Emma, thanks for this and making this clearer in my mind. I think the issue of a lack of humanity is a broader one of course and it occurs in human interactions in the private sector workplace as well as the public sector. Management texts suggest that failure to treat employees properly (if we can accept the definition of this in a broad sense) will result in the business not working optimally. Yet how many businesses really embrace the idea of treating people ‘properly’? Hard systems (processes, procedures,rules) may be designed to deliver e.g. a service - but as the security guard in your example - it is delivered by a person. They could have behaved differently to deliver the result prescribed by the system in a more human way? Isn’t this true of a raft of interactions that frustrate us or dehumanise us? To me Labour’s vision must take us away from the culture that leads to people behaving in this way ( tribal, divisive populism?) and to a more collective responsibility which acknowledges the role we have towards each other and the community as a whole. In other words changing behaviour is arguably more important than the hard system an individual is working within. In terms of a vision I believe Labour may be hesitant to articulate one when it seems they have potentially many different groups to resonate with to win the next election (Fabian Report Winning 150) and are frightened of alienating some key votes. What to do? In my view, of course, we need a Labour government or even a Labour led coalition. This won’t be easy to achieve although at the moment it seems we may dare to dream. We may not get all we want in terms of our socialist ideals simply to get the votes we need (without compromising too much I hope) but then we can begin to work on building the society we want to see - one with much more humanity in our dealings with each other.
Step one: break up the treasury. Currently it's just a department that puts shackles on every other department. That has to stop.
Emma, thanks for this and making this clearer in my mind. I think the issue of a lack of humanity is a broader one of course and it occurs in human interactions in the private sector workplace as well as the public sector. Management texts suggest that failure to treat employees properly (if we can accept the definition of this in a broad sense) will result in the business not working optimally. Yet how many businesses really embrace the idea of treating people ‘properly’? Hard systems (processes, procedures,rules) may be designed to deliver e.g. a service - but as the security guard in your example - it is delivered by a person. They could have behaved differently to deliver the result prescribed by the system in a more human way? Isn’t this true of a raft of interactions that frustrate us or dehumanise us? To me Labour’s vision must take us away from the culture that leads to people behaving in this way ( tribal, divisive populism?) and to a more collective responsibility which acknowledges the role we have towards each other and the community as a whole. In other words changing behaviour is arguably more important than the hard system an individual is working within. In terms of a vision I believe Labour may be hesitant to articulate one when it seems they have potentially many different groups to resonate with to win the next election (Fabian Report Winning 150) and are frightened of alienating some key votes. What to do? In my view, of course, we need a Labour government or even a Labour led coalition. This won’t be easy to achieve although at the moment it seems we may dare to dream. We may not get all we want in terms of our socialist ideals simply to get the votes we need (without compromising too much I hope) but then we can begin to work on building the society we want to see - one with much more humanity in our dealings with each other.