Which side are you on? Globalisation or democracy?
This article was originally published by LabourList on 20th August 2011. “The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down/ Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak/ The place I love best is a sweet memory/ It’s a new path that we trod/ They say low wages are a reality/ If we want to compete abroad.” These words, from the Bob Dylan song Workingman’s Blues off his Modern Times album of 2006, pretty much encapsulate where all peoples stand now as our governments compete to bring jobs and prosperity to our various nations. They also tap into the dilemmas, debates and despair of the Left. Our passions and desires for a better world seem almost beaten into submission by these very old but now turbocharged processes in which mobile capital dictates how the world is changed and people must either play along or find themselves outsiders: liberated but alienated. To their credit, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and other New Labour figures saw these dynamics, developed a narrative to ad...