Today, many, if not most of us, are concerned about the state of the world. How are we to make sense of the turmoil and confusion regularly confronting people’s lives? How are the interlocking social, economic, environmental, cultural and political crises to be understood, and what, if anything, can be done to reduce – let alone – resolve them? Answers to these kinds of questions will, of course, yield a myriad of conflicting responses; some fatally pessimistic, some dangerously destructive, others wildly utopian.

In these turbulent times, the question the ILP wishes to address is whether, together, people can construct realisable alternatives. We seek humane, progressive, socially just, and sustainable ways through the multiple disorders we face, ways that meet the needs of the many and, in time, lessen the prospects of economic instability. One thing is for sure, there are no easy answers and no magic formulas to make the problems vanish. But that does not mean that there can be no real progress, still less that there are no answers at all.

We believe that, while we need intellectual humility in the face of the challenges we face, it should be matched by a determination to tackle them. It should not be beyond the ability of humanity to overcome the inequalities of wealth and power that so deface social relationships and distort the current world.

Central to the contemporary human condition is the expansion and intensification of global capitalism and all that the free market ideology brings in its wake. Capitalism delivers unprecedented growth but, as David Miliband writes in Reinventing the Left:

The left exists today, and needs to exist, because advanced industrialised societies are corrupted in fundamental ways by inequalities of income, opportunity and perhaps above all power.

And if proof were ever needed of this, then the current financial crisis provides it, exposing some of the worst aspects of an unregulated and freewheeling, market economy.

We also have to be honest and recognise that there are no systematic conceptions of how capitalism can be replaced by something more edifying or less dismaying. As the political theorist, John Dunn, writes: ‘What has been deleted from the human future … is any form of reasonable and relatively concrete social and political hope.’

What is more, we are faced with social values born of a selfish individualism, the heritage of two decades of Thatcherism in the UK and neo-liberalism globally. The result is a society of individualistic excess that New Labour has not greatly modified.

At the same time, the left is weak and its voice does not reach deep into society. However, the numerous crises have laid bare some of the fundamentals of an economic system driven by greed and sustained by wealth and unaccountable power – and we must seek to turn the greater awareness of this to good effect. Markets may make good servants but, uncontrolled, they make disastrous masters. That makes any notion of a return to ‘business as usual’ unacceptable. This is a time to build a movement for profound and lasting reforms of the economy and society.

This means rebuilding a left willing to consider and encourage changes that the powerful and privileged will strenuously resist. Of necessity, enlarging democracy and creating a humanitarian, welfare state, requires the strengthening of the left’s voice and presence. The difficulties that this can pose should not be underestimated.

A caring and concerned society will have to unravel the knots of rampant consumerism and individualism. Not least this means challenging double standards in society; whether this concerns welfare provision and taxation or a sustainable environment. People will have to give as well as take and this will involve making significant cultural shifts in society. It also needs a left capable of securing public trust and support based on a politics of honesty, integrity and intellectual credibility.

In addition to encouraging and sustaining a coalition of progressive movements outside parliament, we also need to help build a political party operating within the political system reflecting and responding to the wider developments. Indeed, for real progress each needs the other. Radical governments are constrained by powerful external forces that have to be matched by a strong, left presence in civil society. We have to be clear about what we can reasonably ask; but we are entitled to have expectations of any government committed to social justice.

Much of the energy and impetus for improving society will have to come from people like ourselves. By acting collectively, we can create a living politics. As we do so, we will become more confident that we can make a difference in a society that constantly tells us otherwise. The ILP hopes to make a contribution to this project.

None of us has all the answers and we have no impeccable roadmaps. We have to find new and creative ways of working together. We will make mistakes and must openly seek to learn from them. We welcome the fact that movements for real democratic change have many voices. Social diversity is not just something to be tolerated: it is to be welcomed.

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