Labour Values and the Good Life

A country where everyone can live a good life

A country where everyone can live a good life. That is the essence of Labour values. As Crosland pointed out decades ago, we can argue endlessly about means, but the end our political project aims for, our North Star, should remain constant. All the other Labour values we speak of - social equality, fairness, freedom of want, co-operation - flow from this one end: a good life, available to all.

We need to talk more about our values. Our values are a guide for us, they point us to the country we want to build. Our values are why we’re in politics, why we give up our days, nights, and weekends to this life. Our values are what move us in politics, and it’s how we move others to share our vision.

My values are relatively simple. Creating a country where everyone can live a good life (the end). My policy career focused on how we can build that country (the means). The point of my political career is to help put that into practice.

As human beings, we are (surprisingly) in agreement on what a good life actually is. We want the same basic things - to be healthy, have enough money, have good relationships etc. What sets apart our political project, our Labour Values, is that we believe governments should act to ensure everyone can live a good life rather than just some. When everyone can live a good life, that benefits all of us. Both because we have empathy for others and because societies work better when everyone does better. I expand on both what a good life is and what our Labour values have to do with it in this post.

1. What is a Good Life?

“What is a good life?” seems an incredibly vexed and difficult question. It has kept philosophers occupied for millennia, each coming up with a different formulation to be interesting/edgy. Some reasonable (Sen), some reductive (Bentham), some cold (Kant), some odd (Plato).

But actually, there is a far simpler way to figure out what is a good life. And that is to ask people. Ask them what they value in life. And when we do ask (literally millions) of people, they come up with very similar lists.

A good life, when you ask people, comes down to having 7 basic things:

1. Being Healthy

2. Being Safe

3. Being Educated

4. Having Financial Security (and a Good Job)

5. Having a Decent Home

6. Having a Say (in Democracy)

7. Having Friends and Family

You can quibble on the details, but ask people and you come up with a list that looks a lot like the above. You can combine or split out domains in the above list - should a good job be separate from financial security? Or family life separate from friendship? You could have a list with 5 things or 8 but, in the end, a Good Life will basically be above the list.

A good life is necessarily pluralistic. Having one or two of the above is not enough. You can’t trade off lots of money with not having any relationships, for example. You have to be able to have all of the above to live a good life.

2. A Good Life for Everyone - Our Labour Values

Our Labour values define our political project. They are why our political goal is: Everyone can live a good life. Both the words everyone and can are important, and they differentiate our values from other political ideologies. Everyone indicates that we believe all, and not just some, should be able to live a good life. This is what differentiates us from the Right. Can indicates that people must be given the opportunity to live a good life.

Our Labour values lead to a political project that aims to build a country which guarantees a good life for all people. We want everyone to be able to achieve a good life for two reasons - our empathy and interdependence.

Firstly, empathy. I feel your smile. That’s the point of being human. Your joy brings me joy, your sadness makes me sad. To put it analytically, we have a direct emotional interest in the well-being of others. The fact that you are doing better is better for me in and of itself. I am my brother’s keeper and all that.

Secondly, we have an indirect instrumental reason for valuing the well-being of others. Our own lives are better when everyone in our society can live a good life. Thatcher was wrong. Society matters, and when everyone is doing well, society works better. When our neighbours earn more, it means higher total spending in the economy (a.k.a. growth). When our neighbours are better educated, we all benefit from their thoughts and innovation. When our neighbours are safer, it means more trust between people and better relationships for us.

By contrast, when fewer people are able to attain a good life, it makes life worse for everyone. It is not just those who can’t make ends meet that suffer. Living in a more unequal society makes us all sicker, less safe, and more stressed. When fewer people and fewer people can do well, it means life more difficult and more stressful for all of us. Trust falls in more unequal societies as the collective sense of us declines. The pressure to keep doing better and not fall behind grows, and with it life becomes a lot more stressful. Our parents thought Keeping Up With the Jones’ was stressful, our generation has to deal with Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

The instrumental reason for building a country where everyone can live a good life also provides the rationale for taxing the wealthiest to invest in our everyone’s wellbeing and reduce poverty. That taxation makes us all better off including the wealthiest. The idea of a trade off between your wellbeing and mine fades dramatically when we realise that your wellbeing and mine is intertwined. We may tax more money from the wealthy today, but they benefit from living in a better society. In crude pounds and pence terms, they benefit more growth, but they also benefit from living in a healthier and more harmonious society.

That is the beauty of Labour values. Building a nation where everyone can live a good life really does make life better for all. While all agree on what a good life is, political projects disagree on who we should aim to provide it for. Our political project is that we believe the state should act and help build a good life for everyone. The point of us politicians is to win elections, and use the state to build a country where everyone can live a good life.