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550  2 December 2002   

Buy Nothing Day

Nobody can fail to sympathise with the promoters of Buy Nothing Day, which was marked last Saturday. It seems to strike a blow against the worst excesses of the Corporations, Capitalism, and their attendant paraphernalia.

But the approach is nevertheless misconceived.  For the use of the term "consumption" merely lends a pejorative air to activities which are entirely straightforward, beneficial, and conducive to the well-being of mankind.  Further, it is now apparent that activity itself is beneficial to human well-being - man's greatest enemy is inactivity, physical passivity - patients are chivvied into early re-activation after injury or immobility, exercise is recognised as universally desirable, the reign of the couch-potato universally deprecated. 

Let's clear the ground.  While it is true that the worst excesses of a commercial Christmas are objectionable, they constitute a mere passing embellishment upon sound patterns of household expenditure - the perfumes, the expensive alcohol, the complex and expensive children's toys, the electronic gimmicks - they recur each year, and nobody would seriously defend them - I certainly do not.  But the overwhelming majority of expenditure, even at Christmas, is sensible and sound - money spent on family celebrations some of which occur only at Christmas, household purchases judiciously timed, the great pleasure both of giving and receiving presents, holidays triggered by the enthusiasm of the occasion, family time spent together, the occasional extravagance in recognition of a special relationship - none of this represented wasted resources.  These "items of consumption" perform important roles within the complex networks of human society - indeed, without embellishments of this kind we become less than human.

For "consumption", one should read personal ambition - personal aspiration - reaching for the stars. The fastest growing category of car-journeys, as car-usage increases, is "visiting friends and relatives" - is that waste of time?  Is that an example of improper consumption, or an expression of our common humanity?  We are spending more and more on foreign travel, satisfying our immanent curiosity about the world -  is that a good thing, or a bad thing?  Increasing societal resources are being devoted to education.  And the well-heeled middle-class (people like myself) need reminding that "consumption" for millions of our fellow-citizens merely refers to the acquisition of household facilities and comforts which we took for granted half-a-century ago.

Indeed, I would argue that progress will now be made by encouraging more discriminating patterns of household consumption - the purchase of less energy-intensive equipment, better methods of re-cycling, improved home-insulation, fuel-efficient road-vehicles, UK holidays, healthier food selection and on and on - the right course is to harness human ambition and ensure that the momentum of "consumption" is effectively maintained.

• So - while I understand what the promoters are trying to do - I did not celebrate Buy Nothing Day. 

551   9 December 2002   

This week I re-visit my vision of a new socialism, thrashed out in a new global concordat with the corporate sector, confronting its demons, acknowledging its weaknesses, playing to its strengths. You have had Chapter I, and Chapter 2 - now for Chapter 3.

My proposed new international Concordat of Civic Governance would supersede and replace the discredited World Trade Organisation treaties which are disrupting global perceptions of the role of civic government generally.  Sadly, the political cadres have been outmanoeuvred by the skilled lobbyists of the corporate sector, who camped out early on this picket line, and stole all the best pitches.  Even UK local planning authorities are now complaining about the threat which WTO offers to their statutory jurisdictions.

No such threat should be involved.  It should remain an absolute sovereign right of every nation to declare its own public service sectors, excluding all trading operations.  It would be folly for the corporations to resist such political assertions. The political damage already done must be decisively undone, and the jurisdiction of the civic authorities firmly asserted, within a new CCG treaty framework.  The primacy of national democracy must be re-asserted. And I would be very proud if that movement were to be led by a UK Labour Government. Many broad systemic reforms, for which I contend elsewhere, would be achieved in this way: see Tame the Corporations.  That would be Phase One.

Given a better laid-out and level playing-field, it would then be for each nation-state - moving to Phase Two - to thrash out its own national deal, within the CCG framework.  Such deals would reflect the particular requirements, and stage-of-development reached, by each nation-state. 

I turn now to consider the kind of deal which Labour should be considering for the UK.  At this stage, I find myself in broad agreement with Tony Blair - which is what makes me a very uncomfortable bedfellow for the Old Left.

I acknowledge the need for flexible labour markets, affording to employers a high degree of discretion both in hiring and firing.  And I agree that a systemic rigidity in this matter is the Achilles Heel of the European welfare state.  Indeed, I would go further in this direction than Blair has gone, while strengthening the statutory rights of the dismissed or redundant; I have spent most of my working life as an employer, and that experience has conditioned much of my thinking.

• My object would be to create an entirely new form of flexible employment relationship, which would deliver security of income, rather than an illusory security of employment.  I would seek the creation of a new universal commitment to a new form of Adjustment Pay, paid for jointly by the employer and the State (terms to be negotiated as part of the Deal).  It would enable every worker faced with job-loss to continue to receive an unchanged salary for up to six months following the end of actual employment, during which the employer would be encouraged to assist with the search for a new job; if a suitable new job were found within that period, the obligation to pay Adjustment Pay would cease, and the employer's liability thereby reduced.  This universal support, payable to everyone facing job-loss (other than those resigning, of course, or dismissed for gross misconduct) would replace entirely the present redundancy payments system, which is arbitrary and unsatisfactory in operation, and should be phased out.  As part of the same Deal, I would offer to remove the whole concept of "wrongful dismissal" from our law, although all the non-discrimination laws would be retained, to ensure equality of treatment.  Industrial Tribunals have been overwhelmed by wrongful dismissal claims, seeking merely damages for loss of earnings: most of those claims would be headed-off if Adjustment Pay were always available. The whole bureaucratisation of personnel procedures within firms have also proved rigid and counter-productive.  In contemporary volatile markets, all employers face grave difficulties in securing and retaining the right staff, and in balancing their workforces generally: we should make that process easier, not more difficult, and we should protect workers in new, more flexible ways.

I consider too that new ways must be found of achieving traditional trade-union goals - with three-quarters of the workforce remaining outside a trade union, our state systems should not rely for the protection of workers upon the activities of the Unions.  The way ahead lies with the development of workers' individual rights, enforced in practice by TU action wherever practicable, but without being reliant up it  - these are the "human rights" of our fellow citizens at work, and socialists should be focusing on that concept.

• I anticipate a further erosion of TU affiliation from the Labour Party, and I would not seek to discourage it. Like (I suspect) Tony Blair, I do not see the continued formal affiliation of trade unions to the Labour Party as essential to its future development as a left-of-centre Party, either on the national and international stage.  Many leading and committed trade unionists will continue to make a strong personal contribution to the furtherance of socialism, just like the rest of us, working as individual Party members.  And while I recognise that there are real difficulties with forging new forms of public funding of political parties, I would prefer to address those problems than to perpetuate Labour's present reliance on TU funding.

I would offer the employers the opportunity to withdraw from a range of public functions which they currently perform; I would re-assign those functions to the mainstream Civil Service.  Certainly, I would avoid increasing the "public duties" of employers (to administer pensions or state benefits, for example) - and as part of The Deal, I would remove many of the burdens which employers currently bear, placed upon their shoulders by Margaret Thatcher, in her zeal to whittle away the State.  At the negotiating table, I would trade off these functions for a far higher degree of commitment on the part of employers to assist the State as the primary tax-gatherers modern society, and to stop whingeing about it.

• Part of The Deal would be to secure from employers far higher levels of commitment to workers' health and safety, and a ready acceptance of consumer protection and quality control legislation generally.  The corporate sector shows its worst face in the constant whinging by the IOD and CBI about red tape and governmental bureaucracy.  In return for greater flexibility in the employment relationship, I would seek to secure the acceptance of far tougher forms of enforcement against firms and their management, in respect of all health-and-safety and regulatory infringements.

State pensions would be on the agenda.  Fundamental to the ordinary citizen's sense of security will in future be the availability of a decent, State-guaranteed old age pension. I would negotiate to secure the full-hearted cooperation of employers in the funding of improved state pensions. Employers are currently voting with their feet and abandoning occupational pensions for the majority of workers. The private pensions sector cannot recover public confidence, as scandal piles upon scandal.  Even powerful City voices are calling for better basic State Pensions.   Only the State can fill the awful vacuum in public confidence that we all face: as part of The Deal, I would recruit employers to the colours, in addressing and solving this massive problem.

Employers would not be expected to "behave well", under my Deal.  The current fashion for "corporate ethics" and "corporate social responsibility" and "business in the community" is all public-relations eyewash.  These are sophisticated attempts by the corporate lobby to draw public attention away from the awful abuses of power routinely perpetrated by powerful corporations.  Governments should accept the discipline of legislating to control the actions of the trading sector, and their consequences.  Governments should not wring their hands and complain about corporate behaviour if they cannot devise effective legislative controls. The Corporations should merely be expected to comply with the law, nothing less - and certainly nothing more.

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