New Blog Round Up

It seems ages since I last did one of these. There are plenty of new and newish blogs doing the rounds at the moment readers can get their teeth into. So, without further ado ...

First up is a rare departure for this blog. Normally I concentrate on socialist, Labour, feminist and Green blogging but just this once I'll allow a LibDem to slip through the net. But with good reason. Giles Wilkes' Freethinking Economist has rapidly established itself as one of the few must-read populist economics blogs out there (alongside the apparently defunct Duncan's Economics Blog and the ever-excellent Stumbling and Mumbling). I think that's reason enough for inclusion on this list!

Next on the conveyor belt of blogging goodies comes Red Rag, which is neither the blog-that-never-was that got Derek Draper into a spot of bother last year, nor the newish Tory-supporting effort that's recently been touted in Conservative blogging circles. This Red Rag is very much in the mode of an attack blog, aiming its fire at the easy ride the Tories get in the mainstream press. It also tries to make a nuisance of itself, such as this interesting piece on the Tories' treasurer, Michael Spence. If Red Rag gets an audience behind it, it could give the Tories a bit of a headache.

Reddebrek's Bowl is not a million miles away from my own blog in its intention. The author, 'Red Mike' writes "I'm a male 20 something politically active student who enjoys reading, long walks in the woods and being pretentious" and promises "an eclectic mix of Left leaning rants, pop cultural rambles and the odd grumble about the state of the telly and book world."

Time for a touch of greenery. Green Gabbles from Steve Gabb carries his personal musings about the Green party and green politics. His latest piece looks at Phillip Lee, the candidate who won the high profile open primary for the Tory safeseat of Bracknell and has since disappeared off the local political radar. Hopefully his inaction will see Labour and the Greens rack up decent votes. You can follow Steve on Twitter here.

This is another cheeky one stretching the definition of 'new' to the limit. Faithful to the Line has been going on and off since December 2008, and has recently started up again. Hopefully they will continue churning stuff out as the comment and opinion so far has been excellent. Show your encouragement by visiting, and visiting often.

The Novocastrian is the vehicle of Rob Carr, a "Labour supporting Christian living in Newcastle". If religion isn't your bag, don't worry. Rob doesn't do preaching. Instead his blog lately indulges attacks on the Tories, reflects on the John Terry saga, and some pretty revealing thoughts about weight and weight loss. You can follow Rob on Twitter here.

When you're an independent political activist, there is always a temptation to try and fish in the waters of anti-politics by projecting yourself as somehow new or fresh. Vote Gareth Allen does just that, claiming to offer a "new approach to politics". A pretty bold claim considering Gareth is standing on a number of social democratic policies. Nonetheless he typifies the kind of centre left voter/activist who Labour has alienated with its slavish submission to neoliberal dogma.

Time for another contribution from green politics. The collaborative blog, Bright Green Scotland does what you expect it to. It offers "news and analysis for Scotland's green and progressive movement" and covers quite a wide range of topics. You can follow BGS on Twitter here.

And now for the last blog this month. Wind From Nowhere is the platform of long time cpgb supporter and Weekly Worker writer, Eddie Ford. Like other cpgb bloggers (such as the legendary Milton Keynes Communists), the bulk of material consists of stuff Eddie or other comrades have written for the WW. That's not necessarily a bad thing (especially as the WW is generally the best written and least boring of the far left's official publications), but it can be much of a muchness as far as blogging is concerned.

And that is it for another month. If you know of any new left blog (i.e. less than a year old) that deserves a shout out, plug them in the comments box or write to me at the usual address.

Expenses: What is to be Done?

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine. As Labour MPs go they're cards aren't they? It's not enough that they've allegedly swindled the system by submitting false expense claims *and* will be in receipt of at least £30k "relocation money" when they step down, but now the right honourable members have the cheek to pursue parliamentary privilege defence to avoid court action. In a society where the rich and powerful are litigious, this is an important democratic gain worth defending. So to see it dragged through the muck to defend the sullied reputations of men caught with their hands in the taxpayer's pocket is a sickening sight. You cannot but agree with Ruth Cox of the Hansard Society, who says

"If it is a defence against almost any action that an MP takes in parliament, in any relationship with their work, then I think that is going to be deeply damaging for the public. They will see that it is putting MPs above the public, giving them enhanced powers, making them essentially above the laws that they themselves make." (source)

Coming on top of the wider expenses crisis, if this defence is allowed and the trio of troughers emerge unscathed this will compound the widespread antipathy against 'official' politics. Not good news for the mainstream parties or the minor ones to their left, but it provides fertile environment for the far right.

What can be done to prevent a scandal like this from happening again? The anarchists have traditionally argued against seeking election on grounds that democracy in capitalist societies corrupts even the best representatives of the workers' movement. They have a point. I remember a Coventry SP comrade telling me of all the freebies and corporate invites that poured into Dave Nellist's office when he was elected to parliament in 1983. He turned them all down and, famously, only took the average wage of a Coventry skilled worker during the two terms he served.

Dave's example, as well as those of Militant's two other MPs and the Scottish Socialist Party's MSPs have provided the far left with a ready made answer to the expenses crisis. I'm sure many SP readers did their share of stalls calling for a workers' MP on a worker's wage at the height of the scandal (I certainly did a few). It sounds good and makes easily understood populist points, but how much of a solution is it?

The argument goes that limiting a MP's wage means s/he is not materially cut off from the people they represent. It's a lot easier to empathise with constituents who struggle to make ends meet if your income is not an order of magnitude higher. While this may be true the workers' wage, in and of itself, is problematic if uniformly applied. There is the wage cut argument (often picked up by Tories and other well-heeled members). If a MP's salary is not sufficiently attractive it will not draw in successful people from business, etc. I couldn't care less if business-types steered clear of the House of Commons (it's not like they're thin on the ground at the moment), but what about comparatively well paid sectors of the labour movement such as teachers, engineers, firefighters, social workers, etc? Some might be willing to take a wage cut for ideological reasons, but with kids to bring up and mortgages to pay off even a modest cut could be enough to put off otherwise dedicated activists. Second, implementing the average wage could exacerbate the already disgraceful situation regarding MPs' second jobs and, for some, make them even more willing to accept the gratuities business lavishes on our elected representatives.

An alternative favoured by George Galloway is to increase the salaries of MPs to the levels enjoyed by members of Congress in the United States. If they were paid a hefty salary out of which the cost of maintaining an office and employing staff was taken, everything would be above board. An unwieldy expenses system would be unnecessary, and MPs would be less likely to take on second jobs. But the problem of the income gap addressed by the average wage argument rears its head again.

Whatever the merits of the two income arguments, it's mistaken to present either as solutions that would banish the problem of institutionally corrupt politics altogether. Two reforms addressing the election and accountability of MPs would likely have more of an impact than either.

The Chartists were certainly onto something with their call for annual parliaments. They were entirely right that the more precarious position an MP is in, the more accountable they are to the electorate. I'm not sure if anyone has the appetite for a general election every year, but the implementation of mechanisms for recalling MPs could work just as well. This must go hand in hand with some form of proportional representation (see here). If political parties and MPs have to fight for every single vote no one will coast into parliament on the back of safe, geographically concentrated majorities (and as Left Foot Forward pointed out, the worst expenses offenders also happened to have the safest seats).

But for any improved system to work, it's not enough to engineer better constitutional arrangements. Politics needs to re-engage the millions of people who've been alienated from it these last 20 years. It's not a matter of educating the electorate or forcing citizenship classes on school kids. Parties need to eat humble pie and listen to the real problems of 'real' people, and pay big business and the mythological 'Middle England' less mind.

Image by Beau Bo D'Or.

A Lesson from North Korea

Fed up with the love lives of footballers plastered all over our useless daily press? The Jucheist skivvies of the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il at the (North) Korean Central News agency show how sports stories ought to be treated by the media:

Pyongyang, February 5 (KCNA) -- The national football team of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, embraces a lot of competent players.

Typical of them is Hong Yong Jo, famous for many scores he has made in international and local tournaments.

He, who has been interested in sports, especially football, from primary school days, is characterized by running fast, dribbling well, taking scoring positions in time and skillfully getting goals.

He has been active as a forward in many international tournaments.

He fully demonstrated his skill by scoring three goals in the home-and-home matches with Jordan at the third-phase preliminaries of the Asian region for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Hong, captain of the national team, was crowned with the title of People's Athlete last year.

Much, much better than the The Sun's hand-wringing hypocrisy.

Defend Tory Politico!

It's not very often I rush to the defence of a Tory, but in the following case it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Mid-table Conservative Party blogger Tory Politico has, incredibly, received a cease and desist order from a Washington DC law firm. They ludicrously claim on behalf of their client, Capital News Company, that US internet users would confuse Tory Politico's blog with their own Beltway-centered Politico website. I would suggest Dow Lohnes, the law firm acting for CNC, have a very low opinion of the politically interested American public.

Tory Politico takes apart the Dow Lohnes/CNC argument here and vows to fight the order. He is absolutely right to do so as CNC have form when it comes to this sort of thing. All bloggers, regardless of where we stand on the political spectrum, should back him anyway we can.

Electoral Reform and Socialism

Gordon Brown's speech on reforming the electoral system for parliamentary elections is overdue, but at least it nails down the government's plans after 13 years of ducking and diving on this issue. Unfortunately, the alternative vote system favoured by Brown may be a slight improvement over the current first-past-the-post system (also known as single member plurality, or SMP), but it is still far away from reflecting the democratic will of the voters. While Dave looks at Brown's motives for making this announcement now, here I will discuss some characteristics of the SMP and Alternative Vote systems, the proportional alternatives and why socialists (whether in the Labour party or not) should favour the introduction of PR.

Those who defend the current set up for Westminster elections (generally speaking, those who have most to lose in the two main parties) flag up three arguments in defence of what we have. Firstly, it's a simple system: the candidate who polls most votes wins. Second, SMP is more likely to turn out stable governments than other systems. As anyone who's a member of a small party will tell you, SMP presents a massive electoral hurdle. Effectively minor parties are locked out of the system. On the other hand, as defenders of SMP point out, this means governments do not have to rely on coalition partners who only command a minority vote. In West and later unified Germany between 1949 and 1998, the liberal Free Democratic Party was only out of government for seven years. The price of their cooperation would have met compromise on some of their senior partners' programme. Thirdly, parliament is made up of representatives elected by constituencies. This ties MPs to certain localities meaning, in theory, they have to adequately represent the interests of their locality to be returned in future elections.

In practice SMP has had a deleterious effect on politics in Britain. It has led to the creation of safe seats, meaning elections are decided by a comparatively small number of marginal seats. These tend to be identified with a socially conservative, relatively affluent, aspirational and upwardly mobile 'Middle England' by party strategists; and policies are designed to appeal to this strata. The likes of the Mail and Express are taken to be their authentic voice. In other words, the outcomes of liberal democracy in Britain is determined by a small minority.

Second the local link is overstated. While it sounds nice in theory, unless one has a rebellious Labour or Tory MP, in the vast majority of cases MPs will vote along the lines dictated by central office and enforced by the whips. Even parliamentary questions (where an MP can raise constituency-based issues) have been undermined by party discipline. You just have to watch an installment of Prime Minister's Questions to see how loyal backbench MPs effectively waste time by asking Brown if he agrees with them that the latest government initiative is the best thing since sliced bread.

Brown's proposals for reform (which will be put to a referendum should Labour win the next election) is couched very much in terms of the continuity it has with the present system. On alternative vote, he says:

The alternative vote system has the advantage of maintaining the benefit of a strong constituency link; allowing MPs to be not simply policy makers, but also community leaders, community organisers, and the strongest champions for neighbourhoods they know and love. But if the people decide to back the alternative vote, it also offers voters increased choice with the chance to express preferences for as many of the candidates as they wish. It means that each elected MP will have the chance to be elected with much broader support from their constituency, not just those who picked them as their first choice. In short it offers a system where the British people can, if they so choose, be more confident that their MP truly represents them, while at the same time remaining directly accountable to them.

Alternative vote was first introduced in Australia in 1918 for House of Representatives elections. Candidates are ranked by voters in order of preference. If one candidate has an absolute majority they win the contest. But if they do not the candidate with the least votes tends to be eliminated and their second preferences are transferred. This process is repeated until a winner with 50%+ emerges (there are variations on the theme - some elections are run that eliminate all but the top two candidates and have their second choices divided among them). While this is fairer and more adequately reflects the political mood of a constituency, it does not address the problem of marginal seats. In fact, the Australian experience has shown it strengthens the already-dominant parties because it favours their existing geographical concentrations of support. Alternative vote, though a slight improvement over SMP, will continue to replicate its problems and do little to combat politics' declining legitimacy.

What's the alternative? Socialists favour the extension of democracy in capitalist societies for a number of reasons. The more thoroughgoing the democratisation of the state, the harder it is for the state to be used as an unambiguous instrument of capital. The greater the habits of democracy are ingrained in a population, the more active so-called civil society is and the less likely wide sections of the working class fall into apathy and despondency. And the more the state comes under democratic control, the greater the pressure there is to extend democracy in the private dictatorships that run the commanding heights of the economy.

This is why socialists should support the introduction of proportional systems - not just because it improves the electoral prospects of small left groups.

Proportional representation comes in all shapes and sizes, but generally aim to express the democratic will of the voting population. For example, the PR system most UK voters will be familiar with is the D'Hondt list PR method, used for the European elections. Here parties present the electorate with a list of candidates to fill a number of available seats. Under the D'Hondt method the list with most votes wins the first seat. Their vote is then divided by two. The next seat goes to whoever now has the highest total, and so on until all the available seats are filled. This following anti-BNP video from the Green's European election campaign explains it simply:



The Sainte-Laguë method works similarly, but divides results by 1.4 and results in less proportional outcomes.

The proportionality of a system can and is often distorted by local peculiarities. For instance, the European parliament elects representatives by D'Hondt on a constituency basis, allowing proportionality to be effected by geographical variations in support. One way round this would be to treat a whole country as the only constituency. This is done in Israel, but there is a 1.5% threshold parties have to cross before entering the electoral formula. Elections for The Netherlands' 150 membered House of Representatives is probably the closest to a truly proportional system - it operates with an effective threshold of 0.67% to gain a seat.

An alternative to list systems is single transferable vote PR, which is proportional but retains a constituency link. The number of representatives a constituency returns is always greater than one. Therefore voters cast preferences. In the Irish Republic this can be as low as one and as high as the number of candidates. In Australia, STV proceeds by stipulating a minimum number of preferences that need be cast. Seat allocation is then decided by the Droop Quota. This is done by taking the total number of valid votes cast and dividing them by the number of seats plus one, and then adding another plus one to the resulting percentage.

For instance, in an example in his 2001 book, Electoral Systems, David Farrell cites Dublin South's 1997 election results to illustrate the Irish STV system. 57,986 valid votes were cast to determine the representatives for five available seats. These were divided by six (five plus one) giving a quota of 9,665. The first seat went to Fianna Fáil, who had won 9,904 (giving them a 239-strong surplus). None of the other parties crossed the threshold, so in the second round votes were distributed according to the second preferences of voters and seats allocated according to these results. Further rounds maybe necessary involving third and fourth preferences until all the vacancies are filled (the returning officer also has the power to eliminate last placed candidates to ensure their second preferences are transferred.

Here, proportionality is dictated by the size of the constituency. The greater the number of seats, the more likely the outcome will be proportional.

STV PR is not without its problems. As defenders of the Westminster model would point out, the multiparty system in the Republic has not been as stable as the British two-and-a-half party system, leading to criticisms around weak coalition governments and instability. Second, STV PR in Ireland has led to heavy localism as TDs compete with each other to secure election next time round. This at least renders the constituency-link critique by Westminster enthusiasts null and void.

These two examples of PR are far from problematic, but are much better from a socialist point of view. It is true they are more complex than FPTP but not prohibitively so. Is it really too much to ask voters to put a cross next to a party list or rank order in terms of preference? Not at all.

The constituency link argument is a red herring too. Multi-member constituencies don't have to break geographical links. Many council wards up and down Britain return more than one representative to the council chamber (though often these are not all elected at once). If voters have a problem they want looking into, they have a choice of which member to contact.

The strong government argument does not wash either. Only the UK and Barbados use the Westminster system for general elections. European countries use a mix of different PR systems, and there is no general tendency to electoral chaos (the difficulties of the Belgian and Italian party systems owe more to the specifics of those countries than the mechanics that govern their elections). In fact, for all the 'strong government' arguments used to back up the Westminster model it has, as we have seen, engendered a situation where liberal democracy faces a legitimation crisis in the face of mass "apathy" and narrowly defined politics around what plays well in key marginals. Coalition governments at least offer an opportunity for otherwise systematically excluded minorities to get their policies on the agenda.

As socialists we, to nick a Brownite soundbite, stand with the many and not the few. But our idea of the many - the working class - is very diverse and riven with all kinds of sexual, racial and sectional divisions, contradictions and interests. If we are to speak to, represent, and infuse it with a consciousness of its common interests we need to favour an electoral system that allows their free play. Neither SMP or Alternative Vote does this.

Edit: Good post on why electoral reform is a class issue by Stuart White here.

40 Labour MPs Call for Radical Policies

40 Labour MPs (full list here) have put their names to a list of policies few socialists would have a problem backing. They are:

A. The recession should be tackled not with cuts in essential public spending, but by massive public investment in house-building, infrastructure and the de-carbonisation of the economy.

B. Banks should be split up with their casino investment arms hived off. Publicly-owned retail banks should be required to meet new social and community objectives and support manufacturing, with lending to businesses and homeowners restored to 2007 levels. Pay and bonuses should be tightly regulated.

C. A clean break must be made with market fundamentalism – deregulation and privatisation. Public provision should be expanded – in health care, education, housing, pensions, energy and transport. Royal Mail must remain wholly in the public sector.

D. In the face of huge and unacceptable growth of inequality, a big redistribution programme must swing resources away from the rich to provide sizeable increases in pensions, the minimum wage, the lowest benefit levels, and to fund job creation and improved public services. Union rights must be restored – it is in economic crisis that workers are most in need of that protection.

E. To achieve the 80% carbon emission reduction target by 2050, renewable sources of energy should be promoted on a far bigger scale, industry (including airlines) should be required to reduce its climate change emissions by at least 3% per year, household carbon allowances should be introduced, and the UK targets should be fully met by domestic action and not by carbon offsetting abroad.

Also listed are a number of suggestions for internal reform and a brief nod to the progress they believe that has been made toward the restoration of a more democratic regime inside the party.

Obviously they do not match the radical verbiage of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition's list of demands, but they're not a million miles away from them either. Plus they have more of a chance of attracting trade union backing than the coalition does.

In the interests of putting working class politics back on the agenda, isn't it worthwhile looking at the list and considering standing down TUSC, Respect and other left challenges where they face one of the sponsoring MPs?

Best Ever Stats!

I'm feeling a bit "blocked" at the moment, so it's time to blog about something of little consequence: stats. Last night, Liberal Conspiracy tweeted that January was its best ever month, with over 100,000 visits. AVPS can't lay claim to these lofty heights but still managed to achieve its own record. Here's the science bit:

As you can see, audience numbers have remained slow and steady over the course of the last 12 months but significantly increased last month (ignore the September-October page views spike, that was the result of a zombie computer that visited the blog every 17 seconds on selected days). The numbers for January 2009 were 12,276 page loads, 9,041 visitors and 1,929 returning. This last month the figures were 19,907, 14,972 and 3,198 respectively. Not massive by any means, but good enough!

The stats were undoubtedly boosted by a few posts that brought new readers in. They were these thoughts on socialist blogging; this reflection on the ideas of the late radical feminist theologian/philosopher, Mary Daly; a critical look at the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition; and lastly my report on the anti-English Defence League protest in Stoke.

How long will it be before the blog sees this kind of audience again? Time will tell.

John Terry and "Press Freedom"

It's not often I talk about the love lives of the rich and famous, still less footballers. But the case of Chelsea and England footy captain John Terry sits uneasily with me.

For those of you who don't bother with the mainstream press, most tabloids today have led with the story that Terry (a married father of two) has been having an affair with his best mate's then-girlfriend. The Sun takes great delight in revealing the devastation Terry's infidelity has wrought on his nearest and dearest, exposing the hypocrisy of 2009's 'Dad of the Year' and decorates the piece with a lingerie photo of Vanessa Perroncel, Terry's lover. And just to put the boot in there's a list of his past indiscretions too.

When rumours about Terry's affair began to circulate his legal team reached for a super injunction. Made infamous by the Trafigura case in autumn last year, super-injunctions prevent not only press reportage on a particular topic but cannot even acknowledge the existence of a gagging order. Furthermore, The Sun claims Terry had Perroncel sign a confidentiality agreement. The whole super-injunction collapsed after a High Court judge refused to renew it. According to Murdoch stable-mate, The Times, the judge was of the view that public figures should be open to media scrutiny and criticism, and that Terry's legal actions were more a desire to protect his professional interests rather than make good the damage inflicted on his relationship. Both The Sun and Times go on to speculate about the impact on his sporting career. Could Terry be the British Tiger Woods?

On the one hand it's good to see another super-injunction bite the dust. Leaving aside the raft of authoritarian legislation introduced by the government, it's difficult to name a development in (case) law that is so obviously incompatible with democratic politics. But this is not a triumph for 'freedom of speech' or anything of the sort.

As far as the tabloid press are concerned, Terry's super-injunction got in the way of their reporting of tittle-tattle. Even among those who get their jollies from voyeuristically peering into the scandalous goings-ons of celebrity sex lives, does anyone really give a shit? While it's a very sad episode for the family, does it mean Terry is incapable of acquitting his footballing duties ?

This is what makes me sick about The Sun and its ilk. They continually trumpet the freedom of the press as if they are holding the rich and the powerful to account. But they don't. Free speech for them is the right to smear those who displease and challenge its masters, and/or pick over the bones of dysfunctional celebrities. If tabloids were prevented from digging up celebrity dirt they would have very little to write about. News offices might have to spend money on sending more journalists out into the field instead of ripping off blogs or embellishing on other internet material. They might even have to do in-depth investigative journalism or, heaven forfend, report real news. For the tabloids, it's not a commitment to journalistic ethics that have them kicking against super-injunctions. It's their overriding concern with their bottom line.

Gramsci on Education

One of the points Gramsci emphasises in his notes on intellectuals (see the previous post) is the links between increasing intellectual specialisation and the division of labour. This is the starting point for Gramsci's brief notes, grouped in the Selections under 'The Organisation of Education and Culture' and 'In Search of the Educational Principle'. The piece begins:

It may be observed in general that in modern civilisation all practical activities have become so complex, and the sciences so interwoven with everyday life, that each practical activity tends to create a new type of school for its own executives and specialists and hence to create a body of specialist intellectuals at a higher level to teach in these schools (Gramsci 1971, p.26).

In the Italy of Gramsci's day, education had prior to Mussolini been divided by class. There was a distinction between vocational schooling, which to all intents and purposes were for proletarian and semi-proletarian layers of Italian society; and the classical schools which offered an undifferentiated and universalist education befitting the class born to rule.

As industrial capitalism took hold in the 19th century the demands of unceasing expansion and technological advancement required a new type of urban intellectual. As we saw previously these professionals tended to be drawn from the big city bourgeoisie and other urban middling layers. Furthermore, rather than benefiting from a traditional classical education these entered and graduated from new (non-manual) technical schools. While the end result of proletarian vocational education was to equip them with basic skills and habits to enter industry, the urban professionals learned how to organise it.

A consequence of this was to erode "disinterested" general education. What elements of it fed into the vocationally-oriented education of the many were put under pressure and gradually expunged. General education became even more a property of elites. This situation of course was not unique to fascist Italy - today it is increasingly difficult to defend academic disciplines not immediately connected with "usefulness" defined almost exclusively in neoliberal terms.

This link between education, class and capital is not the only one. There are other ties that bind too. In the first place, specialisation in the division of labour has a tendency to generate their own 'post-scholastic' institutions. These act as bearers of disciplinary culture, carry news about the latest developments, and are generally the public (expert) face to outsiders. These bodies are important for all forms of governance too. Gramsci reduces deliberative political bodies to two functions (whether they are democratic or not is immaterial). The first is their essential deliberative functions. The second are 'technical-cultural activities', that is complex and sometimes very technical issues they need to make decisions on. Often this is beyond their immediate competence and requires experts to analyse and make recommendations about the issues - which is where the professionals of the post-scholastic institutions come in.

It is difficult to see how this mediating role of expertise can be avoided - even the mass democracy of technologically advanced socialist societies will have to make use of specialist knowledge by 'lay' delegates and representatives. But in capitalism, this mediation is one means by which the system erodes the depth and quality of democratic decision making. Expertise, which is united by its informal disciplinary bodies, is in reality distributed across bureaucracies consisting of universities, think tanks, consultancies, enterprises, etc. Despite the disinterested, "free-floating" conceit of intellectualism, they are bound by a thousand and one bureaucratic links to public and private finance, which has the effect of defining/conditioning the parameters of expert scrutiny and the recommendations they make. Therefore when politicians turn to experts for advice, the latter's mediation helps align the (often unspoken) interests of capital with the outlook of politicians.

As an alternative to education geared around the needs of capital, Gramsci advocates a more comprehensive system drawing on vocational and classical education. He upholds a distinction between primary and secondary education. In the first phase of schooling it should provide information about rights and responsibilities and inculcate a basic world view at odds with folklorist superstition (which was still a live issue in early 20th century Italy, particularly in the countryside). Primary schooling should also be prefaced with pre-schooling. Gramsci notes that the cultural backgrounds of parents do matter - children of city dwellers come to school better habituated to the rhythms of education and school discipline (those with a background in the intellectual strata even more so). Pre-schooling can potentially "level-up" children without this background advantage.

In secondary education there is a renewed emphasis on 'humanism', which Gramsci identifies with the inculcation of the moral discipline and independent intellectual activity necessary for specialisation. Hence secondary education needs to be creative, but with limits placed on intellectual libertarianism. It must expand the individual personality and potential of its pupils appropriate to the demands of a technologically sophisticated society, but do so on the basis of a common morality. For Gramsci, the latter is inculcated in the primary phase - authority, instruction and discipline are important, but this form of comprehensive education will only really work if the result is 'dynamic' conformism.

In the second section of his notes on education, Gramsci returns to the education system prior to the fascist era (Italian education was significantly reformed by the 1923 Gentile Reform). The vocationalist education "enjoyed" by the working class and peasantry taught some of the basics of natural science, and some ideas around rights and responsibilities. For Gramsci the science was designed to prepare children for the 'realm of things', and the latter the state and civil society. Both helped move the child away from notions of natural philosophy and aimed to construct an appreciation of society - of understanding the world and how society has the power to change it. In other words, for Gramsci, the guiding principle of this education was work.

However, whatever model of education one favours Gramsci was fully aware it is not received in a vacuum - hence his argument for pre-schooling. But even then this will not and cannot engineer 'dynamically conformist' pupils. He explains:

The individual consciousness of the overwhelming majority of children reflects social and cultural relations which are different from and antagonistic to those which are represented in the school curricula: thus the "certain" of an advanced culture becomes "true" in the framework of a fossilised and anachronistic culture. There is no unity between school and life, and so there is no automatic unity between instruction and education (p.35)

Therefore hunting for an ideal method of teaching that will produce the right results (an assumption that undergirds most right wing grumbles about what's wrong with schooling in Britain) is as pointless as it is idealist. Bridging the gap between education and instruction can only be done by the teacher's practice, and for it to work they need to be aware of the gulf between their culture and society and that of their charges. The discipline and conformism necessary to imbibe formal education may (and often is) in direct contradiction with the life experiences of the pupils. As any teacher will tell you, there's nothing more difficult than teaching children who don't want to learn.

And this presents a fundamental problem socialist politics has to overcome. For large sections of the working class, there is a general lack of social competencies appropriate to the mores and discipline of formal education. And yet we need to build the capacity for intellectual work within our class to develop Marxist concepts AND the millions of organic intellectuals through which the class can become conscious of its interests.

Whether you can argue Gramsci's analysis of the situation in early 20th century Italy is appropriate to early 21st century Britain is a matter for debate. While it is true formal education is a complete turn off for significant layers of working class people, it is also true the workforce has never been more highly educated as at present. According to the 2001 Census, 30 per cent of the work force have no qualifications while 20 percent are university graduates or have a higher qualification. We may be a long way off Labour's target of 50 per cent, but undoubtedly the numbers have increased since this data was collected. So while the culture clash problem Gramsci identifies has not gone away, it would appear to be less of a problem now.

But of course, there is a related problem. Despite a highly educated work force class consciousness remains at an historic low. People are being educated, but not politically. The difficulty of propagating socialist politics, working class history, and suffusing our class with the confidence to act for itself remains - and is probably even more acute than it was in Gramsci's day.

A list of posts in this series on the Selections from the Prison Notebooks can be found here.

Spot the Bias

There I was whiling away 10 minutes this evening filling out a YouGov survey (only four and a half years to go before I receive my £50 cheque!) when I came across this question: Which of these best describes your job title?.

The options were:

Owner/partner/proprietor
Chair/President/Chief Executive Officer
Managing Director
General manager
CFO/Treasurer
Chief Operating Officer
Chief Information officer
Chief Technical Officer
Other Chief Officer
Director/VP
Head of Department
Other senior management (please specify)
Other management (please specify)
Professional (accountant, architect, lawyer, teacher, etc)
Government Official

Hmmm, something's missing from this list of occupations. Call me nitpicky but I see no options for the millions who work in low wage, low status jobs, nor the legions of middle-ranking administrators, factory workers, shop assistants AND the 2.5 million unemployed.

How can Yougov write off over half the population and *still* be widely regarded as reliable pollsters?