A new happier direction for the left

I went to a conference on Saturday, hosted by Compass ("New Direction for the Democratric left". I love the use of the word "Democratic", there, just top point out that they are not the Respect party). It was OK. I have had both better and worse Saturdays, the latter mainly in football stadiums in the South East. I saw Ken Livingstone give a speech and he was really good. I mean really good. Totally on top of the detail of his subject, but able to give a broad background sweep, too. Impressed.

There was a series of "breakout" seminars, as there tends to be at these klind of things. One was about A Saner Planet, hosted by MIND, with Richard Layard, of me writing in a previous post about a book he wrote fame, a minister from the DWP whose name escapes me, a Health and Wellbeing journo from the Independent on Sunday and Derek Draper. Derek Draper used to be a political lobbyist, who got caught showing off how much access he had to the early Blair government (though he doesn't really look like this anymore). He's now married to her off GMTV and works as a therapist.

Pen portraits completed, time to think about what it all means. It's the new direction for the Democratic left, but I think most people there agreed that capitalism was A Bad Thing. In our little happiness session, one guy got up and asked the therapists who formed the panel if they weren't just patching people back up to be used in a capitalist system that made them unwell in the first place. Massive applause. And I kind of agree.

But it struck me that this is actually interesting territory for the left, democratic or otherwise. Left wing politics has potential to spread happiness, but never really took it on as a central plank of its identity. Increased happiness is really only a byproduct of their politics, which are as materialist as any on the right. The aim of the left is essentially a more equal society. A more equal society should be a happier one, so hurray! But it's the equality that is the aim, not the happiness. Similarly, if the workers were to wrest the means of production from the capitalist overlords, the increased sense of control would make them happier, so hurray once again! This, though, is merely a serendiptous occurrence - the main aim of seizing the means of production form capitalist overlords is to retain any surplus value created and be a little better off as a result.

The point was always this - given that happiness was never the aim, there was no promise that the gains in happiness that should result from, say, society being more equal, or capitalists less overlording, necessarily would. Or did. For historical proof of that, I think at this point I will say this - the Soviet Union.

So then, the left - should have been on this one ages ago. Instead it looks like a reaction to David Cameron . Ho hum.



God, just look at him.....