The third way

Résumé du document

In 1999, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder issued a joint statement entitled The Third Way, Die neue Mitte. The statement committed itself to a “newly defined role for the active state” and stated that “the essential function of markets must be complemented and improved by political action, not hampered by it” , sometimes raising eyebrows among the European left, not least the French one, which thought that both SPD and Labour had abandoned their social-democratic commitments and embraced neo-liberal ideology. Recently, a clutch of welfare and labour market reforms was adopted in Germany, sparking protests and demonstrations. The Third Way has brought controversy among students of social-democracy when it comes to its relations with social-democracy and its positioning on a right-left spectrum. For its major academic theorist, Anthony Giddens, the Third Way is “social-democracy revived and modernised” , whereas for one of its most vocal critics, sociologist Stuart Hall, it stands for “deregulation of markets, the continued privatisation of public assets, low taxation, breaking the inhibitions to market flexibility and institutionalising the culture of private provision and personal risk” .

Extraits

[...] With provocative statements such as “there is no such thing as society”, Margaret Thatcher emphasised individualism and personal effort. As Steven Fielding argues, she promoted the belief that poverty was more the result of laziness than social circumstances, and for her, excessive taxation for welfare spending would fail to address the causes of poverty, and also reduce the incentives to work[7]. On the traditional social-democratic battleground of welfare, New Labour came with a new rhetoric on rights and responsibility and insisted that its policies were framed to make work pay. [...]

[...] Withdrawal of the scheme or failure to comply with its requirements can mean withdrawal of benefits. In addition to the New Deal for young people, five other New Deals have appeared: for long- term unemployed, lone parents, disabled people, partners of unemployed, people over 55[9]. Linking the right to draw a benefit to duties is indeed pretty new to social-democratic thinking, which tends to see the right to minimum welfare as disconnected from any duty. Another continuity with the Conservatives has been the instauration of a Working Families Tax Credit, which bears great resemblance to the Tories' 1988 in-work benefit Family Credit, designed to increase the incomes of low- earning families with children and which provided a means-tested benefit once a certain number of hours were worked[10]. [...]

[...] A commission headed by a former Volkswagen chief executive, Peter Hartz was also appointed in 2002, with the aim of tackling the rigidity of the labour market. Schröder incorporated some of its recommendations in its bid for re-election and on December 2002, several measures became law, including improved job services for the unemployed, combined with tightening obligations for the unemployed to accept the jobs offered[44], bearing great resemblance with the link between welfare provision and active job-searching implemented in Britain. [...]

[...] Ibid. Steven Fielding, Op. cit., p Ben Pimlott, future of the in Robert Skidelski Thatcherism (Basil Blackwell, 1989), p Steven Fielding, Op. cit., p Paul Johnson, Labour: a distinctive vision of welfare policy?”, in Stuart White New Labour, The Progressive Future? (Palgrave, 2001), p Anne Daguerre, “Importing workfare: policy transfer of social and labour market policies from the USA to Britain under New Labour”, Social Policy and administration (Vol 2004), p Paul Johnson, Op. cit., p Ibid., p Howard Glennerster, “Social policy”, in Anthony Seldon The Blair effect (Little, Brown, 2001), p Stewart Wood, “Education and training: tensions at the heart of the British Third in Stuart White, Op. [...]

[...] Last year, in his pre-budget report, Brown announced higher forecasts for public borrowing, saying that he expected the government to borrow billion in the next financial year.[28]. According to Andrew Glyn and Stewart Wood, the impact of changes to the tax and benefit system up to 2000 was indeed fairly redistributive, with the worst-off 20 per cent of households gaining by around 8.5 per cent on average, whereas the best-off 20 per cent lost around 0.5 per cent[29]. The government has also committed itself to eliminate child poverty and for that purpose, has given above inflation increases to child benefits[30], and created a child care tax credit that meets 70 per cent of the cost of childcare up to a reasonable ceiling[31]. [...]