In my first contribution a couple of days ago I tried to argue that in the context of Blairite politics the concept of a `Third Way' was an exercise in `phrase-making', an attempt to find a new label for the political philosophy / ideology towards which New Labour is groping; one which explicitly detached it from the alleged ideas of Old Labour. I suggested that it was a project of the centre-left which, if coherent at all, would turn out to be a form of social democracy in that term's widest sense, rather than a `middle way' between left and right or an abandonment of social democracy. I argued that though the idea of a Third Way suggested a trichotomous comparison with the first two ways (Old Left/Labour and New Right) this didn't actually get us very far. Rrather, we needed to map out a coherent set of principles and ideas consonant with the changing nature of society and political economy, whether or not they offered specific contrasts with the first two ways.
Andrew Gamble and Gavin Kelly argue that the Third Way could be either a `revised' version of social democracy or, as they put it, `a new and heterodox alignment of ideas (which some are bundling under the rubric of the radical centre) which recognise that there has been a sharp break in political continuity which render many former certainties obsolete.' But whether these are really different things depends on how one defines social democracy and how far the social democracy they refer to is revised. My view is (a) that the classic form of social democracy needs considerable revision to be a `clear alternative to the neo-liberal project', precisely because the circumstances of society and political economy have changed significantly; and (b) that the `new and heterodox bundle of ideas' they describe as a response to such change will be basically social democratic in form, since they will involve ways of regulating and ameliorating capitalism for social ends - one of the most important ends, as Andrew and Gavin acknowledge, being to create a more equal society. If this is the case, then the distinction they draw between what they claim to be two alternative versions of the Third Way fails: the Third Way is a significantly revised social democracy in response to radically changed circumstances.
This may look like just semantics. Whether one wants to define a position as within or outside the family of social democracy does not affect the substance of the ideas. But as David Marquand's contributions demonstrate, the labelling is important. If one contends that the Third Way supersedes social democracy, as Andrew and Gavin appear to do, one sets oneself against not just the historical legacy, as David notes, but the continental experience, in which (as Frank Vandenbrouke helpfully points out) social democracy has had different and developing interpretations for some time. I would add that one also leaves the Third Way open to the kind of unprincipled and ultimately philosophically incoherent Middle Way-ism which it appears to me characterises Clintonism. (It's been interesting to note how journalists have been using the term `middle way' this week to describe Blair's interest in the Third Way.)
As Andrew and Gavin argue, any coherent Third Way, however new and heterodox, requires `firm and unshakeable convictions about its core values and principles'. If these are to do with equality and social solidarity in some form (call it community, social cohesion, social inclusion, whatever) then it's a project of the (centre-) left. If it involves the state (in whatever form) in pursuing these ends, within a basically capitalist economic system, then it's social democracy. The interesting questions start at this point. They seem to me to be the following:
(1) What are the changed or changing social and political-economic circumstances that require the classic form of social democracy to be revised (or a new and heterodox alignment of ideas to be created)?
(2) What are the political-philosophical ideas and principles which will underpin the new ideology?
(3) What are the policy implications which will follow from these ideas and principles?
I think we can identify five key trends in modern society which force a revision of classic social democracy, and the understanding of which needs to underpin any coherent Third Way ideology. These are:
(a) Individualisation - the increasing sense of and desire for personal autonomy which increasingly characterises subjective experience today; the decline of traditional collective allegiances, including class, place and established religion; and the massively expanded importance of consumption, with its apparent (and in some ways real) impression of personal choice and self-determination.
(b) Inequality and social fragmentation - the increasing divergence of material conditions and life-experience between those with employment and reasonable incomes and those without; the sense of social exclusion felt by those without; the breakdown in social order and rise in crime which accompanies this inequality; the loss of sense of social cohesion which follows both individualisation and rising inequality; the declining provision or protection of social (shared or public) goods, including safe public spaces and good environments.
(c) Lack of trust in government - the increasing alienation from government institutions and politics felt by the public, leading to declining legitimacy for the state and public sector.
(d) Internationalisation of the economy - the increasing pressures of competition faced by domestic capital; the rising integration of global finance and trade, with consequences for global economic stability; the increase in size and influence of transnational corporations; the consequent decline in the capacity of separate nation states to engage in national economic regulation in certain spheres.
(e) Environmental degradation - the rising pressures on global resources and biospheric functions; the declining quality of life, particularly in relation to air quality, transport congestion and loss of countryside; the moral disturbance of species loss, cruelty to animals and genetic manipulation.
(I don't include `globalisation' in this list because I don't think it's a helpful categorisation. I take a position somewhere between other contributors here. I do think that both in the economic sphere (trend (d) above) and in the information / cultural sphere there are significant changes going on which have to be acknowledged. Rising inequality ((b)) is an important consequence. But I don't think these imply either that action by nation states has therefore become impossible - just more difficult in certain areas; nor that national, regional and local cultural differentation is about to be swept away. Most of all I don't see these trends as a reason for the state to be passive or defeatist - on the contrary, as I argue below, they are reasons for redefining the scale of the state and making it smarter.)
The combination of these trends renders classic social democracy on the post-war model obsolete. (This in no way invalidates this model historically.) In some cases this is because the old methods are no longer appropriate given the changing nature of public expectations (such as a bureaucratic state providing uniform public services); in some others because the old methods didn't work very well (nationalisation); in others yet because the problems are new and need new approaches (environmental degradation). The trends are not deterministic; it may be possible to change them (some offer more likelihood than others). But they have to be understood, and in the short term at least some accommodations to them have to be made.
What response should a Third Way offer to these trends? I think there are two central ideas or principles which relate to old debates (though they represent a departure from them) and a challenge which is more or less new. I am going to argue this at a fairly abstract philosophical level, so there's nothing startlingly original here. But this is the level of ideological articulation or phrase-making which this debate is primarily, as I see it, about.
But first, what the Third Way is not. I don't think (pace Julian Le Grand) it's about the trade-off between state and market. This is not just because state and market are not always alternatives but are essentially complementary, as Andrew Gamble and Gavin Kelly argue, though this is true and a helpful insight. Even where they are alternatives as allocation mechanisms, the choice for the Third Way (what marks it out from the other two Ways) should be governed by the effectiveness of the method in achieving primary objectives, not any a priori or ideological conviction. (This is in fact what Julian argues in his second contribution). The primary objectives are the real issues, particularly in relation to equality (eg pensions, health care) and the confidence of the public in the provision of public goods (eg school inspection, prisons). For the Third Way. state v market is a secondary, derived concern.
Andrew and Gavin assert that we must get away from thinking in terms of `fundamental oppositions'. I'm not sure whether what I'm going to say counts as getting away from such oppositions or succumbing to them. It seems to me that the crucial question for the Third Way is how to reconcile the first two trends identified above. We live in a strongly individualised society which is falling apart. People want their individual autonomy and want diversity and choice in consumption, including public services (eg education); but they also want to live in a society which is safe and socially cohesive. Ultimately, if they do not get the latter, their personal quality of life declines. Yet individualisation is driving an economic system which is simultaenously creating the inequalities that lead to social breakdown.
It seems to me that the fundamental principle involved in any new social democratic or Third Way project is therefore to balance the autonomous demands of the individual with the need for social cohesion or `community'. This is of course a very Blairite idea - see the new Clause 4 - which helps in the present context; but its root is also one of the key ideas in both humanistic psychology and the post-utilitarian philosophy of economics, namely that the self has both an ego-oriented part and a socially-oriented part. (I hate to quote Amitai Etzioni in this company, but in The Moral Dimension he speaks helpfully of the `I-and-we' paradigm.) The crucial point is to recognise that the `need for community' is not an ideological abstraction; it is a need of individuals as social selves. We can then say that where the `First Way' (Old Left) over-stressed the commitment to collective identity, and the `Second Way' (New Right) to the selfish ego, the Third Way pays attention to both and attempts to keep them in some kind of balance.
The recognition of the importance of the (ego-oriented) individual here has two sources. One is sociological: acknowledgement of the trend to individualisation cited above. In today's society any viable political philosophy has to come to terms with this. The other is moral: an emphasis on personal responsibility. Where the Old Left model tended to downplay personal responsibility, for example in welfare, a characteristic of the Third Way is to stress the moral responsibiities of individuals, for example in seeking work or making provision if they can for their old age. (This also has an empirical source, a recognition of the problem of moral hazard and dependency in unconditional benefit systems.)
At the same time the commitment to community or social cohesion represents an attempt to counter the second trend, towards inequality and social fragmentation. The argument here is that inequality arises directly from an increasingly competitive international economy, which leaves beyond whole districts and groups of people, effectively surplus to the requirements of mobile capital. Severe inequality then leads to a sharp divergence of experience between different groups in society, with the effect the Blair Government has interestingly chosen to label `social exclusion'; in extremis, as in the US, leading to wholesale residential segregation as crime levels increase. This is meanwhile reinforced by the decline of old collective identities of class and neighbourhood. As people's allegiances become elective rather than ascribed, choosing their own friends and communities of interest, they feel separated from their neighbours and much less sense of belonging to society as a whole. The cumulative effect is palpable, as so many people felt during the years of Thatcherism - a perception that society no longer coheres, that the sense of `community' has been lost.
Accommodating to individualisation today is not difficult - in economic life it is a central driver of consumption and politically it is the enduring legacy of Thatcherism, for example in the almost universal belief that the public won't accept any rise in income tax. Coming to terms with individualisation and the political attitudes it has spawned was an important part of the the creation of New Labour. So this side of the balance hardly needs promoting. The key issue for the Tgird Way is on the other side. How can social cohesion be promoted?
There would appear to be four different elements to this. The first marks out the Third Way as different from the (caricature of the) Old Left. It is a concern to strengthen civil society. The work of Robert Putnam on social capital and related evidence on social trust are crucial here. The Third Way would seek to promote voluntary activities of all kinds, and to strengthen relationships between strangers in geographical communities (eg through festivals, street parties.) Second, social cohesion would be supported by a greater emphasis on social or shared goods - safe and pleasant public spaces, clean air, beautiful public buildings, public libraries, parks, museums. Such goods allow strangers to mingle and they contribute to a sense of belonging. Of course, public support for spending on shared goods is predicated on social cohesion; there is a bit of chicken and egg here.
Third, social cohesion can be promoted by emphasising collective experience: not just at local level but nationally. If it was anything the reaction to Princess Diana's death was surely a yearning for collective experience, a desire to participate in something bigger than oneself. In an individualised society collective experience has to be nurtured. This is particularly important given the trend to diversity in people's identities and leisure pursuits and the explosion of new information sources, with (for example) huge numbers of television channels and watch-on-demand services likely to reduce the national audiences for individual programmes (Coronation Street, Eastenders) which do much to create collective experience now. Protecting territorial television's rights to broadcast major national sporting events would be one policy response. The Millennium Dome and celebrations might be another.
The fourth route to social cohesion is reducing inequality. This is of course the difficult territory: how far does inequality breed social breakdown and how far therefore does inequality have to be reduced to achieve a reasonable level of cohesion? But the fact that this is an open question is not of itself a problem. There will naturally be different interpetations or versions of the Third Way as there are with all other political philosophies - indeed it is rather important that there should be such contestation. The divisions noted by Stewart White are acute: within the Third Way there will be conflicts between more communitarian and libertarian positions and between those favouring equality and those concerned to uphold personal responsibility. Moreover on equality there will be disagreements both on moral grounds - advocates of greater or lesser degrees and different kinds of equality for their own sakes - and on empirical ones (what is more required for social cohesion, or indeed economic efficiency). So much the better: if it is to become our ruling ideology the Third Way must absolutely not be allowed to rule out redistributive and egalitarian arguments. Debates over tax and spending are precisely about the correct balance between individual and community: between the private spending of the ego-oriented self and the public spending of the socially-oriented self.
These arguments lead directly, of course, into the economic sphere. The other `Third Way' debate currently going on - the search for an alternative economic model between the US and Rhenish / institutional systems - is precisely about the trade-off between an economy geared to entrepreneurial freedoms or social cohesion. The Blairite Third Way model appears to be seeking functional flexibility in labour markets with protection against the creation of inequalities - the minimum wage, union recognition and the Social Chapter. (The main thrust of economic policy, of course, namely macroeconomic stability coupled with supply side measures to improve education and (in theory) long-term investment, also marks the Third Way out from both Old Left and New Right, though it doesn't relate directly to the individual/community theme.)
A major problem with all this, however, is the state. This leads to the second big idea of principle of the Third Way, again where it diverges from the Old Left. The Third Way demands a reform in the model of the state, recognising that the traditional nation state is no longer a simple instrument of progress. Trends (c) and (d) mean that the state has lost both legitimacy and effectiveness.
The Third Way response - in the UK at least - is two and potentially three-fold. First, it seeks to increase the democratic legitimacy of the state through constitutional reform, including devolution to national and possibly regional assemblies and changes to local government such as elected mayors and local referenda on spending. Second, it seeks to devolve power upwards to supranational levels, notably the EU, to counter the problem of the internationalisation of the economy. Again there is contestation: a more radical version of the devolution upwards might include greater regulation of transnational corporations and of internationally mobile capital through not only the EU but the World Trade Organisation and a new Bretton Woods settlement.
Third, a progressive Third Way might engage in some radical redesign of the administration of the state itself. A public sector which provided more accessible and coordinated services to the citizen would gain much in public legitimacy.
The new challenge for the Third Way is the environment. Environmental degradation is not only a major issue (or set of issues) for any Third Way to tackle but an exemplar of the individual / community theme. Environmental problems are caused by the cumulative impacts of many separate individual behaviours - driving cars, consuming different kinds of resource-using and polluting goods. For each individual, the environmentally damaging action is rational: the damage caused by each individual is minuscule and the costs of not doing it high (consider driving). But collectively all these rational actions add up to a disastrous overall impact. So the state must intervene to control the collective impact through restrictions on individual behaviour - whether in the form of regulations governing (say) product standards and pollution limits, or taxes raising the prices of damaging activities - energy use, transport, waste. That is, the state must find a way of balancing the demands of individuals for individual consumption with their equal desire for public environmental goods such as clean air and a safe future. But only a democratically legitmate state will have the authority to do this I am conscious that there is another important trend in contemporary society which has to be important in all this, namely the explosion of information made possible by new technologies, and the new relationships these create between individuals and social groupings. But I am frankly not sure what the impacts on these Third Way argument are. I must no doubt go and read my Castells.
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