That's a horribly simplistic, compressed and historically-inaccurate representation of what actually happened.
That doesn’t surprise me.
The post-war Social Contract was capital agreeing to certain conditions for fear of social unrest -and therefore affected profits.
Isn’t that a horribly simplistic, compressed and historically-inaccurate representation of what actually happened?
Yes capital “agreed” but it was more complicated than just that. We were going through a murderous war when Beveridge wrote his report. Whatever else he believed in, he believed in full employment, and the report itself was widely seen as inspirational (
10 things you may not know about the Beveridge report).
Bevin was Minister for Labour at the time and you’re not telling me he was a representative of capital. Britain was nearly bankrupt but Attlee influenced by Bevin still implemented nearly all its election promises after the landslide victory in 1945.
While Beveridge's "five giants" were used as political material, a quick analysis shows that none of them have been conquered, and that from '45-onward, most of what has happened has been the amelioration of the most egregious social harms caused by capitalism, not the curing of them. They can't be cured because that too would undermine capitalist logic.
Well the ‘five giants’ were what we’d call an Aim, weren’t they. “Conquering” full employment, public ownership of essential industries, proper universal housing and benefits and free healthcare and education is a bit of a fucking harsh requirement for any government. Has anyone done that in the history of the world? Is it even possible to conquer them (which suggests for all time)? England didn’t win the World Cup that year either the bastards but I wouldn’t hold that against them.
And I know it’s seen as cheating but what was the alternative? You’ve very strongly condemned that social democratic government, which suggests that there must have been an obvious alternative strategy that they could have pursued. I suppose they could have nationalized the banks and insurance companies for example, but then wouldn’t we have been treated like a pariah state like Cuba? Or we could have aligned with Soviet communism as some of the trades unions and others wanted to do, but I don’t think that would have worked out very well either.
It would have taken virtually a worldwide workers’ revolution to do what you’re demanding. Social democracy for 30 years delivered full employment, built habitable housing, and brought public ownership of essential industries along with free health and education. Those are the important things that affect peoples’ lives, and what a socialist government of any variety should also tackle. Demanding that they should have broken up capitalism too seems like dogma replacing practical improvements.
/disclaimer I’m not really keen on adversarial political discussions when I’m broadly in favour of what the other person says (and particularly as here where I know a lot less about the background material), but it’s clearly urban’s way so I'm having a go.
As for neoliberalism, it wasn't pioneered in the UK, and it wasn't pioneered by Thatcher. It wasn't even really pioneered in Chile, although that's the first site where it was seen in it's full -murderous - effect. What Thatcher - or more realistically,Sir Keith Joseph and Allen Walters - pioneered in the UK was a form of monetarism, which is often a concomitant of neoliberalism.
Interesting, ta. Monetarism is much better word than neoliberalism in explanation, and Blair did accept Thatcher’s changes and he and Brown continued along the same lines so that seems to cover through to today.