Anyone who talks about New Labour as being
a “disciple of neoliberalism” really should define what they mean
by neoliberal. One of the defining characteristics of neoliberalism
as far as I am concerned
is a dislike of ‘big government’. Neoliberals are not
libertarians: they are happy
to use the state and make it powerful in particular ways (e.g.
defence). However neoliberals are in favour of the privatisation of
many government activities, and cutting its welfare and
redistributive roles. That is the only reason why austerity was a
neoliberal policy.
There are lots of ways of measuring the size of the UK government,
but here is one: government consumption as a share of GDP, using
world bank data.
The share of UK government spending on this measure, as with others,
rose steadily and significantly under the 1997-2010 Labour
government. The contrast with the previous Conservative government
could not be clearer. The positive benefit that brought to public
services like the NHS
was real and substantial.
There are other ways in which New Labour attempted to undo the impact
of the market. One concerned child poverty. While they did not manage
to reverse the increase
in child poverty that occurred under Thatcher, it was not for want of
trying.
Relaxed about the inequality that came with neoliberalism for sure,
but not relaxed about poverty. New Labour introduced the minimum
wage.
New Labour could be
described as neoliberal in some of the other things it did, or did
not do. But true disciples do not usually pick and choose which of
their leader’s teachings they follow. When it comes to the rather
important issue of the size of the state, New Labour was not
neoliberal.
