NO WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY

P J. O'Rourke examines the great

con trick behind the Clinton and Blair regimes

NOT to be American and dense about this, but I had no idea there was an actual political theory behind the whoreson activ- ities of modern left-wing politicians. Of course I recognised a pattern of behaviour common to Britain's New Labour, Ameri- ca's New Democrats, Europe's New Social Democrats and — for all I know — Rwan- da's New Hutus. But I thought this was an example of the universal applicability of the political strategy, 'Fake right, run left.' I was aware that Anthony Giddens had written a book. But so had Donald Trump and former president George Bush's pet dog. I assumed that The Third Way was merely a repackaging of socialism in order to sell it to a public that wasn't having any. When I was a boy there was a breakfast cereal called 'Sugar Pops'. During the earthy, all-natural 1970s the name was changed to 'Honey Pops'. In the health- conscious new millennium the label reads `Corn Pops'.

But then I was asked to be on a panel discussing Third Way economic policies, I was forced to learn something about what I intended to denounce roundly. And I, to my surprise, was impressed by Anthony Giddens — not impressed enough to finish all 155 pages of his dreary book, but impressed. Giddens explains the difference between the Third Way and the traditional Left. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Al Gore (and Anthony Giddensl) confess to a belief in the marketplace. Granted, as a Road-to-Damascus experience, this is like being blinded by the realisation that you're headed Damascus-ward. Not believing in the marketplace is like not believing in gravity. No amount of Marxist theory or utopian social experiment will change the fact of the marketplace, just as no amount of theoretical physics or laboratory experi- ment will get me to finish reading The Third Way. A physicist may have all sorts of ideas about anti-gravity, and he may even demonstrate his ideas in a particle accelerator; but if he drops a cement block on his foot — ouch.

Old-line Marxists must be feeling a pain somewhere more dramatic than their toes. Disbelief in the marketplace was the very heart of traditional leftism. Yet Blair, Clin- ton and Gore are traditional leftists. They want politics to interfere in every possible aspect of life. But they are leftists who have abandoned the central tenet of left- ism. If the leftists don't believe in leftism, what — as it were — is Left?

This is where The Third Way comes in. On page 66 is a boxed précis titled 'Third Way values'. A number of these little boxes appear in the Giddens book. It's an almost endearing touch, obviously meant to lighten the workload of the interns and underlings who actually do the reading for • Blair, Clinton and Gore.

Here are the values: `Equality'. A nice, nostalgic touch. Equality being the essential false vow of socialism since at least Wat Tyler's rebel- lion in 1381. Of course, nowadays you'd reach Wat at peasantsrevolt.com, and he'd have a billion-dollar e-rebellion IPO.

`Protection of the vulnerable'. And the vulnerable are — as you realise if you've been watching Oprah and reading modern therapeutic literature — all of us, all the time. Unfortunately, what we seem to be most vulnerable to is Tony Blair, Bill Clin- ton and Al Gore.

`Freedom as autonomy'. As opposed to freedom as an old, unmatched sock. Although, either definition of freedom is incompatible with the previous two values since you can't make one sock fit everyone, and we're all vulnerable to cold feet.

`No rights without responsibilities'. Mod- erate voters read this as meaning, 'Throw the bums off welfare'. The bums, more accurately, understand it as, 'If you want more free, unmatched socks, it's your responsibility to vote for Al Gore.'

`Cosmopolitan pluralism'. Hard to say what this means, but it could be a plea to mayor Rudolph Giuliani to let various colourful New York characters out of jail in time to vote for Al Gore, also for Hilary Clinton, plus get socks.

`Philosophic conservatism'. In the accom- panying muddled text, Giddens claims to be referring to an emerging political con- sensus about loving nature or some such. But consider how the word 'philosophical' is used today: 'He's philosophical about his wife leaving him.' He's philosophical about losing his job.' The meaning of 'philosophi- cal' is 'doesn't give a crap'.

So there is the broad — philosophical, if you will — outline of the Third Way, a sort of clarion call to whatever. But the Third Way also focuses on specific issues — hun- dreds and hundreds of them. Some of these issues are heart-felt (or, perhaps, toe-felt) by the traditional Left. But other issues seem to be raised just to show that, when the Third Way is at work, everything is an issue. Never mind how they sound when they're grouped together: women's rights, gay rights, animal rights. And try matching these rights with Anthony Giddens's above- cited value number 4, 'No rights without responsibilities'. I invite Al Gore to go on the hustings this autumn and hold forth on women's responsibilities, gay responsibili- ties and animal responsibilities.

The Third Way, however, does not advo- cate special rights for special groups because these rights make sense, but because they don't. Special rights for spe- cial groups is an idea that's dangerous to a peaceful society, as has been well proven in Kosovo, Lebanon, Ireland, India, the Unit- ed States and practically every other place in the world. And that's the point. A peace- ful society doesn't need as much political machinery as a society where everybody hates everybody's guts.

Increasing the amount of — and the need for — political machinery is the unify- ing ,theme behind all Third Way thinking. I quote Giddens, brazenly saying in his book, The state should expand the role of the public sphere.' Ecology is a splendid way to do so. What could be more complicated, and hence more needful of political media- tion, than making sure the whole of nature keeps working, that the entire universe continues to operate? In the past an omnipotent God was required to do this. Gosh knows how many parliamentary white papers and regulatory bureaucracies it will take now. (And forget what the striking coalminers of yore would think of a Labour party which cares most about the pit ponies.) Bribing the minorities, healing the earth, preventing the privatisation of social insur- ance, making educational systems as aca- demically bad and as freighted with inappropriate social responsibilities as pos- sible, providing universal medical care, universal day care, universal home care for the disabled, the partially disabled, and those of us who are okay in the morning but tend to be a bit unsteady after lunch these are no-brainer methods of expanding the political machinery. Not that the Third Way isn't brainy, too. For example, the Blair/Clinton/Gore handling of the illegal drugs issue is mas- terful in its cunning. Our Third Way men are social liberals — with all the hanky- panky that that implies. What we do in our private lives is private. We can take all the drugs we like as long as we don't admit to it publicly. But, publicly, Blair, Clinton and Gore are careful to denounce drugs as bad and a danger. This allows them to promote extensive political pro- grammes educating us about the danger- ous badness of drugs. So, now we're empowered to take drugs by the social liberals, at the same time we're informed by the social liberals that drug-taking is a naughty thrill; therefore we take drugs. And oh, how the political machinery gets busy. The Third Way has to arrange for all of us to get our sentences suspended and to go to drug treatment facilities and to get some of that home care for the dis- abled, too, because — as any social liberal will tell you — addiction is a disease. Chairman Mao pulled something similar with his 'let a hundred flowers bloom' speech, except Mao just killed the victims of his phony permissiveness tactic. He didn't make them fill out National Health Service paperwork while going through de-tox. Sometimes Third Way policy positions are too deep for the uninitiated to plumb. Conservatives were flummoxed by Clin- ton's interventions in Haiti, Bosnia, Koso- vo and elsewhere. But Clinton had found a way to conduct 'peace by other means'. He was purposely using military force solely as an instrument of pointless moralising, on missions that neither defended American security nor extended American geopoliti- cal power. Clinton thereby was able to har- ness warmongering's increase in political power and prestige without losing the sup- port of smug lefty pacifists. He is Franklin Delano Gandhi. (Plus this kind of military conflict doesn't create any Republican war-hero generals to run against your party in the next election.) But why is the Third Way so intent on this expansion of political machinery? If they know socialism is imaginary, what are they pursuing in its stead? What do they want to accomplish? Well, Anthony Gid- dens has another little boxed précis on page 70 of his book: `The Third Way programme'.

`The radical centre'. How dare you agree with me, you s.o.b.! Compromise or die.

`The new democratic state (the state without enemies)'. Hmm, there's me.

`Active civil society'. No more sleeping in church.

`The democratic family'. Me and the canary vs Mom and Junior. Rover has the tie vote. Looks like we stay home and paint the garage instead of going to Disney World.

`The new mixed economy'. Easy on the vermouth.

`Positive welfare'. Would you like a large entitlement cheque? Are you positive?

`The social investment state'. We'll use Junior's grade-school education to make a down-payment on a country home, and we'll buy a Land-Rover with an inner-city literacy programme.

`The cosmopolitan nation'. Goat cheese in Des Moines!

`Cosmopolitan democracy'. Nope, just smelled like goat cheese, actually it's the Al Gore campaign.

Does that clarify everything? No? Then you should do what I do whenever I become truly confused by global trends and events. Pretend the entire world is school and all the prominent people are students in your class. What's everybody up to? The popular kids are out having fun. The smart kids are reading Adam Smith. The ambitious kids are working nights and weekends. The talented kids are playing sports and rehearsing for the school play. I'm drinking beer behind the Dairy Queen. And the insufferable twits? They're running for student government.