Deadly apartment blaze crystallizes resentment of austerity and neoliberalism
The terrifying fire at the Grenfell Tower apartment block, with its final toll of victims still hidden in the ashes, has intensified a political debate, with many Britons believing that privatization has gone too far and that the state has shrunk too much.
It is a partisan debate, wrapping in the bitterly fought election last month, the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, the anger about rising inequality, and years of budget cutting that is generally known as austerity.
It is a partisan debate, wrapping in the bitterly fought election last month, the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, the anger about rising inequality, and years of budget cutting that is generally known as austerity.
With cladding on each of the 120 high rises tested so far having failed combustibility tests, and hundreds of fire doors missing from buildings, the language of politics has now itself become incendiary. A Labour lawmaker, David Lammy, who grew up poor and had friends who died in the fire, said: “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way, and we should call it what it is. It is corporate manslaughter.”
The Conservatives have been fond of promoting what they called a “bonfire of regulations” in every aspect of government, to bolster private and individual responsibility and promote economic growth and productivity. It was an argument made with particular force in the debate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, which advocates said would free the country from annoying European “red tape.” But as Jonathan Freeland, a Guardian columnist, said acidly: “They got their bonfire.”
What
the Conservatives call red tape, argued George Monbiot, “often consists of essential public protections that defend our lives.” And the freedom promoted by deregulators, he said, often “means the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor, of corporations to exploit their workers, landlords to exploit their tenants and industry of all kinds to use the planet as its dustbin.”
The Conservatives have been fond of promoting what they called a “bonfire of regulations” in every aspect of government, to bolster private and individual responsibility and promote economic growth and productivity. It was an argument made with particular force in the debate over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, which advocates said would free the country from annoying European “red tape.” But as Jonathan Freeland, a Guardian columnist, said acidly: “They got their bonfire.”
What
the Conservatives call red tape, argued George Monbiot, “often consists of essential public protections that defend our lives.” And the freedom promoted by deregulators, he said, often “means the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor, of corporations to exploit their workers, landlords to exploit their tenants and industry of all kinds to use the planet as its dustbin.”
Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of Parliament first elected in 2015, described Britain as, without question, “definitely more divided on the issue.”
“It's the state as provider and the state as guarantor,” he said. “And while stepping away from the state as provider, we've moved too far away from state as guarantor.”
Simon Tilford, an economist and deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, said: “We're seeing the biggest challenge to this 40-year drive to marginalize or discredit the state and its role in the economy and society. Grenfell Tower had such impact because it symbolize for many in Britain the retreat of the state, visible in badly maintained social housing and the failure to build more social housing.”
Britain is having another chapter in the central debate of the capitalist era: What are the proper roles of the state, the market and individual? A generation ago, neoliberalism had seemingly won, and the theorist Francis Fukuyama declared “The End of History.” But a British backlash against the small state, free trade and globalization, seemingly a remote possibility as late as last year, now seems to have arrived.
The debate is an important one. Britain has been a laboratory of sorts for deregulation and shrinking of the state since Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979. The concepts were embraced by the Conservatives and then by New Labour, and helped rescue the country from the gloom and strikes of the 1970s and early 1980s. The “big bang” of deregulation of the financial industry gave rise to the London boom, turning it into a global city.
But Grenfell Tower has come to symbolize the growing pushback against seven years of moderate budget restraint brought on by the 2008 financial crisis.
As services have been reduced, wages have stagnated for many in the public sectors, and inequality has risen. Voters “are finally growing weary of austerity, of the rationing, outsourcing and penny-pinching,” wrote James Ely in the Financial Times.
“It's the state as provider and the state as guarantor,” he said. “And while stepping away from the state as provider, we've moved too far away from state as guarantor.”
Simon Tilford, an economist and deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, said: “We're seeing the biggest challenge to this 40-year drive to marginalize or discredit the state and its role in the economy and society. Grenfell Tower had such impact because it symbolize for many in Britain the retreat of the state, visible in badly maintained social housing and the failure to build more social housing.”
Britain is having another chapter in the central debate of the capitalist era: What are the proper roles of the state, the market and individual? A generation ago, neoliberalism had seemingly won, and the theorist Francis Fukuyama declared “The End of History.” But a British backlash against the small state, free trade and globalization, seemingly a remote possibility as late as last year, now seems to have arrived.
The debate is an important one. Britain has been a laboratory of sorts for deregulation and shrinking of the state since Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979. The concepts were embraced by the Conservatives and then by New Labour, and helped rescue the country from the gloom and strikes of the 1970s and early 1980s. The “big bang” of deregulation of the financial industry gave rise to the London boom, turning it into a global city.
But Grenfell Tower has come to symbolize the growing pushback against seven years of moderate budget restraint brought on by the 2008 financial crisis.
As services have been reduced, wages have stagnated for many in the public sectors, and inequality has risen. Voters “are finally growing weary of austerity, of the rationing, outsourcing and penny-pinching,” wrote James Ely in the Financial Times.
The issues encapsulate the renewed ideological battle between the wounded but governing Conservative Party and the revived Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. A man of the harder left, Mr. Corbyn has brought back the arguments used against Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s, calling for a reversal of the policies she championed － privatization, deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and a shrinking of the Labour-built, semi-socialist state.
During the campaign, Mr. Corbyn and Labour called for renationalizing the railways, the water supply and some utilities, spending much more on social services like the National Health Service and social benefits and ending tuition fees at universities. After the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, Mr. Corbyn, long an opponent of surveillance and enhanced police power, called for more beat police offers.
His left- wing populism was a sharp break with the neoliberal consensus of the past 30 years or so, which included Labour’s last prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But the Grenfell Tower fire, Mr. Freeland said, “appeared to make the Corbyn argument for him.”
In an indication of shift, Britain’s annual Social Attitudes Survey, published last week, showed a broader rejection of austerity, with more people saying that taxes should rise to finance higher public spending.
During the campaign, Mr. Corbyn and Labour called for renationalizing the railways, the water supply and some utilities, spending much more on social services like the National Health Service and social benefits and ending tuition fees at universities. After the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, Mr. Corbyn, long an opponent of surveillance and enhanced police power, called for more beat police offers.
His left- wing populism was a sharp break with the neoliberal consensus of the past 30 years or so, which included Labour’s last prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But the Grenfell Tower fire, Mr. Freeland said, “appeared to make the Corbyn argument for him.”
In an indication of shift, Britain’s annual Social Attitudes Survey, published last week, showed a broader rejection of austerity, with more people saying that taxes should rise to finance higher public spending.
