Category Archives: Long Reads

The UK's working classes have lost out

Tighter money as class conflict: why the UK’s working classes lost out

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In previous posts I argued that: (1) the UK’s working classes have lost out as a result of our rulers’ responses to covid, the war in Ukraine, and inflation; and (2) this outcome wasn’t necessary.  The next step is to explain why elites responded in the way that they did, why they chose policies detrimental to the working class.  In this essay, the focus will be on the decision to tighten monetary policy in the face of rising prices.  Subsequent posts will examine the choices of proxy war with Russia and lockdowns.

Explanations of the policy response to inflation have come in three types: those emphasising a monetarist bias; those concentrating on central bank credibility; and those focusing on distributional conflict.  The first two can be readily dismissed, as we’ll see, but the third puts us on the right track: the response to inflation has been detrimental to the working class because policymakers have prioritised the interests of productive capital; this reflects not only a structural advantage enjoyed by capital but also the weakness of Britain’s labour movement.

As I’ve detailed elsewhere, current price rises have been driven primarily by supply-side shocks (lockdowns, the war in Ukraine) and secondarily by corporate profiteering.  The policy response, however, has been to hike interest rates, giving the impression that our rulers are treating inflation as a problem of excess aggregate demand.  According to this approach, tighter money should remove demand from the economy and so bring prices down.  This may well happen.  But the point here is that, from the standpoint of the working class, a better approach would be for policymakers to promote supply-enhancing measures and to rein in price gouging.  So why haven’t they done these things?

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Why the UK should revive its constitutional tradition

Why the UK should revive its constitutional tradition

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The UK should revive its constitutional tradition, argues the philosopher John Gray.  We should scrap legislation such as the Human Rights Act (HRA), he says, and revert to an “ancien regime” where the only constraints on parliament were political.  Gray’s isn’t a solitary voice; the current Conservative government was elected largely to push back against constitutional changes of the last half century.  Yet for many, Gray’s call for the removal of substantive legal restraints on parliament is anathema, a recipe for diluting our basic rights and freedoms.  I think there’s much to be said for Britain’s constitutional tradition, not least its capacity to secure legitimacy for political decisions and its potential to help rehabilitate the left.

When it comes to constitutions, political scientists typically speak of two ideal types.  These are legislative supremacy constitutions and higher law constitutions.

Under a legislative supremacy constitution, a country’s parliament has supreme law-making authority.  This means that, in theory, legislators can pass any law they like, they “can do no legal wrong”, as the academic William Roberts Clark puts it.[1]  The only constraints they face are political in nature, whether there’s a majority for the law they wish to enact.  Another term for this type of authority is parliamentary sovereignty.

Legislative supremacy constitutions are based on two principles.  One is that only elections can legitimise law-making authority, and the other is that a country’s laws must represent the will of the people (as expressed through parliamentary majorities).  For these principles to stand, there can’t be any rules limiting what a parliament can pass.  If such rules were in place, then authoritative law would exist above elections and the public’s shifting preferences.  Hence, under this type of constitution, no body or institution can legally bind a parliament.

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The myth of pragmatism

The myth of pragmatism: how too much ideology broke British politics

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We’re often told that Brexit has transformed Britain from a pragmatic country to one where ideologues rule the roost.  At first glance, this narrative seems to have substance.  The governments of both Tony Blair and David Cameron prided themselves on being guided by “what works” rather than “ideological zeal”.  In contrast, the current prime minister, Boris Johnson, has spoken of delivering Brexit “come what may”.  Yet a closer look suggests this narrative is flawed.  Key policies of the Blair-Cameron era – the Iraq War, austerity, and changes to immigration – were based less on practical considerations and more on abstract ideals.  This excess of ideology helped drive a wedge between political elites and the British public, contributing to the populist revolt and paralysis we’ve seen in Britain over the last few years.

The Iraq War

Britain invaded Iraq in March 2003 as part of a US-led international coalition.  The government’s decision to go to war was shaped by geostrategic factors such as oil and maintaining a ‘special relationship’ with America, but prime minister Blair’s Manichean worldview also played a role.

Blair expressed this Manichean worldview in his 1999 ‘Chicago Speech’.  In it, the prime minister paraphrased Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ thesis, arguing that communism’s defeat in the Cold War showed that the “massive ideological battleground” of the past was “over” and that spreading liberal democracy was in humanity’s best interest.  Blair further commented that, in the post-Cold War environment, this universal ideal was being blocked by “dangerous and ruthless men”, by the likes of “Saddam Hussein”, the Iraqi leader.  In Blair’s logic, then, if these ‘bad guys’ were removed, good would inevitably follow.

A meeting Blair held with a group of Middle East experts in November 2002 shows that this logic informed Britain’s invasion of Iraq.  These academics had come to Downing Street to discuss the consequences of removing Saddam from power.  They issued a stark warning: Iraqi society was fraught with national and religious divisions and toppling Saddam risked precipitating violence.  The essence of Blair’s response was that “Saddam is evil”, indicating that in his mind, eliminating the Iraqi leader could only have beneficial results.

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How culture replaced economics as the main political faultline

How culture replaced economics as the main political faultline

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Until recently, elections were widely seen as being won or lost on economic grounds.  Yet events such as the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election as US president have challenged this conventional outlook.  These results had more to do with conservative cultural values than with material interests.  Likewise, the backlash against Brexit and Trump has been mainly focused on defending liberal cultural values, not the state of the economy.  How did culture become more politically salient than economics?

Some say elite interests have prompted this shift.  In this view, the right has politicised culture to manoeuvre poorer citizens into backing policies that favour the rich, such as tax cuts and market deregulation.  This argument has some substance.  Trump’s election and Leave’s success both depended on blue collar voters, and in each instance culture was used as a tool of mobilisation and concealment.

In the US, this sort of politicking has been going on for some time.  The Republican party started provoking the cultural sensitivities of working class Americans following its victory in the 1994 midterms.  During this period, high-profile Republicans like Patrick Buchanan began preaching about the “war for the soul of America” and the left’s threat to “the values of faith, family, and country”.  But while the party talked up the kulturkampf, its policies continued to benefit economic elites.

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