Jon Cruddas is right that "collective political action and the power of citizenship have been traded in for the ownership society, in which all were assured a small piece of the capitalist dream" (Guardian Nov 1st 2008). This process has taken place just as firmly under New Labour as it did under its original sponsor Margaret Thatcher.
After the recent credit crash this property-owning "stakeholder" democracy is looking incresasingly threadbare. It is important to ask how New Labour managed to take so many followers (who once knew better) down this now bankrupt route. It was not just that collective political action was given up for private "ownership" - an illusory stake in the dream. It was also the case that New Labour was able to use an ultimately empty notion of "community" to substitute for and mask its move away from solidarity, mutuality and collectivity. As Cruddas says the real question is "who will pay for this recession - capital or labour?"
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