I must say that given the following statement quoted below it is hard to see that it is not! And, if you are correct, I ask the question how could it not require land reform, and why not? I hope you will explain.

“Presently, EU subsidies of £3 billion go to landowners for doing nothing. The more land the greater the pay out. This money should go to many more people working the land.

“Some 300,000 additional land and farm based permanent jobs could be created by subsidising each one by £10,000 annually. Local farms could produce food for food service industries such as shops, hotels & restaurants, thus linking town and country.”

Who’s the ‘we’ here I wonder? … Well, no matter … such a scenario would be a clear impossibility! Indeed the trend is in the other direction – towards a smaller and more fabulously wealthy plutocratic elite, a smaller, ‘ordinary’ bourgeoisie, and a smaller, middling but relatively affluent and secure group of small business owners, managers, technocrats, technical-administrative-ideological workers and state functionaries (esp. in the repressive and ideological institutions) plus a few others necessary to the effective functioning of the high level economy and plutarchic state; below them (the majority of the population – even in the ‘developed world’!) an increasingly impoverished and precarious group of workers either providing less skilled functions for the higher tier economy or working in the lower tier economy that provides subsistence for the majority, and then below even them a fairly large group of destitute, permanently unemployed, homeless, struggling to survive on the margins of society. The emerging social structure is less a class-based one as we have grown to know it under capitalism, especially in the metropole and metropolitan social theory, as a caste-society.

I would argue that the above trend is inherent to the survival of capitalist society – or at least to an inegalitarian, elitist structure currently manifested in capitalism. I don’t agree with those – Paul Mason included – who believe that capitalism (as distinct from a market-based economic system) can be rejigged and (re)civilised for the benefit of all – it is based on a very selective history of the relationship between capitalism and social democracy, and a lack of awareness of the internal and external limitations that capitalism is running up against and which lie behind the present crisis. We are living in the midst of an epochal change as great as that from feudalism to capitalism (or, perhaps even more pertinently, from classical civilisation and empire to the early (‘Dark’) middle ages), but many self-professed leftists are desperately hanging onto the capitalist system and a nostalgic vision of social democracy as if their careers, perceived status, and other accumulated privileges depended on it. Ironically, I suspect that many more ‘thinkers’ on the right than the so-called socialist left actually realise that capitalism is fast passing away and are planning and already constructing its succession.

The reason I say all this is because to me the ideas of ‘chiefs and Indians’, ‘management’ and ownership, inequality and upward and downward ‘social mobility’, inherited *and* ‘earned* ‘privilege and power’ are ALL part of this decaying paradigm and to continue to believe in and use them is, admittedly unwittingly in some cases, to support a conservative, hierarchical vision of society. We (meaning those who believe in utopian ideas of freedom, equality, solidarity and universal love) need to start espousing and fighting collectively for these universal values. Moderate, half-way and half-hearted, liberal, social democratic type measures are not going to save us.

I admit that problematically, inequality seems to be extremely deeply embedded psychologically and culturally – even when equality is ‘believed in’ ideologically and espoused rhetorically, and it is arguably the greatest barrier to the necessary radical transformation we as a species need to make to survive and thrive in the fullest sense of the word. Even so, we must also see that a belief in equality – and desire for it is – deeply embedded in the human as well. History has shown that in certain circumstances this latent, dormant spirit and idea can be awakened through emancipatory-directed *collective* activity, radical religion, and sometimes through art, and inspire rebellion against authoritarian structures. *This* we need – *not* futile debates about rebuilding social mobility, relegitimising management, and how much inequality ‘we’ want to have.

Thank you for the reference. I shall follow it up.

Is this plan predicated upon land reform?

Which sectors of the economy have they identified, who is working on the plans?

Let’s get it clear that the reason why things could get better after WWII was, in part, because much of industry had been wiped out across Western Europe and so British firms had markets to supply. These same firms ploughed little of the excess profits they made into new machinery and so hence when I was at college in the mid 80s and did some work for the West Mldlands Economic Development Council i found that, e.g., at the Nottingham TI Triumph bike company in Nottingham they were making bikes on machinery from the mid 1930s. It was the same right across Lucas in the West Midlands when I worked on a research project with the stewards at Great King Street. (a report incidentally that was blocked from publication by local Labour politicians and that was ‘old’ Labour) Britain now has a much reduced manufacturing sector, is it intended to reinvest in it under a Labour government? What about carbon capture and storage – which works perfectly well – to get some of the coal mines moving?

Paul has in his possession a book that might be worth reading as it does put forward a considerable plan to revive rural communities. It was a book rated highly by Open Democracy last year.

Here is the details:-

BREXIT AND FOOD, FARMING, LAND AND LABOUR

No major political party has a vision of how 70 million people will be fed after Brexit.

One man who does is Charlie Clutterbuck and his book BITTERSWEET BREXIT: the future of food, farming, land and labour has been widely welcomed.

‘Best political books of 2017’ openDemocracy

Dan Crossley, Food Ethics Council “very well written, covering hugely important issues.”

“Informative” Tom Rigby NW Rep on NFU Organic Forum

“ Challenges us to rethink our food systems and reconnect locally.” Pam Warhurst, co-Founder of Incredible Edible Network

Many people rely on food banks, demeaning rather than uplifting, and not providing fresh healthy food. Yet we can easily produce much more food – cheaply.

Presently, EU subsidies of £3 billion go to landowners for doing nothing. The more land the greater the pay out. This money should go to many more people working the land.

Some 300,000 additional land and farm based permanent jobs could be created by subsidising each one by £10,000 annually. Local farms could produce food for food service industries such as shops, hotels & restaurants, thus linking town and country.

This could bring food prices down, provide living wages, supply fresh local food, stimulate our rural economy and reduce Britain’s £30 billion annual food trade deficit

None of which is being debated by any political party, bodies such as the NFU or the national media.

Yet these issues are crucial as Britain faces an uncertain future when it comes to being able to feed everyone as other countries are also keen to find food from overseas for their own citizens.

Invite Charlie to speak

Charlie’s talk at Bradford Trades Union Council (BTUC) attracted its largest attendance for years. “Charlie explained Brexit will lead to a bigger change to agriculture than anything since the Corn Laws abolition in the 19th century…..the media obsess with the detail of the EU negotiations but we wanted to debate about the way we want to the country to change for the better. Charlie was ideal for this.” BTUC sec Mike Quiggin

See https://sites.google.com/view/bittersweetbrexit/home/book-news for updates & events.

More details from Mark Metcalf. 07392 852561 mcmetcalf@icloud.com @markmetcalf07 @clutterbuckcha1 and 07908 571612 and charlie@sustainablefood.com

To order copies of the book go to:- https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337708/bittersweet-brexit/. Also available via all good bookshops. Special rates for multiple copies – contact Mark Metcalf

Thank you for providing this link. Mr Crewe has done sterling service in providing this very thorough history of the wilful attack on local government.

Both Conservatives and Labour at Westminster have fairly consistently attacked local democracy, because both are seduced by the accrual of powers and, via ‘outsourcing’ have substantially removed public services from public control other than paying out.

At the local level there are many doughty conservatives who are strong advocates of local democracy. For example, many Conservative councils were the strongest advocates and defenders of comprehensive schools. I am not implying that Labour and the Lib Dems were less innovative and assiduous at the local level. There is a broad swathe of people who know that local delivery and decision making, with revenue raising powers is the most effective way. The concept of a ‘national service locally delivered’ was and is a good one. The idea was that the ‘national’ aspect was establishing a continually rising baseline, but that councils could provide better than that. The example of Bermondsey having to reduce its health service when the NHS was established is an early example of localism being undermined in favour of dirigisme. And, the powers associated with dirigisme become seductive as ends in themselves: people at the centre want to accrue power because they want to accrue power.

One malign effect of this has been the disenchantment with politics and the belief that politics cannot solve anything. People complain about the failure of services but with even greater vehemence condemn any proposals to devolve powers to the local level.

I was heartened to read of the ‘tender shoot’ of the Queen’s Park Community Council in the borough of Westminster. In Scotland, the Community Empowerment Act of 2015 provides the opportunity of reversing the flow of powers to the centre back to local levels. The SNP group which is now the largest group on Glasgow City Council since 2017 has under the Act offered the people of each ‘ward’ £1 million of Council budget to spend on locally identified priorities. It is hedged around with various caveats, which is understandable since we are all learning about this. It remains to be seen how this will work out. But, I think it is an example of how communities across the UK comprising people with a range of political tendencies are beginning to explore ways of managing things on their own. Some of the ‘community buy-outs’ in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, such as South Uist and Eigg, have been running for several years now and practical principles are emerging.

Many MPs went to Westminster only after a long career in local government, now at Westminster, we have many who go straight there from university via a spell as a SPAD. There are others like ‘Strong and Stable’ Mrs May who had experience as councillors, but as the councillors who complied in the councils’ disempowerment.

To be charitable, I would say that as far as Labour, nationally, is concerned, it is 50/50 whether they will seriously decentralise. The way they hamstrung the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies from their inception, coupled with Mr Blair’s sneer of ‘glorified parish councils’ is indicative of the thinking. Post 2014 when the Smith Commission was set up to implement Mr Brown’s mendacious ‘Vow’ about transferring more powers to Edinburgh, it was Labour, and its spokesman Mr Iain Gray, who fought tooth and nail against the transfer of any meaningful powers.

Of the 111 powers to be ‘returned’ from Brussels to the devolved parliaments, because the devolution acts located them there, all are to go to Westminster, which will decide which will be returned. This is not even to be discussed in the Commons. An amendment has been promised, but has not yet been published, to be debated in the Lords, where, as a matter of principle the SNP has no members. This is a serious power grab which can only further disempower local politics. And Labour’s response? -To sneer at the SNP at having to ‘crawl’ to friendly lords like the former Liberal leader, mr David Steel. Perhaps my charitable 50/50 in the previous paragraph is a bit optimistic.

Truly poignant,

Thank you.

I think this is but one aspect of a wide range of transformative things which need to be undertaken. There are several ‘micro’ energy generation schemes which could be used at the local level, such as ground or water source heat pumps. Better building standards would reduce the too-large burden energy costs have on
domestic budgets. Glasgow City Council’s City Building a.l.e.o., for example has a couple of very good housing design models which can be built with existing technologies, which are pretty much carbon neutral and have very low recurring energy costs. But, of course, Councils have limited scope for housebuilding, although changes by the Scottish Government make things much more feasible for housing associations.

It really is a matter of political power and it has to be diverted from the land-owning rentier/financier class.

What young people want in those regional “towns of despair” is not hand-outs but jobs – go and ask them!
And as the article points out, it’s not like there is a shortage of things that need doing, why not generate living wage jobs to initiate “… the fabric of their local communities restored: youth clubs, adult social services, mental health facilities, green space and thriving high streets.”

Five times as much doesn’t sound particularly imbalanced by current standards, Alasdair – though all credit to you for seeing it as such. All too often these days the poor to impose sanctions is often taken as a reward in itself with the opportunity to bully being considered a perk of the job.

“For my Dad’s generation, it meant something different. It meant being able to do well by working hard, while seeing your town, your community, its built environment and its commercial vibrancy rise with you.”

Not so much a scramble to rise to the top of the pile as putting in the effort to play a more significant part is moving everyone forward.

Thank you.

It is quite difficult to change our language when an idea like social mobility has been around for so long. The concept of ‘dropping down’ the social strata is one which is immediately meaningful to me and has me nodding in agreement, despite the fact that I think we need a different paradigm.

Undoubtedly there are cases of the offspring of ‘good’ families or wealthy ones ‘going bad’ and losing both wealth and status. However despite the myth of working hard, getting a good education, abiding by the rules, increasingly many of us, particularly those below 35, are not upwardly mobile. But, despite the ‘meritocracy’ trope which those in power like to use to validate themselves, they ensure that their offspring do not fall down the ‘social ladder’ by sending them to private schools, Russel Group Universities or Sandhurst, using their connections to get them ‘billets’ in the BBC, financial services, high status third sector groups like the National Trust for Scotland, etc, thus blocking ‘social mobility’. There is no ‘room at the top’ for the assiduous young person from a less materially comfortable background.

The ‘chiefs and indians’ trope is one which I, too, have used often. However, the benefit of articles like this is that we begin to look at what it actually entails – to use a phrase that makes me gag: we ‘deconstruct it’. Having been a ‘chief’ for most of my career, it became increasingly clear to me that I was really only playing one role as a member of a team, most of the others of whom, were the ones actually delivering the key service. I would have liked to have thought of myself as ‘primus inter pares’, i.e. that my ‘primus’ role was because of my ability to deal with strategic issues, with to which the others consented, because I did things reasonably well. However, I was paid five times the level of remuneration than the lowest paid, I had powers to impose sanctions, etc. There was an imbalance in the power relationships.

However, I think that management approaches have improved considerably in many sectors of the economy and that there are constructive relationships with trade unions, which can be of benefit to all, because, it is not, as the upper strata like to imply, a zero-sum game. We have, indeed, added value.

But, at present with the rentier class in power, in so many sectors, the benefits are heinously inequitably distributed. Those who actually produce the surpluses are often dismissed so that ‘shareholder value’ can be ‘optimised’. As ever, the use of euphemisms mask venal greed.

Mr Mason has indicated broad areas where change can take place. However, there has to be a political will to bring about the change and that entails the redistribution of power and changes to the law and to the constitution. We have to address the loci of the power of the rentier, which is substantially in land and property.

The Brazilian Marxist educator, Paulo Freire, used the term ‘conscientisation’ as a key factor in bringing about change. It entails getting people to reflect upon their condition and its causes, and having appreciated that they can then empower themselves to bring about change. Of course, the military and the small power class in Brazil acted against the people of the favelas who had begun to articulate their case. The dismissal of President Rousseff and the persecution of former President Lula are current examples of this vicious response.

1) Luddism – halt technical advances to preserve wage-based capitalism in its current form.
2) Cashing out – keep laying off workers and paying out to shareholders until there aren’t enough employed people to buy anything and the system collapses.
3) Make-work – invent useless jobs in order to keep people employed, because it’s much more important that everyone spends forty hours a week on activity they don’t particularly want to be doing than that they actually achieve anything.
4) UBI.

Obviously there will be necessary big projects, currently neglected by government, that will provide the opportunity to employ a lot of people. But they will be temporary, and will need fewer and fewer people as technology advances.

I endorse the points made by Mr Jeremy Fox in his response, particularly his second and third ones.

Because of the scope and because other articles are planned it is difficult to make an overarching response and so, at this stage I will make a couple of disparate poits.

Firstly, Mr Mason begins by raising the issue of ‘social mobility’ and for people like me and millions of others born shortly after 1945 it exerted a powerful hegemony and Mr Attlee’s government made epochal efforts to make it possible, as it proved to be, for millions of us to have a quality of life of which my parents and grandparents could only dream. I still think that a class analysis of society and the economy provides the best description of how things are and how they were. So, it must be used and be used unapologetically by political parties which aim to be redistributive of wealth and power, and the Labour Party is only one of those – and the most arrogant and exclusive of those – and it still has within its MPs and Councillors many who were rather contemptuous of such discussions, following the lead from, principally, the oafish and disastrous Mr Gordon Brown, whom I recall in an interview, snorting dismissively, when asked if he still had any socialist beliefs.
However, one consequence of using a class analysis is the concept of ‘social mobility’ and the language of ‘getting on’,’moving up’, etc. It was predicated upon a concept of people as a heap, with those higher in the heap being by a number of criteria, ‘better’, including morally so. Neoliberalism is based on that, and, indeed, has embarked on steepening the gradient, while deliberately forcing increasing numbers to lower strata. It can be pictured as a Gaussian curve, with a wide base and a sharply tapering very tall peak. So, to change the hegemony, I think we do need to change the model and I think this is why many reject the idea of ‘mobility’. It really is about redistribution of wealth and power and not about one’s place in some construct of a heap, up which one can climb.
I think the old parody of the Red Flag: “The working class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the foreman’s job at last..” encapsulates somewhat cynically one very severe consequence of the social mobility concept. Sadly, I think that many in the last Labour Government, not least the former chairman of the Social Mobility Commission could be said to exemplify the parody.

Secondly, the article mentions nothing about land reform. This has been successfully kicked, not into the long grass, but into the Challenger Deep, by the landowner class. We really must address the issue with determination, for it can solve pretty quickly much of the housing crisis and begin to repopulate the rural areas. The landowners will, of course, fight like wildcats. The Green Party Member of the Scottish Parliament, Mr Andy Wightman, a long-standing campaigner for land reform, is being sued by the landowners association for initiating the early stages of land reform in Scotland. The intention is to bankrupt him and have him removed from public office. Surprisingly, the seemingly brain-dead Labour Party in Scotland actually made a budget proposal to this effect in the current Scottish Budget debate. I hope it is a good sign, but I fear that it prefers tribalism and internal fighting as the current fuss regarding alleged racist comments from within the party about Mr Anas Sarwar, MSP.

Thirdly, Mr Mason mentions nothing about constitutional reform and redistribution of effective powers to subsidiary levels of governance. I would prefer the United Kingdom to be dissolved and for Scotland, England and Wales to become independent countries and for Ireland to be reunited. However, even without there are other options such as a genuine federalism. Labour talks about it – indeed, Mr Gordon Brown in his infamous and mendacious ‘VOW’ prior to the Scottish Referendum in 2014, claimed it was ‘the nearest thing to federalism’. Mr Corbyn makes vague noises about it, but does not really understand the issue, since he is on record as saying ‘Scotland is part of England’ and ‘We cannot have different laws in different parts of the country’, demonstrating his ignorance of the fact that since the Union of 1707, the separate Scottish legal system has continued. There could be genuine regional government. Again this is a failed lukewarm Labour policy. In legislating for devolution to Scotland and Wales, Labour actually did leave England with a democratic and governance deficit. While the Good Friday Agreement was a genuine triumph for Mr Blair’s government and offered hope and an empowering way forward for both parts of Ireland, that is in jeopardy at present and not just from Brexit. There should be powerful, strategic regional authorities in England, Scotland and Wales (whether independent or federated) and there should be several other, empowered layers to enable local people to take meaningful decisions about their areas. These should include the right to tax. The powers should be enshrined in a formal constitution.

Finally, Mr Mason refers to the attacks on trade unions. This was undoubtedly a seriously disempowering attack by neoliberalism on the rest of us. Again, Labour failed to rebalance things after the departure of Mrs Thatcher and Mrs Major, and, indeed, was happy to help the neoliberal approach by ‘light touch regulation’. Having been a lifelong trade unionist, I am not blind to the appalling and ultimately self-destructive conduct of many within the trade unions up until the 1980s; indeed, they enabled Mrs Thatcher to create a plausible narrative. However, without doubt, on balance the trade unions made my life better. There were and are many sincere and unselfish people within trade unions who would accept the kind of framework within which say, the German trade unions operate. Labour must start articulating such ideas.

I look forward to other comments and to Mr Mason’s further articles.

PS when I am visiting my daughter, I use the gym and cinema at Goldsmith’s, but I am not angling for an invitation to the round table!