The Rise of a New, Employee Ownership-Friendly Conservatism in Britain Highlighted in Seminal 2009 Article

I don't normally spend much time in this column on more philosophical developments in employee ownership, but the recent convergence in the United Kingdom of all three parties around the idea of a dramatic increase in the use of this idea for privatizing social services is potentially a development of major importance. Part of its roots can be traced to a seminal 2009 article in Prospect magazine (February 28, 2009) by Philip Blond.

Blond says that "The intermediary structures of a civilised life have been eliminated, and with them the Burkean ideal of a civic, religious, political or social middle, as the state and the market accrue power at the expense of ordinary people...both 20th-century socialism and conservatism have converged on the market state," by which he means either monopoly capital or a monopoly state. That, in turn, he says, has created a society of atomized, disconnected people with withering ties to family, community, and other institutions that can regulate behavior, leaving only the state as the option.

Blond proposes several decentralizing measures for finance and ownership. For instance, he says there should be a "new class of local investment trusts, dedicated to investing in the cities and villages that they serve." He then argues that "the next step for conservatism is to reverse the old politics of class, by restoring capital to labour" proposing (as the parties now have) "far-reaching extensions to employee share ownership, workers' buyouts and the promotion of equity guilds and asset co-operatives. This would bypass the trade unions as institutions permanently wedded to welfare serfdom, and wed ownership to the earning of wages." The article can be found at this link. In the U.S., columnist David Brooks has strongly endorsed Blond's views in the New York Times.