Labour, Tories, Co-operatives and Mutualism
Hah, this is interesting. Not only has Labour come out in favour of mutualism, but the Tories have more recently announced their radicalism by supporting the idea of mutuals and co-ops in the public sector.
The cynic in me says that both parties are doing it to shed responsibility, but the reformist in me says that this kind of libertarian socialist-esq decentralisation is so desperately required. My problem with this though is that a) both parties have utterly horrible track records in so many areas towards fucking about with politicing the political system for their own gain, and b) that it’ll be a less than half-baked implementation from either of them which could fuck up major areas of UK society, wot like Thatcher did, again. Overall, the optimist in me thinks it sounds like a good start, and I guess it will depend on their specific plans which I’m sure will become clearer in the run up to the election…
Update: This really doesn’t make me feel secure about the mechanics assumed by the current ‘Big Society’ policy.
Crossposted from my blog.