There's so much to admire here but I do think there's also one important blind spot. The essence of our society is pluralism, the absence of a single overarching power or idea that allows you to order everything. This is the basis of the separation of powers, including between the executive and the judiciary. These are separate spheres of value and have people who are bathed in them. This makes them experts in their domain - as judges are experts in law. You can't get rid of that without getting rid of pluralism per se - and that would be the end of people like you and me and pretty much everyone else in our society. So I think progressives have to defend the principle of separation and hence experts while at the same time embracing properly the task of navigating between and reconciling the different spheres of expertise rather than simply being dominated by them.
I enjoyed the piece, but am not convinced: progressive defence of institutions seems rational, in that these institutions are institutionally progressive and have been remarkably successful at advancing progressive aims, both economic and social. The fact that inequality decreased, regulations increased and social progressivism advanced significantly during 14 years of Tory rule demonstrates this.
The current backlash is not because progressives have failed to achieve change, but because they have done so and that change has been found wanting. High taxes and regulation have produced stagnation, rather than the growth needed to improve living standards and public services; welfarism and the modern interpretation of human rights law is seen by most outside the PMC as unjust and damaging to the social contract, and identity politics stokes division rather than harmony.
I enjoyed the original piece and would also agree with this comment. I would also add that, in my view, the progressive institutional consensus suffers from its conflation of its own private interest with public virtue. This is not imho true of conservatives, either historically or indeed now. This is counterproductive in both practical terms (a small business owner being lectured on private sector growth by eg Torsten Bell is … uncomfortable) & philosophically (arguably current political ructions all spring from the Blair era concept, now largely disproved that one could, in fact, be both rich & virtuous)
For the last 50 years we've had low taxes. During the 1950s and 60s the top rate of tax was MUCH higher, and we had the birth of the NHS, the introduction of many worker's rights, people could own their own home or rent one cheaply from the council.
All that changed when Thatcher abolished the top rate of income tax in the failed neo-liberal experiment.
In terms of regulation, it is not that there is too much, it is that it is too prescriptive. In an effort to block loop holes, governments have made it complex, when simplicity - requiring following the spirit, not the letter of the law, would be far better.
This is an excellent and enlightening essay, except for the ending, which feels forced and unconvincing given Blair’s deep personal and institutional and ideological investment in today’s dominant economic interests - e.g., look at who funds the Blair institute. Are they interested in progressive or egalitarian change?.
Which brings me to the essay’s only major weakness: there is no mention of the structural/economic obstacles to the deeper change progressive and left parties promise (but rarely deliver). Political parties and politicians need money to run their campaigns - which as you know has distorting effects on what policies are adopted or even imaginable; and economic interests can find lots of ways of weakening and punishing politicians who challenge them or threaten their continued power. You don’t need to be a Marxist to think that the “base” has a lot of influence on (even if it doesn’t determine) the “superstructure “. Why no mention of these dynamics?
Thanks for this essay. As I said on BlueSky, it is very interesting and, I think, important, especially as regards the way that ‘progressives’ have become defenders of the status quo. Part of that, no doubt, is simply to try to draw a defensive line against populists (‘hold on tight to mother’s skirts, for fear of finding something worse’). But I’ve been thinking recently about something I don’t think is discussed much viz: what the collapse of the USSR meant for progressive politics. Obviously, very few on the progressive liberal-left were communists, let alone Soviet sympathisers, by then, certainly in Britain. But I think there was still a residual sense that, even if it was a failed experiment, the USSR represented ‘something’, if only having provided the decisive opposition to German fascism (not just militarily but in terms of providing most of the organized resistance in Nazi-occupied countries). It’s certainly the case that the history of the Left in Britain, and everywhere else, can’t be understood without any reference at all to its conflicted relationship with Marxist theory and Soviet practice.
In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall the liberal-left, very obviously the British Labour Party, embraced the ‘end of history’ thesis, so that the issue became one of managerial politics – liberal economics and liberal democracy was the only game in town, but progressives could manage it more efficiently and more fairly. By the time of the GFC some of the shine went off that, of course, but what could progressives rally around now that there was no ‘shining city on the hill’, however flawed it had proved to be? And that question became more acute when the ur-fascism of populism came along, and there was no ur-communism to oppose. The only, or at least the most obvious, answer was ‘the rules-based order’ of technocratic rationality.
Anyway, these are just some unsystematic thoughts prompted by your excellent essay …
“If we want everything to remain the same, everything must change” Although you understandably quote Tomasi di Lampedusa, you could have quoted Newman, canonised saint and Doctor of the Church: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” The Faith And Order Commission of the Church of England has recently dismissed Newman's approach - in a paper written to excuse halting the process of Prayers of Love and Faith.
I increasingly see the master theme of politics this century as security in the face of poly-crisis. This means economic security, physical security, political security, even cultural security. So there's a further irony here, which is that change - itself a source of insecurity! - must be channeled toward the cause of security. The right has gotten away with self-dealing institutional devastation by justifying it all in the name of lower prices (read: economic security) and cultural and border security. The left needs to take a page from the book of Mamdani and do the same in defence of policies that will actually cope with, rather than worsen, the various unfolding crises of our times.
It is challenging as an expert in something to be told that your expertise is not needed, especially when those saying it have motivations they are obviously (to the expert at least) concealing.
We are in a flux moment, consequent of some major disruptions; the financial crisis, covid, the Ukraine war, the Middle East crisis and sitting across them all the Internet and the rise of AI.
Against those the issue becomes not that everything must change but rather everything has changed and yet the rightwing panacea peddlers are spouting messages that tell ordinary folks that they (and only they) can return us all to what life (a misremembered version) was like before.
Against that anyone seeking to hold the line for morality, compassion, humanity and progress must walk a fine tightrope to avoid attacks from both right and left; in NYC Mamdani seems to be managing it, and on the campaign trail in Texas Talrico seems to garnering support for a campaign that promises it.
Whether Burnham can manage to achieve first election and then ascension is the question of our moment…
I'm not convinced that the change we need is growth. We don't have an Economic problem of more energy usage, more pollution, more extraction of rare resources.
We have a Social problem - one of distribution of wealth.
There's a saying that's becoming a meme, particularly in the US "Your GDP is not MY GDP".
The top 0.001% have disproportionately benefited from the economic growth of the last 50 years.
Meanwhile, parts of the planet are literally burning up.
Though it does appear much in the media, there are droughts and heat domes in the US. Here in the UK we've had the hottest May on record. Europe has a heatwave. The Thwaites glacier is cracking up (you might want to look up the implications of that). The AMOC, which brings warm water to Europe, is slowing down due to fresh-water melt from the Russian Steppes and the Arctic (you might want to look up the implications of it stopping - which it's currently likely to do by the end of the century).
We need a complete overhaul of the system. We have a shrinking window in which to spend the extra energy required to make the changes required (building the infrastructure will require investment of capital and energy). Otherwise what we leave to our children and grandchildren (if they have them - and many have chosen not to, beyond those who cannot afford to) will be far less pleasant than today.
There's so much to admire here but I do think there's also one important blind spot. The essence of our society is pluralism, the absence of a single overarching power or idea that allows you to order everything. This is the basis of the separation of powers, including between the executive and the judiciary. These are separate spheres of value and have people who are bathed in them. This makes them experts in their domain - as judges are experts in law. You can't get rid of that without getting rid of pluralism per se - and that would be the end of people like you and me and pretty much everyone else in our society. So I think progressives have to defend the principle of separation and hence experts while at the same time embracing properly the task of navigating between and reconciling the different spheres of expertise rather than simply being dominated by them.
I enjoyed the piece, but am not convinced: progressive defence of institutions seems rational, in that these institutions are institutionally progressive and have been remarkably successful at advancing progressive aims, both economic and social. The fact that inequality decreased, regulations increased and social progressivism advanced significantly during 14 years of Tory rule demonstrates this.
The current backlash is not because progressives have failed to achieve change, but because they have done so and that change has been found wanting. High taxes and regulation have produced stagnation, rather than the growth needed to improve living standards and public services; welfarism and the modern interpretation of human rights law is seen by most outside the PMC as unjust and damaging to the social contract, and identity politics stokes division rather than harmony.
I enjoyed the original piece and would also agree with this comment. I would also add that, in my view, the progressive institutional consensus suffers from its conflation of its own private interest with public virtue. This is not imho true of conservatives, either historically or indeed now. This is counterproductive in both practical terms (a small business owner being lectured on private sector growth by eg Torsten Bell is … uncomfortable) & philosophically (arguably current political ructions all spring from the Blair era concept, now largely disproved that one could, in fact, be both rich & virtuous)
For the last 50 years we've had low taxes. During the 1950s and 60s the top rate of tax was MUCH higher, and we had the birth of the NHS, the introduction of many worker's rights, people could own their own home or rent one cheaply from the council.
All that changed when Thatcher abolished the top rate of income tax in the failed neo-liberal experiment.
In terms of regulation, it is not that there is too much, it is that it is too prescriptive. In an effort to block loop holes, governments have made it complex, when simplicity - requiring following the spirit, not the letter of the law, would be far better.
This is an excellent and enlightening essay, except for the ending, which feels forced and unconvincing given Blair’s deep personal and institutional and ideological investment in today’s dominant economic interests - e.g., look at who funds the Blair institute. Are they interested in progressive or egalitarian change?.
Which brings me to the essay’s only major weakness: there is no mention of the structural/economic obstacles to the deeper change progressive and left parties promise (but rarely deliver). Political parties and politicians need money to run their campaigns - which as you know has distorting effects on what policies are adopted or even imaginable; and economic interests can find lots of ways of weakening and punishing politicians who challenge them or threaten their continued power. You don’t need to be a Marxist to think that the “base” has a lot of influence on (even if it doesn’t determine) the “superstructure “. Why no mention of these dynamics?
Thanks for this essay. As I said on BlueSky, it is very interesting and, I think, important, especially as regards the way that ‘progressives’ have become defenders of the status quo. Part of that, no doubt, is simply to try to draw a defensive line against populists (‘hold on tight to mother’s skirts, for fear of finding something worse’). But I’ve been thinking recently about something I don’t think is discussed much viz: what the collapse of the USSR meant for progressive politics. Obviously, very few on the progressive liberal-left were communists, let alone Soviet sympathisers, by then, certainly in Britain. But I think there was still a residual sense that, even if it was a failed experiment, the USSR represented ‘something’, if only having provided the decisive opposition to German fascism (not just militarily but in terms of providing most of the organized resistance in Nazi-occupied countries). It’s certainly the case that the history of the Left in Britain, and everywhere else, can’t be understood without any reference at all to its conflicted relationship with Marxist theory and Soviet practice.
In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall the liberal-left, very obviously the British Labour Party, embraced the ‘end of history’ thesis, so that the issue became one of managerial politics – liberal economics and liberal democracy was the only game in town, but progressives could manage it more efficiently and more fairly. By the time of the GFC some of the shine went off that, of course, but what could progressives rally around now that there was no ‘shining city on the hill’, however flawed it had proved to be? And that question became more acute when the ur-fascism of populism came along, and there was no ur-communism to oppose. The only, or at least the most obvious, answer was ‘the rules-based order’ of technocratic rationality.
Anyway, these are just some unsystematic thoughts prompted by your excellent essay …
Chris Grey
“If we want everything to remain the same, everything must change” Although you understandably quote Tomasi di Lampedusa, you could have quoted Newman, canonised saint and Doctor of the Church: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” The Faith And Order Commission of the Church of England has recently dismissed Newman's approach - in a paper written to excuse halting the process of Prayers of Love and Faith.
I increasingly see the master theme of politics this century as security in the face of poly-crisis. This means economic security, physical security, political security, even cultural security. So there's a further irony here, which is that change - itself a source of insecurity! - must be channeled toward the cause of security. The right has gotten away with self-dealing institutional devastation by justifying it all in the name of lower prices (read: economic security) and cultural and border security. The left needs to take a page from the book of Mamdani and do the same in defence of policies that will actually cope with, rather than worsen, the various unfolding crises of our times.
It is challenging as an expert in something to be told that your expertise is not needed, especially when those saying it have motivations they are obviously (to the expert at least) concealing.
We are in a flux moment, consequent of some major disruptions; the financial crisis, covid, the Ukraine war, the Middle East crisis and sitting across them all the Internet and the rise of AI.
Against those the issue becomes not that everything must change but rather everything has changed and yet the rightwing panacea peddlers are spouting messages that tell ordinary folks that they (and only they) can return us all to what life (a misremembered version) was like before.
Against that anyone seeking to hold the line for morality, compassion, humanity and progress must walk a fine tightrope to avoid attacks from both right and left; in NYC Mamdani seems to be managing it, and on the campaign trail in Texas Talrico seems to garnering support for a campaign that promises it.
Whether Burnham can manage to achieve first election and then ascension is the question of our moment…
I'm not convinced that the change we need is growth. We don't have an Economic problem of more energy usage, more pollution, more extraction of rare resources.
We have a Social problem - one of distribution of wealth.
There's a saying that's becoming a meme, particularly in the US "Your GDP is not MY GDP".
The top 0.001% have disproportionately benefited from the economic growth of the last 50 years.
Meanwhile, parts of the planet are literally burning up.
Though it does appear much in the media, there are droughts and heat domes in the US. Here in the UK we've had the hottest May on record. Europe has a heatwave. The Thwaites glacier is cracking up (you might want to look up the implications of that). The AMOC, which brings warm water to Europe, is slowing down due to fresh-water melt from the Russian Steppes and the Arctic (you might want to look up the implications of it stopping - which it's currently likely to do by the end of the century).
We need a complete overhaul of the system. We have a shrinking window in which to spend the extra energy required to make the changes required (building the infrastructure will require investment of capital and energy). Otherwise what we leave to our children and grandchildren (if they have them - and many have chosen not to, beyond those who cannot afford to) will be far less pleasant than today.