Page 87 - Cultural Theory

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••• Chris Rojek •••

In Policing The Crisis (1978b) the roots and history of the move from the represen-
tative interventionist state organized around consensus to the authoritarian state
organized around fiat is divided into four distinct stages:
Postwar consensus (1945–61). In this period the corporatist solution is elaborated.
The commitment to the welfare state, a mixed economy and identification with the
American (‘free’) side in the Cold War is established. Concessions were made to orga-
nized labour in the form of a commitment to full employment and the welfare state.
Keynesianism supported a high-wage, mass production economy that delivered
economic growth but at a more modest rate than Britain’s European rivals. Cultural
relations became influenced by the rise of ‘the affluent worker’, the emergence of
substantial financial power in youth culture and the growth of multi-ethnicity
through positive migration policies, especially with respect to the Afro-Caribbean,
India and Pakistan. In 1960 a major balance of payments crisis exposed the structural
vulnerability of the British economy.
The hegemony of social democracy (1961–64). This was a transitional period in the
history of the representative-interventionist state. The ‘you’ve never had it so good’
of the long 50s, consumer boom, was over. It was replaced by a social democratic
variant of representative-interventionist state hegemony that appealed more to
individualism and the national interest. The British were urged to look to their
immemorial reserves of decency, common sense, moderation and patience. The cor-
poratist model of management was reinforced. The state adopted the outward role
of the neutral, honest broker between business and labour. Modernization, espe-
cially in the area of technology, was expounded as the key to the nation’s future.
At the cultural level the start of permissive society was beginning to be evident with
the rise of ‘pop’ culture, the movement of newly affluent workers from the inner
city to suburbia, conspicuous consumption and the politics of sexual liberation.
However, at the economic level entrenched balance of payments problems and the
run on sterling limited the state’s power to modernize. When the seamen struck for
higher pay, the government presented the dispute as an assault on ‘the national
interest’. The tactic was successful in turning the public against the seamen, but it
fatally undermined the credibility of the Labour Party to present itself as an ‘his-
toric bloc’ representing a qualitative transformation in the management of the
nation.
The descent into dissensus (1964–70). Social democracy had produced a measure of
liberalization in British life, symbolized by homosexual law reform, abortion, com-
prehensive education, the relaxation of drug licensing and the retreat from Sunday
Observance. However, by the 1960s a moral backlash against the values of ‘the per-
missive society’ was underway. Student protests and sit-ins during the late 1960s pro-
duced a moral panic about youth and increasing worries about crime and disorder
were voiced. The counter-culture reinforced this by attacking the ‘permissive’ order
as based upon repressive desublimation and male power. Towards the end of the
period the emergence of sectartian violence in Northern Ireland seemed to signal the
precarious nature of national integration. Enoch Powell’s predictions of racial warfare
on the mainland between white and black immigrant groups contributed to the
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