The New Serfdom

by Angela Eagle

  So, 226 years later and in the 100th anniversary year of women first gaining the vote in the UK, an examination of the progress that women have made shows that we still have a long way to go to achieve equality. It shows that we have to complete the Enlightenment by finally including women in our concept of universal rights and fully in economic, political and social life.

  We now have a vital opportunity to press ahead with the full equality and liberation of women. Achieving this is necessary if we are to reap the benefits of a properly equal society where the potential of all is nurtured and realised. Disfiguring bigotry and discrimination, with all the waste of social and economic potential it implies for our society, must become a thing of the past. In the twenty-first century, it is also important that we are inclusive of other diversities who similarly find themselves the subject of unacceptable levels of disadvantage and discrimination. Black and ethnic minority communities have long suffered endemic and illegal disadvantage in the UK simply because of the colour of their skin. LGBT people likewise are only just beginning to emerge from centuries of legalised prejudice, oppression and violence. While the UK is a society that recognises many faiths and none, still there is evidence of rising levels of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, which demonstrate a hatred and intolerance of religious belief and ethnicity that must be challenged and defeated. And we have yet fully to integrate those with disabilities into our political and economic life as a nation. Currently, they are shamefully excluded. We need a new world outlook which continues to be based on reason and respect for facts, but which also accepts difference and pluralism and strives for inclusion.

  Just as the beginning of the Enlightenment turned accepted ideas of religion, philosophy and ethics on their head, so in our time there are areas where we need a profoundly new approach. As well as renewing and completing our commitment to achieving genuine equality, two other areas stand out that are relevant to our politics today. In response to the destructive global crisis in our financial system, we need to develop a new, more holistic approach to economics itself. This would integrate the environmental and social effects of human activity rather than ignoring them. Using the price mechanism to exclude these considerations has been disastrous for the fragile ecosystems on our planet and for the prospects of achieving a balanced and sustainable inclusive growth in many communities across the world. We need to change this by harnessing the undoubted power of markets but integrating them with other equally vital human considerations rather than merely assuming that the greed of ‘self-interested individualism’ is the only acceptable market-based motivation. Finally, as we are on the cusp of profound and accelerating technological change, we must have in place systems that ensure the benefits of this digital age go to society as a whole rather than creating a digital capitalism as exploitative and rapacious as were some of the older industrial models. This will not happen without a firm and insistent challenge to the existing status quo and it requires confronting powerful vested interests. To be successful, however, any new, more holistic approach in these areas depends on us expanding our traditional ideas of what human knowledge is and what its purpose should be.

  ENDING THE NARROW UTILITARIAN APPROACH TO ETHICS AND POLITICS

  In his 2007 book Why We Hate Politics, the political scientist Professor Colin Hay rightly identified the ‘marketisation’ of politics as one of the reasons why many voters feel so alienated and disengaged. He cites the large-scale contracting out of public services and the loss of democratically accountable policymaking by outsourcing it to ‘independent’ regulators as a cause of this alienation. As the technocrats take over decision-making, politicians – and therefore voters – have less control over what is ‘supplied’ through the political process than ever and that is regardless of the result of any democratic election. If the politics is taken out of politics, perhaps we should not be surprised when voters turn away. The often-unspoken tenets of market fundamentalism are followed by regulators and experts alike, and voting has not changed the context in which they work or the technocratic decisions they make. Retail politics has pervaded all aspects of our lives, including our method of doing politics itself. Retail politics commodifies even political choice and reduces it to a sterile brand war in which, by analogy, the voters (customers) exercise a passive choice of which brand to buy. In fact, politics is not a spectator sport, nor a retail rivalry. It works best when voters join in and make our democracy more vital and stronger. The retail view of politics and the outsourcing of services, however, has promoted the belief that public and community services are to be provided like any other commodity by the market, outside of real political accountability. Understandably, then, voters formed the view that there was little point in engaging because nothing was really at stake. Retail politics does not look on the voter as a whole person or allow us to consider the kind of society we are trying to achieve by exercising our political choices. Getting these considerations of how society may really be changed off the table at elections was one of the unsung triumphs of the market fundamentalists. This needs to be challenged in politics and in economics. After years of market fundamentalist hegemony, there are finally some indications that this change has at last begun.

  In politics, it is only recently that this depressingly narrow range of options has been overthrown. Finally, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the long period of austerity that has followed it, people are looking for something different. This presents us with unique opportunities and also unique dangers. The Brexit vote, the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the electoral success of Le Pen’s Front National in France and the election of President Donald Trump show that this is not necessarily a progressive moment, but the changes in the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the leadership build on a hope among the newly engaged that it might be put to progressive purpose. Our models of retail politics have provided a very narrow range of choice for voters who are looking for something more. Until very recently, this choice had not been questioned. Now it is up to us to shape that change in a democratic socialist direction. It is time to take back control.

  INCORPORATING COMPASSION AND HOPE IN OUR POLITICS

  Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said that ‘the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing’, by which he meant that campaigning with hope and determination for real change was a central part of the motivation of those who join our party. It was certainly this yearning that Jeremy Corbyn tapped into so effectively in his leadership elections and in the general election which followed in 2017. As we leave the era of New Labour’s technocratic managerialism behind, it is important that we rediscover this campaigning tradition and place it in a productive, modern setting. It is also important that politics itself expands to give this tradition the room it needs to flourish, and we can only achieve that by ending the artificial narrowness of our political discourse and the choices that have been on offer to the electorate.

  The nature and political significance of compassion has become a focus in current philosophical debate. The influential philosopher Martha Nussbaum70 suggests that ideals of love and compassion are essential parts of our ethical and political thinking, and that compassion is itself the basic social emotion necessary for the expression of solidarity and the development of social justice.71 Without this emotion, democratic socialists would have little to say about the world. It is important to note that compassion is the exact opposite of the ‘self-regarding materialism’ (greed) which animates so much of the creed of market fundamentalism. Nussbaum also strongly articulates the case for feminism as a part of a liberal Enlightenment tradition of what she calls personhood, autonomy, rights, dignity and respect. She argues that the Enlightenment tradition initially excluded the female viewpoint but that it will be transformed for the better by taking on the insights of feminism. She also observes that the radical feminist potential of the Enlightenment tradition is only now beginning to be realised, for example by the re
cognition of women’s rights as central human rights in international law and the empowerment of women in developing countries. She sees the ideals of the Enlightenment as providing us with the justification to strive for a justice and liberty which challenges the power of established hierarchies. She believes this is a vision which can and should lead to social revolution. By its nature, she understands that women’s voices and leadership, which has so far been largely absent, can change the world.

  The rationalist philosopher Thomas Nagel, like Nussbaum, believes that practical reasoning and compassion are linked and that to achieve progressive political change we need a universalist ethic. The collective improvement of society and respect for others is not inevitable, but the human capacity for objectivity allows for the possibility of moral progress.72 Imagining the future, he observes: ‘I do not think it is utopian to look forward to the gradual development of a greater universality of moral respect, an internalisation of moral objectivity analogous to the gradual internalisation of scientific progress that seems to be a feature of modern culture.’73

  Nagel suggests that to act ethically we have to transcend our own particular subjective viewpoint to reach a new objective one.74 Our own interests are therefore just one set of interests among others and this, not a narrow self-interest, is the ethical basis for political action. Egalitarian politics is understanding that we have shared social interests – more in common with each other – than a purely selfish view of the world would imply. Acknowledging our different interests allows us objectively to act for the common good and democracy gives us the framework within which to do so. Our capacity to be objective makes us ‘citizens of nowhere’ because we understand and empathise with others who may not share our own subjective concerns. In direct contradiction to the current Prime Minister’s claims that there are only citizens of somewhere, the truth is that it is only by empathy, objective reasoning and action that we can help to solve the complex problems facing our world. This is so clear when it comes to issues as diverse as climate change, worker exploitation in developing countries and ensuring hyper-mobile multinational corporations pay fair taxes in the jurisdictions in which they operate. Internationalism is an essential Labour value and the means by which we can tackle these problems. Britain has been a leader in the world in soft power. We played a role in founding and engaging with such organisations as the Commonwealth, the United Nations and the European Union. Our public broadcaster, the BBC, has been a voice bringing news not propaganda to the world, and the English language is a global language. However, with both Brexit and Boris doing their best to diminish British credibility, our capacity to lead in the world has been seriously diminished as the post-Brexit referendum shenanigans have made us a global laughing stock. A Labour government will need to re-establish our leadership in international institutions for the betterment of all humanity. We will also need to lead in achieving the creation of a new generation of international organisations to ensure that the problems which can only be tackled by international cooperation, such as closing down global tax loopholes, fighting money laundering, terrorism and climate change, are achieved.

  ENDING DISCRIMINATION – EQUALITY AND LIBERATION FOR WOMEN

  Globally, according to the World Economic Forum, it is getting harder to be a woman. The global gender pay gap is widening for the first time since the index was established in 2006, and in their 2017 report, the WEF calculated that at the current rate of progress it will take another 100 years for pay equality to be achieved. They also calculated that it will take women 217 more years to reach economic equality with men.75 The UK is in fifteenth place in the overall index. Globally, women continue to be discriminated against in law and in access to opportunities, be they economic or educational. They bear the brunt of the health risks of childbirth and the duty to care for the elderly. Violence against women is endemic in many areas of the world, including the threat of rape, honour killing and female genital mutilation. There are some countries where women cannot choose when or who to marry and where they are not allowed to have an existence independent of their husbands or the men in their wider family. Globally, women work two thirds of the world’s working hours, produce half of the world’s food but only earn 10 per cent of the world’s income and own less than 1 per cent of the world’s property.

  In the UK, there is formal equality in law but, as we outlined in the chapter on bigotry and intolerance, there is still a long way to go until it becomes a reality in practice. Despite forty years of equal pay legislation, the gender pay gap is still 9.1 per cent (for women over fifty it is 18.6 per cent). Perhaps this reflects both the level of discrimination in the workplace and the fact that women end up doing most of the caring for elderly relatives. In 2017, 10 November was the day when women began to work for free because of the still-persisting gender pay gap with men. Female apprentices earn 8 per cent less than their male counterparts at the beginning of their career and they tend to be segregated into sectors of the economy which pay less. We will learn more about the pay gaps when the requirement enshrined in Labour’s watered-down 2010 Equality Act for pay transparency in large companies finally comes into force in 2018. We already know from data published early that EasyJet has a 52 per cent gender pay gap; the BBC has a 10.7 per cent gap; and the Bank of England has one of 21 per cent. Since the Home Office has a 10.1 per cent gap, it can hardly be argued that the government is showing the way. A recent report by UK equality campaign the Fawcett Society revealed that violence, abuse and harassment against women and girls is endemic in the UK, with one in five women over sixteen reporting that they had been sexually assaulted. And yet, at the same time, the report discovered that the legal system is routinely failing women who seek redress. As Brexit looms, the fear is that even the existing protections for women in law will be threatened. The backlash against women who demand equality and that their rights be enforced is there for all to see – more crudely and violently over social media and more subtly in the usual dismissive mainstream media coverage.

  One hundred years after women first got the vote in the UK, the persistence of this deeply misogynistic culture cries out for remedy by determined political action. If we are to create a more equal and just society, this has to be a priority. One of the most important ways that we will do this is by getting more women involved in political action at all levels – from community organising to Parliament. However, for every bit of progress we make on this, there remain powerful institutional barriers – which we must work to identify and neutralise. There are reactionary opponents who will do their utmost to poison the public sphere and dissuade women from engaging. In particular, the age of social media means that reactionary troglodytes can tweet abuse directly at women and have it turn up as a notification on their personal device. It appears that, at this time, self-regulation by social media channels has failed. If we are to allow the many talented women to take part in politics, we will need to do more to prevent abuse by a minority of hate-filled trolls that are capable of causing huge disruption and hurt.

  A NEW, MORE HOLISTIC ECONOMICS

  Economics itself must change to be more inclusive and holistic. There have been increasing signs of concern in the economics profession, which was found so badly wanting when it failed to predict the global financial crash. The field of economics has been very effectively colonised for forty years by the market fundamentalist creed, to such an extent that the creation of a viable alternative set of economic assumptions has seemed unimaginable. In the aftermath of this huge crisis, the economics profession wrung its collective hands, tried to resume business as usual and hoped no one had noticed its culpability. But now there are signs of a nascent and long-overdue re-evaluation of the very foundations of economics. If it can be achieved, this will mean the emergence of a new, more holistic and humane world view which will help to change the way economics analyses the world and alter the priorities and decisions that will flow as a result.

  Classical economics always relied to
o much on the figure of ‘homo economicus’ or rational economic man. The assumptions made about his (and it is always a he) profit-maximising, purely selfish behaviour bear little relationship to reality. Therefore, they render many of the implicit assumptions and predictions of economic theory suspect. Behavioural economists and development economists who work with real people in their communities have unsurprisingly been at the forefront of the work to devise a new, more realistic analytical framework for the profession. The Earth’s finite resources and the urgency of dealing with the existential threat of global climate change has meant that incorporating the requirement for sustainability and the best use of scarce resources has been central to the work. So too has trying to recognise that markets are embedded in the wider social and cultural systems in which they operate and that these contexts can often be a better predictor of behaviour and outcome than abstract models of a mythical ‘rational economic man’.