6 Jan 2011

Wise words from Aaron Peters

Great to get this from Aaron Peters in response to some of his earlier opinions.

Caution is important but I would urge people to support Uncut!

Hi guys - the article was for a friend, a Tory who needed it for the journal because i can only assume there was a lack of other content. In any case, I was a Labour member from 2005-10 and have now left.

That piece in particular was to clarify that every Labour leader from Keir Hardie to Gaistkell was a social conservative - and that the government of Atlee 45-50 was the most economically radical of the twentieth century and yet was socially conservative.


I am criticizing the atomised nature of community within the dynamics of neo-liberal capital - which I still stand by (read Baumann on the primacy of social identity since the 60's as destroying class consciousness) arguably it is social liberalism after '68 which decimated the notion of class consciousness (although we clearly got very good things such as feminism, LGBT and BME discourses gaining greater traction in society)

Too much to say really.

The workfare comment was a young man of two years ago working out his politics - it is a comment and position I very much regret.

I now consider myself a green anarchist. Vegetarian, haven't flown for five years, cycle EVERYWHERE etc - as a political economist I enjoy Polanyi and Schumacher.

Anyway any specific questions will of course be answered.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Harold Wilson (with his puritan background) was quite socially conservative too. I don't think Wilson thought much of Roy Jenkins' liberal attitudes, but he did quite rightly let Jenkins get on with the reforms. Indeed, the reforms helped make Britain a better place socially.

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