Say's Law that supply creates its own demand, and so there can be no general overproduction of commodities is false, as Marx shows, but the supply of commodities is also a demand for money, the general commodity, just as the demand for commodities, is also a supply of money, exchanged for them.
“None of these processes and modes of thought fit into the frame of metaphysical thinking. But, for dialectics, which grasps things and their conceptual images, essentially in their interconnection, in their concatenation, their motion, their coming into and passing out of existence, such processes as those mentioned above are so many corroborations of its own procedure.” (p 27)
The real test of dialectics, Engels says, however, is Nature. Modern science has shown that Nature works dialectically, not, simply, reproducing what already exists, as had previously been thought, and which continues to be represented by the reactionary notions about a “balance of Nature”, but by a process of continual change, of evolution, which implies not balance (stasis), but imbalance (dynamics), not an equilibrium, but a dynamic disequilibrium.
“In this connection, Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that the organic world of today - plants, animals, and consequently man too – is the product of a process of evolution going on through millions of years. But, since the natural scientists who have learned to think dialectically are still few and far between, this conflict of the results of discovery with traditional modes of thinking, explains the endless confusion now reigning in theoretical natural science, the despair of teachers as well as students, of authors and readers alike.” (p 28)
Even Newton worked on the basis of metaphysics, of a solar system that, having been created, continued, unchanged, for eternity. Meanwhile, Kant, on the basis of dialectics, drew the conclusion that, if it was born, it also had a death, of necessity.
“Half a century later, his theory was established mathematically by Laplace, and after another half century, the spectroscope confirmed the existence in cosmic space of such incandescent masses of gas in various stages of condensation.” (p 28-9)
“This new German philosophy terminated in the Hegelian system. In this system — and this is its great merit — the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is for the first time represented as a process — i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt was made to show internal connections in this motion and development. From this point of view, the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason and best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of humanity itself.” (p 29)
The task, therefore, was to apply this same method to human social development, as used to understand all other processes of evolution and development. To understand the fundamental drivers of the process – The Law of Value – and how it manifests in each mode of production. As Marx puts it in his Letter to Kugelmann, explaining The Law of Value,
“Every child knows a nation which ceased to work, I will not say for a year, but even for a few weeks, would perish. Every child knows, too, that the masses of products corresponding to the different needs required different and quantitatively determined masses of the total labour of society. That this necessity of the distribution of social labour in definite proportions cannot possibly be done away with by a particular form of social production but can only change the mode of its appearance, is self-evident. No natural laws can be done away with. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws assert themselves. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labour asserts itself, in the state of society where the interconnection of social labour is manifested in the private exchange of the individual products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products.
Science consists precisely in demonstrating how the law of value asserts itself.”
As
I predicted, on Sunday, Trump has won the US Presidential
election, and his Trumpist Party looks set to sweep the Congress too.
Already, he has received the fawning congratulations of his
co-thinkers in the British Blue
Labour government, who have been pursuing their own Trumpist,
reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalist agenda, based around Brexit.
As their own reactionary fantasy about a Blue Labour Brexit
inevitably collapses around their ankles, destroying any shred of
credibility of their claims about growth, they will, no doubt, as
Bojo and Truss before them hoped, now be desperate for Trump to offer
them some kind of trade deal, to save their blushes, as Trump sees it
as a means of also further subordinating Britain, and undermining the
EU. That is also a goal of his ally Putin in Russia too, already,
facilitated by Blue Labour's Brexit agenda, in support of Putin's
greatest strategic success, so far.
It spells the death of conservative
social democracy (neoliberalism) that has, in reality, only existed
in zombie form since 2008, kept on its feet only by the repeated
attempts to slow economic growth, so as to hold back the demand for
capital and labour-power, and so, hold down interest rates and wages, combined with a
tidal wave of liquidity, pumped into worthless financial and property
assets to keep their prices inflated, following the reality imposed
on them in the 2008 global crash in those asset prices. It is a
perfect example of a situation in which the ruling class could no
longer rule in the old way, and the masses were not prepared to be
ruled in the old way, but, with the working-class, as the nascent
ruling-class, but lacking any consciousness of its historic role, and
severely misled, it has resulted in the only way it could, by the
rise of the political fortunes of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie,
which has itself grown in size by more than 50% since the 1980's.
That's not to say that Trump's
election win means that the petty-bourgeoisie will now rule. As Marx
set out in The Eighteenth Brumaire, they, like the peasantry, are too
amorphous, to form a ruling class, which is why they always require a
Bonapartist, like Trump, to whip them into line. But, also, as
witnessed time and again, their electoral successes, can also, never
translate into anything solid, and they too, become demoralised and
disappointed, as their hopes are again dashed, as reality imposes
itself upon them. The petty-bourgeoisie do not, and cannot control
the state, and that state will continue to represent the interests of
the ruling class, as Trump, Truss and Johnson found over the last few
years, and as, in the past, was found by Allende.
Already, the ruling-class, as it did
in response to Truss's 2022 Budget, has hit US Bond Markets, pushing
up interest rates that have been rising significantly, already over
recent weeks. With headline inflation having fallen over the last
year, this rise in nominal interest rates, means a much larger rise
in real rates. The US Ten Year has risen by 14 basis points to
4.43%, at the time of writing, whilst the 2 Year has risen by 7 basis
points to 4.26%. The 30 year has risen 18 points to 4.62%. The
latter is important as its the basis of US mortgages.
The sell-off in bonds has been
accompanied by a rise in shares, but, ultimately, as US interest
rates rise this rise in share prices, reflecting simply a shift of
speculators money from bonds to shares, will also be reversed.
Rising interest rates/bond yields, in conditions where there is no
likelihood of rising profits, and so no likelihood of being able to
drain even more into the payment of dividends, means that the only
way higher yields on shares can be sustained is via, a significant
fall in share prices. And, given Trump's stated policies of
protectionism, huge tariffs on trade with virtually everywhere in the
world, meaning a further huge rise in the costs to the US economy,
much as with Brexit, there is no chance of any significant increase
in US profits, other than via a move of large-scale US capital to
elsewhere in the world, a result seen also with Brexit, and the
opposite of what Trump has promised.
As with Brexit, the impact of that
will fall on workers and the petty-bourgeoisie, particularly the
poorest sections of those classes, many of whom, living in similar
deprived and backward conditions, cast into despair by the failure of
bourgeois-democracy, imperialism, and of social-democracy to provide
them with any hope, as Trotsky, described in the 1930's, will have
been the ones that turned to the likes of Trump. Unfortunately, as
seen with this video posted by Owen Jones, even now, the potential
socialist alternatives, also, have no clue either in understanding
the current reality, or offering any progressive solutions.
The
representative of the DSA, interviewed by Jones, for example, saw the
aspects of Harris' politics that were “progressive”, as
being her claims that “inflation” in the US was down to
“monopoly profits”, and
proposals to deal with it by breaking up monopolies, imposing price
controls, and other such reactionary, utopian, petty-bourgeois
policies.
I
have dealt with the reactionary notion that inflation is a result of
“monopoly”, in
response to such claims by Michael Roberts, as well as setting out
the roots of those kinds of ideas in the writing of Proudhon and
Duhring. The reality is that the inflation of recent years, is the
result of the huge amounts of liquidity/money tokens thrown into
circulation by central banks, and handed to households to compensate
them for the ludicrous and irrational lockdowns imposed on them, in
response to COVID. Those lockdowns, of course, were supported and
called for by the likes of social-democrats, including Michael
Roberts, and large sections of the “Left”.
The inflation is a direct result of the policies they advocated, not
of monopoly. Indeed, the monopolies remain, but, as economies have
grown, whilst the amount of additional liquidity has shrunk, the
inflation has fallen. Go figure!
Similarly,
the monopolies, like all large-scale socialised capital, is,
objectively, now, the collective property of the working-class. As
Lenin, set out, also in Left-Wing
Childishness, it is the most
progressive form of capital, and basis of the next stage of human
social development, i.e. of Socialism, so why on Earth would a
socialist want to break it apart?
“they
reveal their petty-bourgeois mentality precisely by not
recognisingthe
petty-bourgeois element as the principalenemy
of socialism in our country...
A
hundred and twenty-five years ago it might have been excusable for
the French petty bourgeoisie, the most ardent and sincere
revolutionaries, to try to crush the profiteer by executing a few of
the “chosen” and by making thunderous declamations. Today,
however, the purely rhetorical attitude to this question assumed by
some Left Socialist-Revolutionaries can rouse nothing but disgust and
revulsion in every politically conscious revolutionary. We know
perfectly well that the economic basis of profiteering is both the
small proprietors, who are exceptionally widespread in Russia, and
private capitalism, of which every
petty
bourgeois is an agent. We know that the million tentacles of this
petty-bourgeois hydra now and again encircle various sections of the
workers, that, instead
of state monopoly,
profiteering forces its way into every pore of our social and
economic organism...
“.
. . Try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the
landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic
state,
i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges
and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a
revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really
revolutionary-democratic state, state-monopoly capitalism inevitably
and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards
socialism!
“.
. . For socialism is merely the next step forward from
state-capitalist monopoly.
“.
. . State-monopoly capitalism is a complete material
preparation
for socialism, the threshold
of
socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung
called socialism there
are no intermediate rungs.””
The
oligopolies are socialised capital, the collective property of the
workers, the programme of socialism does not involve braking up the
workers property, but ensuring their rightful, democratic control –
even bourgeois-democratic rightful control – over their own
property, and to end the usurpation of that control by its
creditors/shareholders. Progressive social-democracy moved in that
direction in the 1970's, prior to its political defeat at the hands
of conservative social-democracy, as it confronted the challenges
posed by the crisis of overproduction of capital, after 1974. Even a
return to that progressive social-democratic agenda, would represent
a step forward compared to the utter confusion, and pointing in the
wrong direction by social-democracy, and the “Left”,
today.
Trump's
win, means that the fate of Palestine, and of the Palestinians is
sealed. A large part of Trump's base, as with that of Blue Labour,
is closely connected with Zionism. In this, Trump's Zionism ties in
with the interests of US imperialism to exterminate the Palestinians,
and establish a large Zionist state, “from
the river to the sea”,
which will also involve the annexation of further territories in
Lebanon, and Syria, and potentially Jordan, though the role of the
Jordanian regime in supporting western imperialism over decades,
might offer it some hope. Lebanon is well on the way to being
flattened, as Netanyahu promised, in similar manner to Gaza. The
further settlement of the West Bank will intensify, as will the
genocide against the Palestinians within it. An offensive against
Syria, is likely in 2025, annexing further land, in addition to the
Golan Heights.
On
the other hand, Trump's election probably, though not necessarily,
spells the end for Zelensky's corrupt regime. Forces in Ukraine are
likely to look for his rapid removal, with other Ukrainian oligarchs
taking his place, and suing for peace with Putin, on the basis of
facing the reality of having already lost Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
They will look to rebuild their unnecessarily shattered economy,
resulting from NATO's proxy war, by inviting in that same imperialism
to rape its natural resources, and cruelly exploit its workers who
were misled into supporting their own ruling class, and whose
leaders, thereby, as with the social-imperialists in the West, have
disgraced themselves. Trump may well make possible that
exploitation, in conjunction with the Russian oligarchs, as he seeks
to draw Russia towards the US, and away from US imperialism's main
competitors, China and the EU.
Similarly,
as Trump uses his influence within the ranks of Blue Labour to draw
Britain away from the EU, at the same time as drawing Russia towards
the US, the EU will be incentivised to consolidate more rapidly, as
happened, also, after Brexit. It will be facing, itself, Trump's
tariffs, as his trade war develops, and with it having followed a
similar path with its tariffs on China, and having subordinated its
own interests to US imperialism, in relation to the boycott of
Russian energy and so on, it may be led to reverse course on those
policies. The EU has a clear incentive, itself, to form closer links
with Russia, and other economies on its own borders, as well as to
remove its tariffs on China. That is particularly the case in
respect of Germany, for which China has been a significant export
market for its high end manufactures.
In
the end, Trump and the petty-bourgeois agenda can offer no way
forward. His election, much as with Brexit, is both an indication of
the fact of the failure of conservative social-democracy
(neoliberalism) over the last 40 years, as it contented itself with
the fantasy of producing wealth out of thin air, via speculation, and
the inflation of asset prices, whilst its abandonment of real capital
accumulation meant a 50% growth in the size and social weight of the
petty-bourgeoisie, it is also a sign of the rapid decay of the
ruling-class, and of US imperialism, but in conditions where, as yet,
the nascent ruling-class, the working-class, has not yet become
conscious of its role. The need to build resistance to the onslaught
coming from Trump and the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, is part and
parcel of creating that revolutionary consciousness.
Roberts reverts back to that even Pre-Ricardian, let alone pre-Marxist position, of claiming that it is labour-power, that creates value, and so that the value of the commodity is determined by the value of the labour-power, of the wages of the labourer that determines the value of their product. He recoils from that conclusion, but can only do so, by leaving himself in a contradiction.
So, its no wonder that Roberts also believes that the category of value only exists under capitalism, because he confuses new value with surplus-value, and labour which produces new value, with wage-labour, and productive labour, which produces surplus value, despite the fact that Marx refutes all of these claims. In Capital III, Chapter 48, Marx notes,
“In so far as it has the specifically social character of wage-labour, it is not value-creating. It has already been shown in general that wages of labour, or price of labour, is but an irrational expression for the value, or price of labour-power; and the specific social conditions, under which this labour-power is sold, have nothing to do with labour as a general agent in production.” (p 823)
This is true of labour under every mode of production, as Marx and Engels set out above. This value, created by labour, may take the form of an individual value inseparable from the use-value, in the case of a product, or may take the form of an exchange-value, in the case of a commodity, or it may take the form of a price of production, under capitalist production. The most obvious example of that, as described by Engels, in his Supplement to Capital III, is that, during the 10,000 years, prior to capitalist production, where commodities were produced and exchanged by independent commodity producers, the labour that produced those commodities was not wage-labour, and did not exchange with capital. But, it did clearly produce new value, and that was the basis of the exchange-value of the commodity, and of the exchange of commodities based upon their equal value!
Blue Labour's budget lived up to everything I expected from a party that is now characterised by the domination of its ideology by reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalism and populism/sovereigntism, under Starmer and the influence of the likes of Glasman, and his allies from Spiked. Like its Tory equivalent, under Liz Truss, it is characterised by measures that seek to bolster its support amongst that reactionary petty-bourgeois, nationalist milieu, and its attendant layers within the lumpen proletariat. But, some of the responses to it, from both the Left, and sections of the media are also an indication of their own bankruptcy, repeating tropes that assume that Labour is the same old conservative social-democratic (neoliberal) party of the past, but, also, framed as though the conditions of today are the same as those that prevailed over the last 40 years, which they are not.
The Budget, however, was a more rational offering than its equivalent in 2022, by Truss/Kwarteng, which is why the financial markets did not immediately attack the Pound or Gilts, as they did in 2022. During the Budget Speech, UK Gilts actually strengthened, though they weakened later. But, that weakening, and rise in Gilt yields, contrary to the attempts of the media to make it into some kind of drama, was minimal, and came at a time when US Treasury yields, and the yields on other global bonds are rising again. That has more to do with the fact that, after several months of global disinflation, that seems to have plateaued, and started to rise, and global debt is also rising, leading to generally higher rates of interest. Reeves and Starmer, at least, seem to understand the reality that Truss and her likely successors in the Tory Party do not, that there is no such thing as “taking back control” of the national economy, because real control resides with the global ruling class, and the global financial markets. Its why their persistence with the idiocy of Brexit is so inconsistent with it.
Most of the measures fit into the category of rubber-stamping what is already economic reality. As with the settlement of the hospital doctors and rail workers pay disputes, the increases proposed in the Minimum Wage, and Living Wage, only reflect the fact that, we are in different conditions to those that existed during the 1980's, and 90's, when there was a large surplus of available labour-power, pressing down on wages in general. The increases in percentage terms are barely higher than the average increase in hourly wages in the private sector over the last year. But, in absolute terms, because average private sector wages, are much higher than the Minimum Wage, or Living Wage, the increase is significantly smaller, a fact that is also omitted when increases in state pensions are discussed. Workers and pensioners, of course, have to pay their bills with actual amounts of money, and not with percentages.
In conditions of relative labour shortages, such as now, it is those in unskilled jobs that can move to other unskilled jobs most easily, which is why it is in those jobs that the last couple of years have seen the greatest amount of churn. So, the increase in the Minimums, only rubber stamps an economic reality, whilst giving Blue Labour, an easy win, amongst those low paid sections of society it seeks to woo, often concentrated in those decayed urban areas referred to as the Red Wall, and amongst the more backward, unorganised sections of the working-class. In fact, with Blue Labour continuing the freeze in Income Tax thresholds, it will, also, claw back a large part of that rise in income tax, via fiscal drag, again, showing the dishonesty of a “Minimum” Wage, that is, then reduced below the minimum as a result of tax, let alone the usual cliff edge of the idiocy of individually targeted benefits such as Housing Benefit, and so on.! As I have pointed out before, if the Minimum Wage was to be effective, it would, first be much higher, but would also be at least a weekly, rather than hourly rate, but, secondly, it would be combined with a basic income tax threshold, set above it. It would be set high enough that all of the bureaucratic nonsense, and cost of benefits such as Child Benefit, Housing Benefit and so on, could simply be scrapped.
The media, and some sections of the reformist/Keynesian Left have complained that the increase in employers National Insurance contributions, breaks Blue Labour's promise not to raise taxes on “working people”. Nonsense. If they hadn't noticed, its an increase in the employer's contribution, not that of the workers. Their argument is that the employers will recoup this increased cost, by either lowering wages, or else reducing employment. In essence, this is the same fallacious argument that Weston proposed, and which Marx demolished in“Value, Price and Profit”.
If it were true, it would mean that workers share of the new value they create can never rise, only ever fall. As Marx, sets out, in the long-run, that is true, but it is certainly not true, in the short-run, in conditions where there are relative labour shortages, and so where the market price of labour-power can rise, and capital has to just suck it up, via a lower profit share. It also mistakes the idea set out by Marx, in relation to the average rate of profit, that capital will move towards areas where the annual rate of profit is highest, and away from where it is lowest, for the idea, specifically denied by Marx, that capital will stop being invested, in total, as a result of a fall in the average rate of profit itself.
If employers could simply reduce the wages of their workers to compensate themselves for higher costs, be it from National Insurance, or anything else, they would already have reduced those wages, in order to have boosted their profits! That is particularly true of the small businesses that are the most avaricious, and keen to screw their largely, unorganised workers, which is one reason it was amongst that petty-bourgeoisie that there was the greatest support for Brexit, in order to get rid of the EU's minimum standards and regulations.
The problem they face, in conditions where the economy is still growing, albeit not at the rate it was following the lifting of lockdowns, is that competition drives them to have to try to grab their share of that expanding market. That requires them to employ workers, and if they try to cut the wages of those workers, many of them, now, can simply, move to another job. Its why, the average pay increase for moving jobs, has been around 14%. Alternatively, many of them, are, increasingly, also, recognising their strengthening position, and joining unions to resist any such reduction of their wages. That is also what happened in similar conditions in the 1950's, and 60's.
The other argument put is that, faced with a reduction in their profits, as they have to pay this higher level of National Insurance, employers will reduce employment. For the reasons set out above that is, also, nonsense. They have the choice of making, possibly, a bit less profit, and paying the higher premiums, or reducing the size of their business, and so making even less profit, let alone going out of business, and making no profit at all!
In the latter case, for the small businesses, that would mean the employer having to get a job themselves as a wage worker. For small businesses, its usually not even the case that they can shut up shop, here, and move to somewhere else, where they can employ cheaper labour. For one thing, where would be the most obvious place to move? The EU, but those small businesses were the vanguard of Brexit, precisely because they wanted to escape the minimum standards of the EU. Moreover, if you run a corner shop, a back street garage, or are a window cleaner, and so on, in Stoke, you can hardly move your business to France, and expect your customers to come to you!
Some of the small businesses, probably, will not be able to survive, as a result of the reduction in their profits, but that shows just how unsustainable those businesses were to begin with, only surviving on the basis of an increased exploitation of their workers, and the conditions of the last 40 years that allowed that petty-bourgeoisie to grow by 50%.
Its why, productivity has been so low in the UK economy, in particular. But, this is, then, only a return to the conditions that have existed within capitalism for the whole of its existence, whereby, the inefficient small businesses close down, and capital becomes more concentrated.
The result of some inefficient, small businesses closing, in an area, in current conditions, is that others will snap up their customers, and be able to increase their own businesses, employing additional workers, probably those that worked for the ones that closed down. That would be an accidentally progressive result of the actions of Blue Labour, and the Budget.
As for the large companies, who could move their business elsewhere, as they produce for a global rather than national, or local market, the rise in National Insurance contributions is relatively insignificant. Far more significant to these larger companies is the huge burdens placed on the UK economy by Brexit, and Britain's separation from its largest and closest trading partner in the EU. Its those larger and medium sized companies that have been abandoning Brexit Britain for the EU, and will be more inclined to do so, as the effects of Brexit accumulate.
Indeed, this is the idiocy of Blue Labour, trapped by its desire to assuage the reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalists, because, the simplest way to have raised the £40 billion, it has raised in the Budget from tax hikes, would, instead, have been to scrap Brexit, and re-join the EU. That would not only have raised £40 billion in tax revenues, each and every year, but, unlike the measures adopted by Blue Labour, would also have provided the economic growth they claim to seek, as required to implement the rest of their agenda.
The other ephemera in their budget are of a similar ilk. There is the usual reactionary attacks on larger-scale capital, such as with the extension of current windfall taxes, and with further taxes imposed on the new, more efficient forms of online business, so as to try to protect the old 20th century forms of retail businesses, based in the decaying high streets. In the end, as Lenin set out, in relation to the petty-bourgeois agenda of the Narodniks, more than a century ago, these reactionary measures designed, superficially, to slow down the pace of change, and growth of larger scale capital, end up being just superficial, and ineffective in their purpose, much as were also the “anti-trust” measures pursued in the US, and elsewhere, towards the end of the 19th century, and early 20th century. For Blue Labour, they, similarly, fulfil its requirement to make its populist appeal to that, section of the petty-bourgeoisie, and its associated reactionary layers of society.
Seven years ago, I wrote a post entitled Ignoracracy, about what the election of Donald Trump, and the fact that voters in Britain had voted for Brexit meant. I related it to the 2005 film Idiocracy, by Mike Judge, in which the process of natural selection had, somehow led, to the evolution of humans characterised by their idiocy.
In the US, the reality of Trump's regime led, eventually to his defeat in 2020, but, of course, given what had been said, the surprising thing was not that Trump claimed that he had not lost, nor that he was able to mobilise a few hundreds people to try to stage a farcical coup, but that millions of Americans still believed his crap, and had voted for him in that election, many of whom themselves continued to believed his lie that he had actually won in 2020.
In Britain, at least, it didn't take long for the large majority of voters to realise that they had been lied to by Trump and Putin's allies, such as Farage, Bojo, and not to mention the likes of the representatives of Blue Labour, such as Glasman, and his associates, at Spiked. Although, there are still the diehards that, as with the Trumpists cling to the lie that Brexit has been a success, or if its a failure, its because it has not been implemented (true but only because it never could be implemented), that it was all the fault of Theresa May, and so on, and who continue to parade the lie that some true Brexit, whether of the form proposed by Truss, or that of a Blue Labour Brexit, can be implemented to "make Brexit work". But, the vast majority of voters are not buying it.
That is not the case in the US. It looks as though the moron, convicted criminal, sexual predator, and inveterate liar, who tried to stage a coup after he lost last time, whose former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, says spoke about his admiration for Hitler, and so on, is set to win the upcoming election. Of course, in Britain, despite the fact that the vast majority of voters now realise that Brexit was a huge mistake, a terrible injury they inflicted on themselves, nearly ten years ago, the two main parties have continued to implement that disastrous policy, Putin's greatest success so far, and even the parties that have been most anti-Brexit - Liberals and Greens - have for some reason, been cowed into submission over the issue.
Faced with a choice of only two main parties that had a chance of winning at the last election, both of whom stood on the same reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalist, pro-Brexit agenda, its little wonder there was little appetite for either or any party, and so the turnout was abysmally low, and although Blue Labour won a landslide parliamentary majority, it did so with less votes than Corbyn's Labour won in 2019, and the lowest share of the vote of any governing party in British history, thanks to the corrupt nature of the British electoral system. Its also no wonder that, similar to what has happened across Europe, the failure of social-democratic parties to present any kind of progressive alternative, has meant that even when they win elections on the basis of a lesser-evil rejection of the far-right, it is quickly followed by even greater disillusion and discontent that simply fuels the support for the far-right even more, come the next elections.
In the US, that is being repeated once more. Owen Jones' latest video from the US, is a classic in illuminating that process. On he one hand, we see at the start the total failure of Democrat supporters to grasp the reality that Trump looks likely to win, precisely because of the failure of Biden/Harris over the last four years to provide any real progressive alternative. As with the appeals to vote for Blue Labour in the last election, or for Macron's party in the EU and French parliamentary elections, solely on the basis of opposition to the Far Right, voters are saying, that's not enough, and quite right. We do not exist just to give already privileged politicians a cushy job.
As I noted in relation to the EU referendum in 2016, the Leavers were likely to win, because their largely ignorant, usually bigoted supporters were more virulent in their support, having been whipped up by the likes of Bojo and Farage, whereas the likes of Cameron had nothing to offer, whilst the Blair-Right, Alan Johnson, went AWOL for the entire campaign, no doubt, more busy with Mandelson, Hodge and co, and the backers of Labour Together in the various tax havens, plotting the downfall of Corbyn. The same is true with next week's Presidential election. You only have to listen to the ignorant voices of Trump's supporters, interviewed by Owen Jones, to see that they do not have a clue about anything, even at the most basic level, and yet, as with those in Britain that ring into James O'Brien on LBC, and profess their superior knowledge in relation to Brexit, they are whipped up and motivated in a way that the supporters of Harris and the Democrats never can be.
The Democrat supporters are left, rather as with those that called for a vote for Starmer, hoping without any foundation whatsoever that somehow, once elected, and so when any chance of having real leverage over them had already passed by, that they would change course. In Britain it was the idea that Blue Labour were just being clever and would quickly do a deal to get closer to the EU, or would implement some, at least, modest social-democratic policies. In the US, as the interviews show, there is even greater cognitive dissonance, as Democrat activists lie to themselves about Harris's terrible position over the genocide in Gaza, and so on.
Socialists, of course, want to see Trump lose, but there is no reason to want Harris to win either. The polls say its too close to call, just as in 2016, they had Clinton ahead, and Brexit to fail. History suggests that means Trump is set to win. The labour movement, needs to mobilise, now, to defend the interests of workers in the US.
The Labour Right, are thoroughly dishonest, and disreputable, but they are clearly not stupid, and certainly not stupid enough to actually believe any of the bullshit they have been pedalling as excuses for their current attachment to Brexit.
And, that applies to the idea that they are afraid of losing votes and seats in the so called “Red Wall”. A clear majority of Labour voters, in those seats, even in 2019, did not back Brexit, and that majority is even larger today. In fact, part of the reason that Blue Labour polled fewer votes than Corbyn's Labour did in 2019, and failed to increase its vote share, even as the Tories collapsed, on an epic scale, is that Blue Labour's, pro-Brexit stance, as well as its reactionary pro-imperialist stance in relation to the genocide in Gaza, and its lacklustre offering in terms of socio-economic policies, saw lots more of those progressive, particularly younger, Labour voters, desert to the Greens and Liberals that have continued to increase their support, despite the problems they face given the current electoral system. Blue Labour has failed to win the reactionary, nationalist vote of the petty-bourgeoisie, and its lumpen allies, in the Red Wall, but, like the Tories, has been haemorrhaging its progressive voters to the Liberals and Greens.
The Greens and Liberals, now, stand in second place to Labour in an unprecedented number of seats, (and the same is true in relation to Tory seats), and as Blue Labour's already abysmal level of electoral support has dropped even further, now even surpassed by the Tories, it is not opposition to Brexit that risks them losing seats, but their continued, irrational support for it.
And, that support, on the face of it, does seem irrational, not just in these electoral terms. Even Blue Labour's uninspiring programme is unachievable, given the fiscal box it has placed itself in, by the supposedly wizard like genius of Rachel Reeves, who we have been repeatedly told was being prepared for this role of Chancellor ever since she was 14. Already, its collapsing support in the electorate is being shredded even further by its attacks on Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners. But, these amounts, along with the measures on non-doms, taxing private school fees, and so on are chicken feed compared to the 4% of GDP that is being lost each year as a result of Brexit! That is more than enough to wipe out the £22 billion fiscal deficit. It is equal to around £40 billion to the exchequer, in additional revenues. So, why doesn't Blue Labour simply point to the disaster of Brexit, and need to re-join as soon as possible, and benefit from the huge unpopularity of Brexit, amongst the electorate?
One reason could be that Britain always had one foot in and one foot out of the EU, as it continued to have memories of its former imperial glory, but, also, because, since WWII, it has nearly as much seen itself as the 51st state of the USA, and its agent within the EU. But, the ruling class certainly don't see things in that way, and Britain can only act as the US's agent in the EU, if its actually in the EU, and not sitting impotently, isolated on its Atlantic shore, drifting aimlessly further out into the mid-Atlantic. The other reason is that, it may see another political campaign based on rejoining the EU, as giving grist to the mill of international socialists, and progressive social-democrats to engage in political activity that will undermine the Labour Right, simply by opening up debate. Blue Labour's modus operandi is bureaucratic manoeuvre, and back room dealing, not open political struggle, at which it is very, very bad.
But, there is another reason. Its unlikely that the Blair-Rights such as Streeting have actually changed their views, about the need to rejoin the EU. That's not the case with the likes of Glasman, and certainly not of those reactionaries, such as Baroness Fox, Frank Furedi, and Brendan O'Neill with whom he is associated via Spiked. Incidentally, this domination of Blue Labour, by this reactionary tendency, itself reinforces that it is not neo-Liberal, given the general characterisation of Spiked as Libertarian/anarcho-capitalist, and their affinity with the likes not only of Farage, but with his co-thinkers and allies within the camp of the Trumpists in the US.
But, Blairism, as with Clintonism in the US, represented the high-point of that conservative-social-democracy (neoliberalism). Its failure opened the door to the Tea Party, and then Trump in the US, and to Farage and Brexit in Britain, and similar trends across Europe. It enjoyed a, perhaps, one-off, historical set of conditions, after WWII, and specifically from the 1970's, that ended with the global financial crisis of 2008. In the 1970's faced with a crisis of overproduction of capital/fall in relative profits, capital responded by engaging in a new technological revolution, like that of the 1920's/30's, aimed at replacing labour, and raising productivity. It peaked in 1985, and the result was that labour was undermined, the rate of profit rose sharply, masses of capital was released, and as the mass of available money-capital, thereby grew as against the demand for it to finance capital accumulation, interest rates dropped, and asset prices rose.
The reality of capitalist production cannot be captured by the metaphysical“common sense” mode of reasoning, precisely because it is dialectical, it is a process of continual movement of contradictions, and simultaneity, in which inputs are simultaneously outputs, and outputs are inputs, and production does not stop at the end of the year, fixed and frozen for measures of profits to be made, as though time stops at that point, but continues beyond it.
“At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us most plausible, because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Yet sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. The metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the object of investigation, invariably bumps into a limit, sooner or later, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions, because in the presence of individual things it forgets the connection between them; because in the presence of their existence, it forgets their coming into being and passing away; because in their state of rest it forgets their motion.” (p 26)
Metaphysics sees contradiction – as does the TSSI, for example – and so concludes that the hypothesis, itself, must be wrong, without, thereby, understanding that the contradiction exists, not within the hypothesis, but within the reality of what is being hypothesised, and so explained.
“... every organic being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew; in a longer or shorter time the matter of its body is completely renewed, and is replaced by other molecules of matter, so that every organic being is always itself, and yet something other than itself.” (p 27)
This is also the description Marx gives of capital, and the capitalist production process. It is, every moment, the same and not the same, come commodities are consumed productively or personally, but, at each moment, they are also, simultaneously, replaced by other commodities.
“Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis, like positive and negative, are as inseparable as they are opposed and that despite all their opposition, they interpenetrate. In like manner, we find that cause and effect are conceptions which only hold good in their application to the individual case as such; but as soon as we consider the individual case in its general connection with the universe as a whole, they merge, they dissolve in the concept of universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are constantly changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa.” (p 27)
And, again, this finds reflection in Marx's analysis of capital, in Theories of Surplus Value. Production and consumption appear as two poles, just as with supply and demand. Yet, as Marx sets out, in detail, in The Grundrisse, production is also consumption, and consumption production, whilst supply is demand, and demand is supply. Production of commodities involves the consumption of commodities in the form of materials, fixed capital, and labour-power. The consumption of commodities by the labourer, is also the production of the labourer, and so of labour-power.
