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.”

Back To Part 2

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)

Back To Part 1

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.

Back To Part 10

SNNS 40

 

The Hypocrisy of NATO's Illegal War On Iran - Part 10

In the post-war period, US imperialism had an incentive to encourage the dominant nation states in Europe to achieve this task of creating a multinational EU state without further wars between them. After all, US multinational corporations now operated globally, particularly in Europe, and benefited from that same level playing field of a European single-market. It similarly benefited from a creation of such a single market in the Asia-Pacific Region, under the dominance of its new ally Japan, where, again, US multinationals operated.

This was not the same as having its own single-market, because each of these large, new blocs had their own historic development, and so their own existing sets of rules and standards to be harmonised. But, at least, a US corporation operating in the EU, or in Japan, would operate on the same level playing field as every other capital operating there. In so far as the need to expand trade between these blocs, that was the role of the new international bodies set up after WWII, such as GATT/WTO, IMF, World Bank and so on.

The determinant, as I have set out, elsewhere, of where this multinational, industrial capital invested, is the stage of national economic development. Economies, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, as well as South Korea, were already adequate to support the investment of large-scale industrial capital. Similarly, imperialist capital had little reason to invest in large parts of Africa, because it lacked sufficient development of its infrastructure and so on. The role of Africa and the Middle-East, as with much of Latin America, after WWII, remained, for a long-time, solely as a source for primary products, and export market for manufactured goods. But, as Trotsky noted, the process of combined and uneven development, proceeds at an accelerated pace.

“The law of uneven development of capitalism is older than imperialism. Capitalism is developing very unevenly today in the various countries. But in the nineteenth century this unevenness was greater than in the twentieth. At that time England was lord of the world, while Japan on the other hand was a feudal state closely confined within its own limits. At the time when serfdom was abolished among us, Japan began to adapt itself to capitalist civilization. China was, however, still wrapped in the deepest slumber. And so forth. At that time the unevenness of capitalist development was greater than now. Those unevennesses were as well known to Marx and Engels as they are to us. Imperialism has developed a more “levelling tendency” than pre-imperialist capitalism, for the reason that finance capital is the most elastic form of capital.”

(Speech To The Fifteenth Congress)

In the developed, imperialist economies, this process, in the 1980's, also, in part, driven by the crisis of overproduction of capital in relation to labour, and need, therefore, to seek out new global supplies of exploitable labour-power, led to a relative decline in those economies, and rise in some of those new industrialising economies such as the Asian Tigers. In the old imperialist economies, that same process of slower capital accumulation, and falling interest rates, in the 1980's, and its attendant rise in unemployed labour, led to the void being filled by small capitals – the return of the petty-bourgeoisie.

The petty-bourgeoisie has grown by 50% since the end of the 1970's. That fact played a significant role in the transformation of the main bourgeois parties - Conservative and Labour in Britain, for example – from being conservative social-democratic parties, into being reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist parties, as well as the rise of new, overtly reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist parties, such as Reform. Trump represents the same trend in the US. The reactionary, utopian nature of that trend, in respect to Europe, is clear, that it seeks a return to the global competition between small nation states in an era in which that competition has become one of huge, continental sized, multi-national states.  It is the idiocy of Brexit.

Back To Part 9

Forward To Part 11