John Kay: The left is still searching for a practical philosophy
John Kay writing in the Financial Times (sorry about the pay-wall)
?The search for a practical political philosophy for the left in Europe has, in short, moved backwards since 1997. Market fundamentalism is out of favour, the failings of socialism are still not forgotten. Social democracy seems inevitably associated with high taxes and obstructive and overbearing public sector trade unions. This intellectual vacuum is also a problem – although a less pressing one – for the European political right: without the glue of resistance to socialism, there is little to hold the disparate components of rightwing parties together.
Kay seems to conveniently ignore the spread of Transition Towns, Slow Food and other movements that, taken together, are cobbling together a rather distinct political philosophy from the ground up. What ties these tother is that they don’t know where they are going – A Postcapitalist political philosophy that drives the right and the left bonkers.
