The Third Way and its Critics E-Book

Anthony Giddens

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 241

Beschreibung

The idea of finding a 'third way' in politics has become a focus of discussion across the world. Political leaders, in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America claim to be following its principles. Yet the notion has also attracted much criticism. Some say it is an empty concept without any real content. Critics from the more traditional left argue that it is a betrayal of left-wing ideals. Anthony Giddens's The Third Way (Polity Press, 1998) is regarded by many as the key text of third way politics. Translated into twenty-five languages, it has shaped the development of the third way. In this new book Giddens responds to the critics, and further develops the ideas set out in his earlier volume. Far from being unable to deal with inequalities of wealth and power, he shows, third way politics offers the only feasible approach to these issues. The work is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand the most important political debate going on today. Anthony Giddens is the Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author or editor of over thirty books. His previous works, especially Beyond Left and Right (Polity Press, 1994) have influenced debates about the future of social democracy in many countries across the world. Frequently referred to in the UK as Tony Blair's guru, Giddens has made a strong impact on the evolution of New Labour.

Leseprobe

Anthony Giddens

The Third Way and its Critics

Polity

Copyright © Anthony Giddens 2000.

The right of Anthony Giddens to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2000 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Reprinted 2001 twice, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 twice

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1  The Third Way and its Critics

2  Social Democracy and the Third Way

3  Government, the State and Economic Strategy

4  The Question of Inequality

5  Taking Globalization Seriously

Conclusion

Third Way Bibliography

Index

Preface

This work is written as a sequel to my book The Third Way, first published in the autumn of 1998. The work attracted a great deal of interest and quite a bit of criticism too. In this current volume, I expand upon some of the themes outlined in the earlier study and discuss the criticisms commonly made of the idea of the third way. Not wishing to write a review of reviews, I haven’t responded to critiques of my book as such. Instead, I have concentrated upon criticisms made more generally of third way politics.

The Third Way appeared shortly after the high-point of the Asian crisis. In the wake of that crisis the hold of rightist thinking over politics has diminished. Almost everywhere, at least for the moment, conservatism is in retreat. The rise of third way politics is partly a reaction to this situation, but has also to some extent helped bring it about. The energies of many on the political left have long been preoccupied with resisting neoliberal claims, or with a defensive reworking of leftist thought in the face of them. Those energies can now be channelled in a more positive direction. Third way politics, I try to show, isn’t an ephemeral set of ideas. It will continue to have its dissenters and critics. But it will be at the core of political dialogues in the years to come, much as neoliberalism was until recently and old-style social democracy was before that. Third way politics will be the point of view with which others will have to engage.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the many people who have helped in the preparation of this book. David Held read and commented on successive drafts of the manuscript. I owe a great deal to him. I also owe a debt of thanks to Will Hutton, with whom I have had numerous political discussions over the past few months. I have learned a lot from our dialogues. Will made valuable comments on an early draft of the book. David Miliband and Sidney Blumenthal provided very useful further observations and reactions. Alena Ledeneva provided support, help and inspiration throughout.

Miriam Clarke worked tirelessly on the manuscript and I am extremely grateful to her for her diligence and good humour in so doing. Boris Holzer worked as my research assistant while I was writing the book and was a great source of help. My thanks are due also to the following: Alison Cheevers, Anne de Sayrah and Amanda Goodall.

A.G.

November 1999

1

The Third Way and its Critics

The idea of finding a third way in politics has become a focus of controversy across the world. The term ‘third way’, of course, is far from new, having been employed by groups of diverse political persuasions in the past, including some from the extreme right. Social democrats, however, have made use of it most often. During the Cold War period, many saw social democracy itself as a third way, distinct from American market liberalism on the one side and Soviet communism on the other. The term largely dropped out of sight for some while, before being resurrected in political dialogues of the past few years.

Curiously, the current popularity of the concept of the third way comes from its introduction into contexts in which it had never appeared before – the United States and Britain. Its revival, and subsequent wide diffusion, owes much to its adoption in those countries – by the Democrats and the Labour Party. Each party reshaped its political outlook, as well as its more concrete approaches to getting elected. Terminologically they resembled one another: the relabelling of the American party as the New Democrats was rapidly followed by the creation of New Labour in the UK.

The third way was originally described by the American Democrats as a ‘new progressivism’. The New Progressive Declaration, published by the Democratic Leadership Council in 1996, argued that a fresh beginning in politics was called for to cope with a world in fundamental change.1 In the first progressive era, in the early part of the twentieth century, American left-of-centre politics was radically reshaped in response to rapid industrialization and urbanism. The New Deal was based on collaboration between the state, the labour unions and big business.

Today, however, the ‘big institutions’, the New Democrats argued, can no longer deliver on the social contract as they did before. The advent of new global markets, and the knowledge economy, coupled with the ending of the Cold War, have affected the capability of national governments to manage economic life and provide an ever-expanding range of social benefits. We need to introduce a different framework, one that avoids both the bureaucratic, top-down government favoured by the old left and the aspiration of the right to dismantle government altogether.

The cornerstones of the new progressivism are said to be equal opportunity, personal responsibility and the mobilizing of citizens and communities. With rights come responsibilities. We have to find ways of taking care of ourselves, because we can’t now rely on the big institutions to do so. Public policy has to shift from concentrating on the redistribution of wealth to promoting wealth creation. Rather than offering subsidies to business, government should foster conditions that lead firms to innovate and workers to become more efficient in the global economy.

The New Democrats also referred to the new progressivism as the third way, a term that eventually came to have preference over the former one. These ideas helped drive the policies that the successive Clinton administrations introduced, or aimed to introduce – among them fiscal discipline, health care reform, investment in education and training, welfare-to-work schemes, urban renewal programmes, and taking a hard line on crime and punishment. To them they added notions of active interventionism on the international scene.

Partly borrowing from the New Democrats, and partly following its own line of political evolution, the Labour Party in Britain converged on similar ideas. Under Tony Blair’s leadership, the party broke with its own ‘old progressivism’ – Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution. Blair started to refer to New Labour as developing a third way, eventually putting his name to a pamphlet of the same title.2

Over the past half-century, the document says, two forms of politics have dominated thinking and policy-making in most Western countries: ‘a highly statist brand of social democracy’ and right-wing, free-market philosophy (neoliberalism). Britain has experienced both of these in full-blooded form, which is why the third way has special relevance there. Some neoliberal reforms were ‘necessary acts of modernization’. Yet the neoliberals simply ignored the social problems produced by deregulated markets, which have created serious threats to social cohesion.

The New Democrats and New Labour have given particular attention to family life, crime, and the decay of community – a conscious attempt to relate policies of the left to what are seen as prime concerns of ordinary citizens. We need a third way approach to the family, distinct from those who simply ignore the issue on the one hand and those, on the other, who want to turn the clock back to a time before women went out to work. Changes in the family are related to antisocial behaviour and crime. Responding to anxieties about crime is seen as vital to third way policies: hence Tony Blair’s celebrated statement that the left should be ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’.

When New Labour first came into government, there was intense interest among social democratic parties in Continental Europe. Since that time, however, responses to the claim that the Labour Party is developing a new form of left-of-centre politics have been mixed. Some Continental social democratic leaders, having investigated what was on offer, found it distinctly underwhelming. Others have been more receptive. In April 1999, at the height of the Kosovo conflict, a public dialogue on third way politics was held in Washington.3 Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder, Wim Kok – at that time prime minister of the Netherlands – and Massimo D’Alema, the Italian prime minister, attended.

There was considerable agreement among the Anglo-Saxon leaders and their Continental counterparts. Kok admitted that he liked the third way approach ‘very much’, but also felt that Dutch social democrats had already come to similar ideas and policies independently. Together with the Scandinavian countries, Holland is a country having one of the highest levels of social benefits. Yet in the current era, he agreed, it is not enough that people should be protected by government: they ‘must also feel the urgency of responsibility’, for ‘you have rights, but also responsibilities’. In a world marked by rapid social and technological change, government must be empowering rather than heavy-handed.

D’Alema expressed similar sentiments. The European countries have developed strong systems of solidarity and protection. But these have become bureaucratic, and hence have ‘slowed down development and limited the possibility of attaining success’. The third way suggests that it is possible to combine social solidarity with a dynamic economy, and this is a goal contemporary social democrats should strive for. To pursue it, we will need ‘less national government, less central government, but greater governance over local processes’, as well as opening out in the direction of the global community. Economic development will require lifelong learning and adaptation to new knowledge. ‘Culture is the most important form of social inclusion, and I think we should invest in culture.’ Such an approach, D’Alema concluded, has to break away from the old forms of welfare and social protection.

A short while after this meeting, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder published a joint paper entitled Europe: The Third Way – die Neue Mitte.4 The paper seeks to provide a general framework for left-of-centre parties in Europe. ‘The essential function of markets’, the two leaders argue, ‘must be complemented and improved by political action, not hampered by it.’

Blair and Schröder distance themselves decisively from what they define as the traditional social democratic outlook. The pursuit of social justice was often identified with a pre-eminent stress upon equality of outcome. As a consequence, effort and responsibility were ignored. Social democracy became associated with a dull conformity, rather than with creativity, diversity and achievement. Social justice was identified with ever higher levels of public spending almost regardless of what was actually achieved, or of the impact of taxation on competitiveness and job creation. Social benefits too often subdued enterprise as well as community spirit. Rights were elevated above responsibilities, resulting in a decline in mutual obligation and support.

Social democrats need a different approach to government, in which ‘the state should not row, but steer: not so much control, as challenge’. The quality of public services must be improved and the performance of government monitored. A positive climate for entrepreneurial independence and initiative has to be nurtured. Flexible markets are essential to respond effectively to technological change. Companies should not be inhibited from expanding by the existence of too many rules and restrictions. Modernizing social democrats, it is stressed, are not believers in laisser-faire. There has to be a newly defined role for an active state, which must continue to pursue social programmes. Employment and growth, however, cannot any longer be promoted by deficit spending. Levels of government borrowing should decrease rather than increase.

Critical reactions

Given its prominence in sources like these, and in shaping government policies in the US, UK and elsewhere, it is hardly surprising that the third way has sparked a variety of critical responses. Many, of course, come from conservative circles. Most right-wing critics see third way politics as either a mishmash of already familiar ideas and policies, or as lacking any distinguishable content at all. An article in The Economist, for instance, speaks of the third way’s ‘fundamental hollowness’. Trying to give an exact meaning to this political philosophy is ‘like wrestling with an inflatable man. If you get a grip on one limb, all the hot air rushes to another.’5

I shall be more concerned with critical reactions coming from within the left. Many leftists agree with their conservative counterparts that the content of third way doctrines is elusive. They also stress the indebtedness of the third way programme to its supposed opponents, the free marketeers. The third way is seen as presenting an essentially right-wing philosophy in a somewhat more attractive light – Mrs Thatcher without a handbag.

The Anglo-Saxon critics

Jeff Faux, writing in an American context about the Democrats, is one of those who holds that the third way is ‘an intellectually amorphous substance’; it has ‘become so wide that it is more like a political parking lot than a highway to anywhere in particular’.6 So much so, he continues, that the term has been applied to virtually every prominent political leader one can think of – not just Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, but ‘Chrétien of Canada, Prodi of Italy, Jospin of France, Salinas and Zedillo of Mexico, Schröder of Germany, Cardoso of Brazil, Menem of Argentina – even Boris Yeltsin!’.

Faux distinguishes three claims in terms of which the third way should be judged: that it has a coherent analysis of the declining relevance of the ‘old left’; that it provides an effective basis for rebuilding the fortunes of social democratic parties; and that it has a plausible strategy for dealing with issues of the post-Cold War age.

He accepts that what he calls the ‘mainstream left’ has to adapt to a world in rapid change. However, on each of the three issues just mentioned the third way has proved less than adequate. In the manner in which it developed in the US, at least, it was not originally constructed as a coherent political philosophy. The third way is not in fact a systematic approach at all, but developed as a tactical response to Democratic failures in the presidential elections of 1980 and 1984. The Clintonite Democrats claimed that because of its New Deal mentality the party was no longer in touch with the anxieties and aspirations of ordinary Americans. To become successful again in elections, the party had to respond to their concerns, and give priority to ‘conservative’ issues, such as law and order, rather than to questions of economic security. In particular, the New Democrats believed they had to break with a ‘tax and spend’ approach.

Faux disputes much of the historical ground on which these interpretations are based. Democratic presidents have cut taxes as often as they have raised them. Some Republican presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, have been more fiscally irresponsible than Democratic leaders – they wanted to spend on big government for purposes of defence, not, as the Democrats wanted, for social programmes. Moreover, in practice, the main proposals the New Democrats came up with were actually those which the ‘mainstream left’ had been advocating for a long while, such as more spending on education and child care.

It wasn’t a new programme, Faux asserts, which lay behind the successful presidential campaigns of 1992 or 1996. The campaigns were fought mainly on the basis of the economy, and Bill Clinton won because of support from traditional Democratic groups – labour unions, minorities, and the poor. ‘The lesson is that full employment beats conservative family values – just the opposite of the New Democrats’ claim.’

The New Democrats, he says, have echoed the relentless complaints of the conservatives about over-sized government. As a result, they have acquiesced in a failure of government to stand out against the excesses of the market. The message that the Clintonite Democrats have sent to the average American facing the competition of the new global economy is: you’re on your own. They have contributed to declining trust in government, rather than helping to reverse it.

The claim that third way thinking has fashioned a strategy effective in the new global economy, Faux declares, isn’t persuasive. There is no new strategy, but in fact an old one. The third way expresses the world-view of the multinational corporate sector – that the global marketplace only works effectively if government plays a minimal role. The response has been a rising hostility to globalization. The free-flowing nature of global capital has outstripped the capability of international agencies to ‘keep markets from self-destructing and to keep their people from suffering the brutal consequences’. Left-of-centre parties, the New Democrats say, should stop trying to guarantee outcomes for their citizens; all they can do is help provide opportunities for them to make the best of their lives. However, ‘the new global economy, which the third way aggressively promotes, undercuts the third way premises every day’.

Third way thinking seeks to expand opportunities, but is silent about the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The third way has not proved to be a philosophy that moves political policy-making ‘beyond left and right’. Instead, it is ‘primarily a rationalization for political compromise between left and right, in which the left moves closer to the right’.

Comparable views have been expressed by critics writing in Britain. In December 1998, Marxism Today published a comprehensive attack upon New Labour, in a one-off special issue. The magazine had ceased regular publication some years before. The special issue had a picture of Tony Blair on the front. Printed across the picture in giant letters was the single word: ‘Wrong’. Those involved all criticized New Labour for taking over too much from Thatcherism.

The main contribution was from the influential thinker Stuart Hall, entitled ‘The great moving nowhere show’.7 In the 1980s Hall developed a persuasive account of the nature of Thatcherism and the reasons for its success. Thatcherism was a radical doctrine, the aim of which was to alter the political landscape. Mrs Thatcher knew who she was against: ‘she knew that, to achieve radical change, politics must be conducted like a war of position between adversaries. She clearly identified her enemies, remorselessly dividing the political field: Wets v Drys, Us v Them, those who are “with us” v “the enemy within”.’

Tony Blair and New Labour claim to have a project at least as ambitious as Mrs Thatcher’s. But in practice third way politics shies away from radicalism, opting for a middle course on everything. It advocates a ‘politics without adversaries’ and therefore ends up accepting the world as it is rather than truly seeking to transform it.

New Labour has succumbed to a sweeping view of globalization, which provides ‘the dubious legitimacy’ of the third way project. Globalization is treated as if it were an irresistible force of nature, as much outside our influence as the weather. New Labour has been seduced by the gospel that global markets are self-regulating and require no social or institutional framework to function. The sovereign consumer has replaced the ideas of the citizen and the public sphere.

The image that guides New Labour policies, Hall says, is one of the lonely individual, set free from the state in order to face life’s risks alone – ‘like those lean urban “survivors” on their mountain bikes who haunt our streets’. The social insurance of the welfare state was originally designed to underwrite citizenship – to bind rich and poor alike into society. Cutting back on public funding stigmatizes welfare recipients, and produces a two-tier system, where the better off buy themselves private provision for their needs.

Tony Blair’s pamphlet on the third way is dismissed with some scorn. It acknowledges increasing inequalities, but offers no strategy for securing a more equitable distribution of income or wealth. No reference is made to power. Instead there is vague talk about the values of the left. What distinguishes a party of the left isn’t its values, Hall argues, but a perennial dissatisfaction with markets.

Another British critic, Alan Ryan, offers a different interpretation of third way politics and its claims to originality.8 The third way is a distinct and viable political position, he proposes, but it isn’t an innovation. It first emerged in British politics about a century ago – at which point it was known as New Liberalism. ‘The truth is that the third way is neither New Labour, as its admirers say, nor warmed over Thatcherism, as its detractors say, but a reversion to a very old idea.’ The third way attempts to avoid an excessive domination of the state over social and economic life, but does not accept that the market can be left to its own devices. These were exactly the views held by the New Liberals. Even the anxieties and problems of the electorate, to which third way politics reacts, are similar to those of the turn of the century. Concerns about deteriorating education and rising crime rates echo the fears of the early 1900s.

The third way of today, Ryan continues, does not in fact have an effective response to these problems. It will fade away, as its forerunner did. It has no principled answer, for example, to rising unemployment, should a downswing in the economic cycle occur. At that point, a third way government would have to move either to the left or to the right – to raise taxes and borrow, or stick to a fiscally ‘responsible’ position, and see unemployment climb.

The turn-of-the-century third way was actually in some respects superior to its more recent counterpart. The current version of third way politics is trying to reduce intervention in the marketplace in the face of the turbulent nature of the world economy, arguably the opposite of what we need; while in the areas of crime and education it has an unacceptably authoritarian standpoint. ‘To the extent to which it is a coherent or acceptable approach to government, it resembles the New Liberalism of the beginning of the century; to the extent that it does not resemble it, it is neither coherent nor attractive.’

Continental responses

The Blair-Schröder paper passed almost without notice in the UK. In Germany, by contrast, it proved enormously controversial. Ex-finance minister Oskar Lafontaine launched a stinging attack on it and on the third way more generally. The third way, he declared, is no way at all – ‘Der dritte Weg ist ein Holzweg’.9

The idea of ‘modernization’, Lafontaine says, comes down to little more than an endorsement of global free-market capitalism. The concept is reduced merely to economic categories. The questions of how we should live together, and of what sort of society we want, are declared irrelevant. Social democrats should have a different concept of ‘the modern’, one that stands in the tradition of the Enlightenment and which places as its prime value the freedom of the individual. The left must fight against the intrusiveness of the market and against the insecurities the global economy brings in its train. Globalization is largely the result of political decisions to deregulate markets. As a result, the world economy has become a casino economy – save that, in this particular casino, ordinary people don’t get to play. Their money is often involved – in the shape, for example, of pension funds. But it is banks, finance companies and other power brokers who take the decisions about what happens to it.

Financial markets, and those who dominate them, have to be subjected to regulation in order to put social goals above economic ones. In Europe we can also use other strategies to curb the influence of the world marketplace. The European Union can resist the worst features of the world economy and by keeping spending levels high can defend a ‘social Europe’. Coordination of tax policies in the European Union will be necessary to achieve this end. It is this view, Lafontaine comments ironically, which led the Sun newspaper to call him ‘the most dangerous man in Europe’. Lafontaine insists that ‘not the “market”, but democratically chosen governments and parliaments must take the decisions that determine the future of our society’.

A similar division between ‘modernizers’ and ‘traditionalists’ has opened up in many countries. Some critics from the left, however, take quite a different tack from Lafontaine. For them, the more advanced sectors of Continental social democracy already incorporate the worth-while contributions the third way has to offer.

According to Erkki Tuomioja, writing from a Finnish context, the idea that third way prescriptions might be relevant to other European countries, such as the Nordic states, ‘is baffling’.10 Consider welfare reform, for example. Why should policies relevant to a British context have any bearing on more fully fledged welfare systems? After all, the UK is not a welfare state ‘in any sense that is familiar to and accepted by most people in the Nordic countries’. Britain (in common with the US) has one of the highest levels of economic inequality of any of the developed societies.

Third way writers, Tuomioja says, call for reform of the welfare state because it hasn’t been especially good at reducing inequalities. In fact, in the Nordic countries the welfare state ‘has been extraordinarily successful in eliminating poverty’. Welfare states in northern Europe have mostly had a universalist approach to benefits and public services, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon countries. As a result, most people share common experiences of public provision – there is both redistribution of income and increased social solidarity.

The Nordic welfare model involves civil society groups in the running of welfare services and allocates a high degree of local autonomy in so doing. Struggles over public ownership haven’t had the central place they have in Britain. Finland is already in most respects a ‘third way country’. Take the example of pensions. In Finland, there is a mixed system of pensions, with a state-provided universal pension plus earnings-related pensions and controlled private sector provision.

Moreover, the Nordic welfare states have long since concentrated upon active labour market policies, now making a delayed appearance in an Anglo-Saxon context under the label of ‘welfare to work’. Nordic social democracy has been characterized by a willingness to introduce reforms on a pragmatic basis with the aim of finding solutions that are effective. Advocates of third way politics suggest that a different orientation to politics is needed because existing social democratic policies have failed. ‘This is something most European social democrats would not agree with. Reforms and new thinking are needed, not because of social democratic failure but because the lifetime full employment conditions of Fordist mass production and consumption and of Keynesianism-in-one-country on which the Nordic model was originally built do not exist any more.’

Tuomioja is not claiming, he stresses, that all is well with the Scandinavian welfare states. On the contrary, they face major problems. But they should be able to deal with these without structural changes that would bring them closer to the Anglo-American system. Unemployment, for example, remains high in Finland. Adjustments needed to reduce it can be made without changing the fundamental character of the Nordic social contract. Social democracy has always been able to implement reforms on a pragmatic basis, a more effective outlook than the search for ‘an ephemeral third way’.

Another critic, Vicenç Navarro, comes to his assessment of the third way from a Spanish perspective.11 Navarro recounts how, while acting as an adviser to the Spanish Socialist Party, he was asked to write an introduction to the Spanish translation of Blair’s Third Way