Scottish Social Democracy: Progressive Ideas for Public Policy, Michael Keating (ed), Peter Lang Pub Inc 2007. review Henry McCubbin

The Right to Exist, Chick Collins 2008, The Clydebank Independent Resource Centre supported by Oxfam. review Isobel Lindsay

Scottish Social Democracy: Progressive Ideas for Public Policy, Michael Keating (ed), Peter Lang Pub Inc 2007 

Could Michael Keating ever have dreamed that this collection of essays *Scottish Social Democracy* would have been published at the start of a predictable capitalist market collapse but one of a magnitude and geographical spread never before seen?

Social Democracy, since the Second International, has always had a problem operating and theorising within a globalised capitalist system, more so recently, since capitalist enterprises had been feeling that they were near to their goal of a totally free international market. That is, markets which have almost broken away from any form of oversight by nation states, which for all our best intentions in the construction of international institutions to provide oversight, are the only weak bodies capable of applying effective sanctions on market miscreants.

The dilemma confronting social democrats is not an unfamiliar one. Those far-off debates surrounding the Second International included the problems of globalisation and militarisation. Yet for social democrats the immediate structure they required in order to translate their principles into practical policies was that of the inherited nation state. Unfortunately for social democrats as they gained more political traction their electorates did not necessarily show their gratefulness to them but could as easily perceive their national state apparatus as the provider of security. As Beveridge put it when Britain caught up, “government should find ways of fighting the five 'Giant Evils' of 'Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness'.” Unfortunately, although it may have taken socialist theory to introduce the necessary political push for such reforms, this certainly was not sufficient to maintain social democrats in positions of influence. Also required was attention to be paid to the internationalist aspect of market economies because of the need for them regularly to become involved in wars to protect their imperial interests. Alas the decision that national administrations were all that was required to implement a socialist agenda disintegrated under the stress of war. Wherever the trumpet sounded national uniforms were pressed and the good comrades engaged in the slaughter of one another. Post war centre and centre right parties pragmatically calculated that the cost of these reforms was in many cases a cost worth bearing for staying in power and at times of war giving the population at large something to fight for.

Michael Keating’s book concentrates very much on the interaction of political principles and the policies relevant to today’s social and economic condition. He states that “When policies are treated as principles that Social Democratic parties lose touch and decline”. And “When principles are reduced to vacuities found in some third way New Labour formulation they disappear all together”. What has Scottish social democracy uniquely to offer? To answer this question Keating has assembled a series of sectoral essays providing a practical connection between principle and practice on education, urban policy and health to name but three. All of the essays offer thoughtful contributions to progressive policy formation in the context of our devolved government in Scotland. Such a debate is necessary but under the international political and economic conditions of today they are not sufficient.

I may be dwelling rather on international affairs but the situation in Austria after the recent elections there must surely send a chill down the spine of all left leaning people. Here the Social Democrats attracted less than 30 per cent; they were behind the votes cast by the right-wing and neo-fascist parties. The fears, real or imagined about immigrants, now amplified by collapsing banks have seen the strange phenomenon of working class voters travelling rightwards, not via the Social Democrats, to the Christian Democrats but straight over both to the far right. The story of the left during the past year in the rest of Europe is equally miserable from Poland to Ireland, Finland, Greece, Germany France and Italy. In Germany the bright point is that of the Die Linke the party founded Oscar Lafontaine. It now commands 15 per cent support whereas what has historically been Europe’s biggest and oldest political party the SPD, has slumped to below 20 per cent after ousting its leftist leader Kurt Beck and installed the rights choice of Walter Steimeier. If they carry this into the upcoming German general election then surely this has to mean the end of cohabitation coalitions for European socialist parties.

If that be the case then it is incumbent on all of to encourage left thinking to resolving the mess that capitalism has put the world economy in. At what level should this be addressed? For us in Scotland we should now look beyond the United Kingdom for our necessary alliances and support. We are lectured by Prime Minister Brown that we are to small to ‘go it alone’ whilst he recently rattled his begging bowl in Brussels because Britain is too small to go it alone and that all the Member States should co-operate to see us through the crisis. This is the same man who as Chancellor of the Exchequer lectured the other Ecofin Member on the benefits of his deregulated system and yawned throughout his fellow finance ministers contributions, argued that other members should cut their state aids, belligerently fought to cut the structural funds prior to the expansion of the EU, blocked the creation of a European initiative aimed at supporting businesses through an external or asymmetric shock (a facility which he has now called for at the recent Paris Summit) and failed to take Britain in to the Euro which would have meant that instead of sitting in the corridor during discussions on the euro we could have been co-operating with our partners.

Is there an international dimension for Scotland to argue with regards to a renewal of our social democratic traditions? You bet there is, more so now than before. This is a time when even a neo-liberal government like our present one has to nationalise the banks planning, of course, to hand them back to the felons who got them into this crisis in the first place. Surely we can put up a convincing argument guided by principles of egalitarianism, fairness and security so fundamental to social democracy that they should not go back in to private hands and that we should play our political part in the euro zone. Under this shelter it would be possible to put the progressive ideas for public policy provided by Michael Keating and his associates in to practice at home and join with our natural allies in the rest of Europe to consolidate it as zone of progressive social provision.

 Henry McCubbin 

The Right to Exist, Chick Collins 2008, The Clydebank Independent Resource Centre supported by Oxfam 

Scottish Left Review (Issue 17, 2003) included an article ‘Local Voices’ based on a small research project by the Scottish Civic Forum which involved a researcher simply going around a Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP) area in Lanarkshire asking people what they knew about the SIP and what they felt about developments in their area. The responses showed that despite large publicity budgets, very few knew anything about the local SIP, there was no feeling of being involved and many expressed strong dissatisfaction with the priorities in local development. Chick Collins’ book examines these issues in depth and breadth in another part of post-industrial Scotland. The study of the Clydebank Independent Resource Centre (originally the Clydebank Unemployed Workers’ Centre) is both the story of a genuine community-based response by local trade union activists to the experience of poverty and an analysis of the impact on the ground of the constant stream of ‘initiatives’ from the 1980s onwards to deal with the poor. It is a well-researched and very welcome contribution to the social policy literature in Scotland. The Clydebank Centre has been an example of an effective local resource providing information and advice, welfare rights, training and education, childcare and social activities. It has struggled successfully not to be co-opted into the agendas of others.

There are parts of this story which focus on the internal politics and personalities of the organisation over the years and the difficult battles with a notoriously factional local authority. But it is the focus on how the public policy initiatives work out on the ground that is likely to be of most interest to a wider readership and this does take us into major policy areas. With what is now ironic topicality, Collins refers to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s 2004 *Wealth Creation in Scotland* document which promoted the case for resources going into growing big companies that could compete in global markets using economic liberalisation and privatisation. He suggests that this was an influence on the then Scottish Executive’s second version of *A Smart, Successful Scotland* and encouraged the emphasis on ‘global cities’ as the route to regeneration. Collins quotes Ivan Turok:

*“The focus on high-value jobs and top-quality living environments for highly skilled and resourceful people…..will do little directly to improve the life chances ….of poor, unskilled and workless groups and may even cause harm through gentrification of inner urban areas and displacement of low-income households.” (p102)

Some of the main initiatives that the area has been through since the 1980s are Enterprise Zone, Smaller Urban Regeneration Initiative, Priority Partnership Area, Social Inclusion Partnership, Urban Regeneration Company, Clyde Corridor, Community Planning Partnership. These have all come with expensive re-branding and new organisational structures. It would be hard to argue that these changes took place because the previous programmes were successful. Often there has been insufficient time for one initiative to settle in and produce results. The attraction of constant change for politicians and agencies is that it gives the impression of activity and innovation and they will probably be out of office before there can be any real assessment of effectiveness. For those community activists on the ground, each change requires a new set of relationships and often yet another time-consuming round of grant applications.

Also significant for a project like the Clydebank Centre is that its independence can be seen as not ‘fitting in’ to the agendas and the desire for control of official agencies. Collins outlines the history of constant struggles for very modest core funding despite the value of the work the Centre was doing. It opted not to take any funding that undermined its core values. They did not bid for Urban 11 funding because of the coercive nature of the ‘back to work’ agenda. The Scottish Executive’s ‘Closing the Opportunity Gap’ programme had as its first target that of reducing the number of workless people dependent on Department of Work and Pensions benefits in the area. But one of the Centre’s great successes over the years had been to help people to get the benefits to which they were entitled. In 2004 they gained one million pounds extra in benefits for clients. While they also did much valuable work in training and sourcing work, their welfare rights work did not sit comfortably with Government priorities. They were also sceptical of the strategy of pouring so much of the public regeneration money into private property development along the bank of the Clyde with small tokenistic amounts of affordable housing.

The Centre has been an excellent example of locally-based self-help in a community that has had to face devastating job losses and the social problems that accompanied these. It has been able to maintain greater independence over the years than many similar projects because it had a wider support base in the trade union movement. But when we contrast the struggle to get funding for a project like this and others like it to the millions spent on the carousel of high-profile initiatives and consultants, it should be a sobering thought for our policy-makers.

 Isobel Lindsay