambiguity, kicks in and increasingly danger is that the cultural and dominates our everyday culture – as well governmental essence of Labour under as our political culture. Corbyn is too similar to that of Labour under Blair, Brown and Miliband. The Seen exclusively in electoral terms, metaphor that links them is essentially challenging this monopoly socialism is mechanical. Like interlocking cogs, you important in order to gain a parliamentary control the party, which controls the state, majority. Jeremy Corbyn might now be which in turn controls the country. The Prime Minister if Labour had given even sentiment is one of predictability, linearity, an inch to the possibility of a Progressive elites and hierarchies. Of course ‘the right’ Alliance last June. In over 60 seats the people pulling the levers in more socialist progressive vote was bigger than the ways is preferable to ‘the wrong’ people regressive vote, but division on the left pulling them in the wrong ways. But the meant that purity was preferred to power. problem is not just one of intentions but While Labour cleaves to the myth of one outcomes; more than ever, we all live in a more heave, the reality is that such an world where means shape ends. Indeed, it alliance is likely to be needed again. is a huge fallacy of some on the left to Labour’s support, as Matthew Sowemimo believe the British state can simply be sets out in the report Big But Brittle, is inhabited and used for radical purpose. It ​ ​ much more fragile than many in the Party can’t. It has to be democratised, pluralised want to believe. and localised if it is to be a vehicle for transformative purpose. But the real challenge is not electoral but cultural - indeed getting the cultural politics Because none of this would really matter if right is the only way to win the electoral the old levers still worked in the way they battle in meaningful way. So the question once did. The mechanical metaphor is no is not how to amass enough votes to accident. In a world defined by the Ford control the machinery of the state, but how car plant – where everyone knew their do progressives make things happen particular place on the long production line effectively in a 21st century defined by – business, like politics and public service, complexity? It’s about being on the side of mirrored this factory model of top-down the Zeitgeist and bending modernity to the control. It was how profits were made, goals of much greater equality, states were run and wars were won. sustainability and democracy. Labour Everyone knew their place in a system of might just gain office through a monopoly command and control. But we are now

6 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ way beyond even post-Fordism. Instead of In such a world, the idea that any one the factory being the metaphor of the age, party, or any one faction within it, led in it is now, like it or not, Facebook. turn by a very small group of mostly men, be it Blairite or Corbynite, can somehow In a networked world we co-produce master global finance, the bond markets, outcomes, we share, we join, we leave climate change, post carbon energy and we have multiple and shifting supply, artificial intelligence, the rise of identities. In these new times allegiances identity politics and much else, is quaint to ​ ​ are fleeting, nothing is total or forever. It is say to the least. a world of multi-channel, on-demand, on-the-go Technicolor, not two channels in But Labour’s reaction to the inevitable loss black and white. Change today is of control in a complex world is not to let episodic, non-linear and unpredictable. In go but to hold on tighter. One more heave this fast-emerging world, deference and and all will be righted - as long as the right the idea of being in control are decaying people make the right choices. The memories as new horizontal networks psychology is one of purity and order. challenge the supremacy of old vertical Labour’s backs are forever to the wall - hierarchies. It is a world where diversity the enemy is all around and the potential and the embrace of complexity are tough, of betrayal of the right people with the but are the only ways you get things done. right ideas lurks around every corner. This If modernity was defined by being solid, Labourism is a creed that has a profound the networked world, in the phraseology of belief in the singularity of its right to the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, is govern; reformist rather than revolutionary liquid. vanguardism.

While this fluid complexity is the abiding Still unwilling to face up to this complex sentiment of our age, binary and polarised reality, Labour dreams endlessly of politics still exists with success, witness recreating the ‘1945 moment’ – but in so Brexit and Trump. All eras are doing misreads history. Yes, it was Labour contradictory and paradoxical. What that won the seats and pulled the matters is what constitutes the dominant then-functioning levers of the state to form of governance at any one moment. re-make a post-war society, but the reality Populism, of the left or the right, are was far from the simplicity of monopoly reactionary ways to paper over the cracks control. It was the Conservative Quentin of our complex society. Gramsci warned Hogg, later Lord Hailsham, who coined the us that when the old is not yet dead, and term social security, just as it was William the new is not yet born, morbid symptoms Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes, would appear. Infuriatingly, Gramsci never both Liberals, who invented the new told us how long this interregnum between system of social security and the new the old and new would last. But there is no economic order to pay for it. Labour itself mistaking or avoiding the shift from was a rich, diverse movement of culture centralism to complexity, from monopoly and practice: of guilds, cycling clubs and to variety, from the vertical to the book groups, vibrant trade unions, horizontal. We can and must fight many cooperatives, mutual and friendly things - injustice, climate change and societies. David Marquand called this long bigotry to name just three - but what we intellectual debate between the Marxists, cannot fight is the spirit of the age – which the Methodists and the rest a “100-year is defined by our interconnectedness, the conversation”. Today all that is flatness and complexity of our society. We remembered is Clement Attlee and a have to embrace it. cabinet that seemed to do socialism to people and not with them. Ever since,

7 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ Labour’s analysis and practice has got communication of the 21st century is the simpler while the world has grown more platform. Depending on how they are complex. It is worth recalling the words of owned, controlled and regulated, the Attlee here: “if you begin to consider platform can be the basis for either variety yourself solely responsible to a political or conformity, dominance or diversity, party, you’re halfway to a dictatorship.” equality or inequality. Platforms, because And then this: “the foundation of they aggregate people and information so democratic liberty is a willingness to quickly, exaggerate shifts, but encourage believe that other people may perhaps be them to happen very quickly. At the last wiser than oneself.” election, when the overriding issue was to stop a Tory landslide, Labour benefited The problem with monopolies enormously from the monopolising tendency of Facebook, Twitter and other Why is it that a party that dislikes social platforms to maximise anti-Tory monopolies elsewhere wants one for voting. But that doesn’t mean the return to itself? There is no doubt that, given the the old two party system. Instead it simply chance, Labour would take every seat in proves how fluid and fast things now every council, assembly and parliament change. Party allegiances are weaker across the land – believing that it and it than ever. What we tend to see today is a alone is the legitimate voice of the nation politics of surges or swarms, as people – and therefore all other voices must be shift from one party, idea or movement to annihilated. Indeed, Tony Blair once the next, in broad and fast-moving blocs. claimed that New Labour was ‘the political Since 2010 we have seen such surges to wing of the British people’, as if there the Lib Dems, the SNP, the Greens and could be no other choice - a tent so big it now Labour. Eventually the distorting was the home for literally everyone. electoral system crushes smaller parties, but this simply acts as a pressure cooker But we know monopolies corrupt and lid that temporarily seals in grievances; as corrode. They are brittle and they ossify we saw at the time of the EU referendum, precisely because there is no challenge eventually the pressure explodes. The and no alternative viewpoints. A 2015 fluidity, openness and anger at inequality report by the Electoral Reform Society in the real world will eventually challenge ​ found that the first past the post electoral the claustrophobia of Westminster. As the system, and the winner takes all outcomes blog site Public Policy and the Past says ​ ​ it encourages, led to a lack of “you have a First Past the Post 'balance' accountability and public procurement that looks like a Buckaroo pony made of corruption in local government. Jenga”. Old politics cannot hold off new Monopolies exist to preserve their own politics indefinitely - something has to dominance, not to take on the real give. challenges of the day or act for the common good. The board game Monopoly A different conception of power was of course famously invented to show why monopolies are inherently bad things If Labour is to shift from a 20th century – life is dull and meaningless without mechanical view of politics to a 21st others to play with. century embrace of complexity and fluidity, then it has to change its view of power. It The problems of Monopoly Socialism should start by embracing Mary Parker become more pressing as the Zeitgeist Follett’s distinction between ‘power over’ shifts inexorably away from 20th century and ‘power with’. ‘Power over’ is power as models of command and control. The domination: the ability through the state to system of production, governance and make people do what they would

8 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ otherwise not do. This can of course be necessary to ensure, for example, we pay Living with complexity our taxes and fasten our seat belts. But in a non-deferential and complex world, Scientists and engineers have seen this ‘power over’ has limitations and always complex world coming for some time. fails to unlock and unleash the full Back in the 1950s, Ross Ashby, an early potential of people, as they remain cyberneticist, wrote the Law of Requisite ​ unwilling cogs in a machine of limited Variety, which simply states that any ​ creative and productive capacity. complex entity can only be governed by an entity equally or more complex than ‘Power with’, along with its accompanying itself. If a system is to be stable, the ‘power to’, is transformatory precisely number of states in its control mechanism because it means that politicians and must be greater than or equal to the people work together in the co-creation of number of states in the system being a better society. At every point the future controlled. Thus we see a clunking old is negotiated, rather than imposed. In binary politics trying to control a world of such a world, knowledge is dispersed and wonderful variety that has escaped its therefore any project is going to be better mechanical clutches. We are not going to informed and more adaptable, and the take back control in the old way. people engaged in it are likely to be more committed precisely because it is ‘their In all this emerging complexity, the biggest project’. In a world of ‘power with’, no one word in politics becomes one of the view dominates, meaning politics can smallest. It is the word ‘and’. As soon as become much more creative and meet all you stop seeing everything as binary – the changes of the complex world we now black or white, right or wrong - a whole live in. new world of combinational thinking and action is opened up. Back to Gramsci who But of course this means ceding the myth said that “there is always a grain of truth in of control and moving on from the belief your opponent’s argument”. Andism is a ​ ​ that the party alone must sort everything, term I first heard uttered in the private for everyone, all of the time. This is a sector by Karen Rivoire, ex-head of tough challenge for Labour when it has an human resources at the enlightened ‘all-or-nothing’ approach to power. Look global corporate Unilever. As ever, politics back at the 2010 and 2017 elections: in lags behind culture and entrepreneurial both cases the Party chose to be in spirits who get that the Zeitgeist is opposition rather than share power with collaborative, a new spirit we might want others. This puts it dangerously out of step to call the ‘Andvant-garde’. with the collaborative Zeitgeist. And just to re-emphasise, the point about Ricken Patel, the founder of Avaaz, once collaboration isn’t just to gain power, but said in an Observer interview "I think that ​ ​ to exercise it both morally and effectively. across the world there is a politics of As the author Terry Pratchett has written: community and connection that is in “You can’t go around building a better tension with a politics of fear and world for people. Only people can build a division….the former takes us to a more better world for people. Otherwise it’s just deliberative politics in which we engage a cage”. This does not make the politics of with each other in a conversation about complexity easy or straightforward – the common good and democracy and is clearly it isn’t. But if it is the governance less like a boxing ring with one person left culture of the 21st century, then we must standing and more like a dinner table get with it - and do so faster and better where you have the conversation about than the Right. what to do together". In her Ted Talk, The ​

9 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ Revolutionary Power of Diverse Thought, demonstrate that the best change ​ Turkish author Elif Shafak says “So from happens when almost everyone is directly populist demagogues, we will learn the involved in the process. indispensability of democracy. And from isolationists, we will learn the need for The process of collaboration means we global solidarity. And from tribalists, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with will learn the beauty of cosmopolitanism others, to say ‘we don’t know’, to rely and and the beauty of diversity”. be dependent on others. Dealing with complexity requires the courage to be imperfect – to know we don’t have all the Compass champions the idea of what Sue answers, to let go and to take chances. Goss calls the ‘open tribe’. We need to Brené Brown, the hugely popular ​ ​ ​ recognise and welcome our sense of American academic who studies identity and belonging that comes from vulnerability tells us that being vulnerable tribal loyalties, like the membership of one is “the birthplace of innovation, creativity party over another. But it is the open tribe and change”. It translates into a political that adapts and thrives, not the closed practice where tenderness trumps gene pool. To be open means to know toughness and through which every voice how to relate to and have empathy with is regarded and respected. In such a others. David Bohm, in the belief that place our enemies, surprisingly, turn out to creativity is always new combinations of be our teachers. We will need them for old ideas, has written that: “Real dialogue because in the spirit of Raymond Williams, is where two or more people become there is only a ‘long revolution’, where if ​ ​ willing to suspend their certainty in each you want to be rebel, you have to be kind. other's presence”. And here is the trick Labour has to pull off: how do we suspend During the last election, so many Greens certainty in what we believe, still be like Siân Berry reached out and backed authentic to our values and be open to Labour and looked for solidarity in return. others? We have to become comfortable As Green candidates stood aside and embracing uncertainty, doubt and Green, Liberal Democrat and Labour ambiguity – to head into the grey and members and supporters voted and difficult areas and avoid simply trying to campaigned tactically, they saw show that we are right. something bigger than their single party interest. Yes, they wanted to stop the In particular we have to do this in ways Tories but they wanted something else that don’t lead to a soggy centrist much more: to work together to practise a conformity, but to new radical notions of new collaborative politics. This was politics majoritarian consent. This is not easy, but at its most generous. Some in Labour is the only way of building and maintaining reciprocated, but others were punished for ever-shifting majorities for the doing so. In South West Surrey, three transformative politics our society needs. Labour members, who backed a National To avoid the trap of the lowest common Health Action Party Candidate as the denominator demands we start with a best-placed and most appropriate to take clear set of values and a mission: the on Jeremy Hunt, were summarily expelled pursuit of a good society, one defined as from the party – one, Steve Williams, after much more equal, sustainable and 46 years of activism. democratic than the society we live in now. That future has to be negotiated by Like the border patrols on the Berlin Wall, all of us, not imposed by anyone of us. In the guards of the old machine politics will the process of negotiation we not only do their duty right up to the moment the learn, adapt and grow, we also walls crash down and people joyously spill

10 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ into the open terrain from which they had The question now, with Corbyn secure in previously been banned. It is then that the the leadership, is can Momentum become guards will shed their outfits and claim the a vanguard for a new plural politics that, new world was what they wanted all along. ironically, makes vanguardism obsolete? The organisation seems to hold two Can Labour change? cultures at the same time – old school command and control and an openness to The question is: can Labour change? Can pluralism. A generational divide represents it make this cultural shift and give up on this schism, with younger members not the illusion of monopoly power – having the same tribal loyalty to Labour as something that in electoral terms still looks older comrades who endured the Blairite unfeasible and, in terms of a years and want ‘their’ party back. But transformative agenda, is undoubtedly when Jon Lansman, the Chair of undesirable? W.H. Auden in The Age of Momentum says “I want a inclusive ​ ​ Anxiety wrote: pluralist Labour Party”, there could be hope. Indeed the shift to embed We would rather be ruined than changed community organising within Labour, We would rather die in our dread publications such as Alternative Models of ​ Than climb the cross of the moment Ownership, ideas like Corbyism from ​ ​ And let our illusions die. below, and the democratic review of the ​ party currently taking place are all Labour was strong in the binary age, the opportunities for a cultural shift – but they age of two classes and two geopolitical must be taken in full faith and fast. powers, when wars were cold and governing was easy. Today, the age of big The danger is that Labour locks itself in a majorities seems to be over and spiral of endless retribution. The left do to parliamentary power no longer translates the right what the right did to them. The easily into actual power. Many in the Party Blairites forlornly now complain, in their want to hold on to this empty promise of marginalisation, about being treated ‘power over’ but growing numbers know exactly the way they treated the there needs to be a cultural shift – to Corbynites. They fail to see that the left is ‘power with’. now both inspiring and better organised than them and therefore more relevant. Today, this embrace of pluralism and But across both wings of the Party there is complexity spans the Party; it’s not a too little empathy or recognition that right-left issue. It is best symbolised different voices make Labour stronger, through support for proportional that the Party must be diverse internally representation, the electoral system of and externally. Control of the NEC is not choice for those who know we must the end game; our goal must be a vibrant negotiate the future, rather than try to and plural democracy that lets our society impose it. From John McDonnell to Chuka help itself. Meanwhile, the pursuit of Umunna, there is a rising tide of electoral factional dominance simply stokes the reformers in Labour’s ranks. It must be fires of the next internal counter-revolution extended further and fast, not least by - and could have a severe electoral supporting a Constitutional Convention impact. that disperses power and begins to question arcane practices like the whip And control within Labour is usually system in parliament. exercised by a small clique of mainly men around the leader. From Blair to Brown But much hope rests with Momentum, the and now Miliband to Corbyn, it’s always ​ ​ Praetorian Guard of Corbyn’s leadership. the same: usually Five Guys take all the

11 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ decisions and, as a consequence, even if alliances is simply reckless. Back in 1982, they do get the decisions right, can’t the newly elected Socialist President command and control it into being, for the François Mitterrand sought to roll out an world is too complex for that, and no one anti- austerity programme in France. else has been part of deciding the Within months he was forced into a huge direction of travel – especially women. U-turn because his government lacked broad-based support. As the grip of global There is an irony here: both Blairism and financial markets has only tightened since Corbynism benefited from pluralism and then, any incoming and radical Labour collaboration. New Labour, at least in its government has to build the popular will to formative years, sponsored new think back its programme. This requires so tanks and aligned with big thinkers outside much more than just Labour. In more of Labours narrow ranks. Blair would meet recent memory, Syriza in Greece shows regularly with Paddy Ashdown, Robin that failure awaits a party that fails to Cook with Robert McLennan. At the time, transfer power and resources to new and New Labour was at its most vital, but soon dispersed centres of power – to movement lost its way as arrogance and hubris took and institutions it cannot control. over. The Corbyn wave was born of movements like UK Uncut, Occupy, Labour can learn much from the Greens Climate Camp and Stop the War. It about pluralism, but also from the borrowed people, inspiration and ideas Women’s Equality Party (WEP), possibly ​ from the spirit of the Scottish the only truly 21st century national party in independence campaigns, from the the UK. Founded in 2015 by Sandi Greens and even from the young Liberal Toksvig and Catherine Mayer, it was born Democrats. In one crucial respect of this century and therefore carries deep Corbyn’s whole leadership was founded within it the collaborative DNA of the on the pluralism and generosity of MPs modern era. It is plural to its bones. It who disagreed with him but nominated purposefully asks the other parties to steal him because they valued a wider debate its policy ideas and encourages joint in the first leadership contest. But the membership of other parties. Of course pluralism Jeremy Corbyn demonstrates by while this is not reciprocated, many young working across campaigns, like peace and people don’t know you can’t belong to anti-war, isn’t yet being translated to more than one party and innocently and attempts to reach across different parties excitedly join several, which is precisely or even across different groups inside in-tune with the multi-identity and Labour. Now, from a position of almost collaborative spirit of the age in which they supreme strength, can Jeremy reach out live. The aim of the WEP is not one-party and express solidarity with those who dominance, but embedding a set of ideas aren’t Corbynites but who share many of and values in our political culture – a goal his beliefs - both within Labour but in bigger than any single party. different parties too, like Caroline Lucas or For Labour there are two great prizes on the plural socialist Leanne Wood of Plaid offer in making this cultural leap to Cymru? Can a new progressive bloc be pluralism. First, a politics of ‘andism’ that forged with these people and more? synthesises the best of Corbynism, even some aspects of Blairism and other It will be essential if the Corbyn project is Labour traditions such as the democratic to succeed. Taking on the City, house Labour and elements of Blue Labour. This builders and privatised industries, to name would combine the organisational just three obvious and powerful sectors in capability and professionalism of New the context of Brexit will be hard enough. Labour, the authenticity and radicalism of To believe it can be done without broad Corbynism, the democratic impulse of the

12 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ soft left and the need to respect where Welsh cultural theorist once said: “It many people are rooted in their seems to me that the break towards community. After all, ‘for the many, not socialism can only be to an unimaginably the few’, was first a Blairite phrase. greater complexity”.

Second, Labour must move from the From the best elements of Momentum and politics of the Big Tent, with everyone its sister organisation The World under its suffocating roof, to the politics of Transformed, from the Flatpack the campsite, where progressive parties, Democracy movement and Transition movements and organisations keep their Towns across the UK, to the Fearless identity but share and help others Cities across Europe, from the burgeoning whenever and wherever progressive Commons movement to the emerging politics can be advanced. If Labour were sharing and peer-to-peer economy – the to let go in this way, the party could be the Zeitgeist puts cooperation above biggest tent in a new ecosystem, and gain competition and the plural above the the power to transform our country. It monopoly. Adopting this culture of would be the end of all or nothing politics collaborative politics is not just electorally for Labour – especially when the ‘all’ bit and organisationally necessary, it is turns out to be a infrequent and often morally the right thing to do. A hollow promise. Such huge political collaborative and egalitarian society will potential could be unleashed if Labour only ever be achieved through behaviour aligns the ends of a more democratic and which reflects it. As such, Labour, in a egalitarian society with the means to build more emotionally aware state of it. As Martin Luther King remarked: vulnerability, must become less Gordon “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only Brown, more Brené Brown. light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”. In reality Labour just has to look around - outside of the committee rooms, the Conclusions Shadow Cabinet and the NEC - and see what is happening everywhere; the Every star burns most brightly just before self-organisation of the people by the it implodes. It is crucial for the country that people, for the people. Its job is to this isn’t the case for Labour. Labour might recognise that transformative change win a more welcome left-wing victory happens when bottom-up, horizontal through old command and control radicalism is sustained and supported by methods – a monopoly socialism based on the state. The diagonal meeting point of its divine wisdom. Many in the country are the two is called 45-degree politics – the hungry for change – real change – but it fault-line through which a new society will needs to be change done with them and be born. The moment is ripe for a new not too them if it is to really matter and politics in which we learn how to learn and change our society. exponentially increase our capacity for change through joined-up, collective In her new book A New Politics from the action. ​ Left (Feb 2018, Polity), Hilary Wainwright, ​ an astute outrider for the Corbyn project The cold war is long over. It is time for says “The development of a new politics, cold politics to be over too. It is time for rooted in a new economics, will often be warmth, generosity and - dare I say it - independent of any one political party, and love. For Labour, like all of us, it’s only expressed in municipal alliances and in when you let go and trust other people different left and green parties at different that meaningful and lasting change is levels”. Or as Raymond Williams, the

13 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​ possible. Maybe Labour could start by trusting the likes of Siân Berry?

14 Beyond Monopoly Socialism ​