Matt Browne. Where now for the third way? Progressive Outlook Matt Browne

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1 Matt Browne The philosophy behind the third way was the defining force in social democracy during the last decade of the twentieth century. The third way was the vehicle that allowed the Left to regain its confidence, to take on and defeat a resurgent Right. It provided technocratic, highly successful solutions to seemingly intractable problems of economic management and laid the ground for reform of the post Welfare State. Centre-left governments around the world, from Santiago to Stockholm proved that the Left can provide high levels of economic growth and a stable business environment with a traditional Left commitment to social justice. But this is no longer enough. As progressives struggling to get back on our feet in the 1990s, we deliberately side-lined questions of ideology, and were afraid to speak too loudly of our values for fear of alienating pragmatic voters. What we have learnt from the experience of the past years, is that citizens do not vote Where now for the third way? with their wallets alone. We have locked steady economic growth into the progressive economy. Now is the time to focus on the cornerstone of our great project: the construction of a social democratic society. A society in which equality of opportunity is not a mere rhetorical device, but the means of delivering equity to all. Our challenge today is to inspire faith in our political message. We cannot afford to be stand-offish or elitist. We need to convince citizens in the value of collective action; collective action with a purpose, but also of intrinsic value in itself. In short, we must strive to be more open and engaged with voters. Above all, we must not be afraid to show our values: social justice, equality of opportunity, solidarity, and an inherent belief in progress. A social democrat is an optimist. We must share our vision of a progressive future. This article examines what the third way was, and how it must change to meet the new challenges to solidarity and diversity, in a political landscape in which we can no longer rely on the deference of voters to political leaders. It discusses how we can be explicit about what our values are, and how we can use the weapons of the populists in the struggle against ignorance and bigotry. 86 progressive politics vol 3.3

2 The third way in context Many have often wrongly criticised and misconceived the third way as a distinctively Anglo-Saxon project, one that is linked to the New Democrats in the United States, or to the programme of New Labour in the United Kingdom. But, in my understanding, and as I refer to it in the remainder of this article, the notion stretches much more widely than that, to efforts of social democratic parties across the world to rethink their policies in the post Cold War era. In the same way that the third way is not a distinctively Anglo-Saxon project, one would also be mistaken to assume that the third way was a middle way, a halfway house between the old Left and the free-market fundamentalism of the 1980s. Rather what proponents of the third way movement sought was a novel and innovative approach to policy-making that transcended both of these earlier divisions in order to develop an adequate response to the new social and economic challenges of their day. Thus, contrary to a third common criticism levelled at it, the third way was from the very start a policy-driven initiative, not a public relations exercise. In the late 1980s, and at the turn of the 1990s, the centre-left across the world was forced to come to terms with the crisis of Keynesianism. Driven by globalization, which essentially rendered it impossible to demandmanage national economies, this crisis required the progressive left to fundamentally rethink the role of the State in the modern era. The crisis was compounded by the fact that the advent of globalization was accompanied by the apparent triumph of free-market fundamentalism (or neo liberalism) as a political and economic doctrine. The third way s response to this doctrine of free market fundamentalism which argued that society s problems could be solved by the withdrawal of the state and the extension of the market in to an ever increasing number of social spheres was to develop a new policy synthesis Citizens do not vote with their wallets alone. that stressed that active government and social justice were both complimentary and essential to economic development. To achieve this new synthesis, the state needed to be drastically reformed to make it more effective, more responsive and more transparent. Rather than protecting citizens, the role of the State was now to enable them; public services and welfare policies should be re-invented and re-oriented to help people to help themselves. This renewal of the role of public policy was accompanied by a parallel commitment to discard the tax and spend polices of the old Left, and the boom and bust approach of the neo-liberals. In their place came a commitment to fiscal discipline and the general improvement of the conditions for generating economic competitiveness. An emphasis was also placed on employment creation, with a job being considered both rewarding in itself allowing citizens to be productive but also as the best route out of poverty. These policies were embedded in a new social contract that sought to balance Marshall s traditional social democratic rights with a series of responsibilities and obligations that the individual citizen had towards their community. vol 3.3 progressive politics 87

3 People who claimed unemployment benefits, for example, should have the responsibility both to look for a job, and to take up employment. Beyond the crisis of Keynesianism, the third way also sought to break down taboo policy areas for the Left, in particular in its response to rising fears of crime and public disorder. In Britain, this was embodied in New Labour s promise, coined by Tony Blair while in opposition, to be both tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime. This policy shift, into what would have previously be considered the enemy s territory, reflected a view that social democrats should not leave particular policy areas to be freely occupied by the Right, a view that The third way is not a halfway house between the old Left and free market fundamentalism. some have confused with the adoption of rightist policies. Such a criticism is, however, mistaken. The third way never advocated that social democrats should adopt right-wing policies, but rather that they should offer balanced and persuasive left-of-centre approaches that were not simple reflections of the equally dogmatic positions of the old Left. New challenges Today, in contrast to the political and economic context of the early 1990s, the centre-left across Europe is struggling to define a political antidote to new kinds of populism that are fed and manipulated by a politically if not ideologically resurgent Right, with the issues of migration and the challenges of social integration a potent part of the mix. This is what the Dutch intellectual, René Cuperus has called the populist deficiency of European social democracy. For Cuperus, a new rightwing populism emerged in the mid to late 1990s in part because social democratic parties maintained an intellectual discourse which praised multiculturalism for enriching society while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the de facto segregation that was occurring in our societies: a segregation that many have argued has placed an new strain on the social solidarity on which our welfare systems are built. In contributing to the provocation of populist-xenophobia and racism, this failure seems to have provoked a new challenge for progressives: namely how to maintain solidarity in increasingly diverse societies? Yet, as Wouter Bos, leader of the Dutch Labour Party, argued at a recent Policy Network lecture, 1 the problem is far more complex than we might originally perceive, and we would be fooling ourselves if we reduced the issue of solidarity and diversity to a cultural identity problem. Of course, it may be more difficult to organise solidarity in the absence of a common culture, but it will be even more difficult in the absence of a common interest. If solidarity in the traditional welfare state was based on perceived common interest, the actual challenge that social democrats must face is the new forms of inequality that are emerging. Trickle down has manifestly failed to narrow the social divide, and the knowledge economy continues to 88 progressive politics vol 3.3

4 throw up new inequalities of opportunity just as the breakdown of the traditional family creates new social needs. The continual transition to a knowledge economy, and the We would be fooling ourselves if we reduced the issue of solidarity and diversity to a cultural identity problem. growing importance of IT innovation increases the importance of skill formation, life-long learning, and engendering the cognitive ability to learn to learn from an early age. However, given that the ante appears to be rising, that is to say that winners and losers seem to be growing ever further apart, one is forced to question whether people still feel that we all run the same risks in life, or that we all have the same interest. Mark Elchardus, for one, has argued that the most worrying trend for social democrats is that people increasingly do not view their risks as common. Given that it is those with lower education that systematically run higher risks of becoming unemployed or trapped in lower paid jobs, or of becoming ill or marginalised in other ways, some are arguing that it is becoming ever harder to convince those who benefit from higher levels of education to pay for collective arrangements that they no longer consider to benefit them directly. We run the risk of seeing a winnerstake-all society emerging. It is here that the definition of a new narrative of the common interest is of paramount importance. Indeed, one of the dilemmas of the twenty-first century that the original third way seems incapable of recognising and responding to is that as we live individually richer lives, collectively we seem less certain about our common future. Many of us have more choice over the products and services we purchase, the careers we follow, the relationships and life-style we choose, even when or if we have children. Individual liberation was one of the central tenets of original third way social democracy, and these principles need to be expanded on. We need to encourage growth in opportunity for all by extending the choice in products and services available in the private sector to the public sector as well. At the same time, we must go beyond this. This growing personal or individualised contentment stands in juxtaposition to a collective despair at what some have termed the degenerating state of the world. 2 The collective realm often appears remote, distant, and alien. Rising individualism seems to have been accompanied by a collective bewilderment. This often manifests itself as a politics of protest either through support for anti-globalization movements (or other single issue groups), or through populism on the extreme Right and, in some parts of Europe, the radical Left or disengagement. What these diverse movements have in common is their pessimism. They are pessimistic about whether the opportunities of a globalized world can vol 3.3 progressive politics 89

5 1 Wouter Bos, On Diversity and Solidarity: Policy Network Lecture, Amsterdam, May 20th Leadbeater C., A credible centre-left optimism, Progressive Politics, vol. 1.1, September Gould P., The Empty Stadium, Progressive Politics, vol. 2.3, September be more evenly distributed, pessimistic about our societies ability to retain national identities and cultures in an ever more interdependent and diverse world, and/or pessimistic as to whether a modern left that at times appears to its critics no more than the pragmatic manager of disorder can ever present a hopeful vision of the future. We must start with where voters are, not where we wish them to be. The empowerment/bewilderment dilemma can, despite its apparent complexity, be quite easily resolved if we distinguish between the individual as consumer and the individual as citizen. Increased prosperity and information empowers us as consumers. While we may feel liberated in our private lives, and or private actions and choices, the public or collective realm often appears remote, distant and alien. At the highest level its institutions, culture, procedures, language and rules are turning away the public they seek to serve. 3 Pessimistic visions of the future are being peddled successfully by populists across the world. Playing on voters fears, they have made huge gains in local, national and European elections in Poland, Germany, The Netherlands, the UK and the United States. Fortunately, the tools they have exploited so ruthlessly to gain electoral advantage can be turned against them. We can learn from populists. This does not mean that we are going perform a 180-degree turn and concoct a rhetoric of doom to win votes. We can, however, learn to use their techniques that appeal to voters with great success. First, we can use populist tools to get our own optimistic message across. We cannot and should not treat voters with contempt. We cannot smugly explain to someone who feels his or her job under threat that immigration is all about multiculturalism. We should recognise legitimate fears, and find means to allay them, rather than telling people that their concerns are irrational or bigoted. We must connect with voters and inspire them, by explaining problems in a down-to-earth manner. But our explanations and narratives must start with where they are, not where we wish them to be. Second, people should be given greater powers themselves to determine what happens in their area direct democracy in a limited sense can be highly beneficial at the local level. Above all, we must recognise that voters are responsible people who can be trusted to run their own affairs. If we show people that we trust them, they in turn can come to trust us. The age of deference is at an end, there is no reason why it should not be superseded by a social democratic age of mutual respect. Matt Browne is the director of Policy Network and editor of Progressive Politics. Before joining Policy Network he worked as a chargé de mission for Jacques Delors at Notre Europe. 90 progressive politics vol 3.3