Ideas alone will not achieve progress – but they are the lifeblood that will allow us to reach it

By Jessica Asato / @Jessica_Asato

Earlier this year, LabourList pledged itself to the worthy pursuit of ‘ideas not smears‘. I think most readers would agree that it’s been pretty successful at doing this and many of the posts over the last few months have put forward interesting ideas which have stimulated much debate.

But why should anyone involved in politics care about ideas in the first place? After all, the lofty towers of academia are surely unlikely to find someone’s next job or commit the funds to ending child poverty? Those Labour activists who are mainly worried about the government losing power at the next election might argue that ideas are a distraction cooked up by armchair intellectuals who are unwilling to do the real work of knocking on doors. Orthodox Marxists would dismiss any attempt at thinking about ideas as being pre-ordained by class and therefore unlikely to change the status quo in any fundamental way. Conservatives of course are highly suspicious of ideas, because they believe that tradition and experience are the best way of structuring society and moreover do not accept that human beings can form a rational understanding of the world as it is far too complex. Cynics would say that ideas are simply the most populist policies which allow political parties to seize the reins of power.

It’s true that ideas on their own do not achieve change, and that there are good ideas and bad ones, extremist ideas which lead to untold destruction, and controlling ideas which subjugate populations. Ideas can be dangerous, poorly thought through and downright stupid. And of course there are people who spend their whole lives dreaming up solutions to poverty, but are unwilling to get their hands dirty by meeting the people they seek to help. But if you share a utopian view of society, which most socialists do, ideas are the lifeblood which might allow us to reach it one day. Socialists should not merely celebrate ideas in themselves, but also the process of debating ideas, fraught though that may be. Ideas should be at the heart of the movement we form to achieve equality, social justice, and peace, a movement I believe which is best embodied in this country by the Labour Party.

If there’s a time when Labour needs good new ideas to inspire activists and convince the public that the party is fit to be in government, it’s probably now. Sure, all movements need leaders, but all leaders need content – otherwise their words are mere platitudes and it can be easily argued that they are simply after power for its own sake.

If you’re worried about the government’s lack of narrative, you can create our own by using ideas to join the dots. If you’re fed up with the poor accountability of the political system, then do something about it by coming up with a new one. Until material and intellectual poverty is obsolete, we will always need ideas to lead us to a better future, but we can’t rely on the top or the centre to dictate them to us. Labour activists must be the architects of their own vision of the good society.

So that is why I am really pleased to be involved with LabourList’s first ‘Ideas Day‘ and I hope there will be many more. The pieces published today are not grand theories, neither do they pretend to reinvent the wheel, and I have in no way commissioned articles to cover every sphere of public life. They are a snapshot of some of the things that individuals on the centre-left are thinking about at the moment.

Most ideas have been argued for and against before, but that doesn’t mean that their time has gone. You won’t agree with all of the authors. That’s a good thing and is part of the journey. But even if you disagree, please treat contributors with respect. A discourse which is dismissive, cynical, rude and personally vindictive, does nothing to encourage the development and spread of ideas, instead it takes us on a path towards Orwell’s metaphorical foot stamping on a head.

Please do send through your own ideas to LabourList and I hope that everyone takes away something good to think about by the end of the day.

As George Bernard Shaw wrote:

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

Jessica Asato is Acting Director of Progress and guest editor of LabourList for Ideas Day.

LabourList will aggregate, discuss and poll the ideas submitted over the summer.