Neil Stammers

Tony’s Vision: Virtues and Vices

‘This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do let us re-order this world around us’

(T. Blair, Speech at the Labour Party Conference, Brighton, 2nd October 2001)

Although now overshadowed by the attack on Afghanistan, Tony Blair’s conference speech was clearly some sort of seminal moment. But what sort and how should we understand it? While Polly Toynbee saw it as the speech of Blair’s lifetime, articulating a coherent and convincing passion for justice and equality, Hywel Williams asked us to ‘pause to whiff the smell of the moral gunboat’, denouncing the speech as the most hubristic delivered by any British prime minister elected in the 20^th century. Adulation and denunciation are always an inherent part of politics but perhaps, even at this stage, a little more can be managed by way of analysis.

It was of course a leader’s speech at a party conference – a party that has always had a significant anti-war fraction. So perhaps in part the speech was designed to assuage their concerns. But it was clearly intended as much more than that. It was a major speech addressed to an international audience on the eve of military action by the United States and it allies supported by an unsteady and uncertain international coalition. Very good reasons not to take it seriously the cynic might say. Yet this was a speech that was not just full of the platitudes and homilies usually delivered at moments of crisis. They were there, certainly, but so too were substance and intent, including a vision of how the world could/should be re-ordered. In the light of the military action it would be all too easy to ignore the wider political and ethical issues within which Blair framed this speech. But whatever happens in the short term these issues remain crucial for anyone concerned with global society and the future structuring of global governance.

In terms of realpolitik the potential virtues of the speech were not inconsiderable, a point that critics would do well to recognise. Shoulder to shoulder with the United States maybe, but Blair publicly identified a considerable gap between his vision and much of the rhetoric previously emanating from the United States. Cold water was poured on bloodlust and on the temptation for revenge. Blair gently chided the American president that talk of crusades was unfortunate not because of the inflammatory impact it might have amongst Muslims, but because the 12^th century crusaders were unfaithful to Christian teachings when they pillaged and murdered.

The stress on building a humanitarian coalition alongside the military one may well have been politically necessary to solidify the place of Islamic states in the military coalition but it also offered a very positive public response to the evidence of the humanitarian disaster being presented by the aid agencies. Whether the USA will take the humanitarian dimension of this crisis seriously time will tell.

All of this is also consonant with Blair’s longer-range argument that this fight should be a fight for freedom and justice the world over. Not just negative liberty but positive liberty: ‘each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full’. Not just retributive justice but apparently some form of distributive justice: ‘[t]he starving, the wretched the dispossessed … they are our cause too.’ This is not an agenda that will be easily recognised, let alone welcomed, in Washington - especially when all this was couched in terms of a strengthened global community, not isolationism, being the appropriate response to globalisation and global crises. Even Bush’s outright rejection of the Kyoto agreement was challenged in quite straightforward terms: ‘We will implement it and call upon all other nations to do so’.

So this speech both supported yet criticised key contemporary (and historic) positions of the US government. To the extent that such arguments have helped to temper the immediate American response and provide a rather different agenda for the ‘war on terrorism’, Blair should be credited for his efforts, not dismissed as Bush’s poodle. Furthermore, on one level at least, the general argument for the construction of a meaningful global community that could establish new ways of working leading to the betterment of life for all is one that can hardly be faulted. While it may not preclude military action, neither does it look entirely incompatible with the slogan ‘Justice not Vengeance’.

But we should not forget that this was the architect of New Labour talking and New Labour is a particular configuration within European social democracy, which itself has been drastically ‘modernised’ over the last twenty years or so. What are the implications of this for grasping the deeper meaning of Blair’s vision?

The most obvious starting point is Blair’s strong belief in the dynamism of capitalism as the main creator of wealth and growth. Indeed, he has argued previously that ‘with the right policies market mechanisms are critical to meeting social objectives [and] entrepreneurial zeal can promote social justice.’ Now while most leaders of social democracy have shared Blair’s positive assessment of the dynamism of capitalism, at the same time they believed that the market had to be tamed and regulated to produce positive social outcomes. There is no sign that Blair believes this last point. For him it is a lightly regulated globalised capitalism that will lift people out of poverty and deliver social justice. Governments can best assist not by seeking to control capitalism but by enabling it via ‘supply-side’ support.

Yet there are vast swathes of people and organisations across the world, including key international non-governmental organisations and respected western economists, not to mention at least some of the starving, the wretched and the dispossessed who believe that capitalism remains the problem not the solution. Many argue that the rapid processes of economic globalisation over the last twenty years are once again clearly demonstrating that capitalism is predicated on the generation of vast inequalities and gross deprivation. Will Blair listen to these people? Will he look at their evidence? Will he engage with their views?

Despite his recognition of the impact of globalisation and his ethical fervour, in terms of political structures Blair’s vision of global community is a rather traditional and narrow one. In fact, his global political community doesn’t seem to add up to much more than increased co-operation between nation states. Yet this is hardly visionary and it certainly doesn’t even begin to address the global asymmetries of political power within the existing inter-state system and international institutions. The speech made no suggestion of the need for reforming international institutions and no hint of any desire to think about processes of political democratisation at the global level.

Yet in 1995 The Commission for Global Governance argued that we that we needed to move towards an effective structure of global governance underpinned by democracy at all levels and that such governance must subject the rule of arbitrary power – economic, political or military – to the rule of law within global society. Subsequently, many eminent activists, academics and organisations have called for moves towards the establishment of structures of cosmopolitan democracy. While certainly no panacea, such arguments and proposals at least start to take the issues of power and democracy in the global community seriously. Will Blair listen to these people? Will he look at their evidence? Will he engage with their views?

If Blair’s vision and desire goes no further than to re-make the world in the image of the west then this will only serve to confirm to millions of people all round the world - north, south, east and west - that this global age is indeed a new age of imperialism. The notion of a global community should imply an egalitarian approach to participation, accountability, dialogue, engagement and the respect of difference. Above all it implies finding ways of controlling the abuse of power, whether political, economic or military, in ways which do not simply lead to further abuses later. There is always a strong temptation to believe that one’s own vision is anchored in the certainty of truth. One way of avoiding the tendency towards dogmatism and fundamentalism is to listen and learn. Now the kaleidoscope has been shaken and the pieces are in flux, will Tony Blair really be prepared to listen and learn?

Neil Stammers, lecturer in Politics at Sussex, is the author of ‘Social Democracy and Global Governance’ in L. Martell et. al. (eds.) Social Democracy: Global and National Perspectives just published by Palgrave. n.stammers@sussex.ac.uk