How Good We Can Be: Ending the Mercenary Society and Building a Great Country

by Will Hutton

Britain is beset by a crisis of purpose. For a generation we have been told the route to universal well-being is to abandon the expense of justice and equity and so allow the judgments of the market to go unobstructed. What has been created is not an innovative, productive economy but instead a capitalism that extracts value rather than creates it, massive inequality, shrinking opportunity and a society organised to benefit the top 1%. The capacity to create new jobs and start-ups should not disguise that in the main the new world is one of throw away people working in throw away companies. The British are at a loss.

The warnings of The State We're In have been amply justified. Will Hutton observes that the trends that so disturbed him twenty years ago have become more marked. Rather than take refuge in nativism and virulent euro-scepticism, Britain must recognize that its problems are largely made at home - and act to change them. With technological possibilities multiplying, a wholesale makeover of the state, business and the financial system is needed to seize the opportunities by being both fairer and more innovative. The aim must be to create an economy, society and democracy in which the mass of citizens flourish. In this compelling and vital new book Hutton spells out how.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Society, Economics

304 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2015

Reviews

[MichaelK · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half reminded me of Owen Jones' The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It: it is a left-of-centre polemic about what has gone wrong with British society and British capitalism. Hutton is, however, more nuanced than Jones, and he acknowledges that the post-war socialist consensus had failed in Britain, and therefore change was necessary. If reading Jones' book is like getting a GCSE in having a left-of-centre view of Britain, Hutton's is more like an AS or A-level. His criticisms are more detailed and in-depth, covering mainstream economic ideology, the financial system, ownership of UK companies, privatization failures, and inequality. I found myself wanting to quote a lot of Hutton's analysis; it is informative, persuasive, and infectiously angry.

The second half provides possible solutions for Britain's many problems. Hutton isn't calling for a return to old socialism, represented by Old Labour and the weak remnants of the trade unions, but for a reformed capitalism that works for the betterment of society. He remembers New Labour coming to power on a wave of hope, and remembers the disappointment when they didn't cause much meaningful, long-lasting change: many of New Labour's achievements were undone by the Coalition who succeeded them. His suggestions are interesting, and he's clearly spent a lot of time thinking them through. There is hope in this chapter, hope for a greater Britain, related to the hope which took Blair to his landslides - New Labour was allegedly influenced by one of Hutton's earlier books (The State We're in: Why Britain is in Crisis and How to Overcome it).

When Hutton compares British privatizations and public-private partnerships to those of other countries, it hammers home that privatization isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be done well; it can improve society and lead to better results. Sadly, in Britain many of our politicians believe that any privatization deal is instantly better than any state-run service (the state is inefficient and shit while private companies are incentivized to efficiency, so the ideology goes), so we've had bad deal after bad deal after bad deal. He also compares company ownership structures across countries, and suggests ways to promote long term investment (and therefore shareholders who are committed to growing and improving the company), rather than short-termist looking for quick profit (shares of British companies tend not to be held for very long; the company is run towards providing maximum shareholder value in the immediate future, and so fails to grow and develop effectively in the long term), which would make British companies more competitively internationally. There are also suggestions about how to reform and modernize trade unions, so they are no longer the last bastions of old socialism, and how to decentralize the British state to promote local government.

It's all very hopeful and interesting.

However.

I found this book sad. Reading it in 2017, with Britain undergoing Brexit, it feels like this book's hope is gone: perhaps that is why I found it remaindered; relevance depleted, it can no longer justify its full price. Hutton wrote the first drafts of the book in 2014, and revised it in 2015; where he mentions the oncoming EU referendum, he assumes a Remain victory. His projections of Britain's future are therefore out-of-date, and he even acknowledges that many of his reforms would require single market access to maximize British trade.

This is worth a read. It is well written, well researched and well argued. It will make you angry at Britain where it intends to make you angry, and it will make you hopeful for a better country.

But, like with me, it might also make you sad that the better country isn't going to come.

(I could really use some political optimism, if anyone has some suggestions.)

[Andrew Macfarlane · Rating 3 out of 5]

reads better if it were a series of newspaper columns. Some good prognosis of Britain's problems but adds too many sweeping statements. like most journalists he ignores some inconvenient facts particularly on welfare reform - believing the myth about sanction "targets" for example

[Ross Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contained encouraging, potentially pragmatic ideas, but often long-winded and boring.