The Labour party has long attempted to remodel society under the banner of equality. In that sense, the party’s current leadership is no different from earlier incarnations. Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, offered a bold manifesto at last year’s election, one which made it clear that they are agreed, in ambition if nothing else, with their nemesis Margaret Thatcher that “economics are the method; the object is to change the soul”. Since then Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell have sketched out, admittedly in dry policy documents, a number of instruments of their revolution. But they have shied away from making a coherent public case for notions of progressive values, radical democracy and collective action. That is a mistake, not least because a programme that seeks to transform Britain must conquer minds as well as spirits.
It has been left to others to make the argument. Last week in Renewal, an academic journal, two leftwing thinkers – Martin O’Neill and Joe Guinan – outlined the size and scope of Corbynomics. They credit Karl Polanyi, an Austrian economic sociologist, for inspiring Mr Corbyn’s policies. Polanyi warned that capitalist systems quickly become dominated by markets, where values are framed by cash. The result is the “annihilation (of) the natural substance of society”. He argued, perceptively, instead that cooperation was more important to humans than competition. If reciprocity was considered, then the notion of what was valuable could be broadened to better represent society’s health.
Corbynomics has been framed in such moral terms – and that is a very good thing. At its heart of Labour’s shake-up is a plan to give workers more bargaining power and influence over economic decisions by supporting co-ops and employee-owned firms. It also seeks to constrain Big Finance by creating a national investment bank and a network of regional public banks. And by putting major utilities, railways and the postal service back into public hands it will remove large sections of society from their current market disciplines. This decentralising of economic power is long overdue. As our Alternatives column reveals, Corbynomics is happening in small-scale ways across Britain, but it needs political patrons.
When capitalism fails, it can jeopardise the very functioning of democracy. Today wage stagnation, shredded public services and job insecurity form the backdrop to the brash populism of Brexit. What is missing from Labour’s plans are creative fiscal and monetary ideas. Labour’s manifesto pledged only to undo the austerity imposed since 2010 and has fiscal rules defined in terms of restrictive financial ratios. A progressive agenda requires government spending to take up the slack when private spending falls without constraint. All companies – co-operatives or not – need spending to maintain income and to generate wealth, irrespective of how that wealth is redistributed.
Mr Corbyn’s reticence may be because he does not want to give his political opponents a target. Yet he risks being outflanked. Today’s Tories seem to be ditching their austerity rhetoric, conscious that it is a vote-loser. Being floated is a five-year inflation-busting spending boost for the NHS to make good on Brexit promises without squeezing other departments or raising taxes. If this were to happen, Tory MPs would embrace what was once economic anathema: deficit spending and rising government debt. Mr Corbyn ought to be like a general on a war footing during peacetime. If he loses his edge, then an electorally ambitious, unprincipled government may make him pay for his timidity.
