Compass relaunches today – and it’s all about “the good society”

Today marks the relaunch of Compass under the new strap-line ‘together for a good society’. The new website welcomes you to ‘the home for everyone who wants to be part of a much more equal, democratic and sustainable future’. Compass has provided me and many others with a political home where we feel we belong – in my case the most compatible political home since the 1970s women’s movement.

That sense of having found a political home stems not just from what Compass stands for – its core values of equality, democracy and sustainability – but from how it does its politics.  From the start, it has tried to follow Gandhi’s dictum: ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’.  So, having been a pressure group within the Labour Party, in line with our belief in pluralist politics our membership agreed the controversial move of opening up to members of other political parties who share our values.  This enables Compass to provide a bridge between Labour and other progressive parties and organisations.

In line with Gandhi’s counsel, we are currently reviewing how we can better promote equality and diversity in our own practices (and also by encouraging others for example never to run all-male platforms at meetings).  And we want to make the meetings that we hold more participatory, engaging and indeed fun (there’s a word we don’t hear enough of on the left!).  We are trying to build a politics that is open and inclusive and that opens up links between the formal political system and informal and more direct forms of politics such as those forged by activists in the disability movement campaigning against oppressive tests and cuts in disability benefits.

Ed Miliband talked about ‘a good society’ in his first speech as Labour leader.  At a time of ongoing economic crisis and widespread disenchantment with formal politics, it’s more important than ever that we have a public conversation about the kind of society in which we want to live and how we want to live well together.  Thus Compass’ Plan B and more recent Plan B+1 do not just aim to provide an alternative to austerity economics, they also propose measures designed to create ‘a good economy for a good society’.  The economy is a means to an end, not an end in itself and we need to challenge the economic instrumentalism that has for so long dominated social policy debate.

There are many elements of public policy that contribute to helping us live well in a good society.  Some of them are to do with the distribution of valuable resources – income, wealth, decent paid work, time (a resource the importance of which to a good life is often overlooked), good public services and life-enhancing public spaces.  Others are more to do with recognition and respect for human dignity – how people are treated and valued regardless of social class, gender, ‘race’/ethnicity, disability, age or sexual orientation and are able to express themselves and have a voice.  Together they are what social justice is all about.  The two often overlap: for instance, indecently low pay for care work reflects the low value attached to care, yet, as many feminists argue, nurturing an ethic of care is as important to a good society as the paid work ethic lauded by politicians.

We live in a time of massive inequality, shamefully high levels of poverty and endemic economic insecurity to which the far right are appealing with a politics based on xenophobia and fear.  Formal politics is not rising to the challenge.  Instead it comes across as tired, managerial and formulaic.  All too often it too speaks to people’s fearful and selfish side, rather than appealing to the solidaristic side of human nature.  So, let’s start that conversation about how we can live together and create a good society in which all can flourish.

Ruth Lister is Chair of the Compass Management Committee and a Labour peer