Two Party Politics Is Not Dead, Its In Transition

Pundits have been claiming that two-party politics in Britain is dead, as the vote for the two main parties, Conservative and Labour has collapsed. It isn't, and cannot be so long as Britain retains the first past the post-system, and remains a bourgeois state. All that is happening, as I have set out before, is that the labels on the two parties are changing, as, indeed, they have before, when, for example, the Liberal Party was replaced/relabelled as the Labour Party, at the start of the 20th century.

Reform is just the Tory/reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist, wing of the Conservative Party relabelled. It is pretty much a reversal of the transformation, in the second half of the 19th century, of the old Tory Party of landowners, into the modern Conservative Party, created by the Peelites, after the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The emblem of that reversal, is the rise and domination of the Conservative Party by its petty-bourgeois, nationalist base, and its carrying through of Brexit. Ideologically, Reform is identical to that reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist, Tory wing of the Conservative Party that grew during the 1980's, and asserted itself in the 1990's, as a reflection of the growth of the petty-bourgeoisie, in Britain, during that time, by around 50%, at the same time that British large-scale industrial capital saw a continuation of its relative decline, compared to its growth elsewhere, and the working-class, also, was weakened along with it.

That core petty-bourgeois membership and voter base, of the Tories has simply burst out of the Conservative Party, as the means of resolving the underlying contradiction within that party, as a party of the petty-bourgeoisie, which finds itself having to implement bourgeois policies, when in government, because the petty-bourgeois nationalist agenda is utopian and impossible, as the consequences of Brexit showed. Its not just that the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and its associated layers amongst the urban poor have simply switched from voting Tory – or often not voting at all – to just voting Reform, a look at Reform shows that the same failed, ex Tory politicians have simply relabelled themselves too. Jenrick, Widdicombe, Jenkyns, Dorries and so on are some of the most obvious.

There are now more ex-members of Liz Truss' Cabinet in Reform than there are on the Tory front bench! At a local level that is simply repeated, as Tories just label themselves Reform. Some pundits, like James O'Brien, have frequently posed the question of whether the reason for this is that these ex-Tories take the voters for idiots, and so offer up new policies for old, simply repackaged, as though the voters having voted for those reactionary policies, and see them fail, need to be conned into voting for them again. No, that is not the case. The reactionary nationalist, petty-bourgeoisie, and their attendant layers in the urban poor/lumpen elements, do not see the failure of Brexit and all of the other garbage as being a failure for them. It is the problem of not understanding that the electorate is divided into different classes, with different class interests.

There are some petty-bourgeois, like for example, the Youtuber, Michael Lambert, whose businesses were orientated towards the EU, who see Brexit, and everything that goes with it as disastrous. But, most of the petty-bourgeoisie is not like that. It is thoroughly parochial and nationalist. The petty-bourgeoisie is and always has been characterised by its lack of income and precarity, its inability to compete with large-scale capital, or even to achieve the kind of living standards of organised wage-labour. If you have to work all hours of the day, but get little income, you are not going to be too bothered about whether Brexit has reduced growth, made trade more difficult or expensive, or travel for holidaymakers more inconvenient, and so on. Even more is that the case if you are part of those associated layers of the urban poor.

So, although the large majority of the electorate, now, see that Brexit has been the disaster it was always going to be, leading nearly 70% of them to want to reverse it, and re-join the EU, that other 30% of the electorate, the hard-core of the petty-bourgeoisie that pushed it through, in the first place, – mostly the same layers that opposed the EEC in the 1975 Referendum, but then unsuccessfully – have not changed their view, because that view aligns with that petty-bourgeois nationalist outlook, itself conditioned by their own class position. The same applies to the identical social layers in the US that back Trump. It is why, even O'Brien has had to change his opinion that we should have contempt for the con-men, and compassion for the conned. They were not conned, they got what they wanted, and mostly still want.

The ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie is reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalism, as represented, now, by Reform. It is utopian and so must lead to disaster. Precisely because the petty-bourgeoisie is itself a disorganised, atomised and heterogeneous mass, with its own internal contradictions arising from its diversity and interests, it is unstable and liable to blow itself apart at any point, once it is forced to go beyond what it thinks its against, and begin to focus on what it is for. Even what it is for starts off as simply a negation of what it is against, e.g. against foreigners, and so for Brexit, for immigration controls, repatriation and so on. When that inevitably fails to bring what it expected, it simply moves to the next level. To impose any kind of order on it, the petty-bourgeoisie always requires a strong, charismatic leader, and so tends towards Bonapartism and authoritarian rule as Marx describes in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

The ideology of the owners of large-scale capital is, and since the end of the 19th century has been, social-democracy. The owners of large-scale industrial capital, since that time, has been “the associated producers”, i.e. the workers within each large-scale enterprise. As Marx describes, in Capital III, and he and Engels describe in “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” and “Anti-Duhring”, except in the worker cooperatives, the workers, in the main, do not yet understand that this is their collective property, and so, do not exercise conscious control over it. That control is exercised by the old bourgeois ruling-class, which has become a parasitic, class of rentiers/coupon clippers, living off the interest/dividends and rents it obtains from its ownership of the other form of large-scale capital – fictitious-capital – and which provides it with its continued huge wealth and power, and control of the state.

Precisely because the “associated producers”/working-class, do not, yet, understand that they are the collective owners of this large-scale, socialised, industrial capital, they continue to be dominated by the ideology of social-democracy, rather than socialism/communism. They continue to be dominated by the bourgeois/reformist idea that, in some way, the interests of labour and capital are, not antagonistic but reconcilable via negotiation. In other words, they remain trapped in a bourgeois, trades-unionist consciousness of simply bargaining within the system, just for a better price for the commodity they sell, labour-power, an outlook, which always leaves them on the losing side of those negotiations. Its epitome is corporatism and co-determination.

Objectively, the very nature of this large-scale, socialised industrial capital (imperialist capital) means, as Marx and Engels set out in the above works, that it demands planning, regulation, and so becomes tied to the state, which must organise that planning and regulation of capital, i.e. the economy, on an increasing scale. As they put it,

“In the trusts, free competition changes into monopoly and the planless production of capitalist society capitulates before the planned production of the invading socialist society. Of course, this is initially still to the benefit of the Capitalists.”

(Anti-Duhring, p 358)

Why is that, still to their benefit? Because, this very process, which enables this large-scale socialised capital to continue to operate on an expanding scale, and so produce more profits – but also to employ more labour, and so benefits workers to that extent – provides the capitalists, the owners, now, not of industrial capital, but of fictitious-capital, with the source of their own increased revenues, and wealth and power. Even if the capitalists – the owners of fictitious-capital – only drew their revenues from that ownership of fictitious-capital, i.e. interest/dividends, they would, thereby, be the main beneficiaries, initially, of this planned production. Even if all of the industrial capital became statised, as part of that process, they would be the main beneficiaries, because, as the owners of fictitious-capital, loanable money-capital, they would be the ones loaning money to that state, i.e. buying its government bonds, and so deriving huge amounts of interest/coupon from them.

It is why the ruling-class of owners of fictitious-capital, support the EU, and oppose Brexit, just as it is in the interests of the working-class, as the collective owners of that large-scale, socialised capital. Who it is not in the interests of is the petty-bourgeoisie, whose parochialism and nationalism, is accompanied by their own commitment to red in tooth and claw competition, and all the petty perks that it relies upon to survive, which, also, make life hell for wage-labour.

But, the ruling class owners of fictitious-capital, precisely because they have been enabled to continue to exercise control over capital they do not own, by the state they control, and by a socialist movement that, itself, does not understand, as Marx and Engels did, that the owners of this large-scale industrial capital, are, already, the workers, do not just draw the revenues they are entitled to as owners of loanable money-capital. They also, use that control to appropriate to themselves additional revenues. They appropriate to themselves not just interest, but a part of what is, economically, profit of enterprise, and so, economically the revenue that should be appropriated by the collective owners of the industrial capital, i.e. the workers.

As Marx points out, in Capital III, economically, the revenues of this socialised capital, amount to the wages of labour, whether the wages of the actual workers, or the salaries of the professional managers; the rent paid to landowners; the interest paid to the lenders of money-capital; and the profit of enterprise, which is objectively the property of the associated producers/workers, and at their disposal for capital accumulation; and taxes to the capitalist state. But, because that state has created company law that gives shareholders a right to exercise control over property they do not own, and denies the actual owners of that property – the workers – that right, the shareholders use that control to appropriate to themselves a portion of the profit of enterprise. It is why, as Haldane reported, the share of profits going to dividends has risen from 10% in the 1970's, to 70%, today.

The reason this is significant is that it underpins the nature of the crisis of social-democracy. Social-democracy is the dominant ideology of the owners of large-scale capital, both the collective owners of socialised industrial capital (the workers), and the private owners of fictitious-capital (the bourgeois ruling-class). But, the very fact of these two types of large-scale capital, and their different owners, with antagonistic interests, means that social-democracy, itself, has always been divided into a conservative social-democracy (representing the owners of fictitious-capital), and progressive social-democracy, which represents the owners of the socialised industrial capital. As I have set out before, in the period after 1980, in particular, the ruling-class became addicted to speculative capital gains, as falling interest rates, resulting from a huge rise in productivity, caused asset prices to soar. It is now in a trap, in which, if it accepts the need for greater economic growth and capital accumulation, to expand the mass of profit, it will, simultaneously cause interest rates to rise, and so asset prices to crash.

Conservative social-democracy, therefore, has reached a dead-end, in which it can only protect the long-term interests of the ruling-class, by damaging the short-term interests of that ruling-class, by forcing it to go cold turkey, and accept a collapse of its paper wealth, as asset prices crash, perhaps by as much as 90%. Given the fact that social-democrats have also sold the delusion to society at large that it can create wealth out of thin air, by such asset price inflation, it is obvious why they have not been able to face that reality. In fact, although a 90% crash in house prices, and other asset prices, would benefit the vast majority of society, it is not easy to explain to them why that is the case, in conditions where they have been, for decades, gulled into the delusion that they have somehow become wealthier as a result of the price of their house rising, even though a moment's thought should show that, so has the price of any other house they want to buy!

Britain has suffered more, because the one thing that mitigated that objective reality was the EU. The objective reality, drives towards the conditions that stand behind the ideology of progressive social-democracy, an increase in planning and regulation, an increase in capital accumulation, and so of an increase in the size of the single-market/state. That is why, as conservative social-democracy hit a dead-end, after the 2008 global financial crash, across the globe, there was a rise in the forces of progressive social-democracy, albeit in a very confused manner. The forces of conservative social-democracy have tried to defy the reality, by trying to again inflate asset prices, via QE, and have also sought to quash, by authoritarian and bureaucratic means that resurgence of the kind of progressive social democracy that formed the consensus of the post-war period of capital accumulation.

What was the social-democratic consensus of the period 1945-80, is now portrayed as some kind of dangerous, left-wing extremism. Consequently, as the centre has collapsed, the petty-bourgeoisie has asserted itself. Reactionary petty-bourgeois nationalism now stands in opposition to social-democracy, the reactionary, private owners of small scale capital, versus the owners of large-scale capital. It is not the end of two-party politics, but simply its transition, and simplification. A number of analysts have indicated that in terms of blocs of “right” and “left” there has been no change, just a shift within each bloc. The transition in the “Right” bloc, i.e. the bloc of the reactionary petty-bourgeois has been completed, but it is not yet complete on the “Left”, i.e. the bloc of the working-class.

In 2019, as I pointed out at the time, Corbyn's Labour lost, because the anti-Tory vote was split between Labour, Liberals, Greens and so on, as well as Plaid and SNP. It was facilitated by Corbyn's own reversion to the Stalinoid notions of economic nationalism of the 1970's, as well, of course, as the deliberate sabotage of Labour by the forces of Blue Labour in alliance with the Blair-Rights, using the weaponization of anti-Semitism. Johnson won the election, because he was able to hoover up the votes of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, with the aid of Farage. But, Johnson could not carry through the deluded notions of Brexit and, as it became apparent that it was a disaster, he was forced out, followed by the idiocy of Truss's attempt, and, finally, Sunak became nightwatchman, prior to the Tories being thrown out.

In 2024, with the Tories discredited, Farage began the process of rebranding Toryism as The Brexit Party, now, Reform. The only reason Starmer's Labour won in 2024, was the reversal of the conditions of 2019, i.e. the Right bloc was split down the middle, and the Left bloc, sort of, lined up, reluctantly behind Blue Labour. It was a mirage, a pyrrhic victory that was bound to collapse in short order, not least because Blue Labour attempted to adopt the clothes of Brexit, to turn itself into a pale version of Reform, with all of its flag-waving jingoism, whilst promising the same kinds of illusory growth that would only be possible by re-joining the EU. The baton of social-democracy passed from its hands into those of the Greens, Liberals, Plaid and SNP. The inertia has retained a vote for Blue Labour, but it is inevitably going the same way as, on the Right, has already been traversed by the Tories.

A look at Thursday's elections shows that to be the case. In numerous cases, the collapse of Labour seats has been simply mirrored in the rise of Green seats on particular Councils. Elsewhere, as in 2019, a residual Labour vote has split the anti-Reform vote, enabling Reform candidates to take the seat. It is no longer credible to ask Green, Liberal, Plaid or SNP voters to vote for a reactionary Blue Labour Party, in conditions where that really means asking them to vote for a slightly modified version of the reactionary ideas of Reform, just wearing a red rosette. So, even where Labour candidates came second, or would have won with the addition of Green votes, the reality is that it is the reactionary politics of Starmer's Blue Labour that made that impossible.

A look at the data for England shows that Reform have more or less simply rebranded Tory seats as Reform seats. Reform are up by 1,442, and the Tories down by 557. The additional 900 seats, are not, by and large, the result of Labour voters switching to Reform, but are, as set out above, the result of the anti-Reform vote being split between Labour, Greens and Liberals. A look at Wales and Scotland, shows that even more starkly, as two party politics remains, but now, as I predicted before the elections, it is Reform and Plaid, or Reform and SNP that constitute the two contenders. That is despite those assemblies utilising forms of PR. Had they used first past the post, Labour and Tories would have been totally wiped out.

The argument put by Blue Labour, for example expressed by Deborah Mattison, that the results show Reform picking up traditional Labour voters in “Red Wall” seats, is clearly disproved in Scotland and Wales, the latter in particular. You could not get much more of a symbol of “Red Wall”, i.e., old industrial working-class than Wales. Yet, the Labour vote collapse in Wales, clearly did not go, in its vast majority to Reform, but to Plaid, and in some places the Greens.

In England, the Greens, as well as simply replacing Labour in various mayoral elections, such as Hackney, and taking over every Labour seat on Councils in some contests, have quadrupled the number of seats held. They have gone from 141 seats to 587. By contrast the Liberals, who started with 683 seats, have risen to only 844, a rise of only 155, or about 25%. In large part that is because the Liberals have attempted, themselves, to stay on the ground of conservative social-democracy, and even there, their one main selling point, their opposition to Brexit, and support for the EU, they have voluntarily gagged themselves on, for the last 7 years. In addition, they have been almost as bad as Blue Labour in seeking to gain sectarian advantage over the Greens, by joining in the weaponization of anti-Semitism. In addition, in some seats, there was more than one vacancy, but where the Greens only stood one candidate, meaning that some voters would vote Green, but use their second vote for a Labour candidate.

Blair-rights, like Liz Kendall have claimed, still, despite all the evidence, that the majority of voters do not support the “extremes”, but are in the “centre”. What is clear is that that centre was simply an abstraction, a mathematical construct amounting to a small minority in the middle that was able for a time to exercise a disproportional influence, by holding the balance of power between the two “extremes”. Kendall seems blind to the fact that they have branded Reform as the “extreme” on the Right – whilst themselves being a pale, unconvincing version of it – and the Greens as “extreme” on the Left – even though their programme amounts to nothing more than the kind of social-democratic consensus of the post-war period – and yet, it is precisely these two “extremes” that have been the big winners!

What is shown is that the class division of society has reasserted itself, as the centre has collapsed. It is, in the era of imperialist capital, no longer a division between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, when it comes to elections, because the bourgeoisie is numerically a de minimus factor. It is a division between the reactionary, nationalist petty-bourgeoisie, and the working-class. The political representation of the kind of social-democratic, bourgeois nationalism that Labour used to promote is now the preserve of the Greens, Plaid and SNP. In the case of the last two, their bourgeois nationalism, is in the context, as most European bourgeois nationalism now is, of the recognition of the need to be within the framework of the EU, which makes it progressive compared to the kind of jingoistic, English nationalism/Brexitism now promoted by Blue Labour.

Starmer has now made a show of inviting back Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, but even for a return to that kind of Blair-right, conservative social democracy, will require a purge of Blue Labour, of the likes of Glassman, Reed and Co., as well as Starmer as their stooge. Or it requires, as I suggested some time ago, it will mean that the Blair-Rights will split to join with the Liberals, and the social-democratic wing of the Conservatives, to form a new European style centre party.    It may now be too late to save Labour ahead of the next election. It would have been a perfect time for a socialist alternative, or at least a progressive social-democratic alternative party to emerge, but again Corbyn and those Stalinoid elements behind him have destroyed, for now, that possibility. The fact that the PLP is stuffed to the gills with Blue Labour placeholders, and Zionist cronies, means that no new Leader can overcome that reality, prior to the party itself, in the country being renewed and democratised, with widespread mandatory reselections, which will require the trades unions to impose themselves.

For now, it looks like the Labour Party is in its death throes.

SNNS 42

 

A Vote For Blue Labour Is A Vote For Reform & Reaction

In the elections, tomorrow, across Britain, a vote for Blue Labour candidates is a vote for petty-bourgeois reactionary politics, but, given that support for Blue Labour has itself collapsed, a vote for Blue Labour candidates is essentially a wasted vote, which will benefit the reactionaries of Farage's Reform company. If we used the same argument that Blue Labour and others have used, in the past, to justify voters supporting them, despite their appalling politics, simply to keep out even worse candidates, then, it would mean actively calling on voters to support Green or Liberal candidates, as well as, in Scotland and Wales, voting for SNP and Plaid candidate, depending on which had the best chance of winning in the given seat.

Socialists should not do so. We should argue for the need for support for socialist politics, socialist candidates, and socialist parties. There is no principled basis for socialists to argue, actively, for a purely passive political gesture of voting for parties or candidates standing on a bourgeois programme, and over whom we have no control, and whose actions, once they are elected, we would only have linked ourselves to. Of course, that is quite different to understanding the revulsion that workers will have towards a petty-bourgeois, reactionary nationalist, Blue Labour party, and wanting to punish it by voting for what appear to be more progressive alternatives, such as Greens, Liberals, Plaid or SNP. Indeed, as Blue Labour has abandoned the working-class and social-democracy, in favour of chasing the support of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, it is not just that these other parties appear, a more progressive alternative. In purely electoral terms, they are more progressive, they are the ones that, today, are the standard bearers of the kind of “Buttskellite” social-democratic consensus, of the post-war period that Labour represented in the past.

A vote for Blue Labour, because of its petty-bourgeois, reactionary politics, is, a vote for that reactionary agenda, just as much as a vote for Reform, or its rump within the Tory Party. But, a vote for Blue Labour in conditions where its support, resulting from reactionary, anti-working-class politics, has collapsed, is, also, given the nature of Britain's corrupt, first-past the post system, designed to benefit just two main parties, effectively a vote for Reform. It splits the anti-Reform vote. That is no reason for socialists to argue for a vote for a “lesser-evil” party/candidate, but it is why we can understand why the working-class, and progressive middle-class will do so.

Blue Labour's establishment clearly understand that that is precisely what they face in the elections tomorrow. Rather than drawing the conclusion that they need to abandon their petty-bourgeois, reactionary politics, and return to, at least, the social-democratic politics they previously championed, or forming the kind of anti-Reform/Tory Popular Front, they argued for when it was a question of others supporting them, they have doubled down on their own reactionary politics and behaviour, essentially forming an alliance with Reform/Tories, to attack the Greens, as the most visible representative of that progressive alternative.

Blue Labour has no self-respect, and so can gain no respect from voters. It has no shame, as it showed in its covert operation “Labour Together”, financed by millionaires, simply to get rid of Corbyn and the social-democratic wing of the party, just as they got rid of the socialist wing of the party in previous decades. Its use of the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, to whip up scare stories, and launch a witch hunt inside the party has done serious damage to the actual fight against anti-Semitism, because, it necessarily also, associates the reactionary, nationalism of Zionism with being Jewish. The consequence of that has been shown, when the Zionist state, has engaged in a genocide against the Palestinians, not just in Gaza, but, also, on the West Bank. Blue Labour was forced to become a party of genocide deniers, to continue their support for the Zionist state in Israel, and so to maintain its, “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” trope.

So, the total lack of any self-respect by Blue Labour, its willingness to pick up any ready to hand weapon to attack its political opponents, has meant that, as reality bites, and it faces electoral destruction, it has simply picked up that same “anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism” weapon it used to attack the life-long anti-racist Corbyn – and many other life-long anti-racists on a similar basis – now to attack the only Jewish Leader of a political party in Britain, Zack Polanski!!! Not only have they attacked Polanski in the most ludicrous manner, for having retweeted a criticism of the actions of Metropolitan Police in their actions in arresting a mentally-ill man, who had stabbed 3 people – the first of which was a Muslim – 2 of whom were Jews, they have actually accused him of being anti-Semitic! The appalling Trevor Phillips, who was previously suspended from the Labour Party on the basis of claims of Islamophobia, and whose best man at his wedding was Peter Mandelson, the disgraced friend of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, sank to even lower levels in his interview with Polanski, on his Sunday show on Sky News.

Numerous people have detailed the appalling nature of Phillips' interview with Polanski, but the same kind of attacks have been made on him by Blue Labour, as well as by the Tory media, and other Zionist apologists. One thing that stands out is the way that central to these attacks on Polanski, is that they do not even seem to see the way they take it as read that criticism of the Zionist state amounts to “anti-Semitism”. That was clear in Lewis Goodall's LBC interview with Blue Labour Minister, Heidi Alexander as well as his interview with Tory MP, Helen Whately. In the latter case, Whately, would not even use the same yardstick in relation to calling for a ban on Tommy Robinson's demonstrations as she used in relation to the anti-genocide marches! She seemed incapable of even comprehending the question put to her, basically replying, “Tommy Robinson is not calling for an end to Israel”, and even claiming not to be aware of the speeches made from the stage at the “Unite The Kingdom” rally, which incited violence against British Muslims!

The fact that the cabal that were at the heart of Blue Labour, such as Steve Reed, routinely write in the journals of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, such as The Daily Mail, is symptomatic of the appalling politics of Blue Labour. It was in this noxious, racist rag, which, in the 1930's, supported Hitler, that Reed chose to write his latest hatchet job on Polanski. But, the Mail and Reed are not alone. The vile Zionist apologist, Melanie Phillips has been a blatant genocide denier, even in the face of all the evidence provided by the UN, and by Jewish genocide scholars, as Owen Jones has described. She contributes regularly to The Times, but The Times, in joining in the attacks on Polanski, published a vile “anti-Semitic” cartoon, depicting a clearly hooked nose, Jewish Polanski, kicking the back the two policemen, who were busy, in actuality, tasering and kicking the mentally ill man, they were arresting!

Yet, there has been no condemnation of that clearly “anti-Semitic” Times cartoon, by the likes of Phillips, or by Blue Labour representatives. That failure to criticise a clearly “anti-Semitic” cartoon, in a newspaper, stands in contrast to their attacks on Corbyn for having retweeted a cartoon, he saw on a small phone screen, but which, of course, in later attacks on him, was always flashed up on large TV studio screens! The fact that the Metropolitan Police have got involved in this attack on Polanski, as well as on the anti-genocide marches, shows that its not just Blue Labour that is worried, but that worry is spread across the political establishment as a whole. They are worried that the narrative they have had for the last few years that the challenge to Blue Labour comes from the Right, from Reform, is collapsing. The real challenge is coming from the Left, albeit a very confused and inadequate Left.

In the Denton & Gorton by-election, all of this same witch-hunting and scare mongering of the Greens did not stop Labour losing a seat it has held for decades, and it going to the Greens. The same looks set to happen tomorrow, in English elections, and the establishment is in full panic mode, even at the prospect that mildly progressive, social-democratic parties are on the rise. Why? Social-democracy, after all, is the ideology that arises as the reflection of the social relations created by the rise and dominance of large-scale, socialised industrial capital (imperialism) since the end of the 19th century. It is what formed the basis of the social-democratic consensus of the twentieth century. The reason they are so worried is that, from the 1980's on, the concomitant of that, the separation of the ruling-class into being just a class of parasitic money-lenders, owners of fictitious-capital, has had perverse, and decadent consequences.

There is an inherent contradiction between the interests of interest-bearing capital (fictitious capital) and industrial capital, as Marx set out 150 years ago, and described in Capital III. The former seek to maximise the amount of interest they obtain, and that means less is, then, available as profit of enterprise (essentially retained profits), available for investment (real capital accumulation). In the post-war period, in which there was sustained accumulation of capital, there was also, growing profits, and growing amounts paid as interest/dividends. The ruling-class saw these revenues based on interest/dividends as central. In the period between 1965-1982, however, as I have set out, elsewhere, as capital faced a rising wage share, and falling profit share, resulting in a crisis of overproduction of capital relative to labour, in the 1970's, it could only sustain the expansion by increased borrowing – a falling profit share, in conditions where competition demands continued real investment, inevitably means more borrowing to compensate – and so higher interest rates.

Higher interest rates mean lower asset prices, but, in the same period asset prices, as with commodity prices and nominal profits, were increasingly raised, as a result of central banks inflating the currency supply, ultimately resulting in the high levels of inflation, across the globe of the 1970's and early 1980's. Industrial capital resolved the overproduction of capital relative to labour, in part, by moving industrial production to newly industrialising countries, particularly in Asia. The other solution, as in the past, was a new technological revolution, based on the microchip, which revolutionised production and productivity. The rate of profit rose sharply, and interest rates dropped sharply, causing asset prices to rocket. The ruling-class, increasingly saw these rocketing asset prices as the real basis of their wealth and power, particularly in the old imperialist countries.

But, social-democracy, as the ideology that reflects the interests of large-scale, industrial capital is inimical to that. It requires, that profits be used to finance real capital accumulation, not to be used to simply pay ever higher dividends to shareholders, or to be used to buy up shares so as to inflate share prices and so on. Still less does real industrial capital desire the costs of land or property to be inflated, which means that capital that could have been used productively is consumed unproductively by landowners, and the costs of labour-power are inflated by rising costs of shelter. So, the consequence of the ruling-class of money-lenders now becoming dependent on speculative capital gains, in conditions where the long-wave cycle is causing capital accumulation to rise, and so where the rate of interest is on an upward path, means they must become opponents of social-democracy, not because social-democracy is a threat to capitalism, but because it is a threat to the asset prices, which are the basis of the wealth of the ruling-class, but which are, in themselves, destructive to capitalism!!

The fact that first there was de-industrialisation in western economies from the 1980's onwards, which led to a 50% rise in the size of the petty-bourgeoisie, which is the basis of the electoral support for reactionary ideas such as Brexit, and consequently for Reform, and subsequently, a slower rate of economic growth, as governments sought to hold back wage growth, and rising interest rates, which would cause further asset price crashes, is just a symptom of that. At a time when interest rates were at the lowest levels in 5000 years, in the early 2000's, and yet governments claimed they could not borrow to finance a much needed refurbishment of infrastructure, is illustrative of it. Indeed, in 2008, when despite all of their efforts, wages began to rise, and interest rates rose, the consequence was, indeed, the global financial crash of those asset prices.

It should have been a boon to real capital, as Marx described. A fall in land prices means capital can be used productively rather than to pay inflated prices for land, before it can be used. A fall in share and bond prices does not affect the use-value of all those elements of capital bought with the money borrowed by the issue of those shares and bonds. Lower land and property prices means lower prices for shelter and other wage goods, and so a lower value of labour-power, higher rate of surplus value, and profit, and more profits to invest in real capital accumulation. Lower share and bond prices, means a lower cost of pension provision, likewise. Instead, governments acted not in the interests of real industrial capital, but in the interests of fictitious-capital, of a decadent, parasitic, money-lending ruling class. They inflated asset prices via QE, and they slowed economic expansion by imposing fiscal austerity.

I have also set out, elsewhere, that the interests of the ruling class of money-lenders are served by the removal of the nation state, and its outdated borders. That reduces costs and frictions, thereby increasing profits without requiring additional capital accumulation. It is why the ruling-class oppose Brexit. But, that puts them on the same side as social-democracy, on the same side as the Greens, Liberals, Plaid, SNP and so on, not of the likes of Reform, the Tories or Blue Labour. There is a clear problem for the ruling-class, in that, because they have negligible votes, whilst the petty-bourgeoisie represents around 30% of the population, or about 15 million votes. In the main, that petty-bourgeoisie votes for Reform/Tories, not the johnny-come-lately of Blue Labour. As Blue Labour collapses, the choice becomes one between Reform and Greens/SNP/Plaid. The Liberals have undermined themselves, by failing to campaign vigorously to oppose Brexit, and by being more concerned with losing votes to the Greens.

The establishment is, thereby, seeking to undermine the Greens, because they know that neither the SNP nor Plaid can form a Westminster government. Hence the return to the “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism” argument to attack Polsanski. A look at the argument used by Blue Labour and the Tory media in that instance is informative. In the past, it has rightly been argued that those who claimed that Jews in Britain who did not actively denounce the genocidal actions of the Zionist regime in Israel, were in some way complicit in its actions, were making an anti-Semitic argument. We do not demand, for example, that all Russian people, living in Britain, actively go out and protest the actions of Putin.

But, in trying to claim that the anti-genocide marches are in some way “hate” marches, Blue Labour, and other Zionist apologists have done the same thing. Every assessment of these demonstrations has shown them to be overwhelmingly peaceful, and anything but “hate” marches. Yet, Blue Labour, and other Zionist apologists have argued that, because a few individuals, or groups, on these marches have been guilty of making anti-Semitic remarks, the whole of the demonstration is to be held accountable for those few individuals! Unless, you go out and actively denounce them, its claimed, you are complicit!! Socialists, of course, would confront anyone on such a march who was making anti-Semitic remarks, but to demand that everyone on the march does so is clearly as ridiculous as claiming that all Jews living in Britain must denounce the actions of Israel, or be complicit in its actions!

The amount of shit being thrown at Polanski and the Greens may have an effect on turning away some of its voters, just as it did against Corbyn in 2019, but the “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism” argument is losing its efficacy each time it is wheeled out, as seen in Denton and Gorton. Even if it works this time, it will not save Blue Labour. Blue Labour is set to be wiped out in Wales and Scotland, and if it succeeds in reducing the vote for the Greens in England, it will not be to its benefit, but mostly the benefit of Reform.

Anti-Duhring, Part III – Socialism, I – Historical - Part 3

As Engels sets out in his later Prefaces to The Condition of The Working Class, it is only the growth, and subsequent triumph, of large-scale, industrial capital that puts an end to most of these vices.

“in proportion as this increase took place, in the same proportion did manufacturing industry become apparently moralised. The competition of manufacturer against manufacturer by means of petty thefts upon the workpeople did no longer pay. Trade had outgrown such low means of making money; they were not worth while practising for the manufacturing millionaire, and served merely to keep alive the competition of smaller traders, thankful to pick up a penny wherever they could. Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten Hours’ Bill( was enacted, and a number of other secondary reforms introduced — much against the spirit of Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favour of the giant-capitalist in his competition with his less favoured brother. Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number of hands, the greater the loss and inconvenience caused by every conflict between master and men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades’ Unions, and finally even to discover in strikes — at opportune times — a powerful means to serve their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony. And for a very good reason. The fact is that all these concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to accelerate the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, for whom the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost all importance and had become actual nuisances; and to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites. Thus the development of production on the basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed — at least in the leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from being the case — to do away with all those minor grievances which aggravated the workman’s fate during its earlier stages.”

(Preface to the English Edition of “The Condition of the Working Class in England)

This victory of large-scale, industrial capital, which, in the second half of the 19th century is inevitably socialised capital, and inextricably linked to the state, forms the material basis for the ideology of social-democracy, which replaces the earlier liberal democracy. But, the ideas upon which it is based, of a coincidence of interests between capital and labour, were to be found at the start of the 19th century, in the economics of Ricardo, but, also, in the ideas of the Utopian Socialists, such as Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen. Indeed, Owen was the precursor of the later “functioning capitalist”, the day to day professional manager, that replaces the private capitalist owners. Social-democracy simply reflects in the realm of ideas this change in material conditions, represented by the dominance of socialised capital.

“At this time, however, the capitalist mode of production, and with it the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed. industry, which had just arisen in England, was still unknown in France. But on the one hand large-scale industry promotes, the conflicts which make a revolution in the mode of production [and the abolition of its capitalist character] absolutely necessary - conflicts not only between the classes begotten of it, but also between precisely the productive forces and the forms of exchange created by it. On the other hand, it is in these gigantic productive forces themselves that it promotes the means of resolving these conflicts.” (p 329)

The sentiments expressed, here, are those expressed, also, in Capital III, Chapter 27, in relation to the development of large-scale, socialised capital, as a progressive and transitional form of property, a transition period within the confines of a continuation of capital and capitalist production, but in which its capitalist character is dissolved.

“2) The capital, which in itself rests on a social mode of production and presupposes a social concentration of means of production and labour-power, is here directly endowed with the form of social capital (capital of directly associated individuals) as distinct from private capital, and its undertakings assume the form of social undertakings as distinct from private undertakings. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of capitalist production itself.

3) Transformation of the actually functioning capitalist into a mere manager, administrator of other people's capital, and of the owner of capital into a mere owner, a mere money-capitalist. Even if the dividends which they receive include the interest and the profit of enterprise, i.e., the total profit (for the salary of the manager is, or should be, simply the wage of a specific type of skilled labour, whose price is regulated in the labour-market like that of any other labour), this total profit is henceforth received only in the form of interest, i.e., as mere compensation for owning capital that now is entirely divorced from the function in the actual process of reproduction, just as this function in the person of the manager is divorced from ownership of capital.”

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Anti-Duhring, Part III – Socialism, I – Historical - Part 2

Everywhere, that was the case. In Britain, the period after The Glorious Revolution was a period of Liberal Democracy, in which the greatest freedom was the freedom of property. Only those with property had the right to vote, under a regime that was a model for the kind of benevolent despotism described by the Classical Liberals, like Lord Acton, admired so much by the 20th century Libertarians such as Hayek. The protected home market, together with the expansion of the colonial empire, gave a spur to domestic industry, and leads to the Industrial Revolution. But it, in turn, accelerates the competition amongst the domestic producers, and incentivized production on a larger scale, expropriating not only the former small producers, but also the small capitalists themselves. As industrial production increases, its demands for agricultural products rises sharply, and the old feudal agriculture cannot meet its needs. Agriculture must become larger-scale, and capitalist itself, resulting in land clearances, enclosures and so on.

The same was true in France. The bourgeois revolution carried through the agrarian revolution, breaking up the old landed estates, and distributing land to the peasants. But, now, those peasants were drawn into commodity production and increasing competition with each other. They took on loans and mortgages to improve their farms, to be more competitive, and found, now, as Marx sets out in The Eighteenth Brumaire, that they had exchanged exploitation at the hands of the landlords to an even more onerous exploitation at the hands of money-lenders.

In Russia, The Emancipation of The Serfs, had the same result, as, in order to pay the loans to cover the redemption payments, etc., they had to engage in commodity production and increasing competition between themselves, leading to an accelerated differentiation into winners and losers, bourgeois and proletarians.

The likes of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement, sought to resist the inevitable progress towards large-scale industrial production, by promoting the old, skilled artisan production. But, such production is, inevitably, inefficient, and its products, thereby, costly. It can form a niche market for the affluent, middle-class, but their affluence and ability to engage in such consumption is, itself, only possible because of the wealth created by the large-scale capitalist production they look down their noses at.

Proudhon put forward similar ideas in France, and the Narodniks did, in Russia. But, as Marx set out against Proudhon, and Lenin set out against the Narodniks, for all of their intentions to resist that inevitable, and progressive, forward march of history, their proposals to foster the development of the small producer/petty-bourgeoisie only further led to the advance of that large-scale production. The greater the mass of those small producers, the greater the ferocity of the competition between them, the more miserable their condition – a miserable condition they only lessen by even more cruelly exploiting any workers they employed – and the more subordinated they are to to the dominance of the large-scale producers. The more, indeed, does their condition deteriorate, even compared to that of the workers employed by large-scale capital.

Engels sets out the conditions pertaining in that initial period of Liberal Democracy, and rampant free market competition, idealised by the petty-bourgeois Libertarians, in which, today, we see it demanded that workers cannot be paid even a living wage, if their small business employers are to exist, as though the latter have some natural right to exist.

“The rapid growth of industry on a capitalistic basis raised the poverty and misery of the working masses to a condition of existence of society. (Cash payment increasingly became, in Carlyle's phrase, the sole social nexus.) The number of crimes increased from year to year. Though not eradicated, the feudal vices which had previously been flaunted in broad daylight were now at any rate thrust into the background. In their stead, the bourgeois vices, hitherto nursed in secret, began to blossom all the more luxuriantly. Trade developed more and more into swindling. The “fraternity” of the revolutionary slogan was realized in the chicanery and envy of the battle of competition. Oppression by force was replaced by corruption; the sword, as the prime social lever, by money. “The right of the first night” passed from the feudal lords to the bourgeois manufacturers. Prostitution assumed hitherto unheard of proportions. Marriage itself remained as before the legally recognised form, the official cloak of prostitution, and, moreover, was copiously supplemented by adultery.” (p 328-9)

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SNNS 41

 

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 11

Britain was drawn into the EEC/EU, precisely because of these objective laws of history and material conditions. The conditions which had enabled it to become the foremost mercantile power, replacing the Netherlands, in the 17th century, and to become the hegemonic industrial power, in the 19th century, a manifestation of that law of combined and uneven development, had dissipated by the 1970's. Indeed, for much of the twentieth century that process of relative decline was underway, and accelerating.

Although, the mythology, itself clung to by the petty-bourgeois nationalists, persists that it was Britain that won the war of 1939-45, the reality is far different. A resurgent German imperialism again sought to assert its leading role in the formation of a single European state, just as it had done in 1914-18. Indeed, despite all of the moralistic nonsense, about the 1939-45, European war, being about a fight of democracy against fascism, it was really just a continuation of the unresolved contradictions of the 1914-18 war. What is more, that resurgent German imperialism was not going to be stopped by a relatively declining British imperialism.

Sections of the British ruling-class knew it. Some sought to appease German imperialism, having already, in the 1920's, welcomed the coming to power of Mussolini in Italy, and, in the early 1930's, Hitler in Germany, as a means of quelling a rising working-class, and its bulwark, the USSR. It sought to divert the gaze of German imperialism East, towards war with the USSR, as it had done several times in the past. During the 1930's, it was just as likely that Britain might have allied with Nazi Germany against the USSR, as that it would ally with France, and later the USSR, against Germany.

Much to the chagrin of France, Britain agreed the Anglo-German, naval pact in 1935, enabling Nazi Germany to rebuild its navy beyond the limits set by the Versailles Treaty. Britain, still the dominant, but declining, power in Europe, undoubtedly saw a war between Germany and the USSR as to its advantage. That was not just for the reason set out above, especially with the prospect of Japanese imperialism nibbling at the USSR in the Pacific, following its advances in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, opening the possibility of a return to the wars of intervention that followed the 1917 Revolution. It would, also, drain German imperialism, in such a war, where it would bear the brunt of the fighting, giving British imperialism a breathing space, and the ability to continue to exploit its colonial empire for a while longer, largely unhindered.

Of course, that was not in France's interest. Nor, indeed, the longer term interest of Germany. In the era of imperialism, based on the creation of surplus value by industrial capital, as opposed to the era of colonialism, based on the realisation of profits from unequal exchange, the focus of capital shifts from the search for cheap primary products to pillage, and protected markets, to sell into, to the need to expand the size of the domestic market, to create multinational states. That was what European history had come down to in the century prior to WWII, and its necessity became all the greater, as the fundamental contradictions sharpened.

In the absence of an ability of the existing imperialist nation states in Europe being able to peacefully come together to create such a multinational European state, its creation, inevitably came down, again, to the continuation of politics by other means – the forcible creation of such a state under the dominance of the most powerful state. France, suffered from a similar weakness as Britain – a flabbiness that came from a long reliance on robbing its colonies via unequal exchange. Germany, which had few such colonies, had, from the start, to rely more on the development of its own large-scale industrial capital, and it was that which made it the most dynamic industrial power in Europe.

When World War came out of its phoney war stage, it was that, which enabled German imperialism to quickly dispose of the flabby old, colonial powers of France and Britain, rolling over France, in short order, and, likewise, expelling the British forces in the embarrassing defeat at Dunkirk, which, in turn, left Britain, isolated and effectively defeated, by 1940.

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