The strange case of conservative progressives
One of the most interesting lines in Tony Blair’s revealing book comes in the introduction:
’…I was and remain first and foremost not so much a politician of traditional left and right, but a moderniser. I wanted to modernise the Labour Party so it was capable, not intermittently but continuously, of offering a progressive alternative to Conservative rule. I wanted to modernise Britain so that, while retaining pride in having worn the mantle of the world’s most powerful nation as the twentieth century began, it didn’t feel bereft and in decline as the twenty first century began because that mantle would no longer fit’.
The admission that Blair was not a man of the left – indeed he acknowledges that on economics and law and order he is on the centre right – may appal some in the Labour Party but comes as no surprise to those of us who worked for him.
Everyday it seems a Labour leadership candidate repudiates another aspect of New Labour doctrine and record. But behind this tactical posturing there is a more profound questioning, which is of wider relevance and interest than Labour’s internal manoeuvrings.
In this month’s Prospect, two former Brown advisors Nick Pearce (now back as Director of ippr) and Gavin Kelly write about the need for social democrats to tap into a sense of ‘social patriotism’:
‘Beyond eco-conservativism, the centre-left hasn’t worked out the strands of conservative thinking that should form a core part of its political identity in the 21st century. Only when it finds a sure footing on this territory will it find a way of responding to some of the cultural concerns of the electorate that currently find expression in hostility to immigration.’
And here is Jon Cruddas MP, one of Labour’s most original and respected thinkers, writing in a few weeks ago in the New Statesman:
‘Labour has to win back…terrain with a language that can encompass both cosmopolitan modernity and English conservative culture, linking them together in a sense of national purpose. It would incorporate all the things Blair dismissed as anachronisms: tradition; a respect for settled ways of life; a sense of local place and belonging; a desire for home and rootedness; the continuity of relationships at work and in one’s neighbourhood.
England once had this kind of conservative, common culture; it acted as a counter to the commodification of labour and to social isolation. Ruskin provided its rallying cry, “There is no wealth but life.” At one time Labour gave expression to this kind of conservatism. It need not be reactionary, right-wing, or sentimental, although it has been all these things. Its political character will depend on Labour’s capacity to articulate a progressive and ethical conservatism that embraces difference. It need not be parochial or conformist: England celebrates a rich tradition of volatile, creative cultures. ’
These ideas strike a chord. Here is an extract from an article I wrote last year in Prospect:
‘New ideas about human nature can contribute to a more substantive meeting of minds between left and right. Thoughtful conservatives are once again recognising the importance of social context, inequality and the limits to market rationality. Labour thinkers can use the research to make the case for collective action and social justice, but they may also become more cautious about the capacity of the central state to empower communities, and more interested in the role of social norms and civic institutions”
So as Tony Blair reminds us that he was above all a moderniser, some thinkers from the left are exploring how (small ‘c’) conservative perspectives can be incorporated in the social democratic story.
Call me a sad case, but I find this intriguing. The RSA is a strictly politically non-aligned organisation but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in politics. Indeed, over the last few years we have had fascinating events discussing currents in left, right and liberal thinking.
Usually when people talk about moving beyond traditional left and right it is seen as a political ploy – a form of triangulation. But exploring the possibility of philosophy and practical politics which seeks to reconcile the ideals of social justice with the insights of social conservatism is a fascinating intellectual exercise.
I see an RSA event in which social democrats and social conservatives (like Roger Scruton or Ferdinand Mount, for example) are invited to explore common ground. Any takers?
Comments
7 Comments on The strange case of conservative progressives
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Phillip Blond on
Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 11:43 am
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Ian CHRISTIE on
Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 11:13 pm
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Matthew Kalman on
Tue, 7th Sep 2010 9:48 am
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Olli Issakainen on
Tue, 7th Sep 2010 11:14 am
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Jon Freeman on
Tue, 7th Sep 2010 12:20 pm
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Betapolitics on
Wed, 8th Sep 2010 1:43 pm
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Platform 10 » Blog Archive » Progressive Conservatives and conservative Progressives on
Wed, 8th Sep 2010 7:49 pm
I think this debate is most instructive it suggests that future centre ground of British politics could be a red tory / blue labour one – I suspect that the oscillation between extreme individualism and collectivism (which are but two sides of the same coin) has played itself out – and a radical and conserving approach is needed from whatever side of the current left right divide one sits.
I agree with Kelly, Pearce and Cruddas, and support the proposal for an event featuring Ferdinand Mount – whose book MIND THE GAP is worth reading – and the excellent Roger Scruton, a much misunderstood thinker and a brilliant writer who is a Burkean conservative and nothing like a modern neoliberal ‘Conservative’.
Philip Blond should also be in this debate. It would help sharpen focus on the key political change of the past 30 years, namely the rise of an aggressive capitalism abetted by nominal Conservatives in the USA and UK who are in reality neoliberals – economically and socially liberal for the most part, and profoundly individualistic, anti-tradition in practice even if not in rhetoric, and determined to eliminate all institutions, values, constraints and communal associations that get between the Market and the individual. There has been very little conservatism in the Republican and Tory parties since 1980, whatever their rhetoric – they have become neoliberal movements assisting a revolutionary wave of capitalist expansion.
This means that old – or better, original – Labour and Conservatives, plus many Greens, have a lot of shared ground in small-c conservatism, that turns out to be ‘progressive’ in its opposition to turbo-capitalism. This common ground is about protecting the environmental, social and cultural heritage and commons, and in conserving or reinventing intermediate institutions and associations between citizens and the aggressive Market and State that have developed over the past 3 decades. They also have much in common in critique of the alliance of economic and social libertarianism that has dominated politics for so long.
One reason the Big Society discourse from the Coalition is so incoherent is that the governing parties think they can promote aggressive neoliberal capitalism and at the same time renew social capital and civil society. They fail to ask themselves why British social relations have been undermined for so long. Part of the story is about excessive state power, as Philip B argues; more important (as PB also sees) is the corrosive effect of post-70s capitalism and extreme consumption-focussed liberalism.
Hi Matthew,
You’ve obviously touched a chord here, as we see with a response from Philip Blond (I’ve not even noticed Philip add comments on his own Res Publica blog before!).
My own little suggestion here is we need to hear not (just) from partisans of Left or Right, but to seek out those who are already post- or transpartisans who can happily draw from both camps, without cognitive dissonance.
The Roger Martin book ‘The Opposable Mind’ – about ‘integrative thinking’ – quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
It’s this integrative thinking we need to track down, and provide a safe space for IMHO – as this is what can take us beyond Left and Right, to something bigger than either.
Don Beck – the developer of the ‘Spiral Dynamics’ model – is in the UK in October some time, maybe you should involve him somehow?
Er… I only wish I could think of lots more such post-partisan, integrative political thinkers.
The particular ‘Integral’ model developed by Ken Wilber, has managed to interest people as politically diverse as the Bishop of London, Geoff Mulgan, Bill Clinton, Jeb Bush, Al Gore and the philosopher Charles Taylor.
We need something like this kind of bigger inspiration, to take us out beyond the usual political bun-fights IMHO.
I wonder if we need to just forget the ‘old’ players and ‘old’ parties for the time being, avoid Labour politicians who suddenly find it expedient to borrow someone else’s political clothes to have a chance to be elected…? (Hopefully I’m being unfair to Cruddas).
Otherwise we’re letting letting the tail (of the usual tribal politics) wag the dog (of some new and more truly integrative approaches to politics, that doesn’t yet really exist).
By contrast, someone like Don Beck has been talking about this kind of approach for decades, not weeks – and even used it help bring the two sides together in South Africa, as apartheid fell.
In Beck’s book ‘The Crucible – Forging South Africa’s Future in Search of a Template for the World’ he wrote:
“If what you are about to say or do looks and sounds good to you, don’t do it! (Unless, of course, your listeners or readers have the same value systems as you)”.
How many politicians do we know who are wise enough to avoid doing the things that feel good to them?!
We need to find these wise ones, that can conceive a space for all the ‘competing’ value systems (that are part of human nature).
Matthew K
New Labour´s economic model of free markets plus state action is broken. Neoliberalism has failed and there is no money left.
Maximizing market freedom is not the best way to generate wealth – but it causes inequality.
People vote nowadays based on values, not so much on class or ideology. Fairness is important to Labour voters.
Britain needs a new economic model.
Modern social democratic narrative makes now more sense to voters than the coalition´s mixture of monetarism and regressive social policies.
Or was Ralph Miliband right when he said that Crosland was wrong, and that governments could never tame capitalism.
Anyway, we cannot go back to old-fashioned social democracy because of the stagflation of the 1970s. Neoliberal paradigm has also failed, and is not based on solid empirical or theoretical foundation.
I guess what Britain needs now is smaller state, but active one. There is now, for example, opportunity for industrial policy.
Ps. I guess socialism is also ruled out?
Today’s world is too complex, too diverse to be governed through an oscillation between free-market capitalism and socialism – even in their newer diluted democratic forms. The dabate continues to suffer from an unilluminating polarisation in which those with left-leaning histories see the centre as “right-wing” and vice versa.
The perspective from Spiral Dynamics is that this situation was predictable. The societal layer which provided order and stability was too restrictive to support commercial and technical growth, but became inadequate to prevent its abusive financial manipulations. The layer of egalitarianism and social welfare which emerged as a counterbalance to deprivation and exploitation became so heavy as to become unsustainable.
We are required to sustain all of these layers since without them we lose social order, lose our technological and economic benefits, fail to care for the vulnerable and risk social unrest from any or all of these losses. We are required to find balance between all of them, which is something that Blair understood, which is at the centre of Philip Blond’s contribution and which conservative progressives are also recognising.
The challenge we face is that we sit amidst this complexity and seeing the “Big Society” agenda which seeks to find a fresh approach but is very hard-pressed to know how we make the transition. Those who are required to design and lead the change visibly do not have the training, the toolkits or the mindsets to develop a road-map from here to there. Typically their thinking represents the either-or of the sterile and polarised historical approaches.
It is possible and essential to adopt both-and approaches, to deal with the huge bandwidth of social strata and systemic complexity. The tools to do this exist; It’s a Spiral Dynamics speciality. The demands from economics, from the sustainability agenda and from the social pressures that will follow an extended recession all make it urgent that we get beyond this left-right debate and start to deliver the solutions. They won’t be perfect because they must be flexible and adaptable – something that Big Government is unused to. We all had better learn fast.
Jon Freeman
The 20th Centaury battle between left and right was based around the nation. The government of each country would decide how much control the state would have over production; to what level welfare should be provided and how much property each individual could posses. This is now out of date.
In the 21st Centaury the state is becoming less and less important. Ideas, resources and people transcend boarders. Members of communities you belong to are as likely to be based in Shanghai as in the next street along. The new world is fostering a new political debate. This debate is about how the community of communities should interact with each other. The 20th Centaury was static, the 21st Centaury is fluid.
[...] is a fascinating blog by Matthew Taylor on his RSA blog, in which he discussed, what he describes as, ‘the strange case of conservative [...]
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