> Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 05:46:42 -0400
> From: Richard Jensen <rjensen at uic.edu>
>
> ECONOMIST May 2, 1998 p 52-53
> <http://www.economist.com/editorial/justforyou/current/index_britain.html>
> Ideology
> Beyond left and right
>
> YOU will recall from your schooldays Aristophanes' play, "The Poet and the
> Women". The hero, disguised in drag, gatecrashes an all-female festival,
> only to be exposed and ridiculed when the suspicious women strip him of his
> clothes. I felt a similar discomfort after being identified at the Demos
> seminar as a one-time employee of the last Conservative government.
>
> The purpose of the seminar was not revealed until we arrived. The
> government had decided that the third way was important, we were told, but
> ministers didn't know what it meant. So they were keen to encourage
> seminars like this one to help them find out.
>
> Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics, was the main
> speaker. He said that the third way was an attempt to go beyond (not, he
> stressed, between) the neo-liberalism of the old right and the social
> democracy of the old left. He suggested seven different dimensions along
> which this could be tested:
>
> 1) Politics: The old left and right were based on class. But class was no
> longer a driving force in politics. So the third way had to be based on new
> coalitions, which could not easily be categorised as either right or left.
>
> 2) State and government: The old left sought to maximise the role of the
> state, the old right to minimise it. The third way should seek instead to
> restructure government, at all levels. It should promote subsidiarity and
> address the "democratic deficit". Measures included constitutional reform,
> greater transparency, and more local democracy.
>
> 3) Civil society: The old left was suspicious of civil society, as it
> reduced the role of the state; the old right thought civil society would
> only flourish if the state got off its back. The third way values civil
> society, but sees the state as having a valid role in promoting it.
>
> 4) The nation: The old left distrusted the idea of the nation; the old
> right equated nationalism with jingoism. The third way endorses a
> "cosmopolitan nation",
>
> which recognises that nations are still important, but also appreciates the
> complexity of the modern nation and the distinction between the nation and
> the state, embracing "fuzzy nationalism" and "multiple sovereignty".
>
> 5) The economy: The old left supported a mixed economy to humanise
> capitalism; the old right exalted the market. The third way favours a "new
> mixed economy", where the emphasis is not on ownership but on competition
> and regulation.
>
> 6) The welfare state: The old left welcomed the welfare state as the main
> vehicle of redistribution; the old right demonised it. The third way aims
> to reform the welfare state into the "social investment state", which
> shifts the emphasis away from spending money on benefits and towards
> "investment in human capital". Whereas Beveridge envisaged the welfare
> state as an attack on five negative giants, the social investment state
> should have positive aims such as the reduction of environmental toxicity.
>
> 7) The global order: The old left had no global theory, simply a
> proletarian internationalism; the old right's approach to international
> relations was based on the need to fight wars. The third way recognises
> that we no longer live in a bi-polar world and realises that states no
> longer face enemies, only dangers.
>
> After this presentation, the chairman kicked off a discussion by asking
> whether future politics was more likely to be based on ideology or
> pragmatism.
>
> A lively debate followed. Participants confidently deployed terms like "a
> learning society", "knowledge-based politics", "communitarianism" and so
> forth, to murmurs of approval. I found it hard to work out whether they
> were addressing the original question, ignoring it, or, like me, had simply
> failed to understand it. The wisest course, I thought, would be to keep a
> low profile. But my plans were thwarted by the chairman, who identified me
> as an employee of the last government, and asked my opinion. Caught on the
> hop, I rashly asked whether there was a danger that
> the government's third way could end up like the Conservatives' "back to
> basics": a slogan not defined by its inventors and interpreted unhelpfully
> by everyone else. They seemed disappointed and the discussion moved on.
>
> Some participants did seem to share my difficulty in progressing beyond
> left and right. One thought that the government's record so far could be
> summed up as "indicate left, turn right". Another responded that, on the
> contrary, it was the other way around. Somebody asked why the government
> should bother with promoting the third way in the first place, as it were.
> After all, if the opinion polls were so favourable without a coherent
> ideology, why bother to develop one?
>
> Asked to sum up, Professor Giddens said-and I have this almost
> verbatim-that the seminar showed there was a new cultural sensibility
> emerging, based on the collapse of neo-liberalism and post-modernism, and
> the start of global cosmopolitanism. The chairman, not to be outdone,
> concluded that we had ended the era of endings and begun the era of
> beginnings.
>
> (C) 1998 The Economist. Fair use reprint for nonprofit educational use.