Some thoughts on John McDonnell’s New Economics seminars

I went to the second of John McDonnell’s economics seminars last night — I don’t know how the rest of the series will go but last night’s, on the future of work and the impact of technology, was genuinely very informative. So here are some things I picked up.

Talking about processes is a distraction

I am not convinced that these seminars have many benefits in bringing unorthodox economics to the British public. But this is an important point: the process doesn’t really matter.

One moment during the event made this point for me. When a panelist raised that those of us in the Labour party are more focused on process than outcome — a primary concern that Labour moderates from Crosland to Blair had — the point was confirmed by a Labour MP in the audience who said if they had a policy choice between renationalising the railways, or state investment in self-driving cars, they’d pick railways.

It might well be the case that railway nationalisation is a desirable goal for the Labour Party. It is certainly easy to explain what that means (the process) but it is often harder for Labour to explain why it would lead to a vastly better future, or outcome. So we talk processes: oppose NHS privatisation, electoral reform, packing up Parliament and moving it up north. These arguments aren’t, of course, made without explaining their benefits, but they are hugely reactive and defensive positions pivoting on processes the British left has talked about for decades. It’s more comforting to talk about what is wrong with the world than to explain how it can be better.

This is what New Labour mocked the left for but it is now true right across the party.

Labour’s moderates look shut out

Chris Mullin records in his diaries that at a PLP meeting to discuss the 2001 manifesto, Jeremy Corbyn presented Blair with a wish-list of policy positions. He was met with the sort of gently amused response you give your uncle at Christmas when he airs his political views; that’s nice, you keep fighting for those things, we’ll get on with what we’re doing.

The ‘mainstream’, or moderate wing, of Labour is now closer to replicating Corbyn’s behaviour at that PLP meeting than Blair’s. Worse than a wish-list of policies, it talks almost entirely in to-do lists. We must be radical. We have a lot of work to do. We need to learn the lessons. We need to listen. We must face outwards. We need to talk about the state. But also the private sector. And the bits in between. But mostly, we should talk.

We are months away from having endured a full year of this rubbish. At some point we should probably get on with it before the rot sets in. Given that Labour’s moderate wing must first win the party back, it should ask: who on earth are we kidding by using a quite generous media platform to spread an entirely vacuous message about labels?

The contrast with the seminar on the future of work was remarkable, though I am not naive enough to think one seminar will construct an electable programme for the left. I think it still felt, last night, as though the impetus was coming from outside the Labour Party as a whole but the clearest thinking on how the future might be, internally at least, is being done by those far away from elements of the party that lay claim to the ‘future facing’ traditions of Wilson and Blair.

If it is looking to make a difference, and if it really must ‘talk’, what’s left of Labour’s moderate wing could do what elements outside the party are doing very well: talk about the future.

It should do much more of this sort of stuff, which feels a bit disjointed at the moment, and see how it can be extended beyond employment to other policy areas, or what it means for culture and identity — that would make for a far more interesting and productive contribution to Labour’s future than talking about how being called a Red Tory is mean.

What the future means

The future of work, as John Lloyd explains in this brilliant New Statesman piece, is at odds with what Labour is comfortable with. That was something raised at the seminar, although a Post-Labour Party feels a long way off.

Daniel Susskind’s contribution covered the most pressing issues for Labour, centering on professional work. For this type of employment, there are two futures — one makes existing models of work more efficient, the other replaces them all together. It seems as though this is particularly important for the public sector, and technology will be a way of ushering in a complete breakdown of the silo mentality that causes inefficiencies.

The big question in the room with this type of discussion is what is the state’s role in shaping the future? Francesca Bria was convincing, for example, on the lack of a social pact accompanying the shift to digital and tech-based work. Other significant economic and social shifts have emerged with the state providing a basic level of security — most obviously post-war welfare state.

Speaking of basic security — the universal basic income was raised almost as a given. It felt, from the panelists and audience contributions, that no one in the room needed much persuading. I am not sure that the arguments have been won anywhere near convincingly enough in the Labour Party but I wouldn’t be surprised if John McDonnell took it seriously at some point.

Some criticisms

It would be wrong to talk about the future of work to the exclusion of other policy areas but there is lots to be considered, both in terms of the benefits and challenges of technological change. What would the impact on immigration be if we automate the types of jobs which migrants tend to occupy? Does it have an impact on how we run schools? These haven’t been explored fully.

There was also a heavy emphasis on liberation rather than empowerment. This is a significant enough difference to eventually be defeated by lack of trust in politics. Labour’s starting point should be to invest in the platforms which allow us to work differently with a degree of freedom, rather than use them to liberate people. Empowerment is better than liberation because the agency lies with the people, not a government or company. Liberation sounds worryingly like the state freeing people from a list of problems that the government thinks exists. And in that, there is also the question of how Labour does this with some economic credibility.

In the same vein, there was little on power generally and how new power is a driving force for technological advance. That, I think, needs the left’s full attention.

What’s next?

Generally these are minor criticisms — and as I started out by saying, the process isn’t important. The seminars are a good step forward as long as they don’t fall into the trap of Labour’s new leadership choosing to listen only to the people they want to listen to, although last night didn’t have that air to it.

It is reasonable to think that tackling the future of work won’t find a home in Labour’s current leadership. McDonnell (probably) and Corbyn (definitely) are too heavily restricted by outdated social democracy to make this an agenda that can win power.

It therefore needs the rest of the Labour Party to engage with it. For their own sake, too, whatever is left of the ‘resistance’ to Corbyn should think about it because when the shackles of poor political leadership are thrown off Labour’s left, whoever comes after him will have some sound and frankly exciting policy issues to address. It might fail to make that into an election-winner. But at the moment there are signs that Labour’s left is looking properly at the future — at least more than anyone else has.

P.S. — I am happy to report that while the new politics has smashed political orthodoxy, its destructive nature has yet to extend to the age-old custom of the audience disguising a long speech as a question at political events.