James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, recently declared that Labour was now ideologically neutral. He and his ministerial colleagues like to portray themselves as pragmatists unburdened by outdated ideology.

According to Purnell: “Progressives want to make the world a better place. If people can do that using the private sector, the public sector or the voluntary, why not? We are ideologically neutral between all three; we want to use all three.”

But ideology is not about dogma. Ideas are not the abstract product of human imagination. The human mind is given its content by the contemporary material world in which it exists. Political ideology reflects the different interests in society and, in particular, class interests.

The dominant ideas of any society are those of the social class that operates as the ruling force in the economy and the production of wealth. That class is also the ruling intellectual force. We live in a capitalist society and so the dominant ideas are those of private enterprise and capitalism.

The present Government has embraced these ideas. In every aspect of policy, private is best. Innovation is seen the preserve of the private sector with modernisation a codeword for the greater involvement of the private companies in public services.

This Labour Government has privatised where even previous Conservative administration feared to tread: air traffic control and the London Underground. Privatisation of the National Health Service by stealth continues through foundation hospitals and the encouragement of independent sector treatment centres and polyclinics operated by multinational companies.

Purnell has announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs in his department while promising private contractors up to £75 billion to deliver employment services and other welfare benefits.
Business people are encouraged to take over schools through the introduction of academies where, astoundingly, they even have control of much of the curriculum.

No serious attempt has been made to reverse the restrictions imposed on the trade unions by Tories when they were in power. Throughout the current Government’s period of office, the unions have been held at arm’s length with even their financial contributions to Labour’s funds being at best grudgingly tolerated. By contrast, business leaders are enthusiastically courted for donations and advice, despite increasingly adverse publicity and allegations of corruption.

Inequality continues to grow. The top 10 per cent of the population now take at least 28 per cent of the national income – the same as before the Second World War. Yet John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, insists: “Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country.”

In the post-war period, there was a temporary retreat by capital faced with a powerful and organised labour movement. Unions were significantly strengthened in the economic upswing in the 1950s with membership peaking at more than 13 million in 1980. Labour governments were elected which, particularly in 1945-51, delivered real improvements in the lives of working people. The gulf between rich and poor was significantly narrowed in the period up to 1979. However, this was not to last.

The capitalist system remained fundamentally intact and, following the defeat of the Labour 1974-79 Government, there was a reassertion of its ideological dominance. Social democracy was deemed to have failed. The unions were blamed for many of the country’s ills. The ideological offensive of capital was immensely strengthened by the development of globalisation and the collapse of communism.

The left did not weather the storm well. The unions suffered a series of defeats. The steelworkers lost in 1980. ASLEF’s appeal to the TUC for assistance in 1982 in the dispute over flexible rostering fell on deaf ears. The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was lost and the print unions were crushed at Wapping a year later.

Labour was in crisis. In 1981, a section of the right wing of the party broke away to form the SDP, which ultimately collapsed into the Liberals amid bitter recriminations. However, this was not before the anti-Conservative vote had been split leading to huge majorities for Margaret Thatcher in 1983 and 1987.

“New realism” became the order of the day. Post-modern ideas signalled the abandonment of any alternative to the current economic system and a capitulation to laissez faire ideology. The Labour retreat began under Neil Kinnock who condemned the miners’ leaders and launched vicious attacks on the left.

The “new” Labour project was the culmination of this process, with Labour lurching ever further to the right and finally into the arms of George Bush and the neo-conservative Republicans with the disastrous Iraq war.

But private enterprise has not proved to be the panacea for society’s problems. For instance, trains operated by private companies refuse to run on time despite receiving double the subsidy provided to British Rail.

Private companies exist to make profit first and foremost. Where necessary, they will cut corners to do this – sometimes with dire consequences for service users. It was recently reported that 5,000 National Health Service operations had been cancelled because the private company responsible for cleaning surgical equipment was returning it dirty or damaged. It is no coincidence that the rise of superbugs in hospitals has accompanied the use of private companies to carry out cleaning.

However, ministers are so in thrall to the “free” market ideology that they are blind and deaf to the results of their policies. They simply cannot comprehend why Labour is losing support. All that is needed, they argue, is a little more time to get their message across. That’s what John Major’s ministers used to say and Gordon Brown’s are likely to be similarly disappointed. Northern Rock underlines the real weakness in modern Britain’s capitalist economy.

Globalisation has transformed capitalism into an increasingly monstrous system where a small number of companies and individuals own and control unparalleled wealth while much of the rest of the world’s population become increasingly impoverished. Regulation by national governments is increasingly difficult, with global corporations simply threatening to move their operations elsewhere. Inevitably, there will be a decline in living standards as one country is played off against another.

The question is whether there is any realistic alternative. The left must have a positive answer if it is to recapture the political agenda. Without this, many of those who suffer most under capitalism will look elsewhere. In Britain, sections of the white working class who feel increasingly alienated and unrepresented are flirting with the far right.

Internationally, increasing numbers have embraced Islamic fundamentalism.
Opposition to the worst iniquities of the capitalist system is not enough and nor are single-issue campaigns, although they can build into powerful movements. Stop the War mobilised two million people onto the streets of London against the invasion of Iraq. But the vast majority of those have not remained politically active. Inevitably, when an issue fades in importance, so does the movement it has ignited. Capitalism reasserts itself.

If the left is to provide a viable alternative vision, it needs a coherent ideology that expresses the interests of those not served by the current system – principally ordinary working people and their dependents who constitute the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. That ideology remains socialism.

Every effort has been made during the past 20 years to discredit socialism as outdated and irrelevant. No other ideology has been subject to such an onslaught. But socialism remains the only alternative ideology that can challenge capitalism effectively and offer humanity a future.

Nick Toms is a barrister specialising in employment and discrimination law and a member of Streatham CLP