Where do we go from here? - There is an alternative

The alternative

Acknowledge that the Labour Party is dead, realise that in terms of hearts and minds after 40 years of push back we on the left are effectively starting from scratch, stop looking back and and start looking forward.

Start putting in the hard yards…persuading people things don’t have to be like this. We can imagine better so we can do better. Cooperate with the people who see whats happening whatever their political alignment. That's the challenge.

And so what is the alternative and what does good look like? 

It’s not a secret, it’s all out there. Look inside any big company that isn’t in thrall to venture capital and you will see team work, collaboration, fairness. This isn’t accidental, management science is a multidisciplinary subject, it is based on what both research and pragmatism show, it’s about what works. Charles Handy was right - many modern organisations are remarkable examples of cooperation. 

How many companies act outwardly is where the non-sequitur occurs; something that should cause extreme cognitive dissonance but generally goes unremarked. Internally there can be an understanding of what it takes for people to act together and achieve their potential - externally there is the complete opposite. How they interact externally is what we call the political economy.

In politics we encourage extreme competition to the point of cheating and lies and in business we tolerate what is little short of piracy - leveraged buyouts loading the targets with debt whilst they are hollowed out, speculative bubbles and caveat emptor. Greed, cheating and lies are elevated to a mistaken idea that competition is king. (Peter Thiel despises competition and looks to monopoly). If that isn’t bad enough 20% of companies in the US and GB are zombies (measured by their ability to service debt over three years) so that so even what is called “creative destruction” cannot happen. [Zombie Companies]

We didn’t get here by accident, the big lie was sold to us.