OurSpace: the New Frontier

Making the case against consumerism

By Hilary Wainwright and Catherine Needham

The left needs to do much more than simply oppose the marketisation of public services - it must promote a positive alternative. In a series of articles this month, Red Pepper authors.

We have to face the fact that an immensely powerful process of destruction and reconfiguration of economic, state and cultural institutions is going on; and unless we are able to assert an alternative dynamic, its outcome will be determined by the multinationals of this world. We also have to recognise that under existing forms of democracy - Jack Straw's parliamentary democracy - our political institutions are too conservative to offer a sufficiently innovative means of developing an alternative.

There is need for a powerful, shared sense of direction that can resonate with the disaffection that is far more widespread than the committed left alone. To generate a sufficiently ambitious vision we need at the same time to be more realistic and more imaginative, simultaneously more attentive to the creativity implicit in local struggles and more willing to learn from international experiences.

Catherine Needham makes the case against consumerism. The prioritisation of the consumer becomes the rationale for the broader marketisation process. The introduction of competition between providers, the creation of new market opportunities for private companies in public services, the withdrawal of state-run services, are all justified on the basis of what they will deliver for the user.

Critics of marketisation are accused of paternalism, elites who defend uncaring bureaucracies or of being nostalgic for a long gone era. However good arguments against the consumerist dominance. Firstly the focus on consumer preferences immediately makes it a conflict situation between providers and consumers, rather than a cooperative relationship. Secondly it legitimises user oriented approaches that are just plain wrong, such as the way user choice can undermine public education by for example, allowing creationism to dominate schools, or encouraging elite public schools and thus undermining others, and allows sponsors with certain interests into the system. Thirdly it creates the view that only consumers views are relevant to particular public services rather than broader societal views.

(Red Pepper; no 147, November 2006)