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| With the world economy in seemingly constant crisis, progressives need to have a credible alternative ready. Photograph: Euro Bank Notes from Pixabay (License) (Cropped) |
Yesterday brought some gloomy economic news. The global economy is struggling, markets everywhere are slumping, and to all intents and purposes the great recession appears to be heading on into its eighth year (BBC, 2016). Not even a new low for unemployment in the UK could bring much cheer, as wages continue to stagnate (BBC, 2016{2}).
With 20% of Europe's young people unemployed (European Parliament, 2016) - as many as 50% in some cases and trapped by nearly a decade of slim to no opportunities - and with austerity cutting away at social security (Gaffney, 2013; Nielsen, 2014), it wouldn't be surprising for some on the Left to at least take in hope in the idea that the lack of return for all of the precariousness and the sacrifices might be a crisis in the making for the neoliberal order.
And yet, as Yanis Varoufakis has warned, a crisis is not so easily exploited by progressives (Varoufakis, 2015). In fact, they often play out at the expense of the Left. With the aims of the Left so often dependent upon the building of a social institutions - something taking time and public support - progressives can find themselves in the unenviable position of defending the establishment in the face more extreme populist positions.
So, building an alternative economy is not going to be accomplished overnight. Neoliberalism certainly wasn't (Ridley, 2016). It took decades, around a half century, of work and preparation for the neoliberal theorists to promote their cause to the mainstream.
That doesn't mean, however, that some of the work has not already been done. For the Left, the construction a new path has been bubbling away since at least the beginning of the great recession - almost a decade ago - and breakthroughs have been made.
In the past year, Syriza won two elections and a referendum as an opponent of the prevailing system (Mason & Skarlatos, 2015) - and even as they have been strangled and forced to concede endless ground their leader Alexis Tsipras continues to argue for the room to build something more inclusive and sustainable (Tsipras, 2016). Yanis Varoufakis, now the former Finance Minister of Greece, has become a figurehead for the European Left for the way in which he stood against the austerian establishment.
In Spain, the 15M Indignados movement has taken just two years to launch the Podemos party and become a real presence of the national scene (Jones, 2015). In the last year it has won control of some major cities with its municipalist ideas, becoming an inspiration for movements across Europe (Gutierrez Gonzalez, 2016).
Also of note is that in Utrecht (Perry, 2015), in the Netherlands, and in Finland (Unkuri, 2015), trials are being rolled out to test the merits of the Basic Income. An idea that could erase poverty and bring some salve to those suffering caused by the precariousness of the times, the Basic Income is an important idea whose time has come.
There has also, of course, been the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum within the Labour Party (Mason, 2015). Corbyn is faced with plenty of struggles with his own parliamentarians and with the mainstream media. Yet his ideas have led to a huge upsurge of engagement with the Labour Party that represents - regardless of whether it is enough to win a national majority - the emergence of a significant voter base for radical democrats in the UK.
As elsewhere in the world, much like how Spain's Podemos was born from the Indignados, this base of voters has been brewing and coalescing in the UK since the Occupy movement launched its protests around the world in 2011. Occupy saw individuals and groups coming together, organising themselves, in a massive show of civil disobedience.
All of these elements carry with them ideas and theories about how the world might alternatively be constructed. Yet so far they have been, not to sound disparaging, just protests or singular parties, isolated in the mainstream.
The next step is overdue. A part of it is coming from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, in a move that seems like something New Labour's masters of spin should have come up with a decade ago. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is taking his rockstar economists, assembled in October as an anti-austerity economics advisory body, on the road to debate and promote the building of a new economy.
Another part will come from in the not too far future with the launch of Varoufakis' movement for rebuilding democracy in Europe in February (Wingard, 2016). As he has been keen to stress, the next step has to include the building of a broad movement, bringing together many ideas, across the whole of Europe (Varoufakis, 2016; Varoufakis & Sakalis, 2015) - on the same scale as globalised neoliberalism also functions.
To topple a broken and unequal system in a time of crisis may not be more than a romantic Left-wing notion. But the stumbling of neoliberalism, from crisis to crisis, makes it essential to put together the various threads of thought into a coherent proposal that is ready to step up when neoliberal thinking finally runs of credibility.
From the basic income to the reduction of full time hours, a living wage to a living rent, municipalism to community energy, there are many elements that could fit together and complement each other. The job ahead is to construct that bigger picture and start showing it to the world.
References
'Global stock markets dive amid oil rout'; on the BBC; 20 January 2016.
'UK jobless rate at 10-year low but wage growth slows'; on the BBC; 20 January 2016.
European Parliament's 'EU youth unemployment rate 20%. EPlenary to discuss skills policies to tackle situation'; from Twitter; 18 January 2016.
Adam Gaffney's 'Austerity and the Unraveling of European Universal Health Care'; in Dissent Magazine; Spring 2013.
Nikolaj Nielsen's 'Austerity measures destroying EU social model: report'; in the EU Observer Magazine; 3 June 2014.
Yanis Varoufakis' 'How I became an erratic Marxist'; in The Guardian; 18 February 2015; adapted from a lecture originally delivered at the 6th Subversive Festival in Zagreb in 2013.
David Ridley's 'Neoliberalism and its forgotten alternative: The debate between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey throughout the 1920s points to an alternative to the neoliberal world view, submerged in the subsequent war between capitalism and communism'; on Open Democracy; 8 January 2016.
Paul Mason & Theopi Skarlatos's '#ThisIsACoup'; from YouTube; 15 December 2015.
Alexis Tsipras' 'Arrived in Davos where we'll be advocating for sustainable growth, social cohesion & inclusion'; from Twitter; 20 January 2016.
Owen Jones' 'Spain’s election will be felt across the whole continent: The country’s political convulsions and the rise of Podemos show that the fight against austerity did not die with Syriza in Greece'; in The Guardian; 18 December 2015.
Bernardo Gutierrez Gonzalez's 'The 'Podemos wave' as a global hope: Podemos’ bursting into Spain’s parliament is a breath of fresh air for the Left, and for the global movements seeking to replicate the Spanish political phenomenon''; on Open Democracy; 5 January 2016.
Francesca Perry's 'The giving city: Utrecht plans 'basic income' experiment'; on City links; in The Guardian; 10 July 2015.
Maija Unkuri's 'Finland considers basic income to reform welfare system'; on the BBC; 20 August 2015.
Rowena Mason's 'Labour leadership: Jeremy Corbyn elected with huge mandate - Election of backbench MP and anti-war campaigner means party now has one of the most leftwing, anti-establishment leaders in its history'; in The Guardian; 12 September 2015.
Jessie Wingard's 'Yanis Varoufakis set to launch left-wing political movement in Berlin: Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former finance minister, has been tipped to launch a left-wing, pan-European political faction in Berlin. The ex-parliamentarian says the EU is undemocratic, and that transparency is needed'; in Deutsche Welle; 3 January 2016.
Yanis Varoufakis' 'In conversation with Gerardo Pisarello on democracy, Europe and municipalism'; from YanisVaroufakis.eu; 21 January 2016.
Yanis Varoufakis and Alex Sakalis' '"One very simple, but radical, idea: to democratise Europe." An interview with Yanis Varoufakis'; on Open Democracy; 25 October 2015.
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