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| Just after the last election, Tony Blair said: "We ran for office as new Labour, and we will govern as new Labour." I hope he says something similar this time. New Labour in government has been attacked from all sides, but by and large it has done a good job. Critics argue that the party has moved too far from its social-democratic roots, but I would say that it is closer today to the mainstream of social democracy than ever before. All Continental social-democratic parties have introduced similar policy changes in recent years. And that is not surprising. The world has changed enormously over the past two or three decades. Socialism is no longer a viable economic doctrine; Keynesianism has become inoperative; globalisation has intensified; and the economic system has been transformed by information technology. A left-of-centre party today must concern itself with competitiveness as well as social justice, and must indeed reconcile the two. In four particular areas, new Labour has taken the proper course and should continue down the same road. First, the state. The role of a Labour government - any and every Labour government - should be to defend and enhance the role of public institutions. But public institutions are not the same as the state - and this is where the old left went wrong. The state can often diminish the public sphere rather than strengthen it. Where they function poorly, where they are overly bureaucratic or represent sectional interests, state agencies can undermine the public purpose. New Labour is therefore justified in placing reform of the state at the core of its programme. The drive to create joined-up government, for example, is not a stunt; it is a vital reform. It is closely related to breaking the hold of what David Marquand has called "the Tory state" - the centralised, secretive and unaccountable nature of decision-making in Whitehall. It is in this context that we should understand Labour's pragmatic approach to privatisation. Privatisation can often serve public purposes better than state ownership. But neither is cut of a single cloth. There are good and bad privatisations, just as there are more and less effective forms of state-run enterprise. Privatisation runs counter to the public interest where assets are sold off too cheaply, where the wider social consequences are not properly thought through, or where regulation is inadequate. Privatisation usually works best where there is not a natural monopoly. But globalisation and technological change have reduced the range of natural monopolies; telephony is one example and, for this industry, most countries have followed the UK road of privatisation. Second, tax. New Labour's leftist critics argue that UK public services are poorer than in most other EU countries because taxation as a proportion of GDP is too low. This is only partly true. The low quality of British public services also stems from the relative lack of economic progress from the 1950s to the 1980s, and from the managerial weaknesses that underlay this stagnation. New Labour has rightly distanced itself from traditional tax-and-spend policies. Like other contemporary social-democratic parties, it now emphasises fiscal discipline and balanced budgets. In the old days, "tax and spend" was really a misnomer - it usually meant "tax and overspend". Leftist parties found that no matter how heavily they taxed, it was never enough. Most spent well beyond their true revenue, thus storing up major problems for themselves. At one point, in some EU countries, such as Belgium in the late 1980s, the state was paying out as much as 10 per cent of GDP each year on interest accumulated through such profligacy. Labour is also correct to ditch the idea that progressive income tax is the only way to achieve greater equality. The size of the tax take is what counts most, and high tax rates sometimes yield only a low tax take. Moreover, if used judiciously, tax cuts can further social justice as well as promote economic efficiency. Cutting business taxes runs counter to the instincts of the traditional left, but makes sense where, for instance, a tax cut promotes job creation and hence generates a higher tax take. The debate over tax in this country has concentrated too much on income tax. Taxation should be diverse and, wherever possible, should concentrate on the "bads" rather than the "goods", as is generally the case with green taxes. Consumption taxes are not necessarily regressive. Sometimes, they can be directly progressive, such as stamp duty on housing sales that rises proportionately to the size of the purchase. But whether or not such taxes have a progressive effect depends even more upon how the revenue is spent. |
| Anthony Giddens |
| Just Carry On Being New |
| Anthony Giddens war einer der theoretischen Wegbereiter für New Labour. Nach der Wiederwahl bewertet der Direktor der London School of Economics die Politik der ersten und setzt Ziele für die zweite Legislatzrperiode.. |