In an extract from: 'Breaking Out of Britain's Neo-Liberal State' published as a Compass Thinkpiece today, and based on their original openDemocracy essay in OurKingdom, Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett identify seven key steps towards the renewal of British democracy.
1. We need to identify “the official future” – the mantra of globalisation wherever it is – nationally, internationally, in the public and private realms, and critique it, defeat it and supplant it;
2. The world view of the bloviators – the Floridas, Gladwells and others – who have offered themselves as voices and apologists for the winners and the global order, needs to be seen as part of the problem, along with the damage they have done and their role in legitimising the “new conservatism”;
3. Public discourse has to be reclaimed from the neo-liberals, whether first wave, second wave, instrumental, personal or unwittingly. Government and public agencies need to fundamentally rethink how they conceive and think of policy, the language and values in documents, and whose voice and interest such processes are serving;
4. The British “public” overall does not see itself in the language of “consumers” and “customers” in relation to public service. For the last thirty years, the public have been force-fed a diet of New Public Management, choice and privatisation, and still they don’t find it attractive or buy it. Sadly nor do people see themselves in the idea of “citizens”. We need to think, nurture and organise public services in new ways which are neither New Right nor the technical fixes of co-production;
5. Policy literalism is increasingly recognised as a problematic way of doing politics. There is a direct link between the micro-policy and management of the Blair-Brown years – legislation “overload” and command and control – and the suffocating consensus of the mainstream, which shuts down open discussion of the macro-questions about the economy and society;
6. The nature of the British state is fundamental to the current crisis and laid the basis for the acute nature of the problems Britain faces in the global downturn. The British regime formed over the thirty years of Thatcher to Brown has seen an inter-twinning of the economic, social and political into a neo-liberal state and polity that commands the loyalty of all the main parties. An escape route has yet to be discovered given the closed nature of the British system.
7. Any such escape needs the people of the United Kingdom to make their own claim upon public power with a modern form of citizenship which aids an emancipatory state, culture and society. This will involve a political culture and system which recognises the centrality of fundamental human rights that protect minorities as well as a modern liberty that stops the development of an authoritarian, database state. All of which will require a way of retelling and reimagining the stories of the peoples and the nations of the UK.
Lawrence Efana said:
Wed, 2009-01-07 13:41Much of this is about Great Britain. Allow me on the "mantra of globalisation" to ask if I could proclaim that we mean the same thing, when recalling two out of the several questions raised in the book (Efana 2008:340): (a) how do we perceive or interpret our present realities as the base to use to define modernity?; and (b) how are nation states forming their meanings of the challenges [arising thereof]?
Has the rise of neo-liberalism now been seen to project the United Kingdom in the light of "old-fashionness" and "modernity": the product of progressive paradoxes, relatively the case in many societies also? However, steps 1 and 6 seem particularly very alerting but like the rest of them must be critically scrutinized in various senses for any convincing meanings to truly bite.
Notion of human progress [its dynamism, increamentalism and aberrations] engineers the question: how shall we humans think and do that it will be alright with us? Again, even here, isn't the politically coined concept "the sum" - also a derivative of democracy, coloured by our respect for elections, majority rule and representative government] at the center?
Within that type of frame, the two of you and I 'subjectively' and 'objectively' at the same time argue and agree that "modern liberty" as step-7 problem might signal 'diminishing' returns, 'frustrations' and 'dilemmas' in the sense of human progress and pride of her knowledge and ability. Your paper certainly makes me to feel that "philosophy" should not die - but of what use if it must live?
It is here that your writing efforts and the struggle to debate and inform - turn out all so meaningful to me and I hope also to others. If we humans cannot make for lasting results at least we should be allowed to talk, write and hold positive debates alive and in that way keep being 'dynamic' and 'increamental'. Whatever will be born as an economic system nationally and globally out of the meltdown experiences and lessons we are seeing, will be a mark of that increamental stage this time around and about that we shall have many active minds to thank for the efforts to "correct" and "tame" politics and politicians as well as the values they, among others, develop and work with from time to time. Therefore as writers and commentators, we go it different ways to remind them that people should indeed be at the center parallel to the environment and don't forget if you ever believe in God too!