ITS THE IDEOLOGY, STUPID.

On Newsnight recently there was an unusual spectacle, two individual commentators from completely different ends of the political spectrum almost falling over each other to agree that cutting government spending at this point was the wrong thing to do. The case in point was Germany, but their conviction that there were myriad compelling reasons against this course of action both there and in the UK was strong. One was a Norwegian Socialist and the other a American Republican from an economic ‘ think tank’ who still managed to get in a dig at President Obama. On paper one might have thought that they would disagree on everything, but from their widely different starting points they in fact found nothing to justify the course of action being enthusiastically spelled out by the German and UK governments.

Former member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee, David Blanchflower, scarcely a died in the wool Socialist I would wager, said referring to the cuts ‘ this is ideology, not sound economics. It may be good for investors, it is certainly not good for the British people, who are likely to see unemployment rise inexorably.’ At last someone has the sense and honesty to say this : it is ideology, something like ‘society’ which an earlier Conservative administration tried to pretend didn’t exist, that is driving this ‘new austerity’ despite it being denied that it motivates any of the main parties.

It is an ideology that the Conservative led Government is following, the same one it has always followed, that of the free market, and although it is rarely referred to as such, one which is discredited, utterly morally bankrupt, massively unstable and inherently faulty, and proven to be so, it is this ideology that is motivating their actions. There remains an unswerving quasi-religious belief that the ‘rules of the market’ must be obeyed. But the market has no rules, not unless the government makes and enforces them. The market was left to make its own rules post the ‘big bang’ in the mid -Eighties, and this eventually ended up in the meltdown of 2008.

The self-justifying arrogant pronouncements of a consistent apologist for all the hideous, distorted workings of ’the market’, that poisonous imp-like person called Ruth Lea who, for some reason, is always asked for her opinion, says that ‘the Government is on probation. The financial markets expect the coalition to tame the yawning public sector deficit without wrecking the recovery.’ Note : the Government is put on probation by ‘the financial markets.’ Funny, I thought the people elected the government rather than this unspecified entity ‘ the financial markets.’ In other words we, the ’financial markets’ command that you, the elected Government, do what we want to suit our money making activities. The interest of the British electorate does not enter into it, this is an imperative coming from a self-selected representative of ’the financial markets’ which, because of blind ideological concordance, must be obeyed. Thus slash public spending, hang the consequences in the real world, it satisfies an accountants view of the country’s ‘accounts’ as if it was any other business. I am no economist but clearly a country with a law making and currency issuing Government, with an Army, Navy and Airforce, with a judiciary and largely law abiding population of 60 million is not just another business. Many who are of that persuasion, that is fully paid-up economists, also point out that there are many reasons why the current situation is nowhere near as dire as it is painted by the ideologically driven and severely limited imagination of the new incumbents at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street and their new pals in the Liberal Democrat camp. As John Eatwell, President of Queens College, Cambridge says ‘deficit hysteria is infecting the political world.’

The weak response of the Labour Party in the face of this alarming new consensus amongst the governments of most European states, each seemingly trying to outdo each other in just how austere their economic measures will be, is worrying. Where is any evidence of a different ideology ? Are all parties now to bow down before the partial, self-serving and incoherent ideology of the free market ? I suggest that liberal free market economics is scarcely a ideology at all, as it leaves out so many aspects of the balancing act that has to be made between the ‘world of finance’ and the real world and the fact that there are many parts of a developed civilised society that simply do not and should not be run at a profit. It is notable that it seems only individuals not normally associated with criticism of liberal free market economies, ex-Bank of England committee members, Republican think tanks, for example to demonstrate that the agenda is being set by those politicians that continue to dance to the tune of corporate financiers and the whims of the market.

In Rhode Island on the east coast of America unemployment is at 12.5%, the 4th highest in the USA. Florida, Michigan and California have even higher rates. President Obama has put stimulus packages into these areas, in the case of Rhode Island $ 1.5 Billion and these have created jobs mainly in infrastructure projects. Initial claims for unemployment benefit in the USA remain at just under half a million a month. This is despite the government putting targeted money into the economy and, incidentally, getting improvements in infrastructure at relatively low cost. Our government is proposing to do the opposite and cut government spending. Where do they imagine any new jobs are going come from ? Alan Sugar ? With cuts across the board in the public sector, no further injection of funds into needed infrastructure improvements and possible cuts in what has been committed, for example Crossrail, a cut back on social housing building, and a necessarily shrunken financial services sector, where are jobs going to be created ?

The banks and their apologists and appeasers in Government may think its back to business as usual. If this blind allegiance to an outdated and divisive ideology that has been categorically proven to be unstable and unsustainable without government intervention is allowed to continue to dictate policy there could be a crude and unpleasant backlash that will not be based on anything remotely like a coherent ideology but embody simple anger and outrage due to the neglect and undermining of anything resembling a social contract between the government and the governed.

It is surely well past time for the Labour Party to re-assess what it is there for and for it to develop a series of policies that need to be rooted in a different soil, from the great tradition of simple, straightforward Socialism, untainted by new-Labour non-values, the obsession with phone poll electability, not frightening the middle-classes, gimmickry and presentation.

My hopes are not high.