The Left must create an alternative political narrative

It's never easy to admit that you've been outsmarted, but that is what has happened to the left in the last 30 years or so. We can always find good excuses because our political enemies on the right have more money and therefore much greater resources than we do, and they do own the media, and so have a collection of very powerful propaganda tools at their disposal, which they use to great effect.

But the right hasn't won political arguments in Western democracies just because they have more resources, they've done it by being clever and exploiting a series of simple straightforward 'policy positions' which appear to be credible and are persuasive to voters - they have succeeded in large part by building a convincing narrative. The right may be wrong but alas they're not (all) stupid. They know that they need a 'straightforward' story to sell to voters and that is something they have done very successfully. Contrast that with the left's love of complexity and focus on policies.

We all know what that narrative is because we hear it every day. It goes something like this: 

"Capitalism is the only way to build a prosperous society. It is dynamic and much more efficient than any alternatives. It thrives through the mechanism of competition. But we have economic problems because wealth creation is being held back by stifling bureaucracy and red tape. To solve our economic problems we need to free-up entrepreneurs by slashing red tape, increasing incentives by reducing the tax burden, having a smaller state and privatising public services. If we do that we'll all be better off. Some may gain more, but hey it's worth it because we'll all benefit." 

Note that I have underlined the keywords or frames in this narrative.

Now I know, and you know, that this recipe doesn't work, the global crisis shows that, and I could demonstrate it by dissecting any one of those key words. In fact I have done that in many posts on this blog, but that is not the point of this post. The point is that the right has a narrative that works, and that is what the left is lacking. Its high time the left created an alternative coherent narrative to challenge the neoliberal paradigm. We not only have to create that narrative but we have to tell it over and over and over again just as the right have done. I can't emphasise this enough. Tell, tell, and tell again. We have a great opportunity to do this at a time that people are disillusioned by the failures of neoliberalism and the economic crash.

So what would that narrative be? Well, we can get some of it simply providing the opposites to the right's 'keywords'. For example, take 'competition' which has long been a totem of the right. The left believes in 'cooperation' and it's hardly difficult to demonstrate that 'cooperation' is far more necessary and productive in our society than 'competition' - the benefits of which are, in reality, marginal anyway. Without cooperation, our society couldn't function. Instead of 'tax burden' we should perhaps be talking about 'tax investment' and 'tax insurance'. Its essential for us to use our own keywords and frames frequently and in opposition to the keywords of the right. The narrative is about establishing our values in opposition to the inferior values of the political right.

Its not for me to decide what the left's narrative should be but it might go something like this: "Capitalism is failing us economically, environmentally and socially. We can make Britain a more prosperous and equal society through co-operation and economic democracy. We need to build a green steady-state economy to create worthwhile jobs and deal with damaging climate change, with a vibrant wealth-creating public sector built on the values of public service, not private profit, and an enabling state with tax insurance for social security." 

Just like our political opponents we need to put across our narrative at every opportunity, whilst exposing the hollowness of neoliberal ideas. This narrative has to have a broad appeal without compromising our core principles. If we aren't able to do this we are never going to take the majority of people with us.

What is Socialism?

We live in reactionary times. Times, in which, the political left appears to be unable to respond to the dominance of the political right. Capitalism is everywhere triumphant. The left is in crisis. So what has happened?

Firstly we need to go back to 1989 the year in which the Soviet Union collapsed. The champagne corks must have been popping in every capitalist boardroom. Why? because as long as the Soviet Union existed it was possible to believe in a viable alternative to capitalism. That gave the left an awful lot of strength. There isn't the time and space here to go into the pro's and cons of the Soviet Union. Was it really a workers state? Was it state capitalism? Was it just a brutal dictatorship? Suffice to say the Soviet Union was not a bad as Western Capitalist propaganda made it seem. People had housing and healthcare and it was a much more equal society than anything we have ever experienced. An awful lot of good people gave their lives trying to create a better world. Their efforts deserve to be acknowledged.

But back to the left. After 1989 it became seized with doubt - trapped like a rabbit in the headlights of the oncoming capitalist juggernaut. But how did things fold so easily? I think there are a number of reasons. One key one is the fact that a lot of the old Marxists and Socialists, people like E P Thompson simply died out. The people who replaced them didn't have the experience of war, conflict and struggle that those those old Socialists did, they were tough cookies. Socialists had gone soft and Socialist politicians in Europe had been sucked into the Eurocracy, expense accounts, and (largely) meaningless debates in Strasbourg.

So where do we go now? What next for the left? Well socialism of course! But hang on isn't that a bit 20th century? Isn't socialism dead as Martin Kettle claimed recently? Well no it isn't. Broadly speaking there are two kinds of socialism; Socialism with a big 'S' and socialism with a small 's'. Socialism with a big 'S' - the Socialism that arose from the work of people like Marx, Engels and Lenin. By the the late 1960s Socialism had become dogmatic, doctrinaire and sterile That does not mean that Marx, for example, was dogmatic, just that Socialism had become riddled with a particularly deadening kind of dogmatism. Socialism had ceased to be empowering and vibrant. Changing economic circumstances and disillusionment with the Soviet Union helped to bring about the decline of this mainstream Socialism.

But socialism with a small 's' is, and always has been, alive and well. Socialist ideas pre-date Marx by a very long time. Wat Tyler was a socialist, so was John Lilliburne. Because socialism with a small 's' is simply the politics of putting people first - of need not greed. You don't need to have read Das Kapital to understand that kind of socialism - anyone can.

Of course Socialism is so unpopular that some people believe the 's' word should never be mentioned. If they can think of a better word to describe the politics of need not greed then I'd like to hear it. 'Progressive' politics just isn't enough. If David Cameron can call himself a progressive - he's not really - then that's a good reason for not using the word. The fact that Cameron would never dream of calling himself a socialist is good enough for me.

To be honest I'm glad that doctrinaire Socialism is dead. Too much focus on theory, rather than practice, too much self indulgence, too many varieties, too many meetings, too much sectarianism - too much baggage by half. We need to learn from the mistakes that Socialists made in the past without underestimating the great value and contribution of socialists like Marx. We need to unite and move forward with the simple politics of social, economic and environmental justice. That's what socialism, at its core, is really about.