Double Dip?

According to the Guardian today, the latest figures for the UK Services Sector, which now makes up the majority of the British economy, show that the chances of a Double Dip have increased. The figures were the worst for 13 months, and service sector companies were quite clear in blaming the Government's Budget Cuts for their problems, as Public Sector contracts start to get cancelled, and work begins to dry up. Yet, we are only weeks into the Liberal-Tory programme, and they have only dipped their toe into the bloodbath of cuts, so far.

Given that the Tories whole strategy was based on the lunatic idea that by cutting Public Spending the money would somehow miraculously find its way into investment by the private sector, who would create jobs and growth, this is bad news. That is especially true as the secondary element of that strategy was that growth would come from the biggest increase in exports the UK has ever known, at a time when manufacturing exports are also suffering as similarly minded right-wing populists in Europe, set about cratering the EU economy via a similar set of austerity measures, when the governments of booming Asian economies have tightened the screws to prevent the opposite danger of inflation, and the US recovery is also faltering with the danger of it suffering a liquidity trap, in which the Federal Reserve has ballooned its Balance Sheet by printing money, and buying Bonds, but the economy is still failing to respond leaving it with few monetary levers left to pull.

There does now seem to be a steady drip, drip of opposition to Government policies coming from the bourgeois media, which undoubtedly reflects the concern shown in section of the state apparatus about the dire consequences that could result from the implementation of Tory policies. The State and the Government are not the same thing, and good Marxist tactics involve recognising such divisions within the ruling class, and using them to our advantage. To the extent that sections of the State attempt to undermine the Tories policies, we should welcome it, and encourage it, whilst giving no ideological ground to them. In other words we should use the opportunity to set different sections of the ruling class against each other, whilst putting forward a clear socialist alternative. For now, cutting spending is not in workers interest because it will crater the economy, and workers will be left to pay the price for that. But, that does not mean that we should be in favour of a big Capitalist State, sitting on the workers chest. We should oppose the cuts, and privatisation, but workers need to argue for greater democracy of Public Services, focusing on building a struggle around that between workers in the State, and workers who receive its services rather than simply on an economistic struggle to save Public Sector workers pay and conditions, which could alienate workers in the private sector. The State is as much an arena of class struggle, in fact to some extent more so, than private enterprises. The State is the embodiment of ALL Capital, and so a struggle against it is a class struggle, whereas disputes within individual firms are merely sectional. But, a struggle "In and Against The State", is just as limited and reformist ultimately as those sectional struggles unless it is a final struggle for a Workers State. Capital will only grant modest forms of democracy within the State, and they will be as sham and constrained as bourgeois democracy itself. Real control, real democracy can only flow from ownership of the means of production. If workers want real control over Education, Health and every other aspect of their lives they have to take ownership of the Schools, the Hospitals and so on. To the extent they do that, then they should demand that their tax payments to the State be reduced so that they can finance these vital services themselves. The Government says it wants to simplify the benefits system to make it worth workers while working rather than being on benefits. Its means of doing that is of course, bureaucratic expensive, and oppressive. There is a simple answer they will not adopt. Introduce a statutory Minimum Wage of £10 an hour, and scrap all taxation on workers earning below that level!

The left needs to be thinking strategically to provide workers with new solutions. At the moment it continues to offer the same old failed formulas, and it is no wonder that workers are not responding, or to the extent they are, in fact are giving the Tories even more support. That too is a double edge sword, because it is mirrored by a collapse in Liberal support. That is another division in the ranks of the ruling class we should exploit. One aspect of Lenin's politics I do agree with, was his flexible tactics. We should forget his strategy, and think more about his tactics for now.