Rise of the red Tories

The crisis is an opportunity to sweep away the rotten postwar settlement of British politics. Labour is moribund. But David Cameron has a chance to develop a "red Tory" communitarianism, socially conservative but sceptical of neoliberal economics

by Phillip Blond / February 28, 2009 / Leave a comment
Published in February 2009 issue of Prospect Magazine

We live in a time of crisis. In such times humans retreat to safety, and build bulwarks against the future. The financial emergency is having this effect on Britain’s governing class. Labour has withdrawn to the safety of the sheltering state, and the comforts of its first income tax rise since the mid-1970s. Meanwhile, the Conservatives appear to be proposing a repeat of Thatcherite austerity in the face of economic catastrophe. But this crisis is more than an ordinary recession. It represents a disintegration of the idea of the “market state” and makes obsolete the political consensus of the last 30 years. A fresh analysis of the ruling ideological orthodoxy is required. Certainly, this new thinking isn’t going to come from the left. New Labour is intellectually dead, while Gordon Brown promises an indebted return to a now-defunct status quo. But, in truth, Brown’s reconversion from post-socialist free marketeer to state interventionist is only plausible because the Conservatives have failed to develop an alternative political economy that explains the crisis, and charts a different future free of the now bankrupt orthodoxies. Until this is achieved, Brown’s claim that the Conservatives are the “do nothing” party has real traction, and makes the result of the next election far from assured.

On a deeper level, the present moment is a challenge to conservatism itself. The Conservatives are still viewed as the party of the free market, an idea that has collapsed into monopoly finance, big business and deregulated global capitalism. Tory social thinking has genuinely evolved, but the party’s economic thinking is still poised between repetition and renewal. As late as August 2008 David Cameron said: “I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Margaret Thatcher was an economic reformer,” and that “radical social reform is what this country needs right now.” He is right about society, but against the backdrop of collapsing markets and without a macro-economic alternative, Thatcherite economics has been wrongfooted by events.

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Comments

Wandering back « The Wandering Hedgehog
September 13, 2009 at 17:32
[...] then I’ve been drifting around the place. Was briefly diverted by Philip Blond’s “Red Tory” essay in Prospect, but was repelled by Blond’s [...]
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Demos’ public services report compounds problems | Left Foot Forward
September 23, 2009 at 12:32
[...] the bluster and hyperbole, there are some more constructive thoughts from the “red Tories.” They are right that staff morale and professionalism are recognised as being key to [...]
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pewkatchoo
October 19, 2009 at 15:39
What a load of intellectual claptrap. Time you got yourself out in the real world me old mate. If this is the total bag of dross that Cameron is investing in, then we need to find some alternative party to vote for. Time to keep these self-professed experts out of anywhere they can do harm.
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David B. Wildgoose
December 4, 2009 at 19:47
Brilliant! I'd sign up for such a manifesto, it's just a desperate shame that "Heir to Blair" Cameron can't be trusted any further than Blair could.
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Brendan Caffrey
December 10, 2009 at 11:44
Can "The Ownership State" abolish public sector management? Res Publica has produced a series of provocative ideas about real public concerns. This is to be welcomed. But there are serious reservations about the proposals so far. Philip Blond argues that over the last 10 years public sector productivity has only risen by 3.4%, whereas private sector productivity has risen by 27.9% over the same period. Where these figures come from is not revealed. How productivity is measured is a complex business. What to measure, and what is measureable, raises a host of problems in both the private and public sectors. Toyota is an example given of cutting costs. I am not aware of recent research on Toyota; but my research on other Japanese firms showed cost cutting came from wages that were high relative to local wage rates, but low relative to national rates. Trade unions were not made very welcome either. There is an attractive demand for "front line leadership". But this sits uneasily with "public sector experts" retained! Workers self management has a long history in Britain, and also in Yugoslavia under a socialist government. What one needs here is real world examples of what decisions front line managers can take; and those only experts could take; and how any conflict between these two groups could be resolved. One is left with a feeling that a strong local group could, or should win. The debate in the 1990's around communitarianism in America is instructive here. Specifically, how Catholic priests organised housing and employment, but only for "good" catholics. The death of full time managers still seems a long way off. Responses to the above are welcome at: whyworktoday@live.co.uk
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Ivo P Janecka, MD, MBA, PhD
March 19, 2010 at 19:27
The article, Rise of the red Tories by Phillip Blond, Prospect, Feb 28, 2009, reached high US readership following David Brooks’ New York Times piece, The Broken Society (NYT, Mar 19, 2010) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html?th&emc=th. It highlights the salient points of Blond’s piece and also includes David Brooks’ perspectives on US society. Any major societal restructuring/re-balancing, as proposed by Blond and echoed by Brooks, could be assisted by a blueprint of principles; systems science may offer some guidelines. Without a blueprint of principles, there always exists a real risk that a large dysfunctional system that embarks on corrective actions concomitantly precipitates the occurrence of a black swan, a destructive random event. A few examples follow. Blond: “We are a bi-polar nation, a … centralised state …[and] fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” His solution calls for the ”restoration and creation of human association.” These points are congruent with systems science that requires any biologic/societal system to have highly functioning system relationships, among its components, that engage in bidirectional feedback loops and reciprocal hierarchies. Another important point that Blond makes is to “remoralize the market, relocalize the economy….” System’s components have to perform in a system-optimizing fashion (“remoralizing”), and not in a self-maximizing manner. Systems also express mutual interrelationships and the dependency on inter-system distance which refers to Blond’s “relocalization” of the economy. He also calls for, and what David Brooks highlights, “to create a civil state… reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants….” This point focuses on the needed balance of systems science principle of self-organization/horizontal hierarchy with the governing vertical hierarchy. Any proposed major societal change, however, needs to recognize the driving force of human decisions. In Blond’s proposal, to “take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associates,” is very much congruent with systems science principles, including those mentioned above, especially the one that calls for the needed system-optimizing and not self-maximizing behavior. In reality, principles are valuable but most human choices (about 80/20) depend on the nature of incentives; they must propagate in a system-optimizing direction. Further information on the application of systems science to major societal issues can be found at Janecka IP: Is the U.S. Health Care an Appropriate System? A strategic perspective from systems science. Health Research Policy and Systems 2009, 7:1 (Highly Accessed) http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/1/1 Janecka IP: Cancer control through principles of systems science, complexity, and chaos theory: A model. Int J Med Sci 2007; 4:164-173. http://www.medsci.org/v04p0164.htm
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David Fredericks
March 19, 2010 at 20:56
Only a person as smart and articulate as Blond could give plausibility to the notion that liberalism and Keynesianism have sunk our enonomy and blemished national civility.He would, instead, have us resurrect the high-minded Victorianism of Edmund Burke. Blond would have us believe that unfairly maligned conservatism holds the key to all human problems Blond fails to mention that from the Sermon on the Mount, to the humanism of the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to capitalism itself -- the underpinning philosphy was liberalism. Liberalism, like science, is about debate and ever-evolving theory and experiementation rather than any existing or traditional order to which we must all pay obesience.It will, by definition, always represent the future.
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Manu Sachdev
March 20, 2010 at 03:48
This is probably one of the greatest pieces of intellectual work that I have had the opportunity to digest in my short lifetime. I am impressed by Mr. Blond’s grasp of the issues concerning not only Britain but America as well. As an American I am very glad to see that there may just be a solution to the problem of the defunct free market system masquerading as a monopoly(s) leading to an oligarchy. Many so called conservatives in Britain as well as in America constantly vote against a truly conservative agenda by giving up freedoms and civil liberties. Instead of wanting to take the time to truly understand the ramifications of the decisions they make, these people constantly follow a particular ideology and dogma. In essence, they never think things through. Hatred of a particular race, religious belief, ethnicity, etc. colors their decision making processes. A new conservative philosophy of strengthening communities, or in the case of the US townships and districts, will empower people to once again take control of their lives, their government, and their decisions.
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A.J. Sutter
March 20, 2010 at 18:16
I read this piece with high expectations, having been guided here by David Brooks in the NY Times while taking a break from researching the 18th Century Italian communitarian economic philosophy of \public happiness.\ Unfortunately, those expectations were dashed. First, by the top priority for a communitarian turn being something to do with the banking system. I should have thought that something more directly concerned with people would be more appropriate for the top spot. Second, by Mr Blond's execution of all manner of intellectual contortions to embrace Mrs Thatcher and also the communitarian view. A more explicit repudiation of her who denied the existence of society would pique my interest in the Red Tories much more. Last, because of the veiled implication that being right-liberal in culture is the right place to be. This should be spelled out in much more detail; otherwise, one can only assume this bodes quite ill.
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JOHN_STOBART
April 3, 2010 at 07:46
I agree with every word of this.
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ellipsopoly
May 3, 2010 at 14:41
Philip Blond doesn't seem to be denying the question of class, so much as wanting to put classes to pasture. Especially the one which lives off at the expense of the few. Though it would be best if he don't hesitate so much, esp. since he refuses to recognize the OTHER alternative.... Because the 'socialism' of which he speaks has little to do with the one the thinkers have envisioned, the socialists have formulated, and proletarians have put into action. Definitely not the one Marx and Engels wrote about at length, and definitely not what Lenin, Mao, Stalin, & the Bolivarian revolution have fought to attain and establish. Both Labor and Tory as it stands are strains of decadent bourgeois clique, & are both byproducts and vessels of the ruling class. Their ideological clashes don't mean none in the larger scheme of things, because their battle is not the workers and people's battle, and debate basically comes down to internal monologue. Which is to say both are of the CAPITALIST vein. But this is what I’ve completely appreciated about the article. Laying all that bare, exposing what media and the corporates have deluded us to believe as 'separate' and distinct', as our absolute false, synthesized concept of the socio-cultural-economical polarity which besiege us, this article accurately points out what these both actually are : namely the expansion, consolidation, and further entrenchment of CAPITALISM. The liberals ( I'm sorry; liberalism isn't real Leftism ) starting the first phase with the human mind and soul, and the neo-rightists finishing the job with their physical body. Working towards dismantling human association, self-worth, social relations, and agency, so that each person could be more easily co-opted and monetized by the market. Labor's Keynesian economics and the Tory's Thatcherism dovetailing being nothing more than capitalism STREAMLINING. Should help some people get out of their 'Cognitive Dissonance' confusion of seeing the social and economic debate as nothing more than the 'race issue'. What we need is integration, so this essay is indeed a welcome clarion call. *This article totally justifies my lingering long-time suspicions about the '60s Kennedy and '80s Reagan revolutions : that both are ONE AND THE SAME. Non-violent altruism on the former, and militaristic savage fascism on the latter. At first glance, these would be as diametrically opposed as these things could ever get, that you can only be one or the other, and the first one makes you a 'liberal', therefore a 'leftist'. My gun-ownership supporting, Bush War on Terror hating mind, wouldn't take and accept this, since BOTH are all about DISARMAMENT for the interest of the market... So more power to Red Toryism, I guess, much as I find it might potentially veer towards National Socialism. If it doesn’t adhere to the proper mass line.
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Reed And Ink › Austerity is just another word
June 1, 2010 at 03:54
[...] so-called Red Tories, which he discusses more here, aren’t going to bother with such economic details because [...]
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Bert Dekkers
June 8, 2010 at 13:31
Mr. Blonds'analysis and propositions offer a solid base for renewing politics (national and local level) as well as revitalising communities. This holds for the Netherlands as it holds for the UK.
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Trop Libre
April 19, 2011 at 08:01
Please read the article about Phillip Blond's book 'Red Tory' on the website of the French think tank Fondation pour l'innovation politique : http://www.trop-libre.fr/le-marche-aux-livres/bleu-dehors-rouge-dedans
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The New Common Ground | FavStocks
October 5, 2012 at 09:04
[...] a new Tory economics that distributed property, market access and educational excellence to all. In 2009 I argued for a new one-nation approach to Britain’s problems, and Cameron appeared to agree. The principles of re-localising the [...]
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Phillip Blond: David Cameron straci? szans?, by na nowo zdefiniowa? torysów
October 5, 2012 at 15:55
[...] W 2009 opowiedzia?em si? za podej?ciem do problemów trapi?cych Wielk? Brytani? z pozycji jednego-narodu i wydawa?o si?, ?e Cameron wyrazi? aprobat?. Zasady re-lokalizowania gospodarki, [...]
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Against Red Toryism « In Defence of Liberty
October 14, 2012 at 22:00
[...] In the fallout of the financial crisis, many political philosophies were resurrected to explain its cause or ameliorate its effects. One of these philosophies was Red Toryism, championed by Anglian theologian and political thinker Phillip Blond, which Blond claims rests in “the tradition of communitarian civic conservatism”. Blond was identified by The Telegraph in 2010 as “a driving force behind David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ agenda”. Given his think tank ResPublica was present as several fringe events at the 2012 Conservative Conference; Mr Blond’s ideas may still have significant influence over the largest political party in the British House of Commons. Mr Blond lays out his political philosophy in his book Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How We can Fix it and in the Prospect magazine article Rise of the Red Tories. [...]
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The primacy of social issues - Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President - Page 4 - City-Data Forum
November 25, 2012 at 15:44
[...] have the map of the new path. I strongly suspect that it would benefit greatly by borrowing from Red Tory thinking as espoused by Res Publica and Philip [...]
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Labour’s ‘One Nation’ Dead-End | Notes from a Discrete Continent
February 6, 2013 at 12:19
[...] apologia in the Spectator. About half-way through the pamphlet we find Phillip Blond (yes, that one) talking about a ‘capitalism that benefits all’–a pathetic incoherence. (Put [...]
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John Elwyn KImber
April 2, 2013 at 09:25
The above comments both pro and con show [among other things] the extent to which a Distributist model is not part of anybody's mental furniture. It is like the general lack of understanding of co-operative enterprise among those who have never experienced it. Phillip Blond seems to attract both praise and blame through the mental distorting lenses of those who are trying to work out 'which side he's on'. Undoubtedly he has identified the essential characteristics of a new and humane politics which will have left-leaning and right-leaning variants, but the important point is that this is the basis for a renewed 'politics of consensus' from whence we should never have strayed.
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A Phoenix Rising: Common-Good Conservatism | Our End of the 'Net
September 23, 2013 at 23:17
[...] on environmental concerns, traditional values and the primacy of the family, and England’s Phillip Blond, who has produced sophisticated and nuanced critiques of modern neoliberalism’s worship of [...]
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The Church, Credit Unions, Cynicism | rail replacement service
October 22, 2013 at 01:24
[...] way David Cameron did with Red Toryism making some of the actual solid ideas of the Philip Blond (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/riseoftheredtories/) and Respublica a joke within minutes of coming from his mouth- Cameron has the unique ability to [...]
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Nationalise energy? | Social Problems Are Like Maths
June 4, 2014 at 15:12
[...] neo-liberal model, leading to curiosity towards, if not embrace of alternatives. Politically, the Red Tory and Blue Labour movements have revealed major currents of anti-market thinking within both major UK [...]
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Blue Labour's theology of the common good - Sceptical Scot
May 27, 2015 at 08:54
[…] different assumptions and objectives. The movement is named in response to the work of ‘Red Tory‘ thinkers such as Phillip Blond, whose ResPublica think tank helped evolve the […]
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Blue Labour’s theology of the common good | Scottish Fabians
May 28, 2015 at 09:01
[…] different assumptions and objectives. The movement is named in response to the work of ‘Red Tory‘ thinkers such as Phillip Blond, whose ResPublica think tank helped evolve the […]
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