Half-way through writing this
post I discovered that the great Branko Milanovic was also these days
thinking and writing about
Paul Collier’s “The Future of Capitalism” but beat me by a day!
Our collective memories have become so short these days, people need to be reminded of the “Big Society” (Cameron 2010) and “The Third Way” (Blair 1997) both of which were doomed to failure by virtue of their elitist support and origins - although the “Third Way” was more philosophically grounded by the writings of Anthony Giddens. It was also less focused on Britain – with support from not only Bill Clinton but also Gerhard Schroeder (as witness this 1998 manifesto)
And another book has appeared
suggesting that markets and the state (alone or combined) are not sufficient to
deal with our social needs – by an ex-Governor of the Bank of India.
It is The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State
Leave Community Behind; Raghuram G. Rajan (2019) the main thrust of which can be found in this article,
To someone with my
background, this critique is an obvious one. Indeed its relative rarity
reflects the grip which technocrats have developed on our minds these past few
decades.
Our collective memories have become so short these days, people need to be reminded of the “Big Society” (Cameron 2010) and “The Third Way” (Blair 1997) both of which were doomed to failure by virtue of their elitist support and origins - although the “Third Way” was more philosophically grounded by the writings of Anthony Giddens. It was also less focused on Britain – with support from not only Bill Clinton but also Gerhard Schroeder (as witness this 1998 manifesto)
Why the third way failed – economics,
morality and the origins of the “big society”; Bill Jordan (2010) is a very thoughtful treatment of the
experience…..
The last post reminded us all
that the discussion about the respective roles of state and market goes back at
least a hundred years (and was evident in deeds if not words in the late 19th
century as both the UK and Germany started to respond to working class
pressures); and suggested that there were two ways we could look at what might
be called the “communitarian” option – as a set of policies and beliefs; or as
an historical settlement reflecting specific conditions.
My suggestion of “stress
tests” for what is obviously a set of highly sensible propositions was, I
appreciate, a bit opaque. In phrasing it in this manner, I was conscious of the
charge which the famous Angus Deaton had already made of Collier’s
and Rajan’s books – that
the “genie (in this case of “meritocracy”) could not be put back in the
bottle”… meaning exactly what?? It’s odd that he just leaves the (obvious)
question dangling at the end of his comments..
Does he perhaps mean that we have as a society experienced
certain new things we will not readily give up? If so, what things?
Or has something contaminated
the appreciation we had previously for certain values and behaviour? If so,
what exactly is this contaminant of “meritocracy”? Michael Young wrote his
famous “Rise of Meritocracy” as a satire in 1958 - its full title is actually The Rise of Meritocracy 1870-2033 – an
essay on education and equality).
Is Angus Deaton really
saying that human nature has changed so dramatically since 1970 or so that we no
longer have the capacity to choose our own future? Whatever happened to “free
will”?
It is understandable that
Etzioni was unable to persuade his fellow north Americans to adopt
“communitarianism” in the 1990s – in “the land of the free” its emphasis on
social responsibilities perhaps smacks too much of the country’s early Puritan
settlers – the decline of whose spirit I discussed last
week - and of the
contemporary Amash sect
I sense a lot of historical
whitewashing going on in these exchanges. Paul Collier is quite open about his
contempt for leftist writing (and seems particularly hostile to Wolfgang
Streeck, a favourite of mine) – which explains the absence of some obvious names
from the index to his book.And the “Third Way” scribblers are also absent
(despite their centralist position) presumably because they have been guilty of
ideological sloganizing….
But why is Paul Hirst and his associationalism missing from the book - despite a recent celebration of his work? Perhaps the publisher is too left-wing? Or the phrase “associative democracy” too narrow for the scope of Collier’s book? Such excisions from the history book don’t do anyone any favours…
But why is Paul Hirst and his associationalism missing from the book - despite a recent celebration of his work? Perhaps the publisher is too left-wing? Or the phrase “associative democracy” too narrow for the scope of Collier’s book? Such excisions from the history book don’t do anyone any favours…
Collier refers to a talk he
was invited to give to the Danish social democrats in 2017 where he met the new
leader whom he recently praised in this article – which also suggests their party as a good example of the sort of pragmatism which he considers European social democracy needs
these days - although a lot of us thought that New Labour's emphasis on "triangulation" and "evidence-based" approach was as pragmatic as you get......
Remarkably, my googling had just unearthed this fascinating history of the development over a 150 year period of “Associationalism” in Denmark
Remarkably, my googling had just unearthed this fascinating history of the development over a 150 year period of “Associationalism” in Denmark
My point therefore about “stress
tests” is that clearly some countries are more disposed to communal ideas
than others. Take, for example, my own country – Scotland. We may be part of
o United “Kingdom” but the “1707 settlement” expressly retained our educational
and religious freedoms in which schooling, for example, has always been more
open; one of the most famous books about this bears the title “The Democratic
Intellect”. And we have also been more open to ideas
of support for community endeavour – with community planning and social enterprise
being amongst the central planks of the Scottish government for the past 20
years.
Indeed there is an argument
that it is the smaller countries who are most able to offer the sort of support
for civilised ideas of the healthy family, organisation and society which Collier
has made the core of his book.
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