By Beatrice Windsor
That sound you heard on 4 April. Was that the noise of jaws dropping to the floor around the world? The Financial Times has announced the end of neo-liberalism. Its editorial thundered:
“If there is a silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has injected a sense of togetherness into polarised societies. But the virus, and the economic lockdowns needed to combat it, also shine a glaring light on existing inequalities — and even create new ones. Beyond defeating the disease, the great test all countries will soon face is whether current feelings of common purpose will shape society after the crisis. As western leaders learnt in the Great Depression, and after the second world war, to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone.”
Redistribution will be on the agenda
It continued: “Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix.”
The strategists of capitalism fully understand that this crisis is exposing the fragility of the neo-liberal economic model, shining a light on every wretched aspect of it. If they do not move fast, they know they will be called to account by the masses. This is nothing new. They made the same rallying call during World War II. As the Nazi bombs began to rain down, on 1 July 1940, the Times – then the ‘unofficial’ voice of the British state – declared in an editorial:
“If we speak of democracy, we do not mean a democracy which maintains the right to vote but forgets the right to work and the right to live. If we speak of freedom, we do not mean a rugged individualism which excludes social organisation and economic planning. If we speak of equality, we do not mean a political equality nullified by social and economic privilege. If we speak of economic reconstruction, we think less of maximum production (though this too will be required) than of equitable distribution…The new order cannot be based on the preservation of privilege, whether the privilege be that of a country, of a class, or of an individual.”
Railing against Corbyn’s “foolishness”
They said all that, for the same reason the Financial Times says the same today. It is not without irony that for the past few years they have railed against the ‘foolishness’ of Corbynism, yet they now call for the implementation of Corbyn’s social reforms. It means the new Labour leadership could be pushing against an open door if they can win the next election.
This in turn could sow illusions amongst Labour’s ranks that the road to reform has been found, so what need of socialism? We will need to remind them that the brave words of the Times lasted two decades at most, before they engineered the return of 40 years of deconstructing that ‘reformed’ model, in the downward spiral to austerity. A brief respite will of course be a relief – but what we want is a permanent equitable distribution of wealth. Not just crumbs to buy us off for a while.
April 9, 2020
