О левых

The new leftwing economics wants to see the redistribution of economic power, so that it is held by everyone – just as political power is held by everyone in a healthy democracy. This redistribution of power could involve employees taking ownership of part of every company; or local politicians reshaping their city’s economy to favour local, ethical businesses over large corporations; or national politicians making co-operatives a capitalist norm.

… “If we want to live in democratic societies, then we need to … allow communities to shape their local economies,” write Joe Guinan and Martin O’Neill, both prolific advocates of the new economics, in 

The result, the new economists claim, will be an economy that suits society, rather than – as we have at present – a society subordinated to the economy. The new economics, suggests Berry, isn’t really economics at all. It’s “a new view of the world”.

… But what do the new economists want to come after neoliberal capitalism? […] “We’ve got to be pragmatic,” he [Matthew Brown] said. “We are still in a free-market environment. And I don’t see local businesses as big capitalists, anyway. The vast majority only have one or two people working for them. There’s almost no one to exploit. Shareholders are not involved.” Not everyone on the left would see small businesses – often keen supporters of rightwing parties and austere social and economic policies – in such benign terms. But Brown went on: “The Labour party, nationally, is getting away from the old pro-business/anti-business argument. Creating social value is what matters.”

…Labour have recently begun promoting a version of the Green New Deal: an enticing but still largely theoretical scheme advocated by steadily more leftists and environmentalists in Britain and the US over the past decade. It aims to address the climate emergency and some of capitalism’s problems simultaneously, by a huge increase in government support for green technologies and the highly skilled, hopefully well-paid jobs needed to create them. In a speech this week, McDonnell said that this project needed to be Britain’s biggest peacetime undertaking since the Attlee government’s conversion of the economy from war to peace during the 40s

…Another enormous issue that the new economists often skirt is whether many of today’s workers really want more of a voice in their workplaces. When “industrial democracy” was last a popular idea on the left, in the 70s, work was arguably more fulfilling and central to people’s lives than it had ever been before. Office jobs were replacing factory jobs, work was a strong engine of social mobility, and membership of powerful trade unions had accustomed the majority of British employees to being consulted, of having some agency in their working lives. But in 2019, empowering experiences at work are less common. For more and more people, however well-qualified, employment is short-term, low-status, unrewarding – barely part of their identity at all.

Gordon-Farleigh has spent years trying to interest people in forming co-operatives, and not always succeeding. “Contemporary capitalism has produced a pacified, passive workforce,” he says. “A lot of people even like to feel a bit alienated by capitalism – to not really understand how it works. They need to be reskilled, politically. Then we have to look at what economic powers they actually want.”

Выскажу вкратце своё мнение. Изложенные выше идеи мне кажутся интересными и порой полезными, но недостаточно убедительными в смысле претензий на некую новую экономическую модель, а характеристика современной «неолиберальной» модели как полностью провалившейся и исчерпавшей себя (популярный взгляд среди левого движения) мне кажется преувеличенной.

Однако, факт заключается в том, что существующая сегодня политическая и экономическая система оказывается по-видимому неспособной предотвратить приближающуюся климатическую катастрофу (условное название, проблема не только в глобальном потеплении, но для простоты будем использовать этот термин), а значит в ее нынешнем виде она так или иначе обречена. Это надо всегда иметь в виду.