DutchNews.nl - Labour leader Bos leaves 'the third way'

Labour leader Bos leaves 'the third way'

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Modern capitalism is disrupting society and undermining human values, Labour party leader Wouter Bos said in a major speech in Amsterdam on Monday night.

Bos used the annual Den Uyl speech, named after the former Labour prime minister Joop den Uyl, to discuss the effects of globalisation, neo-liberalism and capitalism which, he said, had not 'led the west into widescale poverty'.

High living standards have been achieved and 'we will survive this crisis as well', Bos was quoted by news agency ANP as saying. But at the same time 'human values are being undermined by the continuing pressure of commercialisation on public life' and the constant drive towards 'more, more, more and now, now, now'.

Illusion

The finance minister called for measures to protect public interests to the power of the market. 'That is safer than trying to tame the market with a powerful regulatory system,' he said. The idea of a strong regulator is increasingly being seen as naive, he said. 'Perfect regulation is an illusion.'

The Volkskrant said Bos used the speech to say farewell to the Third Way, the left-wing Liberal movement which social democratic parties embraced in the 1990s. Bos, the paper said, admitted he was a child of the Third Way and said it had 'corrected high expectations from the state'.

But at the same time, all parties from left to right had underestimated the power of the market combined with globalisation. 'We went to sleep with a relatively tame free market and we woke with an unchained monster,' he said.

And he pointed out, British Labour leader Gordon Brown - who led the deregulation process in London's financial centre - has a 'massive credibility problem' in trying to get it back under control.

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Readers' comments

Good for you Bos. right on.

By Ames | January 26, 2010 7:51 AM

Thank you is all I want to say to him.

And, he's spot on about Big Bully Brown.

Is he suggesting a Conservative Socialist Revolution in Political thinking?

By Gerard | January 26, 2010 9:32 AM

I am shocked that this is Wouter Bos speaking, but also impressed.

By sandra | January 26, 2010 11:53 AM

I think Wouter has experienced a state of higher consciousness.

By Jan | January 26, 2010 1:41 PM

I love this!

By Rhys | January 26, 2010 1:45 PM

The old saying is 'money is the root of all evil"
Bos should join the zeitgest movement...a resource based society

By AW | January 26, 2010 2:24 PM

Can we get some of these politicians that speak the truth intelligently on our side of the Atlantic? You guys have been hoarding them for too long.

By WiscoChad | January 26, 2010 3:01 PM

Bos has seen the light in 2010 that the World Social Forum and related movements saw 10 years ago. So:

Is this Damascan Road conversion back to the earlier, gentler capitalism (from which the current one descended)or forward to a post-capitalist alternative - to be developed in dialogue with the newest social movements?

By peter waterman | January 26, 2010 3:18 PM

I am astonished that Mr.wouter Bos,says Modern Capitalism is disrupting society and undermining human values while he himself have no respect for the human society and human values.

I would refer towards the recent report by the David Commission,after this I was expecting him to resign from the cabinet (if he wanted to show his love for the human values) but he loved to continue as a minister!!

At least he and his fellow cabinet members don't have any right to talk about 'human values'!!

By Khalid Ahmed Chaudry | January 26, 2010 4:26 PM

I agree that the way things are organised now are tending towards the immoral. Too many things have become a matter of money, and are being accepted just because they supposedly increase overall production and welfare.
At the moment, however, Bos is in a government that largely leaves the financial sector untouched, and a government that is in the process of putting health care in the hands of private capital, where profit rather than care is the ulterior motive.
Shall we ask Bos for his views again when he is out of government and when he has NOT, I repeat NOT accepted a highly paid position in a privatised company or a multinational corporation (such as most ex-politicians, including those from PvdA, take after retiring from politics)?

By Hans | January 26, 2010 5:32 PM

Bos is right. Money has become more valuable than human life itself. It is up to each one of us to make this change, by our own example, not falling prey to consumerism and changing our values.

By Ester | January 26, 2010 7:53 PM

Mr. Bos,
Good for you for saying what you have now, why couldn't you think this way earlier in actions?

By stuart577 | January 27, 2010 8:17 AM

Now now people, lets be happy that Wouter Bos was the one that first came up with idea for curbing bank bonuses in the original G20 talks, and Wouter Bos has had a great influence on many other countries, especially the USA when it comes to more oversite and more transparency rules on the financial markets. Obama was so impressed by Wouter Bos ideas that the Netherlands will become a permanent member of G20 which they should have been long ago in the first place.

By sandra | January 27, 2010 10:11 AM

aaah yess..nice words to hear! but unfortunately they dont apply to real life! i would love nothing more than to not be driven by money, the pursuit of it and then to spend it. however the system in this country doesn't allow much hope for that. maybe if things were a little cheaper or wages a little higher the avergae person could spend more time working on human values such as family times, and less time being in prison, i mean overtime, just to pay basic bills!

By Jennifer | January 27, 2010 11:30 AM

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