All hypothetical of course.

We also believe that properly regulated markets are essential (to ???).

the conventional wisdom of neo-liberalism ... under left-wing policies ... that the policies of neo-liberalism are ...

IMHO it would be better to say:
Europe has to be based on...

even
Europe must be...

The: We also believe that minimally regulated markets are essential.
is the most contentious for me.
Again, I would approach this from the other side.
Markets that involve the common interests need regulation.
Political will expresses itself through regulation, sustainance and development politics.

Business fares better under let of centre politics.  Neo liberalism is gauged towards the short-term and has proven to result be overall negative for business and society.

We believe that a redistributive welfare system, protection of workers and universal health-care are essential to provide the economic security required to run a modern technological economy. We also believe that minimally regulated markets are essential.

I think you'll find that you have to declare a concept of regulated balance between these two ideals as many on the right and left feel they are incompatible.

Also, as America is discovering, in a minimally regulated market, largest monopolist corporations control an unregulated competitive environment to its own advantage. You need greater Govt regulation to ensure markets remain fair, especially where capital infrastructure is involved.

keep to the Fen Causeway

My take on it is that something like this needs to look very similar to NeoLib Speak - so it's not obvious that the message and values are fundamentally different until someone looks closely. This gives a double whammy effect by appropriating all of the media authority of the neolib line while subverting its message.

Being overtly against the neolibs and overtly for good, decent things may not be enough. The consensus needs to be taken apart by stealth from the inside, not attacked from the outside. Overt outside attacks are always too easy to spin and dismiss. But something that looks like someone saying the usual things but in fact saying something very different may be more effective.

(Yes, I do have a plan of sorts. When I have time I'll mail some ideas to you and Jerome.)

First Hack:

The XXXXXXXX exists to:

•  Promote Public and Private partnerships across the European Union by allying the dynamism of the Public Sector with the broad reach of the Public Sector such that both the individual and societial good is enhanced.

•  Promote economic development through such partnerships so the benefits of technological, scientific, and market innovations are 'trickled-down,' redistributed, through the whole of society.

•  Promote the economic betterment of the countries of the European Union by using all avenues of funding for economic development: Public, Private, and Public and Private partnerships.

I'd say bag "reject the conventional wisdom".  Don't define yourself in opposition to something, it's defensive and may even appear whiny especially if it's the first thing you say.

I like the second sentence except for the term sustainability. It's "risqué" because it's a fashionable buzzword which hasn't passed the test of time.  Even though the concept will still be present in ten years and beyond, the word may be as outmoded as an 80's haircut before you know it.  Your mission statement has to be bold and lasting, not something you have to tweak every few years.

What's a left-wing policy? It sounds scary to me: nationalize random private assets? Tax rich people back to the Stone Age?  I'm exaggerating (slightly :-) ) but seriously, why should you give undefined left-wing policies an a priori seal of approval?  As a think tank, you're ideologically pure, focused and on message: redistribution in order to get good health-care and protection for the weak.  You're not a cheer leader for anything left of center.  You remain credible if you're prepared to smack down the left-wing wacko when he deserves it.

Also, it sounds like you're conceding "minimally regulated markets" to the neo-libs.  I wouldn't, it's about the people not the mechanisms.  Whatever works for the ordinary guy is the ticket.  What's a market?

Lose the focus and you play into the right's hands: the left is whiny and confused with a laundry list of complaints and micro-managing fixes for anything and everything from saving whales to minimum wages.

Look at the libertarian right:

Cato's Mission
The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

Notice how there's nothing very specific policywise yet you know exactly where they're coming from.

Cheers, and good luck.

signed: the right wing

fashion is for shallow people anyway, who cares about what they think?

besides, fashions come and go, 'sustainability' needs to be permanently woven into the public awareness, foreverandeveramen!

we can't afford 'fashionable' solutions, with their implicit ephemerality, indeed we need to emphasise policy creation is way, way too serious a matter for shallow thinking of any type....what's next, social policy by armani?

fashion implies a throwaway culture, we need to start 'playing for keeps' if we want to ensure quality of life for the maximum number of souls on this continent and beyond.

resource capitalism as concept...nature conservationism as philosophy, liberality as mindset, these are eternal, perennial verities, imo.

awareness of limited resources...no more blank cheques....

elegance of wise husbandry....SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS capitalism, nurturing the environment as we would a family member...for our future families...there is no downside to thinking this way.

 weed out opposition to these concepts by revealing the shortfalls of a short-term mindset, and the greedy, selfish agendas of those who would argue against them.

undo the orwellian hijacking of language by deprogramming people: sufficient to mantra-ise RESPECT and RESPONSIBILITY, over and over till it sinks into the poor, brainwashed skulls of those who don't know better.

start very early to inculcate values while children are still in the age of wonder...education in the widest possible sense.

accentuate continuity, consistency, rationality....

take back the language, as jerome is doing brilliantly with his deconstruction diaries.

take a hard look at 'fortress europe' and immigration, rigorously secularise government, while allowing maximum freedom of worship.

teach eco-morality....what good is god if we are living in the rubble of wasted resources and the detritus of a junk-enslaved landfill culture?

well done colman!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

First the approach has to be a double approach. You have to attack their symbolic universe using their symbolic universe and your own symbolic universe.. this is is the only way.

So there MUST BE 2 proposals completely different. One with our own universe, one with them. Some people here argue that it is better not to mix, other that one is better than the other. My take is that both are necessary and that mixing/ not mixing is not as important as the famous "you know where they are coming from".

About their universe.. it is very easy .. you have to turn the table aorund. "The world economies are really stagnant , we need to improve efficency and increase the dyanmics of the eocnomy.. it is therefore vital to INCREASE the minimal wage..."

You sould take care not to use claims that they could dismiss on their own terms as stupid or irrational...so I would go for minimal wage and improve the environment of investment PROTECTING SMALL COMANIES AGAINST BIG COMAPNIES..

More careful thought is needed to locate the flaws of their universe...minimal wage and small/big companies would be my winners. OK.. this goes for their symbolic universe.. Then we need ours.

Unfortuantely the sentences of Colman are a very good print only when you have the unvierse stablished behind. So sustainibility is actually excellent, it could be demode in the future; the KEY is that it has SYMBOLIC STRUCURE now.. when it becomes de mode change it, but not now...

The real problem is then to stablish the symbolism behind the ideas, some examples:

Common resourcs: general idea of common good badly needed for the confidence of the society. Stress again and againa that no common resource means everybody is worst.

responsability: Stress again and again that companies should take responsability ..again and again.. becasue we all know that if they do not...we would need someone taking care of it.
Fair taxes: symbolism of rich peole not paying taxes and destroying the middle class
MIddle class promotion: use the symbolism of the middle class as something required for democracy as a way to STAND UP  for them in minimum wages and fair-competitive wage system.

Notice that the policies are not the center but they come natrually from it. Kos introduced these general ideas without really knowing anything about antrhopology...but this is well stablished in antrhopology.. when you build the universe you build from the details to the general picutre and then back to new details. The details you focus at the end can be very different than the beginning...SO you start by middle class, generate the symbolism .. and from there the strong CONCEPT.. and from there the concrete policy you would like to implement...and then let us fight with both unvierses having the same solution even when it is only a minority in their universe defending it (of course ourselves). Just like the right and big elite does, they win because they have their universe and use our unvierse to obtain the same result.

...and on and on.. each strong idea must come with a universe, a narrative behind (forget the frames, frames is for debate not for political universes).. so you first explain all your narrative .. and then you conclude.. over and over again.. in big capital letters wiht a CONCEPT. Do it in calls , talking in TV, everywhere... firs the narrative .. then the key sentence...and if we keep strong enough we end  beating them because now the policies can be defended naturally. Our "three lines" became a manifesto in itself,a s Colman wants....and they are "basically advocating" the same thing.

So the first paragraph of Colman goes for our narrative and it needs to be expanded. The second and third paragraph go for their universe...and we would need to check if they are the most effective to attack.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

There needs to be a democratization of the way in which government is practiced.  Citizen involvement in budget-making on the local level is a start, for example.  But policy discussions on the national level is where involvement matters the most.  Experts invariably formulate their opinions to correspond to the interests of hegemonic classes and groups, and we should refuse on principle any axiomatic statements about policy which don't have the involvement of a wider audience.

...so I guess something along these lines should belong in the preamble to your statement of principles, preambles of course being a venerable tradition in any sort of formal political speech, helping to frame the very formulation of principles and the general orientation of readers and writers alike.

Without such a foundation, you can claim anything you want, but won't get far...

Someone would have to join all the pieces.

A plaasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

Everyone basically has the same goals (or ideals, if you like). Everyone is for fairness, justice, economic well-being, etc. The problem is how to achieve them. This breaks down into two basic camps. Those who think that some variation of the marketplace, or self interest (see Ayn Rand, for example) can solve the problems, and those who see the need for some sort of central authority to either plan or referee.

Neither group (who are both basically utopians) manages to address the central issue: might makes right. Those with economic, political or military power get to call the shots, and usually do so in a way that benefits their group. Democracy was supposed to solve this problem. The idea being that the "people" would not support a government which was performing against the self interests of the majority. But, as we have seen this hasn't worked as well as desired.

Some democracies have slipped into dictatorships (pre-war Italy and Germany, for example). Some have been nominal democracies where the social structure is such that a small elite controls the electoral process (most banana republics). And, currently, we have the Western democracies which seem not to be acting on behalf of the majority of their citizens even though there are contested elections.

The last defect with democracy is that the majority can vote for something which is detrimental to the planet in favor of short-term, or local, gains. A good example is exurban sprawl where land owners and developers put in governments that will support their expansionist plans at the expense of the environment and of future generations.

The western world is still based upon a model which consumes an unsustainable level of Nature's Bounty. We are not willing to discuss a society where we make do with less, especially while correcting our own imbalances. The mantra still is that growth (or smart growth, or sustainable growth) will solve things.

So, I say we concentrate on how to overcome the objections to change that the powerful put in the way of new initiatives and assume we know what our goals or ideals are.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape