Reciprocity: Potentially explosively controversial for the left

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter

Yesterday, Demos Open Left published an e-book on the future of the Labour Party in partnership with Soundings magazine. A word that keeps coming up in the contributions – including my own – is ‘reciprocity.’ It’s a word that you will hear often in the coming years and it is potentially explosively controversial for the left. It challenges our core understanding of the way our relationships are mediated through the state. And yet, it provides one way of finding a way of finding an alternative to the residual, minimal state – if that is, indeed, where the coalition takes us.

As Stuart White discusses in the e-book, the notion of ‘reciprocity’ is hardly new. It can be identified as a philosophical notion in the writings of L.T.Hobhouse and the new liberals and in the work of R.H.Tawney who contrasted the ‘functional society’ with the ‘acquisitive society.’ The former relates rewards to endeavour and outlaws the rents received from idle assets…or idle people by extension. He could equally have looked backed to the associational nature of social and financial support in the nineteenth century before the more needs-based foundation of the modern welfare state (whatever Beveridge actually wrote.)

For White, there are rich notions of reciprocity founded in equality: those who work should not be in poverty, their work should be enriching, other contributions such as caring should be recognised and unearned incomes and wealth should be tackled. He contrasts this with thin notions of reciprocity that tempted New Labour into a ‘them and ‘us’ rhetoric. If ‘rights and responsibilities’ is not grounded in a more generous and egalitarian notion of contribution then it can quickly undermine the political bases support for the least deserving. That is one of the reasons that the coalition has been able to cut welfare so easily.

So there are political risks associated with this rediscovery of reciprocity as an expression of core labour values. It can’t be a replacement for an expressive humanism. We just stand idly by when those who are deemed not to have contributed wallow in suffering. That’s not reciprocity; that’s callous.

With these dangers acknowledged and as Labour considers new empathetic and co-operative relationships from person to person, between people and public services and vice-versa – as it will have to – there is a sensible discussion to be had about what we expect from people and what they can expect in return for their contribution. It is easy to see this as an ethic of individualism – I put in, I get out. But actually the ethic of community cannot function without a strong and reciprocal relationship between contribution and benefit. If we do not expect a degree of contribution if someone is able – and in application equally to the top as the bottom of society – then social bases of community collapse.

Gift giving cultures work on a foundation of social norms and expectations. If a gift is never reciprocated or matched in value – in perception or reality – then those norms and the bonds of community begin to loosen.

The risk for those who believe in strong welfare support is that if they do not consider reciprocity then others who have more malign objectives will do in a way that causes greater harm to those who are most vulnerable.

For instance, British Social Attitudes data has shown that almost half of those surveyed have an expectation that single mothers should find work once their youngest child is of school age. Nearly 58% believe that they should get help with childcare if they do go to work. This is just a ‘for instance’ rather than the advocacy of any specific policy (personally, I consider raising a child well to be a massive contribution.) But, in general terms, the risk is that if the left fails to find a way of discussing how reciprocity could work in modern Britain then the single parent gets the tough sanction without the support. Far better that the left articulates a positive case to support that lone parent to go back to work – if that is right for their family – and makes sure that the work pays. This then becomes a more positive version of reciprocity.

So there is a fruitful discussion to be had about what an egalitarian reciprocity might look like. It would discuss our obligations to one another: respect, the opportunity to expand our capabilities, to make a contribution in fair times and to be supported when we fall on hard times but not unconditionally. We should never desert the mentally ill or physically disabled: our contribution in the full knowledge that we will be supported should we – or our loved ones – find ourselves in a similar situation.

We benefit from the social and emotional support that strong community offers and should consider our wider social obligations on that basis. Sometimes people will break the law, offend our sense of what is decent and honest, or refuse to take the opportunities that they are offered. Our temptation will be to condemn, throw away the key, or ostracise. But there is redemption: where there is remorse then we have an obligation to respond with generosity. When someone fails to respond then that is when we should stand firm – not as a first reaction. Where someone fails to do the right thing – allowing their child to skip school, for example – then the response must be resolute and uncompromising but also must resolve the problem not simply punish and condemn. And where someone has the good fortune to acquire wealth that comes with an obligation to contribute in a meaningful way. That is the good society: no-one is apart and all have a contribution to make.

So actually reciprocity means a rediscovery of how we relate to one another. It is about how we exist in relationship and association with one another. It is about embuing the ethic of community with a notion of commonly regarded fairness. This will be a difficult discussion. It is most definitely one worth having.

Anthony Painter blogs at www.anthonypainter.co.uk

Demos Open Left/ Soundings e-book ‘Labour’s Future’ is available here.

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