Now that the Tories have replaced Labour as the party of the workers, are we heading towards a one-nation economy? And if so, are the days of ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’ completely over?
It’s not yet clear that the Conservatives have fully come to terms with the enormity of the transformation in thinking that is implied by their pledge to ensure that prosperity spreads to every corner of the land.
There are still many Conservatives who want to see some more rolling back of the state, but a one-nation economy implies rolling the boundaries forward and not only by fully funding public services. That’s the easy bit. A policy on behalf of the individuals and localities ‘left behind’ will mean active government.
What should this more nuanced economic strategy look like?
First, it involves questioning some of the most rooted assumptions of recent times. Whenever we discuss government economic action we find ourselves slipping into the use of terms such as government intervention or state interference, which imply that a market economy is a natural state of affairs that exists spontaneously in the absence of the state.
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