Historical Context
Europe in the last millennia has enjoyed a great history of political, social and economic innovation. But there is one final threshold for society to bravely cross, that of real democracy. This is obviously going to be a major political transition, arguably the biggest one since the modern era was born, so it may be helpful to look at that last revolutionary ‘transition’.
It can be argued that the modern political settlement was secured in England in one year more than any other, with the triumph of Parliament over King in 1649. However, the process of change that led to that settlement took place over at least a 150 year transition period, and didn’t really end until 50 years later. The transition period from pre-modern to modern can be helpfully traced to three or four key dates: the English Reformation (1536), the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), victory for Parliament (1649) and finally the Restoration period, most notably with the formation of the Bank of England (1694).
These events, more than any others, helped to secure and shape the modern, unified nation-state. Sustained political processes that came to fruition in that period (although some had begun much earlier) have continued right up to this day. These processes include religious independence (through the wresting of cultural power away from the Catholic Church and the imposition of new, national creeds), an overarching centralisation of economic power (through the removal of common land rights and parliamentary taxation), control of parliament (through a manipulation of electoral processes) and the development of an imperial foreign policy, in part through the Dutch Republican novelty of a perpetual national debt.
Overall, it is generally accepted that this settlement constituted complete triumph for the bourgeois or big merchant political class. And that same elite class has controlled the two, newly powerful, national institutions this period gave birth to, both Parliament and the Bank of England. By directing these two titanic institutions, the newly unbound merchant class has enjoyed an effective monopoly on the framing of public policy for 360 years. The subsequent, meteoric rise of British capitalism, with its brutal but successful industrial revolution (never mind the human cost) and ruthless foreign policy (which included slavery) to secure access to international markets, proves the point.
The ambivalent nature of this first ‘modern’ settlement was clear from the start and continues to be reflected in attitudes to other countries. Democracy is a step forward, and England was one of the first to make the first step. But it is only a step. On the one hand, in terms of the sharing of power the old transition constituted a great leap forward (from the feudal world that preceded it, wherein fewer got to enjoy a slice of the formalized pie). Science also made great strides during this period. But, at the same time, this old transition period was essentially a land and power grab by the business class. Communists such as the Diggers and True Levellers, who wanted access to protected common land and ‘an agreement of the people’(having fought as a revolutionary class alongside Cromwell for the duration of the Civil War) were left out of the constitutional settlement of 1649, which was the democratic high water mark of the revolution. 1694, when the water subsided, allowed the elite to decisively consolidate their power, merely added insult to injury.
And so the paradigm was set. Since that day, all domestic struggles for democracy have taken place within it. And, relations with the rest of the world have been couched as is the case with the rest of Europe (because the new settlement came early) in the language of ‘civilising’ the rest of the world. This tendency, which mixes all too easily with xenophobia and racism, is a cloak for what the imperial mission is really about, which is to secure the safety and high standing of the British state in the world at large and, ultimately, access to the world market. And through both these strands, domestic and international we find the assumption, which very well suits those in power, that this modern settlement is (in democratic terms) as good as it gets.
So, domestically we have seen the struggles for control of an electorally driven parliament taking place via the project to widen the franchise out beyond property ownership and then later to both genders, and, later still we’ve seen the struggle for organised labour with the campaign for the right to a trade union. Later still, the campaign for the provision of a welfare state.
And it is with this in mind that we turn to the concept of ‘transition’, and of the need for a clear sense of where we are trying to go with our struggle for a new settlement, beyond that secured by the New Model Army in 1649. It took 150 years of ‘transition’ from Henry’s act of independence, and his national land grab (not to mention a great deal of bloodshed) for the modern political settlement to be won. According to environmentalists, we have far less time than this to get our own house in order. But there is one big difference between their transition and ours. In our case, we have a relatively clear sight of where we need to get to, whereas in theirs it all just happened, haphazardly, with everything up in the air once Henry had made himself head of the new, nation state religion, until the constitutional pieces he first shook up began to settle. In our case, with all the modern benefits of history, sociology, science, economics and anthropology at our disposal, we can work out a road map to help us get there; to a really democratic, socially just, even enlightened society.
This begs the question: what settlement must we now fight for? What must our world look like after the great, 21st Century ‘transition’?