That Blair Agenda == Market Socialism

[Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>]

I can't resist posting a letter in today's guardian.

Under the headline "That Blair Agenda ( cont. ) ,

Bruno Waterfield writes to the Guardian Letters Page :

>
> Both Tony Blair and John Gray bemoan the loss of a collective value by which
> our lives can be governed. Both affirm the need to reinvent community for
> the modern age. Both are also self confessed advocates of the TINA ( There
> is No Alternative ) school of politics - as first popularised by
> Margaret Thatcher. Their version runs like this : "There is no alternative
> to the market, but the market does not guarentee stable social outcomes,
> therefore we need community."
>
> This ethos seems to me to embody the worst of all possible worlds. On
> the one hand the irrational, disorganisation of the market of the market
> is taken as a given. On the other, its ability spontaneously to reproduce
> stable societies is doubted. Thatcherite market fatalism, with Magaret's
> good faith. Tina, of course, brooks no question of a return to the
> "state socialist" welfarist concensus.
>
> Effective political action is shelved, leaving us with Labour's petty
> preoccupations about community. The "big idea" retreats from fundamentals
> to tertiary sectors of society, like education or training. Such low
> expectations diminish politics.
>

Quite so, Bruno.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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