Lefties 9: This will succeed through its success

[taffetacat]

Is everyone on Twitter now?

The Cruddas article is an excellent analysis of the impact of globalisation (or at least the UK's response to it) on working class communities - but I am not clear what he believes needs to be done about it.

Can anyone explain what " the ?new covenant between Labour and the people? would be for an ethic of reciprocity, an ethical economy that secures capital and employment in localities, and for liberty." means?

Yes, that is the fail-point, What Is To Be Done. I suppose that the globilisation double-whammy he refers to is the loss of largely manufacturing jobs to countries in the developing world plus the global market in jobs that brings challenged workforces from other countries into Britain in search of a living wage that global forces have made unavailable in their own countries.

I think he has spoken of that in the past as a global wage-control policy, with an international jobs market being valued by employers because it drives wages down. If employers are the beneficiaries, shouldn't they be obliged to pick up some of the costs in terms of taxation that would finance a public services tailored to a fluctuating migrant population (e.g. premiums for hospitals/schools in areas with high transitory pops)

What other scope is there for a national govt to intervene here? I think I have heard the Tories - not the Labour Party - recently talking about rebuilding manufacture in Britain. Is that plausible on any scale?

Eleison brings fresh offerings for the Leftie thread!

Is there a link to the actual article? I'm so dim, I hunted for ages on the NS website and couldn't find it.

The snippets I read didn't seem quite as specific as I'd like.

But I did find the main direction interesting. Globalisation is such a big issue, and if/how that interacts with immigration issues is similarly vast, I can see why there is an unwillingness to engage with it. It's not a debate that lends itself to simple transmission, and I wonder how well it sits with the politics with which we are familiar.

Jackstarbright - yes, that's what I'd like to know, too. I'm guessing they must mean something about tying down investment into areas?? But whether that means anything more than setting up civil/public service jobs in the North of England - but on a larger scale, is not clear.

I have no idea at all, and none about the current debate about globalisation.

Oh thanks eleison, just seen your post - I see I was totally off-track there.

Ack, no. I have no idea what Cruddas means by those pretty words. I am just pondering pessimistically on what might be possible, if anyhting

Eleison / animula - thank you for your replies. I also tried and failed to find the original NS article.

As I understand it - the problem with rebuilding manufacturing is modern factories have little need for an unskilled or even skilled workforce in any great numbers.

For the UK any job creation growth will be weighted towards the service industries. So, McJobs and cleaner type jobs for the low skilled.

How to ensure the working class share in the benefits of globalisation - Is that what he is getting at?

Anyway - I do agree it's an important debate to have.

On the same globalisation tangent - does anyone have any views on the conservatives and globalisation?

My (disconnected) thoughts are that New Labour was very committed to thinking about Britain in a global context, but that seems to be massively absent in the (New) Conservative rhetoric. Early days yet, and we only have rhetoric to go on, but there doesn't seem much of a slant towards the global in the new government.

And I find Cameron's rhetoric on "building manufacture" bizarre. That's going to require serious forward planning, and the sort of central control that goes contra- to the whole liberalisation ethos of the Conservatives, surely?

I notice that Gove is coming clean about the Big Society really being the Big Private Sector.

This was EXACTLY my experience of New Labour in North East regeneration projects -- lots and lots of noise about totally unrealistic visions of community provision of public services, which in fact were figleaves for the creeping presence of the private sector.

(Actually not strictly regeneration projects. Rather, post-regeneration projects: community groups for whom regeneration funding was drying up were forced to whore about for money under the guise of 'developing capacity' to participate in public sevice provision. without ever having a chance of competing effectively in any tenders. Completely cynical, on both sides.)

What do we mean by manufacturing? It conjures up images of dealing in production of consumer goods? Is this realistic given our unit cost of production. Isn't it more realtic and value adding to talk about expanding/leading innovation in the green sector? DOesn't this match very well Britain's skill set?
Some thoughts...

Also we have to come to terms with the fact that in the modern world secondary industries such as information technology and financial services are hugely valuable. Our position in financial services us a huge opportunity to lead the "moralisation" of global capital not withdraw from this sector. One of the global challenges is how do we keep capital clean i.e. avoid money laundering etc. Britain is well placed to combine its IT and financial services to come up with solutions to the challenges ahead.

...back to manufacturing; a (economist) friend of mine described Euroland as aging car manufacturers who will not be able to afford their pensions as manufacturing goes east....harsh but i think that she has a point.

That's an interesting analysis re. regeneration, Eleison. I had assumed much of it was about "micro-globalisation" (have no idea what the proper term should be !). ie. Moving public sector jobs away from the SE to where costs are lower, and thus "regenerating" those areas.

Though I had always hoped that there was some long-term strategy lurking in the wings, of the type TDiddy suggests - building on new, information-rich technologies and Green technologies, where there might be an advantage in being an "advanced-capitalist society".

I'm slightly alarmed that all that seems to have dropped off the horizon.

to profit-in-schools. I can't help but feel that was inevitable. I think I've abandoned education as a thing to worry about and have moved on to fretting about NHS. Did I dream it, or did PolicyExchange float a kite about two-tier Health Service a few years ago? Maybe that was just something I hallucinated in a particularly gloomy moment.

Or was it private insurance? This is the point at which I need Policywonk to fly in and arrange everything neatly!

I think that in the end Lanour were "backs to the wall" and weren't able to articulate and engage people in the vision of a new economy based on our strengths. If Cruddas and others are indulging in a pipe dream that we can rekindle the old manufacturing base in competition with China and India then they are dreaming. But I haven't read what he is saying. My sense is that the sort of vision of leveraging our innovation (IT, global capital structuring) into new areas is more likely to come from Ed Milliband. But let's see.

Random thought: when I saw that AL Gore and Tipper are divorcing, it some how made me think that we are at the end of Blair/Clinton centre left era. But then there is Obama. And then there is Con-Lib which actually looks crudely similar to a centrist configuration? Is it in fact the right that is struggling to revive itself. Even Sarko in France seems unable to carry out his reformist agenda?

TDiddy I think we are broadly in an era of centralist politics (have been in the UK since 1997).

I see Obama as being more interested in 'what works' than any particular ideology. His welfare and health reforms were 'left wing' by US standards - but his education reforms are, imo, pretty right wing by any standards (which means he gets Republican support to push them through).

Where that leaves those left and right of the (pretty broad) central ground - I don't know.

yes, the managerial era. Obama is left wing by US standards but
1)understands the need to be compromise
2)Is at heart conscious that he is an easy target to be caricatured as a black, leftie Jimmy Carter type