I'd like to come back to Adrian's email -- with which I heartily agree
-- in order to discuss the Observer articles and Charlie Leadbeater's
(edited) contribution, which was apparently much favoured by the PM.
My own view, and I know I'm not alone in this, is that Blair's response
to the 'problem' of contemporary political economy is essentially
managerialist in the sense decribed by Alisdair MacIntyre in _After
Virtue_. The ethos of managerialism is not that one does what is morally
right or wrong, but that one does what is effective or efficient. As a
means, of course, one cannot have any objections in general to the idea
that politicians should be effective -- but this is a means, not an end.
Until the government, and this must especially mean the PM, knows what
the desired ends are, then there will, indeed, be ideological drifting.
Blair and Mowlam have been great in Ulster because the desired ends are
clear. But the purpose of government, surely, cannot simply be to manage
well without a full and rich end in view. Wanting to help people to
succeed and to have and meet their aspirations is such a vague idea.
Adrian is right to say it needs to be thought about in terms of a
context and of desirable ends.
I think that Blair, in manager mode, thus likes 'can do' attitudes and
buzz-wordy ideas that catch people's imagination because,
presumably, he thinks that new words and ideas help to make new
things. But _what for_? What is Blair's idea of the Good Life?
>From memory, the first part of Leadbeater's piece talked about
encouraging can-do-ish things -- enabling individuals to aspire as
Adrian said -- but the second half said (I approximate) 'But we have to
remember that our most important resource is people. The British economy
is dematerialising before our eyes; 80% of the economy consists of
services etc. We must value our human and social capital'. Now, this
precisely indicates the contradiction that has bugged some people about
the Third Way thing. These buzzy words sound good but, as those of us
interested in quality of life issues know, really to take human and
social capital seriously would mean shifting quite radically our notions
of what counts as 'profit'. There is some circumstantial evidence that
the private sector is shifting in this way, and there is some use being
made, by big business, of both social and relational audit; but if there
is a Third Way it must, surely, lie in quite profound changes in the
ways in which we think about things -- this includes capitalists. A buzz
phrase I would like to chuck to Tony is this: economic holism.
Lastly, in a recent interview with Roy Hattersley (if I recollect
aright), Blair reiterated new Labour's commitment to democracy.
Democracy means accountability, and that means all of us -- capitalists
included.
Best wishes to you all,
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Dr Wendy Wheeler
University of North London
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