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Chapter 10

The inevitability of an alternative

We will fight for the right to be free
We will build our own society
And we will sing, we will sing
We will sing our own song
– UB 40

When, as a teenager, I began to think about life's 'big questions', the first 'big answer' to bite the dust was the idea of an almighty and omniscient God. My Catholic educators told me that God was not only almighty but all knowing as well, that he knew not only the past and present but also the future. Yet if he was almighty, why did he daily allow tens of thousands of people to die of hunger? Why did he not intervene? And if he was all knowing and the future was already known, and thus fixed, what became of free will? Could a loving god ever judge someone who has had no control over the course of his or her own life? And if that was how things were, what meaning could life possibly have? Surely predestination could lead only to fatalism?
Once I had heard and read about the great men of the Renaissance and the philosophers of the Enlightenment, my belief in God melted away like an iceberg drifting south from the Arctic circle. Had the Renaissance and Enlightenment not delivered us from the darkness of the middle ages? Had rationalism not taken religious thought, with all its taboos, narrow-mindedness and obscurantism, and toppled it from its ancient pedestal? Fatalism, I concluded, is the eternal enemy of progress, and it remains alien to me to this day. However many causes reality may give us to be pessimistic, reasons to despair – if one is aware of the distinction between life's unchangeable preconditions and the things we can change – are rare. It is the things that we can change that offer us space to make our mark on history, a history of which we are both product and author.
Many things that are presented as unchangeable facts are not. It is for humanity to determine its direction and do everything in its power to bring its goals closer. Leaders and ideologies come and go. As we can see from history, no ideology has eternal life and each dominant idea, however complete its hegemony, will eventually pass away. The sooner an ideology becomes all pervading, the sooner its shortcomings become generally visible and the sooner the moment of its passing arrives. neoliberal thought may currently appear strong on both the international and, in most countries, the national stage, but it is certain that its irrationality and internal contradictions will eventually undermine its power.

Neoliberalism is not value-free

As we have seen in the foregoing chapters, neoliberalism exhibits a number of striking shortcomings that are a direct result of the vision of humanity and society which underlies it. Because it downplays any attempt to influence the shape and direction of society, in favour of the free play of social forces, and because by accepting the economic laws of capitalism it limits the margins within which politics may operate, it becomes ever more entangled in its own impotence. By entirely subordinating politics to a free market economy, neoliberalism is powerless to deal with long-term concerns, with the interconnectedness of things, or with the overall picture. A currency speculator does not bother about the consequences of his or her activities for, let's say, the quality of the water supply, or long-term unemployment.
These structural shortcomings in neoliberal theory and practice are at the root of many of the things I have described in this book. The atomisation and hardening of society, the erosion of democracy, the growth and sharpening of social divisions, the dismantling of collective provision, the neglect of public ethics and the commercialisation of society. All of these developments are systematically played down, and insofar as they are recognised at all, blamed on globalisation and the need for European integration. For those who wield economic and political power there is no alternative to 'more market and less government'. This is hardly surprising. neoliberalism, far from being value-free, has an unmistakably class character: those privileged by the existing system favour it. The assertion that there is no alternative is no more than a deceit to head off any attempt to force the powerful to share their power, influence and wealth.
The transition from feudalism to capitalism replaced the old feudal rulers with a new power, but it did nothing to solve the age-old question of the legitimisation of power. Whilst capitalism was once a step forward in history, making mass production possible and thereby opening the way to mass consumption, more widespread wellbeing, and the replacement of anachronistic ideas of noble power by democratic ideologies. on the threshold of the twenty-first century however, its structural shortcomings are coming ever more to light. There is nobody, even amongst its supporters, who can explain how neoliberalism's ideas and practices can lead us to a better society, or how they can answer the big questions which the world is currently asking itself. A return to the social relations of the nineteenth century, such as is now being pursued, can have nothing but catastrophic consequences.
There are people who have invested all their hopes in the blessings that are to come with the Age of Aquarius and others who expect the imminent return of Christ. I prefer a somewhat more worldly solution: the inevitability of an alternative.

Humanity as the measure of all things

The Dutch Liberal leader Frits Bolkestein once wrote: "the human intellect is too limited for the making of blueprints for our society." We can thus only proceed "step by step" via "a spontaneous process of trial and error." Because we can never have sufficient information or intelligence to allow us to create the perfect society, all we can do is bring about as much freedom as possible, and within this space allow spontaneous cycles of risings and fallings to eliminate imbalances.
There is a great deal of truth in these words. Anyone who thinks they can draft a blueprint for society is suffering from overblown pretensions. It was no coincidence that under the centrally planned Soviet economy defeatism ran rampant through broad swathes of the population. If the future is taken care of, why exert oneself, or feel any responsibility? This is a fault which socialism must avoid in the future, the idea that the state can solve any problem.
Socialism is not some holy prophecy that promises that everything over the horizon will be better. It is based on an idea of humanity as the measure of all things and that must be the criterion for the organisation of society. In liberalism human dignity occupies in theory a central position, but if the individual is robbed of all dignity and put through the mangle by the free play of economic forces then there is in practice no neoliberal who will conclude that these forces must therefore be restrained.
If the principle of trial and error is to be taken seriously, then it must mean that the outcome of a policy is always tested against the stated goals of that policy. If, for example, you assert that economic growth can be achieved without destroying the environment for future generations, then you are surely bound to intervene if in practice you discover that the goal of sustainable growth is not served by existing policy. If you claim your policies will lead to an increase in the general good and it turns out that they lead to an increase in poverty, then surely trial and error means that you should change them. If the neoliberals were honest, they would look at their 'trials' and conclude that there is evidence of some pretty big 'errors'.
In 1633 the judges of the Holy Office of the Inquisition refused to look through Galileo's telescope at the heavenly bodies above. They knew that it could only endanger their unshakeable belief in the church's dogmatic view that the earth stood at the centre of the universe. In just the same way the current neoliberal wielders of power refuse to acquaint themselves with the destructive consequences of their policies: it could only shake their solid belief in the holy working of the invisible hand of the market. Galileo's book, A Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, remained on the Index, the Church's list of banned works, for two hundred years. Happily, the neoliberals will not be able to keep the secret of their hidden agenda for quite so long as that.

Youth, the future, and homo universalis

Possibly the ultimate metaphor for the short sightedness of neoliberalism is its treatment of young people. Everyone agrees that the education of children and young people – the adults of tomorrow, our society's future – is the best investment that a society can make. Yet the neoliberal dogma that the state must retreat offers no prospect of improving the position of young people and children within that society. While in country after country education groans under the weight of yet another round of spending cuts, and is forced in many cases to look to business for financial support, the neoliberals continue to cry crocodile tears about the degeneration of youth.
As an MP I have regular meetings with groups of students, during which I have often talked about the Socialist Party's view that there should be a maximum wage of perhaps three times the level of the lowest income. Why, we argue, should the hands of a plumber be worth so much less than the hands of a surgeon? Too often the reaction of students is that if such a system came about, then why should they bother to study? Clearly, for many young people a university education is nothing more than a step towards a well-paid job. And who can blame them? Certainly not those who have made the pursuit of financial gain the highest good. Yet when I ask these students whether they approve of the fact that financial motives appear increasingly decisive in this regard, they almost always answer in the negative.
An ever-increasing part of the education system in almost every country of the world is now geared to specialised job-training directed towards the economic needs of the student in later life. Increasingly subjects like history, art history, geography, physical education and civics are excluded. A socialist view of humanity – that is to say one which sees people as essentially social beings with a responsibility to themselves and their environment – leads us to argue against this trend and in favour of a form of education which instead of narrowing one's view, contributes to its broadening.
It is the first task of education to relate to the wonder with which children seek the connections between things. Philosophy, not to be confused with knowledge of philosophers, should be taught in primary school. Consideration must be given to the formulation of new goals, and new ways of achieving them. More time and money needs to be invested in children's general development, their interest in life in all its facets awoken. And effort must be put in to raising them to be able, critical individuals who understand that we have to live together in, and at the same time create, our societies and that this involves valuing and respecting their fellow people. We need, too, to give them confidence in approaching art, culture and science, and to confront them more frequently and intensively with lessons in life from people who can put their own experience into words. The school should be a community within society, a place where children can be introduced to real life.
All current discussions about education revolve around money, structures, didactic details such as whether there should be computers in the classroom or whether young children should be subjected to tests, and idiotic questions along the lines of 'what should be the place of creationism in the leaving exam?' The question of what education is for is too often forgotten, but it is precisely this kind of basic pedagogy to which we must return, and not only in education itself but in politics and society as a whole. What should we do and what should we refrain from doing if we want our children to grow up to be valuable, rounded and happy people? Should we not be thinking of two explicit educational aims instead of one? The first is to prepare children so that they can later make a living, but the second – the education permanente – is much more general and thus, as the name suggests, never really comes to an end. This goal, the homo universalis, has now completely disappeared from the picture, though we surely have more need of it than ever before.
Society's complexity means that general development and wide interests are now preconditions for full social participation. Social exclusion threatens on a large scale, not only because there is no longer work for everyone, but because many no longer participate in the cultural, social and political aspects of life.
Since the late nineteenth century there has been an economic need, for the first time in history, to teach as many people as possible to read and write. It was also supposed economic needs that led to the call for greater specialisation and more concentration on an élite. The economic impulse to give everyone a good general education seems, given the high level of structural unemployment, to have disappeared. Perhaps it is this what explains the reduction of spending at the lower age levels.
In the United States they have long known a division between poor, inadequate state schools and rich, well-equipped private schools. Obviously poor, ghetto children go to the former and rich ones to the latter, but because the quality of state schools so often leaves so much to be desired, an ever-increasing number of middle income parents tend to send their children to private schools. In order to do this they might have to take on three or four jobs, but who wouldn't do that if their child's development was at stake?
Now that the division between increasingly affects European countries rich and poor in terms of their access to health care, it seems likely that neoliberal logic will also lead us to emulate this division in education. Already, 7% of British children go to fee-paying schools, and it seems inevitable given the current direction of policy that other countries will follow this lead.
If we care about the interests of children and the need to re-examine pedagogical concerns, then we must not confine ourselves to the strict area of education, but examine in addition all of the other things which affect children in this first phase of their lives. It is striking how little attention is given to the interests of children when vital social decisions are taken. The last morsels of green space disappear from a town and they have nowhere to play. Spending cuts give sports clubs no choice but to increase fees, forcing children whose parents are on low incomes to drop out. No thought is given to the influence of television at a time when controlling what children watch is regarded as out of date. Cuts in public health mean that the visits of the school doctor become ever less frequent. The quality of childcare is often inadequate because of high turnover of personnel, itself undoubtedly connected to poor pay. Juvenile court judges complain that they must sometimes send children to police cells or prison because of the shortage of suitable secure institutions. Child protection and vice squads are dismantled because of cuts in police budgets; single mothers on benefit are forced to go to work whilst they still have young children at home; and flexibilisation excludes regularity and calm from family life.
The process of trial and error must begin with analysis. If we do such an analysis, then we must also question whether the policy pursued has brought the desired goal in reality any closer, or whether, instead of that, we are further than ever from its fulfilment.

The system of missed chances

The fallacy of the market as an efficient regulating mechanism is perhaps nowhere so bitterly obvious as it is in relation to the labour market. While hundreds of thousands of people sit at home and are forced to do nothing, those who do have employment must work ever harder for ever longer hours. At the same time, socially important work remains undone because there is no money to pay for it. Health care, the maintenance of green space in the public domain, keeping the streets safe, education, youth work, psychiatric care, all are short of labour as a result of years of spending cuts.
Anyone who considers human dignity, equality and security to be of more importance than the maximisation of profit will clearly be willing to pay for socially useful work, the cost of which could in any case be at least partly offset by getting rid of useless training schemes. Automation need not lead to ever harder work for those who keep their jobs and poverty for the rest, but to a fairer sharing out of available employment and therefore less work for all. Work should stand in the service of people, and people no longer in the service of work. In his Grijsboek (Grey Book), Piet Grijs wrote of how the slaves of Athens did all the dirty work, leaving the free citizens to busy themselves with such things as doing nothing, love, discussion, games and science. As Grijs says, "We also shall soon have these slaves, even if, happily, they will be made of metal." It seems to me that we can never have enough of that sort of 'metal slave'.
Unemployment, as is often said, is at root a problem of organisation. How do we ensure that necessary tasks are performed? How do we ensure that this is carried out in decent conditions, and for a decent wage? How do we ensure that everyone enjoys such wages and conditions? And if we have more 'hands' than work, what can we do to arrange a decent sharing out, both of the labour and of the resulting income?
Is all of that impossible? If we agree that it is desirable, should we not, by means of that method of trial and error, be able to devise an approach that brings this desired society closer, instead of ever further away? Or must we resign ourselves to what is happening at present, to the loss of the many social achievements that still manage to survive, and even in one way or another be built, in the face of liberal dogma. When in the past new social achievements were won, such as the abolition of child labour or the introduction of the 40-hour week and the free Saturday, the authoritative economists of the time screamed blue murder and cried fire, but history proved them wrong, as it so often does. As the Americans say of economists, "if they're so smart, how come they ain't rich?"
Trial and error can also be applied to environmental problems. The knowledge, understanding and technology of our time offer us a priceless chance to make the world more liveable, as much for the poor as for the rich, and for both the present and the far future. This will only happen, however, if we learn from the mistakes of the past. Instead of applying ourselves to the problem of how we can use new technologies to make as much money as possible in as short a space of time as possible, we ought to be asking ourselves how the problems that are the consequence of earlier technological innovations (such as the introduction of the motor car, which led to air pollution and congestion, or television, which from a pedagogical point of view has not been an undivided success) can be avoided.
The neoliberal faith in the blessings of the 'free market' leaves no room for this. Neurotic economic growth excludes reflection and considered decision-making. Sustainable techniques are rejected in favour of those offering more short-term profit. The enormous popular willingness to take account of environmental concerns is seen as useful only when it comes to persuading people to accept higher taxes, and not in any way to aid in the bringing about of active changes in production methods and patterns of consumption. There is a reason almost all reports about environmental problems end with recommendations of a drastic change in economic attitudes. Neither, of course, is it coincidental that these recommendations are immediately shoved to one side by neoliberal political leaders. That such repeated calls for change are ignored demonstrates once again the need for an alternative to neoliberalism, the ideological and political expression of the attitudes of the current economic power.

The right to happiness does not exist

Both the hedonism that was in many parts of the West characteristic of the '60s and '70s and the now so prevalent consumerism, basically consist of the idea that every human being has an absolute right to happiness. Whereas we were once told that the state should provide us with our daily fix of happiness, now the hidden message of every advertising campaign is that to settle for anything less than the best of all, fastest of all, newest of all is crazy. Inconveniences are there to be resolved, setbacks to be overcome, and happiness to be bought.
Consumerism, however, is universally associated with emptiness, because its underlying message, that everyone has a right to happiness, is a lie. Happiness is not for sale, just as is the case for anything of real value. It is, in fact, an unusually scarce good for which we must work hard. And each time that expectations of instant happiness remain unfulfilled brings more disappointment and irritation, or worse.
Even in health care we are witnessing the rapid rise of consumerism, with the pursuit of an ideal beauty which allows blemishes on neither the face nor the soul. Rejuvenation and Prozac will help us become 'pure', presenting us with happiness on a silver platter.
It won't stop there, either. How far away from a separation between propagation and sexual relations between a man and a woman are we now that ever more is known about the human genome, our hereditary material? Will we soon be so much of a biochemical robot that we can be endlessly reproduced? Will we have happiness on command, without respect for humanity as humanity? Is this the nightmare of the Midas touch come true?
The really important things in life, meanwhile, are given ever less attention: self-fulfilment and the quest for the limits of one's own potential and those of society as a whole, and the recognition, respect and sympathy which all people like to experience from those around them. The meaning of life is not much more than the love of life, with all the ups and downs that unavoidably belong to it. Consumerism would have us believe that the 'kingdom of freedom' is for sale, but nothing could be further from the truth. Freedom consists of nothing other than the recognition and acceptance of the immovable facts of life, of what can be changed and what cannot.
Of course, for most the love of life is undermined periodically by adversity, but an understanding of life and society can help to soften such blows, and those around one – family, neighbours, friends, colleagues, even the state – can help to renew that appetite for life. Unfortunately it is in this very area that the state is failing in its responsibilities. Organised solidarity is ever diminishing, throwing people back on to their own resources. We allow old people who are too poor to pay for expensive day care to rot away in nursing homes that offer little or no privacy. Their love of life is thus destroyed. Looked at in this light one can only view with cynicism calls for greater liberalisation of the euthanasia laws.
Humanity is as capable of good as of evil. Which of these two inclinations gets the upper hand has occasionally to do with physiology, but it is much more often the environment that turns the scale. That environment, the social nexus of which everyone forms part, is in its turn enormously influenced by political choices. Society is of course not wholly malleable, but the playing down of the influence of political decisions, as is popular with many politicians and post-modern social critics, seems primarily motivated by the desire to escape responsibility for the many social evils of our time.
This false modesty about the influence of politics stands in stark contrast to the absoluteness with which many politicians nowadays preach the neoliberal line, and especially with the way in which it is imposed on society. There is little space for doubt or for the questioning of assumptions. It is still the case that big lies are more readily believed than small ones. Many have persuaded themselves that the market economy is a panacea for all social ills. That 'professionals' are more useful to an organisation than those who believe wholeheartedly in its goals. That the state is by definition suspect; that the free play of social forces produces only good; and that every alternative to these opinions belongs on the dunghill of history, because the prevailing beliefs are not only correct but self-evidently so.
Yet if history has taught us anything it is that absolute truths lead to absolute abominations. Nine hundred years ago Godfried de Bouillon, accompanied by 100,000 knights and other followers left the low countries with a sword in one hand and a bible in the other in order to proclaim the 'truth'. It was a 'truth' that taught that Muslims were heathens and barbarians, fit only to be slaughtered. The absolute truth of the Church of Rome led to the Inquisition; the supposed superiority of the human race to Dachau and Islamic fundamentalism to the Jihad and the Fatwah. Absolute truths exist only in theoretical mathematics and then only because certain axioms are taken as given. The truth can only be the sum of different truths, the content of which will differ according to time and place. Doubt is crucial. Of course, we cannot doubt everything all the time, because if we did we would achieve nothing and get nowhere; but we must always be prepared to allow questions, and, even more important, to question ourselves. Many people prefer a known question to an unknown answer, but that which today is unknown, new and strange might tomorrow be familiar and relied upon.

A society for people

As I said earlier, everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her own life and happiness. We are born 'alone, we die 'alone' and our feelings are a matter of individual perception. But people are also social beings: we live together. We have charged the state in the name of the community to take care of certain things, to watch over the general interest for now and in the long term. We legitimate it every few years by means of elections, and we expect it in the exercise of its tasks to take account of general social values, such as respect for the dignity of the individual and the equality of all people.
What makes socialists and liberals opponents is not the wish to allow individuals to take upon themselves as much responsibility as possible and to manage with as small a state as we can. An aversion to the nanny-state and paternalism is common to both. The biggest point of contention between the two sets of beliefs concerns precisely what it is that should be done communally and what can safely be left to the free play of social forces. The most important aspect of this difference of opinion involves the place of the economy, the cork upon which society floats, and its relationship to the state. Where liberals see the economy primarily as a place of sanctuary for investors, socialists say that it is too important to be left in the hands of a few. How can one claim an attachment to democracy and equality and then demand that the most important creator of social conditions remains outside its sphere of influence? Why tie democracy's hands behind its back and frustrate the democratic process in this all-important area?
What is produced in a country is the result of a collective effort. Why then should decisions about how and what we produce and what we do with the consequent revenue be left to investors who take account of nothing but their own private interests? Existing property relations prevent the state from being able to take vital decisions. They make it, to take an example, impossible to find work for people who are temporarily or permanently, through some incapacity, less productive than others, and thereby prevent them from being able to support themselves and make a contribution to our communal wealth.
We are confronted with a growing gap between collective poverty, brought about by the passion for spending cuts of most European governments, and the growing wealth of a few. The reasoning behind this is that the collective burden must be lowered to preserve our international competition. Yet from this collective wealth every kind of collective activity is financed, and, as everyone knows, more cheaply than if all individuals are left to manage their own affairs. It is, for example, cheaper, if more people and firms use public rather than private transport, and it is cheaper for society as a whole if everyone comes automatically under the same provisions in relation to health insurance.
Terms such as Gross Domestic Product and 'collective burdens' give a totally misleading picture of reality. Labour executed in the raising of pigs is counted in GDP, but not that of parents in raising their children. With collective 'burdens' are included the financial demands placed on us by the state and social funds, but not our other collective burden, the sum of our individual financial obligations, which must rise if collective provisions diminish. It is such financial and economic ideas that sow confusion and have nothing whatsoever to do with reality. The instruments used by economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Instead of the liberal dream of a state with less influence, the state's influence on the economy and everything that belongs to its sphere should be increased. Not as an end in itself, but in order to give it the ability to do the things which we empower it to do on our behalf, and to strike the balance necessary to improve society for all of its inhabitants. In the planning of how and where we live, work and take our leisure we must work together, bringing an end to the ever-growing concentration of economic activities in certain favoured areas. These are things over which the state can, as things stand, exercise diminishing influence.
By adjusting property relations we could also transform power relations, at last establishing the primacy of politics. Would this mean that politics and the state would take all power to itself? Nothing could be further from the truth, because an empowerment of the state must go hand in hand with its democratisation, with giving people more control of their own living and working conditions, of their lives. A thorough democratisation is the only effective answer to the individualisation and fragmentation of society. The democratic process brings people together: not only that, it can also make a contribution to improving the quality of decisions by increasing popular involvement and people's identification with the broader social good. Above all, by means of the democratic process we could create an infrastructure that would safeguard public ethics and enable us to pass on to future generations our moral understanding. Those things that can and should be left to the individual or to independent groups could also be decided by the people themselves.
The state must create conditions, stimulate, mobilise and co-ordinate. It is primarily an ally of the people and not an alien power that rules over them; it takes upon itself the needs of the people, identifies with their lot and tries to use its power to change things for the better for everyone.
No country, even if it is literally an island, is any longer metaphorically so. None can go it alone. But that does not mean that we should despair, or meekly give up what we have achieved. More and more people are awakening to the fact that humanity is allowing chances to be missed, and the process of this awakening is exactly in step with the growing influence of neoliberalism in the world. Battles may well have been lost, but the war is there to be won.

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“Enough” Contents:

• Index
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The wondrous rebirth of liberalism
• Chapter 2 The death of social democracy
• Chapter 3 The disempowerment of the people
• Chapter 4 Poverty in the midst of plenty
• Chapter 5 The assault of the market
• Chapter 6 The unbearable lightness of commerce
• Chapter 7 A question of civilisation
• Chapter 8 The United States of Europe
• Chapter 9 The spectre of the world market
• Chapter 10 The inevitability of an alternative
• Preface to the 2006 - updated edition
• Chapter 11 Ten years later, in the Netherlands
• Chapter 12 2006: Another world is possible
• Chapter 13 New optimism