For once there is a vision of Europe’s future that Britain shares. It is not directly about the future of the European Union, though I believe it is highly relevant to it. Rather it is a striking mood of pessimism about the social trends in our societies: we may be the first generation since the great advance of material progress which began with the industrial revolution that believes life will not be as good for our children and grandchildren as it has been for us.Liddell also points out:
At the heart of this pessimism there is a profound paradox. Surveys repeatedly show high levels of self-reported individual life satisfaction and happiness. These have been broadly stable in the most prosperous European countries for a generation, with no tendency to rise once a certain level of material prosperity is attained: a fact that is significant for the growing debate about “wellbeing” in affluent societies. But high life satisfaction and happiness goes alongside quite deep pessimism about prospects for the long term. Interestingly, this pessimism about future trends in society is not something distinctively British—most definitely not something for which responsibility can be plonked on the doorstep of Britain’s beleaguered Labour government—but a social perception that affects much—but not all—of the European Union. In this the British are more European than many Brits in their own self perception like to think.
The social consequences of these occupational shifts translate into widespread fears of globalisation. Over 60% of the citizens of the EU’s biggest member states expect people to earn less as a result of competition from newly rising economies, calling into question the complacent view of the British elite that Britons will instinctively embrace economic openness with more enthusiasm than our continental partners. Among the richer European countries it is rather those that have invested heavily in active labour market policies and various forms of flexicurity where fears of globalisation are significantly lower. For example only 41% of Danes expect people to earn less in future as a result of rising global competition.Crucially, he concludes by saying:
[...] the European Union is perceived to be supporting policies that make things worse not better: open markets, liberalised trade, and the free movement of workers from poor to rich labour markets. The EU thereby becomes an agent driving increased polarisation between “winners” and “losers”. It is not surprising in these circumstances that electorates vote against institutional treaties designed to make the EU stronger and more effective. The modernising left needs a new project for the EU which is about shaping markets and globalisation in a more socially just way. That is part of a necessary process of rethinking how a “new politics of optimism” can be developed.The debate about how to make not only Europe but politics in general more popular has often been couched in terms of process and procedure, policies and practice. Perhaps it's time to talk more simply - perhaps it's time to talk of optimism versus pessimism. But how can we do so when there is so much to be unhappy about?
The Party structures themselves often generate pessimism, even before we look at the world around us. We discussed this matter at a meeting the other day. GCs are supposed to debate politics and issues, not business. But they end up debating business ad nauseam, with points of order about ancient minutes often being the order of the day.
Members Net, too, is a brilliant resource - but incompletely fashioned. Plenty of excellent debate - exactly what a good GC should be like - but, with no mechanism to resolve policy disagreements effectively, it can often be quite frustrating over the medium-term.
This is the weakness of the blogosphere if it does not - in some useful way - impinge on the real world. Perhaps we need a more structured blogosphere - a blogosphere of communities; something more open to the outside world than Members Net - something like Labourhome, in fact, but allowing for a greater individuality of formats and layouts and including a mechanism to generate agreement and prevent frustration.
Frustration. A precursor to pessimism perhaps. Frustration leads to disenchantment. Disenchantment to disengagement. And disengagement to disillusion.
Quite the opposite of optimism. And we haven't even touched on the subject of policies. Just the structures in themselves are enough to weigh us down.
The externalities of politics are borne generally by the members - and even the voters. Perhaps that's why politics has acquired such a bad name. We depend on our supporters to run our political parties, to provide - at very little immediate cost to ourselves - an ever-increasing series of services that in any sensible society we would be obliged to pay for. Stuffing envelopes, voter ID, phone canvassing, web design and maintenance.
Just like the large corporations. Crowdsourcing is, after all, the flavour of the month.
Maybe we Anglo-Saxons should now recognise the damage our tendency to ignore the cost of externalities has had on our societies. Not only the economic externalities - the fact that large corporations and other organisations only function at all because homeworkers are prepared, for a very small remuneration, to do all the washing, ironing and feeding that keep a workforce clean, smart and alive - but also the emotional externalities. The cost of running a society on the pessimism of the marketplace, that fear which forces you to take a job you hate and run with it, can only be understood now - whilst we are in the throes of a crisis beyond a lay person's understanding. As Jamie says in his post today:
[...] I found it hard to believe how much human psychological fraility comes into play in the global economic market - I had believed the free market rhetoric about the 'invisible hand' and the dog-eat-dog nature of economics, accepting that markets were run according to strict principles of profit and loss, supply and demand with no space for human considerations (hence the problems with exploitation etc).If we were properly prepared to recognise the importance of emotions in politics too, the importance of enthusing populations and generating that optimism Liddell mentions, then perhaps we would look at our own internal structures of politicking in a completely different way. The democratic socialist marketplace should be an optimistic and opportunity-filled place to be, not a reactive and reactionary discarding of supposedly politically incorrect practice. Whilst outsourcing our services so we take advantage of the good-natured is not what we should be looking to do.
But this is wrong. Economics is rooted in human confidence and fear, panic and herd mentality. I'm not quite sure whether this reassures me or terrifies me.
Ours should not be the pessimism of capitalist practice but the optimism of the democratic socialist marketplace. Ours should be a marketplace of emotional intelligence, where remuneration, reward and recognition are fair, appropriate and dignified, in both a political and economic sense.
An opportunism of - and for - the good, in fact.
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