New Labour’s Old Roots
Patrick Diamond
Central Books, £17.95
Of all the accusations made by the left against New Labour, one of the most damaging is that it has lost touch with its social democratic heritage and, in office, has pursued little more than a watered-down version of Thatcherite neoliberalism. Roy Hattersley – himself a former party ‘moderate’‚ – is perhaps the most persistent and influential representative of this position within Labour’s ranks, having repeatedly asserted in numerous speeches and articles that New Labour has abandoned its traditional roots and commitment to the socialist values of equality and social justice.
In response to such criticism, Patrick Diamond – a Downing Street special advisor – has edited a collection of essays, entitled ‘New Labour’s Old Roots’, which brings together a series of extracts from the works of Labour thinkers, ranging from the early twentieth century philosopher, RH Tawney, to Labour’s current chancellor, Gordon Brown. The aim of the collection, elaborated in Diamond’s substantial introduction to the book, is to show that, far from representing a break with the past, New Labour’s philosophy can be traced in a continuous line back to the ideas of the early ethical socialists and revisionist social democrats of the 1950s. ‘New Labour,’ he claims, ‘merely restates the enduring themes of revisionist social democracy, preserving and updating its central ideas.’
The parallel Diamond draws between revisionism and New Labour is a controversial one. Revisionism as a doctrine is traditionally associated with the revision of Marxism instigated by the early democratic socialists, who, witnessing the lack of revolutionary zeal among the proletariat in spite of Marx’s predictions, sought an accommodation with capitalism, rather than seeking its overthrow.
The period of Labour’s history commonly referred to as revisionist encompasses the post-war decades up to the 1970s, when there was a general consensus on the Keynesian management of the economy and the merits of a redistributive welfare state. This consensus was shattered with the economic crisis of the 1970s and the resurgence of neoliberal economic ideology. How, then, is it helpful to see New Labour as part of this revisionist social democratic tradition, as Diamond suggests?
His case rests on a broad, rather than narrowly historical, definition of revisionism. For the author, revisionism is better understood as ‘a cast of mind’‚ rather than a body of doctrine. Specifically, revisionism seeks to instil a radical distinction between means and ends: ‘Moral values are the ends. These are constant. But the means that might be considered relevant in one generation are wholly irrelevant in the next, and are, therefore, dispensable.’
Diamond argues that a recurrent problem with thinking on the left is a tendency to equate the means with the ends of policy. Thus the aim of socialism – a more equal society – is too often confused with the supposed means of achieving it – state nationalisation and public ownership. Therefore, when New Labour abandoned these means, it was assumed that the goal of social justice and equality had also been rejected. It is this that has given rise to the familiar caricature of New Labour as a post-Thatcherite party, disconnected from its social democratic past.
However, as the series of extracts show, the early social democrats did not equate socialism solely with a specific set of policy proposals for the nationalisation of the British economy. For them, equality was seen as a primarily moral imperative, based on a positive concept of individual freedom. The means of achieving it, however, were very much open to debate. The extracts by Crosland and Gaitskell offer a timely reminder of the considerable scepticism that existed in the Labour party as to the extent to which nationalisation would bring about a more equal society, even in its social democratic heyday.
For Diamond, the catastrophic defeat of the these early social democrats and the subsequent success of Thatcherism, ultimately rested on the Labour party’s failure to follow through the revisionist premise. Although in practice it was committed to practical means of alleviating poverty and reducing inequality, in principle it remained wedded to a series of outdated policies for nationalisation and collective ownership, embodied in the old Clause IV. This led to ideological confusion and a lack of clarity on what the party actually stood for. As the important extracts in the book from Mackintosh and Marquand show, the party was also hindered by specific weaknesses in its Keynesian assumptions; in its neglect of supply-side economics, and belief that equality was something that could be uniformly imposed on society through universal and statist methods.
New Labour, therefore, far from representing a betrayal of revisionist values, actually represents their fulfilment. By revising Clause IV, New Labour freed itself from the ideological shibboleths of the past, offering a renewed basis on which the argument for equality could be made. The values that animated the early social democrats remain central to the party today, but the means of implementing those values have been radically revised, to cater for the needs of a dynamic economy in an increasingly globalised and competitive world.
The argument of the book and the evidence of the extracts themselves offer an effective riposte to those who claim that New Labour represents an irrevocable break with social democratic thought. The book shows that the debate between modernisers and traditionalists within the party has been a recurrent theme in Labour’s history, and is not confined to its recent past.
Nonetheless, Diamond’s insistence on the continuity of Labour’s values during the last century and the mutual autonomy of means and ends somewhat overstates the case. Reading the extracts contained in the book, it is clear that the meaning attached to the value of equality has shifted significantly in the past one hundred years of Labour’s history, from one that implied a substantial commitment to redistribution and equality of outcome, to a more meritocratic understanding of the value based on equality of opportunity and life-chances. This shift in emphasis can be attributed directly to a change in means, contradicting Diamond’s argument, namely, the party’s loss of faith in Keynesian demand management and redistributive economics. Therefore, means and ends are more entwined than Diamond is perhaps prepared to admit.
Ultimately, however the message of the book is a political one, and one that is aimed as much at New Labour’s modernisers as the old left. ‘Efforts to distance New Labour from its social democratic past are not merely inaccurate,’ Diamond argues, ‘they are strategically inept, heightening accusations of betrayal, and perpetuating the fundamental historical confusion over Labour’s identity.’ Given the conciliatory tone struck by the Prime Minister at this year’s Labour Party conference, it is a message New Labour finally appears to be listening to.