A market fundamentalist economy would not have had a central bank controlling interest rates.

Incidently if you want a localised and more equal economy you may want to consider demolishing various government interventions that advantage big business – regulations that harm small business, public road and rail subsidies, patents etc. See more here: http://members.tripod.com/kevin_carson/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Chapter3.pdf

Policies that both right and left-libertarians can agree on.

Yes this is just a power grab , fortunately the Labour Party are not going to be in a position to worry their pretty little heads about it . Let them retreat into the comfort zone . Good , the new politics may not require them at all

“No turning back” makes it sound like Mr Hayes thinks the country is on the right track.

The key issue is whether or not the Labour Party can be made fit for purpose. I am very doubtful about this. Let’s look first at what is likely to happen to it when it goes into Opposition. It will elect a leader – Harriet Harman – who will neither look Prime Ministerial nor be able to initiate or co-ordinate the debate about the future of the left. Her weak leadership will be played out against a background of blaming and ranting about what went wrong on the part of pretty much all the current Ministers.

What none of them will permit discussion of is the basic issue that the purpose of a left-wing Party is not the same as that of a right-wing one. A party of the right (assuming it to be, like our Conservatives, a successful coalition of narrower interests) exists to manage capitalism. It therefore has a narrative of government and its supporters understand that their particular interest (e.g. land, finance, manufactures) must from time to time be subordinated in the interests of the whole. It also provides the Party with a clear lens for foreign policy – its foreign policy is whatever promotes the interests of the national ruling class.

A left-wing Party is a wholly different animal. It exists to protest the effects of capitalism upon ordinary people – those whom the ruling class rule. It therefore has a narrative of struggle. Its supporters identify primarily with a narrower interest and come together not because they recognise that interest depends upon the greater (as is the case with the Right) but because they see no other way of achieving their goals. (If they think they can they will by-pass conventional, power-seeking, politics altogether.) Support for the larger Party is always conditional, and its co-alition is essentially fissiparous. One consequence is that a Party of the left is incapable of developing a coherent foreign policy, since it cannot intellectually or morally sustain the global distribution of income, yet it cannot ask its supporters to reduce their incomes to the global average.

This means that it is only capable of effective action occasionally – when there is a “radical moment” (of which 1945 is the locus classicus in British history). Such moments occur most infrequently. It is the crowning irony that this crisis, which ought to produce such a moment, will not do so, because Labour is exhausted in government but more significantly because there have been no new political ideas for a generation upon which the Left can draw for sustenance. Such ideas as there have been have related only to sectional interests (Sunny’s – and Ken Livingstone’s – identity politics are paradigmatic here) or require global action (the ecological crisis) which, by definition, a national political movement cannot organise around. Both the creation of New Labour and its exhaustion are consequential upon this trahison des clercs. One example may suffice: the commodification of culture. Although this has always been a feature of capitalism, until a generation ago it was mediated both by surviving “popular” culture (in the sense of cultural activities that ordinary people generated for themselves) and the role of the BBC in providing a counterweight to commodification – a role it has abandoned under pressure from governments of both colours. Although culture cannot replace more directly political action, the success of the latter is in part dependent upon the dissemination of the cultural expression of left-wing values – something that has not been seen in this country for at least a generation.

For these reasons, any attempt simply to buff up Labour as an electoral machine is doomed to fail. Indeed, if there is any sign of hope in the present situation, it lies precisely in the collapse of Labour as a mass membership Party. One thing is for sure – people aren’t going to fill out direct debits to a Harman-led opposition. And in opposition Labour will still be confronted with the dilemma that it either remains a centralised bloc, treating its supporters in the same way as supermarkets do customers, or it re-empowers the activists – and its leaders still shudder at the memory of where that led in the 1970s.

Labour “won” three terms of office by positioning itself as a “wet” Tory Party and the truth is that wet toryism is what the majority of voters still want, however misguided we may think them to be. The Left needs to understand this fully: to accept that our lot is one of “little victories and big defeats” as Joan Baez put it, and will continue to be so until being a decent human being is seen as entailing the dedication of several hours a week to politics (whether organisation or education) instead of commodified leisure activities. But I don’t expect our football grounds and garden centres to empty out any time soon. This will require an ability to identify where the little victories may be gained (irrespective of our individual hobby-horses) and a willingness to develop appropriate organisational forms to secure them. But that in turn implies a discipline which has been out of fashion these forty years.

electoral reform;

Our boys are going to lose so let’s change the rules to make sure they can’t.

a tobin tax;

Idiocy. MV equals PQ. V stands for velocity….and V is dropping like a stone at the moment. That’s why we’re running around increasing M like mad (this is what quantitative easing means folks!) so as to avoid the deflation of P falling or the depression of Q falling. And this is a good time to start taxing V so that we get less of it? Idiocy seems a little mild as a description, doesn’t it?

a 35 hour week;

Oh bugger off. Which rat’s arse gave you the power to decide how long I might wish to work to provide for myself and my family?

a living wage;

Umm hmm. We’re worried about millions upon millions becoming unemployed. You’re going to raise the price of labour so that people buy even less of it are you? Do you understand the word “counterproductive”?

radical localism;

Fair enough. But make it really local, to the level of the individual.

remutalise and re-regulate the banks;

No problem with some mutal banks, just as no problem with non mutual banks. But I don’t think that’s what is meant here.

a maximum wage;

You know this is impossible to implement, right? How to impose it on the self-employed? And how to stop everyone going self-employed as you can’t impose it upon them?

a Green New Deal;

This is the Green New Deal from the nef? The one that called for lower interest rates (which reduce capital formation) as a way of increasing the capital avaliable to invest? The one that calls for capital controls so as to increase the capital available? This in a country that has been importing capital for decades (as we have been, it’s the inevitable flip side of running a trade deficit)? You mean that monumentally moronic plan?

a tax on land

An LVT is fine. But “a tax on land” is a little vague.

and a general well-being index -

Hey, knock yourselves out. Go off and measure whatever you want however you want.

Agreed with Tim. #5

This here is why I think First Past the Post is the perfect framework to dampen down the desire to participate and political involvement
http://mymarilyn.blogspot.com/2009/03/against-first-past-post.html

Until Britain is locked in this false duopoly, chances to turn a new leaf will be zero. It’s a disgrace that in twelve years in power Labour did nothing to introduce a more representative system.

“The one that called for lower interest rates (which reduce capital formation) as a way of increasing the capital avaliable to invest?”

Lower interest rates tend to increase investment in the capital goods industries. However, if the interest rates are held below the market rate (by a central bank for example) then there’s no genuine demand for the capital goods being invested in and you end up with the whole boom-bust situation.

The video is very warm and well done – makes you believe that something could be done if people wanted it – and there lies the problem.

The magnitude of the global economic crisis means that we have to change completely the way we live.

Do we have any figures on the population who feel that this crisis is making THEIR lives as bad as it is? Or do they feel that it is the British government? You have to show people that it is a globalized problem – especially if you want something as radical as this. Of which, I may add, I do agree with you – just call me a cynic at this point.

People, or the vast majority of them have proven over the last 40 odd years to be selfish and greedy, and not just those at the top. You have an undercurrent of a class war and to a lesser extent a gender war that is moving throughout the political and populist spheres. I am one who is looking in from the outside because my feelings are that in this time of crisis I would nationalise everything and start over – but that isn’t going to happen.

Tim Wortsall has always said that jobs are a cost – and does give a great argument as to why he feels this, quite the clever chap methinks. But there again is where one has to look at the major problem in business. Business is there for profit – and as that business looks at everything it has to pay out from wages to washing soap as a cost they will reduce cost to a minimum to maximise profit, and is that a bad thing?

How do you bring about a socially justified business ideal? That is where you have to think broadly in this area, because without jobs you don’t have the peasants to buy things – and that is a real problem. Credit is a massive problem in the sense of the individual, this credit and debt is the most irksome of all – because if people did have a real minimum wage (Tim would say that they are priced out of the market at this point) you would not need the tax credit system we have now – the government subsidising business because they WON’T pay a living wage – if they are made to then they will set up in Outer-Mesopotamia and the government will subsidise them to do so.

You wouldn’t have companies like Provident working their wares and lending 500 quid at 189%. If you had a real living wage the peasants would spend a lot of it and save a bit for the two weeks in Benidorm or where ever.

Yet, as Tim says, that would mean legislation to MAKE companies pay a living wage – and they would move, and that would mean no party donations from said companies.

Does the electoral system need changing? Quite – but this is politics British style – so as long as you have ‘New’ Labour or the Tories in power – it ain’t gunna change, man!

A Tobin tax I agree with – and I also would add to that a 1p tax on every share traded on the LSE each day at the close of business – there is a way to get back some of the money utilised by this government for those massive databases – I am sure the inland revenue could use them.

As to a mandatory 35 hour week – OK, that would be fine – but what about people like me who want to work overtime? I like working – as do many others, if you want to stipulate that it is fine that people can work as much time as THEY wish (that is a liberal way), I don’t have a problem with a 35 hour week. You would have to look at further discriminatory legislation at that point to stop the employers from bullying people into working overtime but that is far off.

Regulation on banks – 100% behind you on that one.

LVT – yep.

Maximum wage? You would have to be more specific on that one – at the moment a lot of people would agree with that idea because of the banking greedy bastards – but why would you put a cap on someone who, say, invents something that cured cancer, AIDS and the common cold? Surely they should see some remuneration for it. Would you stop Rowling, although her books are shit, keeping all that she has earned?

I never have understood what a well-being index means or can look like. We all get pissed off and depressed – that is the routine human cycle. Please explain further on that, thanksyaverymuch.

If you green new-deal means that government invest in infrastructure for wind, solar, etc – 100% for it – and I do believe that jobs, and a lot of them, can be created because of it. If you are talking about increasing the tax burden on Average Joe – then no.

Rather than giving tax breaks for businesses to take jobs overseas, give them tax breaks for building a system of hydrogen stations, for that is the real way to go forward in the green revolution – that and electric power.

You HAVE to change the age old ideas of business and economists to make these changes – and that will be the hardest part of all.

This sounds like politics from Tenacious D.

Hi – sorry I’ve not got time to come back on all of your individual comments, but just wanted to say thanks for all the comments so far and for the feedback on the policies/appraoch and please keep the feedback coming.