Reducing inequality should be aspirational, not just an aspiration
Bubble — By Adam Higgitt on January 28, 2010 11:00 am
Much less than...
SO it’s official: inequality has risen in Wales during Labour’s period in office (p.292, Table 10.11 (c)). It hasn’t risen by much, and if you accept Harriet Harman’s analysis, merely staunching a greater increase is an achievement in itself. Harman also argues that measures put in place over the past 12 years will yet pay off.
How convincing you find all this will very much depend on your ideological perspective, and there is credibility in the charge that Labour could and should have done more to address what was already a very unequal society in 1997. For many, the villain of the piece – in this as in so much else – is Peter Mandelson, whose 1998 declaration that “we are intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich”* set the tone for a party and government indifferent to the existence of very wide disparities in wealth, opportunity and outcome. But it is worth winding the clock back on what motivated Mandelson and other new Labour architects during that period.
The simple, rhetorical charge depicts a coterie dazzled by the super-rich, captivated by a venal desire to curry favour and enthusiastic about Thatcherite economic orthodoxy. Actually, Labour did have a pressing need to reassure the city and business that its return to power would not presage wealth taxes, widespread industrial action, and command capitalism. Much more important, however, was the need to shed the anti-aspiration tag that had dogged the party since the 1970s – the fear of which Margaret Thatcher mined to such devastating effect.
Becoming a party of aspiration is no easy task. All things being equal, the theory is that people will vote for things that they believe will benefit them or society in the here-and-now; a promise to cut taxes, improve public services, or take better care with the public finances and economy. If they have no clear idea which party will deliver any of these outcomes, the tie-breaker becomes the character of a party and/or it’s leader; hard-headed, compassionate, principled, pragmatic, down-to-earth or statesmanlike. But when it comes to appealing to aspiration, the voter is looking for signals about how the party will treat people it wants to be like, rather than is. It was not enough for Labour to simply say “we’ll look after you”; it had to exude the idea that it would look after people if they occupied a different and more privileged place, or indeed if their children made that break-though. It had to say “we won’t penalise if you catch a break”. Being “intensely relaxed” about the acquisition of wealth was necessary to change the image of Labour from that of a party that would slap you down to one that would help you up.
A more subtle accusation was that new Labour did more – far more – than was necessary to dispel the anti-aspiration image, and became so keen on supporting the individual pursuit of wealth that it forgot about helping those who needed that hand-up in the first place. Whatever the basis for that charge, there is surely little doubt that Labour – and other potentially progressive forces – now need to develop a coherent programme to reduce inequality without obstructing aspiration. One way, as I argued a few months ago, might be to recruit the more successful sections of society to such a mission, and to spell out the benefits to them. For so long as inequality remains seen as a problem chiefly of the have-nots, reducing it will only ever be half a crusade. Greater equality has to become something to which the aspirational aspire.
* The almost universally ignored remainder of the quote was “as long as they pay their taxes”
Tags: equality, inequality, social mobility, taxation
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4 Comments
Interesting that Mandelson’s full quote includes the will to tax them. There is a pretty solid argument that Labour deliberately chose not to clamp down on tax avoidance.
If you or me tried to avoid paying our taxes it would be a different story!
“there is surely little doubt that Labour – and other potentially progressive forces – now need to develop a coherent programme to reduce inequality without obstructing aspiration. ”
And the way to achieve this is to encourage self-help and self-responsibility so that people can shape their own environment, improving the quality of life around them as well as strengthening the local economy. The thread that needs to run through the Labour manifesto is one of empowerment, that is give power to the people.
This way leads to individual growth and development – effectively enhancing and strengthening social capital – which when combined with a sense of reciprocity and civic duty, enables whole communities to be transformed.
This also applies in education where we must not have too low an expectation of young people but need to be encouraging them to push their boundaries and aspire to create and develop their community and then the world.
A co-operative approach to running business as well as in strengthening key public services such as long term care, using innovative solutions and encouraging all stakeholders to contribute creatively, is I believe an idea which will feature significantly in the forthcoming Labour manifesto.
Just like DNA, the double thread that needs to run through (or cut across) all policy areas is that of empowerment and aspiration, where people embrace the co-operative theme to make life better for all in our communities.
It’s time has come.
The problem is that the words “Labour Party” and “aspiration” have no place in the same sentence, paragraph, or even article. I enjoyed your piece and agree with much of what you say. But the reality is – for all the lovely “progressive” rhetoric – it simply doesn’t work in practice. For all its heady ideas, Labour relies on a great deal of unempowered individuals to get votes. My father came from a poor family in a pretty miserable area of Sheffield and pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He’s since done extremely well for himself, and is also a very kind and generous man. But there’s absolutely no way he – nor any of his friends from there who also did well – will ever vote Labour, because everything the party stands for, whether intentionally or not, in reality flies in the face of what he’s worked so hard to achieve. Like everyone else who’s made decent money, he’s considered privileged – bottom line is you succeed in life and people resent you, and the Labour party wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for those jealous types. Sorry to be cynical, but you just get sick of it after a while. That said, I enjoyed your article and thought you made some good points.
Hi Alex
Thanks for your comments. I don’t disagree with you as much as you might imagine. The Labour Party made its worst mistakes when it made itself an enemy of aspiration, or came to see the desire of people to improve their own circumstances and those of their children as somehow “right wing” or lacking in solidarity. He won’t thank me for discussing this openly, but I suspect that my father, finding himself raising a young family in the late 70s, saw in Labour a party that would only try and hold back his ambitions to get on. Unlike you, however, I don’t see this impulse as written into Labour’s DNA. Far from, in fact: look back beyond the 70s and you will find a Labour movement that was all about self-improvement and empowerment. Labour does best when it gives voice to these better angels.