Last month, five western leaders – Bill Clinton, the US president, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, Wim Kok, the Dutch prime minister, and Massimo D’Alema, the Italian prime minister – gathered in Washington to discuss the Third Way.
The New Statesman has obtained a transcript of this meeting, showing the extent to which the five leaders reject what they see as the “one-way street” of state provision and their determination to introduce what they see as more US-style flexibility. Here is an edited extract.
Clinton: I would like to just very briefly say how very much I admire the people who are with me here at this table today – how much I have learnt from them, how much I look forward to working with them at every opportunity. Wim Kok actually was doing all this before we were. He just didn’t know that – he didn’t have anybody like Al From [president of the Democratic Leadership Council, the US Third Way think-tank] to put a label on it. [Laughter.] But he was doing it for years and years and years. Tony Blair has made me long for a parliamentary system. [Laughter and applause.] Gerhard Schroder had to wait even longer than I did [laughter] and was also a distinguished governor. And Massimo D’Alema is already proving – I’ll make you a prediction here – that even in Italy, where governments tend to be like the flavour of the month for ice-cream, the right sort of politics can have a sustained long-term impact on some of the most wonderful people in the world . . .
What gives rise to the election of these European leaders? Why is this happening everywhere? It’s not some blind coincidence . . . it is because the social arrangements which were developed within countries and the international arrangements among them, which grew up from the Great Depression through the war, and then the cold war, are no longer adequate to meet the challenges of the day . . .
Blair: I found when I was sitting round the table today [at the Nato summit] with people from all sorts of different countries, who would have considered themselves in a different world, really, from us, a few years ago, there was something quite humbling about their desire to be part of our family – about their tremendous innocence, in the best sense of the word, belief in the values of democracy and justice and freedom . . .
On the Third Way itself – and as Ger Schroder was saying to me on the way in, look, I haven’t found the first two ways yet, so you tell me where the third one is [laughter] – I think we start from . . . two basic problems: how you get economic prosperity in a world of economic globalisation and massive technological change, number one; and number two, when societies are changing, families are changing, lifestyles are changing . . . how you provide social stability in these times . . .
What I would call the old left would have almost tried to resist change, would just have said, we don’t like this change. And we became associated with high taxes, producer interests and big government.
I think, first of all, in economic terms, we define the new role for government . . . not old-style corporatism or heavy-handed intervention, it’s essentially about government’s role in promoting education, skills, technological advance, small businesses, entrepreneurship.
In social terms, it’s about the concept of a modern civic society. I’ll tell you what my generation wants, I believe. We went through a period in the sixties where, if you like, people just sort of said, well, do your own thing. I think what my generation and younger wants is a society that is free from prejudice, but not free from rules. So they want to make sure that there’s sexual and racial equality, that there isn’t discrimination against people – they don’t actually believe that it’s tolerable that old ladies are beaten up by young thugs. Neither do they believe it’s tolerable that someone simply takes money off the welfare state and feels no sense of responsibility toward the society in which they live . . .
Thirdly, if you do believe in active community, you have to redefine and reinvent government . . . You do things differently, different mechanisms – sometimes you use the voluntary sector, there will be partnerships between the public and private sectors . . .
I think the fourth principle that derives from our belief in community, opportunity, responsibility, is a belief that this applies internationally as well as nationally. And therefore when we say what is happening in Kosovo is utterly unacceptable and we are not going to tolerate it, we will stand up for the rights of oppressed people, that is every bit as much about our values as it is about strategic interest . . .
Kok: I think we belong together with the Scandinavian countries, to the countries who have the highest level of social benefits, which is good but . . . dangerous at the same time. Because in these modern times, people must have the right to be protected if they need to be protected . . . but people must also feel the urgency of responsibility . . .
Schroder: After the second world war people tried to venture upon a path that they called the social market economy in Germany where they tried to emphasise the word “social”. . . it was based upon participation and involvement of the working masses. They were given their fair share of prosperity. And if you ask me what could be the flesh to the bone of the Third Way, then I think we have to go back to those roots. For me, the Third Way means the pariticipation of as many as possible. Participation in the values that society holds precious, but also regarding vocation, training, education, etc . . .
I think in market economies today, we do not have a legal right, but certainly a moral right, an entitlement, I should rather say, to education and work, a job afterwards. If that holds true, though, then that should be balanced by the responsibility to then also do work thereafter . . .
You may be too young or you may be too old; in that case, it’s up to your society to look after you and protect you, but it has to be very obvious. And that is really where our Social Democrats made mistakes in the past . . . Solidarity is a two-way street, it is not a one-way street. Solidarity means that people have to do whatever they can for themselves and their families. And only if they fail or are entirely unable to do so, only then does solidarity within the society mean that that society has to look after him and care for him . . .
I think he who does not comply with his duties and responsibilities should lose his original entitlement to the solidarity, namely, the support by the state. I think that is justice. It is a justified model because, otherwise, the people who bring the performance, the people who earn the money, will finally say they’re no longer ready to support the weak ones . . .
As to this healthy relationship between the private sector and the public sector, Germany can certainly learn a lot from America – certainly when it is about the question of the flexibility of the markets. And in the markets I include the labour markets as well . . . I think the high degree of flexibility you have here in America, the flexibility, and the dynamism . . . arising from it, and the momentum, is something that we would like to share with you.
D’Alema: The Third Way, in my opinion, is a major cultural challenge, first of all. In the course of this century, we have experienced open democratic societies – very dynamic ones, very competitive ones. But these societies also have suffered a sickness – social injustice. In these societies, it is easy to race towards success, but at the same time in these societies, those who do not make it dropped out, and they are left at the margins.
At the same time we’ve had other experiences, societies that were able to develop systems of solidarity and social protection, but through heavy bureaucratic systems in such a way that these systems have, in fact, slowed down development, dynamics and the possibility of attaining success.
The Third Way is the effort to find a meeting point between the positive aspects of these two major experiences. Is it possible to have a dynamic economics and the society based on solidarity? I think it is. But this is a challenge . . .
I think that this approach to the issue has also got something to do with the question of the dialogue between Europe and America. America, after all, has been and is the great dynamic country . . . Europe in different ways has experienced systems of solidarity . . . For geographic reasons maybe, Tony Blair is a sort of bridge between these two cultures and these two experiences. But I think this is an important and positive role to play. And I think he is performing this role, and will perform this role, effectively if he involves the whole of the European left in this dialogue. This is a problem . . . I think we Europeans should not be divided. I think we should move towards this new cultural challenge united . . .
Clinton: I wish Prime Minister Jospin were here from France. Very interesting – France has had economic growth averaging over 3 per cent for the last three or four years, but their unemployment rate hasn’t gone below 11 per cent . . . something like that. Anyway, still in double digits . . . So the European question is, how do you get growth manifested in jobs and not give up your social solidarity. In America the question is, how do we keep all this growth – we love it – and get a little more stability for families, and make sure we have done what we should for the poorest of our communities and our people; and try to make sure that Americans who do work and carry the load in this country have a chance to have more of the growth in terms of their personal wealth and well-being . . .
When I became president there were three million people making a living primarily out of their own homes. When I was re-elected, there were 12 million. Now there are 20 million in only two years. So this economy is going to, if you will, atomise a lot. It’s going to get a lot more diverse and kaleidoscopic. So we’ll have a lot of challenges to face in having the proper sense of social safety net . . .
D’Alema: I think one of the greatest social issues in our society . . . is how to reorganise the relationship between work and family in a freer way. The relationship between work and time, the time we use for our own personal life, for our family life, for the people we love, for the things we love to do – our hobbies – and the time we use for our education . . .
Blair: I think . . . these problems can best be addressed and governed through a concept of active community . . . our position is that enterprise and justice can live together and that actually, in today’s world, they have to. Because, economically, we are in an information age where there is a premium on knowledge, and therefore you have to invest and develop the potential of all the people to be economically successful . . . And socially, because unless people have some part in society, then this idea of opportunity and responsibility going together just doesn’t work . . .
In the eighties, all the way through the eighties – I remember this – when we allowed, certainly in the British Labour Party, the choice to be put by the right, you either voted for yourself or you voted for everyone else for a sort of nice society. And we all thought, well, that’s a really great programme. Then they’d all go into the polling booth and they’d go, I think I’ll vote for myself. [Laughter.] And, of course, the whole essence of our politics today, this is a foolish choice.
If you live in a community that’s broken apart, if you don’t actually have a society in which there is opportunity for everyone, we all lose as a result of that. A simple thing to say, but it is actually true today because of the economic social circumstances in which we live. So that’s why I think this new political approach is so important, and we’ve got to give real substance to it in the times ahead . . .
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