What do people think?

The director of Demos, who is also an editor of Prospect (both pretty right wing operations) David Goodhart, has written an interesting piece in the FT (12/13 May.) He argues that in Britain it appears that it is the left which won the struggle over culture in the last 30 years and it is the right which won the struggle over the economy. So we have Tory support for gay marriage and Labour support for (ultra) free markets.

His point is that this was only ever true for the elites and now the mass of the people (the 68% who did not vote in the recent elections) are reversing course on what he calls the 'two liberalisms.' He says that there is now a 'post-liberal' view emerging - that wants tighter restrictions on both the economy and on the effects of the liberal culture (a culture that apparently includes 'relaxed' approaches to immigration, welfare for all, etc). He goes on to say that whatever mainstream political current picks up this new combination will then be in touch with the future. (He suggests that there were some hints of this direction in Blaire's first term.)

At first sight this seems an odd observation to make in the week Obama has declared for gay marriage. But there is more at stake in Mr Goodhart's opinions than might at first meet the eye.

Like all political commentators and activists, Mr Goodhart is trying to come to grips with what is at first sight an odd phenomena. There is a massive crisis of capitalism; the biggest since the 1930s; yet political participation in the formal sense remains low in most of the west. The big parties aren't doing it for us. Yet he is convinced that events, like Galloway's Bradford victory, or even the rise of UKIP in the UK, let alone Le Pen in France, could remain completely 'marginal'. Their advance he supposes, simply represents the fact that the main political forces in the west have yet to catch hold of the new 'spirit of the age,' which is the death of the two liberalisms.

Alas Mr Goodhart is just like the rest of us. He is a victim of history. And we have seen ideas like his before.

Mr Goodhart is reacting to the ferocious anger that most people in the west have for the super rich and the politicians that defend them. Yet he would prefer capitalism to survive. Therefore he does not want peoples' gaze to rest on the real culprits. He realises that the banks and some managers will have to take some knocks. He suggests therefore that we need to tinker with the "Greed is Good!' Thatcher/Reagan model. Let shareholders have the veto on management 'compensation.' (More money for shareholders!)  Perhaps the banks could do with some reforming. Then let's pretend that is capitalism now under control.

What's the payoff? Well. If we turn to the end of the second 'liberalism' and start to allow attacks on general immigration to become legitimate by saying that is what people really want, that will get the abstainers back into the political world and focussed on their enemy, the cosmopolitan elite that run the BBC! If we make welfare, medical care and education dependent on the contributions people make rather than their need, then we have pointed the finger at the real parasites. So, it turns out that attacking  'cultural liberalism' IS part of the programme to defend capitalism (and capitalists). It is a proposal that a young Mussolini would be familiar with.

In this version of reality, it is a particular section of society that need to be restricted, to have their rights removed and to be pushed to the end of the line when it comes to the share out of the diminishing resources that the system provides to the majority. Let the focus of the mass of the people fix itself there. Anything but stare the truth in its face.

The truth? Capitalism, its system of society, the super rich and the politicians and opinion formers who depend on them have produced this latest crisis of human civilisation not immigrants or 'welfare scroungers.' Politics are moving to the margins because the 68% have been made marginal by their own society.