Alternatives to State-Socialism in Britain: Other Worlds of Labour in the Twentieth Century.
| Author | Reid, Alastair |
Our new volume Alternatives to State Socialism in Britain (edited along with Peter Ackers) charts associations, leaders and intellectuals who have sought to encourage participatory and decentralised forms of politics, rooted in local communities. This history provides a vital tradition for Labour to draw on, showing how localist perspectives might invigorate the party's emerging critique of contemporary capitalism.
In recent years, many on the left of Labour have called for the party to roll back what they see as New Labour's accommodation with the legacy of Thatcherism. In policy terms--not least in the party's highly successful 2017 manifesto--this has generally centred on reasserting the primacy of the state, to counter the sharper edges of an increasingly marketised society. However, the Corbyn-led Labour Party also aspires to be a social movement, emphasising decentralization, localism, grassroots campaigning and civil society.
'Blue Labour' thinkers, meanwhile, continue to advance an alternative viewpoint, arguing that the statism of not only Corbynism but also Blairism is representative of longer deficiencies in left thought. For example, in Maurice Glasman's account, the post-1945 settlement's emphasis on collective bargaining between the state and trade unions eroded older mutualist traditions of self-help. (1) Civil society, it is held, holds the key to re-engaging with communities forgotten by the rarefied, technocratic modern left.
Both of these accounts have their merits. The period from 1918 to 1979 was indeed broadly dominated by the new mass politics of industrial society, as working people successfully staked a claim for the state to protect the working classes from the vagaries of the market. This 'state socialism' set the agenda for much of the twentieth century, until Margaret Thatcher turned the tide towards the market in the period since the late-1970s. But our new volume Alternatives to State Socialism in Britain (edited along with Peter Ackers) analyses another important tradition of organising, from the late-nineteenth century right through to the present day. (2) It charts associations, leaders and intellectuals who have sought to encourage participatory and decentralised forms of politics, rooted in local communities. This alternative history provides a vital tradition for Labour to draw on, and in particular shows how localist perspectives might invigorate the party's emerging critique of contemporary capitalism.
Voluntary traditions, voluntary associations
Voluntarism and localism were crucial tenets of organised labour in the early to mid-twentieth century. Trade unions not only bargained with the state, but also worked collaboratively, amongst themselves and with employers--securing important advances in working conditions as a result. Leaders such as Walter Citrine, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress from 1926 to 1946, actively steered their unions away from the politics of direct action, and towards a more constructive engagement with local government and partnerships with progressive employers; people such as Edward Cadbury, the enlightened Quaker owner of the famous chocolate producer. (3) Citrine's emphasis on decentralised work by unions to deliver improvements in workers' pay and conditions, meant establishing a gap between the unions and the Labour Party, because the unions represented members of all political parties. It also meant a willingness to have...
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