Conference Events - 3 comments

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates, and especially for failing to publicise (in time) a couple of events you might have liked to go to, not least:

• The Labour bloggers' briefing on Sunday 23rd: a Conference intro and Q&A session with Tom Watson MP.
• The combined Henry Jackson Society & Euston Manifesto event, which was at midday today, on the subject of "Winning the Battle of Ideas Against Islamism and Terror" (Facebook event page here).

Luckily there's a lot more to come. For example, "Is there room for Labour in Northern Ireland?" (Facebook event here) is the topic for discussion on Tuesday 25th, between 7 and 9 pm at the Moon on the Square Pub, The Square, Bournemouth. It's hosted by Slugger O'Toole, the well-known blogger, and has the B4L seal of approval...

Finally, on Thursday 27th at 8:45am there's another Labour bloggers' briefing - a Conference round up with Harriet Harman MP. Please meet at the Labour Party stand in the Purbeck Hall if you want to attend. For more information contact Paul Simpson.

Let me know if you have reports of any of the above meetings that you'd like reprinted.

Bernard Kouchner - 2 comments

I don't know whether it says more about UK media priorities or French foreign policy that I'd completely forgotten that former Socialist Minister (now expelled from the PS) and Médecins Sans Frontières co-founder, Bernard Kouchner, is Minister for Foreign and European Affairs in Nicholas Sarkozy's UMP administration.

This is especially poor, considering I've recently finished Paul Berman's Power And The Idealists, which covers the lives of left-wing '68-ers Joschka Fischer (the former German Foreign Minister) and Kouchner, amongst others, in some detail, together with the humanitarian/interventionist causes and battles they have been associated with ever since, amid the oscillations of the left in Europe and in the USA. Though Berman is one of those authors with an unimpeachable left/liberal reputation who is frequently derided as a "neocon", it's a great little book, from which I could easily have quoted big chunks of of the later pages.

As for Kouchner, it's encouraging that a left-winger with a humanitarian track-record has the power, and a skin thick enough, to remind people of the danger of an Iranian nuclear programme, and to start to build a consensus that the regime in Tehran must not be allowed - one way or another, whether the UN can be relied upon, or just Europe - to succeed in holding the Middle East, and its own population, hostage with nuclear weapons.

Update (18/09): minor tweaks.
Update (28/09): I notice Soumaya Ghannoushi has stepped in over at CiF. I think it's fair to say that I disagree with her political views more profoundly than I do any mainstream politician in the UK. This is, of course, no coincidence, given her track record as an arrogant and unprincipled apologist for dictators, for Islamism, and against liberal values:

All he [Sarkozy, Kouchner] stands to gain is the dubious honour of being known as Bush's new poodle, and having angry protesters against US foreign policy burn his effigy instead of Blair's.

Give me Sarkozy any day of the week.

Brown welcomes Thatcher - 5 comments

What a nauseating sight. I can't imagine any remotely plausible political strategy behind the event, so I suspect it means nothing: a photo-opportunity arranged by a starry-eyed flunky to make their politician look well-travelled and a 'heavyweight', or, as Thatcher's former private secretary claims, 'a nice gesture' (one pays one's peers). Either way, a sign that senior politicians are a class apart from rest of the population, whatever their country, whatever their politics. Embarrassing? Sure. A sign of future policy direction? Not necessarily.

The thought, however, that this might have been designed for a political purpose, or that Brown believes being a 'conviction politician' is at all worthy in itself, or is a characteristic around which politicians ought to come together, is too horrible to contemplate. So, all in all, I can't agree with Adrian here: the prize of crushing Cameron isn't worth sacrificing anyone's soul.

Trade unions: a way forward - 6 comments

Here's something I wrote 2 or 3 days ago but haven't been able to publish until now. I notice that Stumbling and Mumbling now has a post on the ability of trade unions to influence wage equality, together with some statistics and some interesting comments. Anyway, here's my post.

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Following on from Will Hutton's weekend article on UK trade union militancy, Skipper argues that unionism is in crisis:

It really needs a major figure to emerge to offer genuine leadership towards a new constructive role in our society. The alternative would appear to be further decline and retreat from relevance. Scargill believed he was such a figure- he put up a fight but was wrong. Is Bob Crow a more likely candidate? I really don't think so.

I'd agree: there doesn't seem to be any correlation between 'moderacy' and 'vision' among union leaders, no substantial difference in statist economic outlook, or in the degree to which the 'fat cat' argument can be used to justify any other unrelated policy, only a difference in the degree to which each is prepared to play ball with the Government (and play games with the general public).

This dependence upon Government - especially Labour governments, intermittent as they have been in the past - can hardly be a strategy to ensure the long-term survival of the trade union movement, weak as it is among the labour force, and all the more so in the private sector. Despite the prevalence of the argument, the capacity of trade unions to bring about a nation-wide redistribution of income is minute, still less in favour of the poorest, who are rarely union members; and the 'mixed economy' - with a balance of private and public sector enterprises - is no more, and is not going to return. The economic and political failures of the State, when acting alone, are so evident that supporters of an enlarged public sector must explain how the general public can be protected from labour organisations - shielded from competition - abusing their position, just as one scrutinises companies with great market power abusing their positions.

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While the most likely post-capitalist 'system' is one of liberal, or free-market, mutualism, this form of 'social-ism' is as far removed from the ideal of statist unionists and Labour supporters, as is the current form of free-ish market capitalism we have now. I'm sure this argument has been used before, but the statist tendency that Labour nurtured from the 1940s to the 1970s, and which continues to dominate the Labour left, has been disastrous for the quality, but especially the breadth, of left-wing debate in the UK.

For all the weakness of the left in the USA, the level of free-market, anti-capitalist debate seems much richer there, and change more plausible. Sadly, the most likely consequence of Crow-style militancy is a weakened Labour government, and - before too long - a Conservative government committed to wiping out any remaining safe-havens for trade unions within the public sector, and to allowing the general public to use legal action to eliminate the strike weapon once and for all. The extent to which trade union powers could yet be curtailed by a radical government ought to be of great concern.

This is not an excuse for Labour to make promises to the unions that it has no intention of keeping, nor an argument for impotence, just an argument for the trade union movement to shift strategy from entrenching power within the public sector, and raising their demands to the limits of political sale-ability, to re-committing to mutualism, offering a message of liberty - not higher wages, necessarily, nor even the sham job-security that cannot exist in a free economy - to workers of all 'classes', whether in the public or the private sector. Liberty that comes from providing workers with the skills they need to form voluntarily organisations ('companies', rather) on the basis of individual skills and talents, the desire to provide a good or a service to the consumer or other companies, and to do so in an economically efficient manner, without the need for social or external management hierarchies.

Unions could devote their organisational skills and considerable weight to kick-starting the mutualist sector, in new, or small, existing, firms. Existing employers can be shown the benefit of managing small, flat-structured companies, where the skilled and the empowered can use their skills for maximum efficiency. I can't think of any better strategy for increasing worker control within the private sector. Perhaps I'm making a mistake, though - see Paulie's comment at the Stumbling and Mumbling post. If the trade union movement is in fact a rival mutualist structure - an alternative to workers' control of their own company - then perhaps (a) unions are more likely to try to draw people within the union than help them organise and share power within their own company, and (b) those workers who are able to mutually run their company would not be in the defensive position - of having to protect pay and conditions - that pushes one to join a union.

So, if trade unions gain from state/capitalist exploitation, while rivalling mutualism, these are these two more reasons to support Chris' argument that 'In this sense, unions help underpin capitalism.' Would we mourn the passing of either?

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My fear is that too many with power in the trade union movement can only look back to the imagined Golden Age of the 1960s and 1970s, to the power their forefathers were once able to wield. Sooner or later, British Trade Unionism will have to stop complaining about its own irrelevance, throw off the remaining 'class-war' baggage, and find itself a role that allows 20 million or so potential recruits to take it seriously - or it will have to pick itself off the ground after another wave of privatisation. Perhaps only then can socialism be liberated from statism.

Cohen on violent crime - no comments

Useful article on urban violence, from Nick Cohen (yes, at CiF), that tackles what he calls the liberal myth that there has been no substantial long-term increase in violent crime:

[...] Richard Garside, the centre's director, was contemptuous of the notion that inner-city residents have been duped by the media or false memories of an imaginary golden age into barricading themselves into their homes. 'Commentators who live in prosperous areas don't understand that their fears aren't panic attacks but the result of objective experience,' he said.

I'm not sure how widespread the belief is, but Nick explains why it is a tempting one for those lucky enough to have been insulated from violence. I suspect the reason I wasn't prepared to make a big deal about it in the past was the fear that it would be used ('exploited', if you like) by the political right to justify tougher measures against offenders and, conservative social policies. I'm sure I wasn't alone. And yet a recognition of the impact and threat of violence doesn't presume any particular political response, only that those who are genuinely concerned with the victims treat the issue as the priority it is, and advocate radical policies that are likely - if not proven - to work.

Bin Laden speaks - no comments

Perhaps Osama's softening in his old age:

"It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interest of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations".

"I invite you to embrace [X]," the speaker says.

If you substitute X, you've got a pretty standard argument used by dictators and their acolytes throughout the past century, and which can be seen all too regularly from the kind of people who hang out at Comment Is Free (thanks to PooterGeek for this observation). A belief that freedom is a sham, used to perpetuate or disguise the power of shadowy forces, is the perfect start on one's journey to authoritarianism.