With the economic and political clouds darkening for Labour, the debate about how to restore the party's electoral fortunes is well under way. Many urge the government to return to its ideological "roots"—though not everyone agrees on what these roots are. Perhaps loudest are those who urge Labour to return to a leftist agenda. John Harris, writing in the Guardian, insists that we must forgo New Labour "rot," join Compass and support Jon Cruddas for prime minister. Similarly, Neal Lawson urges Labour to return to "collectivist solutions only the state can offer."
Others counsel a return to Labour's ideological traditions from a different direction. Philip Collins and Richard Reeves have recently argued in Prospect that Labour needs to excavate its liberal tradition and turn away from the "poisoned well" of Labour's Fabian wing. But is a return to ideology the right route to take?
There are three reasons to be cautious about the rush to an ideological tradition. The first is political. Those arguing for a leftward shift are in danger of forgetting Labour's pre-1997 history. Ideological self-indulgence kept the party out of government for almost two decades. Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair recognised that the social and economic landscape which underpinned postwar socialism had gone forever and that the Labour party needed to unshackle itself from outdated, ideologically charged policies. Labour built a coalition of middle and working-class voters, recognising both the diversity of voting interests among these groups and the fact that aspiration was critical to electoral appeal. The result: over a decade in power. To regain its supremacy, Labour must once again build a platform that embraces the aspirations of a diversity of voting interests. And this diversity is unlikely to sit well with the purity demanded of ideological programmes.
The second reason is practical. Traditional ideologies often provide no answers to contemporary problems such as globalisation, migration and environmental threats. Take ID cards. Imagine that we were able to build and enact a system that resolved the various practical problems relating to database and identity security. We could expect tighter controls over people working with children and the vulnerable, massive improvements in border control and substantial reductions in identity theft, fraud and benefit abuse. Liberals baulk at all of this on the grounds that we should all be free to go about our business unhindered by the "big brother" state. But would the presence of the cards threaten our freedom more than the presence of the problems they would solve?
The same problem applies to CCTV. Liberals dislike the idea of being snooped upon by the authorities. But CCTV can enhance public safety and confidence: surely many were reassured by the fact that those who tried to carry out the 21/7 bombings were caught by CCTV. Again, liberalism is not particularly helpful in deciding whether our liberty and security are protected or threatened by the proliferation of cameras in public.
Similar problems arise with the tenets of democratic socialism. Ideologues like John Harris argue for collective action to redistribute wealth, ignoring the global economic context and the need to keep taxation policy competitive. The modern implications of ramping up tax for the richest are very different to the implications in the 1940s. Or consider mass migration. On one hand, leftist ideology urges us to accommodate as many migrants as possible who are searching for a better life in Britain. On the other hand, migration has a mixed impact on communities by placing pressure on public services and, in some cases, depressing the wages of some of the poorest workers in Britain. So which side do we take? Socialist principles are powerless to help us.
The third reason to oppose a return to ideology is philosophical. Ideology is doctrinal; it tends to employ reasoning of the "we believe in tenet A, and policy B follows from A, therefore policy B must be right" sort. But this is not how most of us understand politics. Legislating for seatbelts to be worn in cars may contravene JS Mill's principle that we should restrict liberty only to prevent harm to others—but most of us are swung in favour on the basis of the overwhelming evidence that they prevent harm to oneself.
This line of thinking has an intellectual tradition of its own, albeit largely American, characterised in the work of John Dewey, CS Peirce, William James and, more recently, Hilary Putnam. These thinkers advocated a resolute empiricism and a rejection of all-encompassing theoretical systems from which all else flows. In the words of William James, the pragmatist "turns away from… fixed principles, closed systems and pretended absolutes and origins... Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from facts." These philosophers are best known for their contributions to theories of knowledge. But their thinking has application to politics as well. We might call it radical pragmatism.
The strength of this position is that it allows very different solutions depending on the context. To go back to ID cards, the case in their favour would be much weakened in a world with low levels of migration and secure identity protection. If CCTV is replaced with more community support officers that better achieve crime reduction and increased public reassurance, then the pragmatic follows the facts and adopts the new solution. What counts is what works.
A final—and crucial—point is that radical pragmatism is not devoid of values. We share progressive ends such as enabling every person to fulfil their potential regardless of where they start in life, encouraging greater social mobility and providing excellent public services regardless of the ability to pay. In this sense we hold many of the goals of left-leaning ideologies, though we maintain that even these ends must be kept under review to ensure we remain fresh and relevant. However, we are highly pragmatic about the means. For example, we are agnostic about who provides public services—although clear that creating a fair society entails tax-funded state procurement of those services—because if there is a more effective way of getting better results for everybody, then we should embrace it. There are far too many left-wing ideologues who continue to insist on public ownership of the means of production of key public services, regardless of their effectiveness. We saw this recently in the debate about involving the private sector in improving failing hospitals.
Labour's fortunes pay respect to but are not beholden to any single ideology. Radical pragmatism in an ever-changing context is what is required. As David Miliband recently wrote, "New Labour won three elections by offering real change, not just in policy but in the way we do politics. We must do so again." A return to old ideologies at best hems us in, and at worst condemns Labour to a return to the electoral wilderness.
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