'Dead-end' lives and emerging dilemmas for the Left

December 18, 2019, 7:40 pm

The scale of the electoral defeat suffered by the British Labour Party in the UK's recent general election is generating heated debate among Left-inclined circles within the country in particular on the causes for the polls debacle but there could more to this historic defeat than currently meets the eye.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is being singled out by a considerable body of opinion as one of the single most important reasons for the defeat but the causes could be more deep ranging than the personal and other characteristics of Corbyn.

Corbyn's seeming 'ultra-leftism' and his lack of personal charisma are being focused on by some Labour circles as accounting considerably for Labour's major electoral setback at the December 12 poll, but it was left to former British Prime Minister and Labour leader of yesteryear Tony Blair to sound a more sobering note. The reasons go beyond Corbyn's personality and the Brexit issue, which is being viewed as having a polarizing impact on the British public.

Rather, Blair was also expected to point out to the party, based on research conducted by his think tank, The Tony Blair Institute, that the 'Lack of economic credibility in public spending and re-nationalization proposals', among other factors, as having played a major role in the electoral result. Blair, rightly, called for a period of reflection on the party's future course.

Britain joins a number of other Western countries in giving an unreserved 'thumbs-up' to the political Right by sweepingly voting in the Conservative Party but the Left in the West and the world over would be guilty of over-reacting by seeing these trends as further signalling 'the end of the road', as it were, for the Left. This is largely because in a world seen as being increasingly marked by inequalities of numerous kinds, the Left ought to see its future work as cut out and awaiting its urgent attention.

As it launches itself on a course of soul-searching and an investigation on where it went wrong, the British Labour Party, one believes, could gain immensely by studying the UNDP's Human Development Report for 2019. Among other things, the Report points out that, 'Global inequality is now more about disparities in opportunity than disparities in income'.

The above amounts to putting an entirely new perspective on inequality. To be sure, income inequality is a great divider and it is sparing neither the major economies of the North nor those of the South, including the 'emerging' kind. Both in the North and South, we have islands of wealth and opulence amidst oceans of poverty and economic backwardness. From such inequalities will eventually emerge violent popular disaffection and the world should make no mistake about it. But it is now inequalities in opportunity that are coming centre stage as the main causative factor for conflict and war. This is relatively new terrain in political economy that the world would be ignoring only at its peril.

The warning shots in this new frontier in the 'haves-have nots' debate were fired recently by no less a country than Lebanon, with Iraq, which the US thought it had brought stability to, following not far behind. In these zones where conflict is endemic, the youth are protesting income disparities and much more. They are extending the struggle to privilege and the ever-fattening and parasitic political class. Lebanese schoolchildren were emphatic that the political class should be shown the door.

The youth virtually all over the world are discovering that the new causes for anxiety and frustration are not only income inequalities but privileges, ascriptive and other wise, for which there is no rational justification. In other words, social classes enjoying unearned privileges and perpetuating a parasitic presence are the target of the young, who are educated, accomplished and lack nothing, except access to opportunities to further their material and other prospects.

Summing-up the situation of frustration confronting Southern youth in particular UNDP administrator Achim Steiner was quoted saying – 'An increasing number of young people are educated, connected and stuck with no ladder of choices to move-up'. In short, they are up against a 'dead-end'.

Whether they be of the North or South, governments would be compelled to recognize this 'dead-end' if they are to keep their countries stable. In this task mere 'development' would not suffice. While providing their populations with essentials, such as, food, shelter, education and health, they should also see the wisdom of ending privilege and parasitism. Briefly, equal access to opportunity should be seen as a fundamental right.

Looked at from this point of view, the massive vote for the Conservatives in the recent British general election should be seen as a big leap backward. This is because a vote for the Right is a vote for the perpetuation of privilege. The British polity would need to look at how this relatively new issue of equal access to opportunities applies to their public. Poverty is rampant in London and New York, to be sure, but unequal access to opportunity could compound a country's ills.

However, as mentioned, the Left in Britain and outside should see the issue of equal access to opportunities as outlining their future policy course and programme of action. All progressive sections need to come together to contain the widening disparities in access to opportunity to prevent possible social upheavals.