This
weekend, and over the last few days, the Tory media have stepped up
their attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party he leads. In
part, it is because of a desire immediately to get support for
Cameron's warmongering plans for bombing Syria. After all, nothing
sells newspapers, or fills the ratings of vacuous 24 hours News
Channels, better than a good old war, is there? In part, though, it
also the other way round. The issue of Syria and the bombing
thereof, also presnts the Tory media with an opportunity to play up
the divisions between Corbyn's, Labour Party, which voted decisively
and clearly just a couple of months ago against bombing, and the
remnants of the Blair-right Parliamentary Labour Party, which still
has not accepted that it has been consigned to the dustbin of
history.
The issue of
Syria is actually a good proxy for the problem that faces the
Blair-rights, and others who for the last 30 years have occupied the
same political centre ground. In both cases, it revolves around the
same attempt to see the potential for any political regime to exist
separate from the reality of the underlying social forces, and social
relations in society.
There is a
simple reason that the repeated attempts at liberal intervention in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have failed. It is the same
reason that these societies had the political regimes they already
had, usually of some form of Bonapartism. It is that in these
societies industrial capitalism had not developed to such a stage,
whereby the economy could sustain a modern bourgeois social
democracy, and in the modern world bourgeois democracy can only take
a stable form as a social democracy, in which a large working-class
is incorporated, via a universal franchise, in which a large middle
class, and bureaucracy based upon socialised capital, acts as a
mediating force, and where developed means of production based upon
that socialised capital, is sufficiently productive to ensure a
minimum standard of living for the working-class, along with
generally rising standards of living, and social protection.
When those
things are absent, as they were in Britain and other parts of Europe
until the latter half of the 19th century, bourgeois
social democracy is not possible, and so the capitalist polity, the
political regime, takes the form of Bonapartism, and within that
category, we could also include the type of bourgeois liberal
democracy that existed in those societies prior to that period, when
the workers were denied the vote, and where the bourgeoisie, along
with the landed class, exercised their rule, on the basis of repeated
use of violence by its state, to suppress the workers, who had no
other form of political response other than violent opposition.
That
Bonapartism is, in fact, the means by which the means of production
are developed to such an extent that social democracy becomes
possible, which is why, however repulsive some of these regimes might
be – and the political regime in Britain, where laws existed that
allowed the unemployed to be branded, and taken as slaves existed up
until the latter part of the 19th century, was itself pretty
repulsive – considered from the Marxist perspective of what is
objectively, historically progressive, they meet that criteria.
Trying to impose bourgeois social democracies upon such societies
when these material conditions do not exist, is not just utopian, and
subjectivist moralism, but it is dangerous folly, because the
inevitable consequence must be that the political regime collapses
for lack of the necessary social underpinning, and leads to chaos and
reaction within the society itself.
That is what
has happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Cameron is
ludicrously suggesting that he has a plan for Syria, based upon the
idea that ISIS can be bombed out of existence, and that a moderate,
non-sectarian government can then be installed, so that everything
will be sweetness and light. But, of course, not only has recent
history shown that bombing alone will not destroy ISIS, but his idea
that this moderate government is somehow going to be magicked out of
thin air, is not even believed by many of his own MP's, and still
less by any serious analyst that has looked at the country. The only
people who purvey that nonsense, as was the case with politicians
like Chalabi in Iraq, or the the Libyan National Council in Libya,
are the handful of professional bourgeois politicians in those
countries, who actually lack any meaningful social support, and who
need western intervention to replace that support, and put them in
office by military power. In other words, it is just a different
Bonapartist regime, disguised as liberal democracy. As soon as that
external military support disappears, the reality imposes itself, and
those regimes collapse.
But, in
fact, a similar process has happened across the existing bourgeois
social democracies too. Greece is a perfect example. For the last
30 years, the locus of the political centre has shifted to the right.
That itself was a function of changed economic and social relations
during that period. In the mid 1970's, the long wave boom that had
run since around 1949, came to an end. That boom had been the basis
of a rapid accumulation of socialised capital, upon which was based a
strengthening of social democracy.
When that
boom came to an end, there was a choice. Either the representatives
of that socialised capital, would assert its primacy, and take
measures to deal with the need to restructure, and renovate the
productive relations, which would have required further inroads into
the power and influence of the owners of fictitious capital, or else
the latter would assert their interests, at the expense of a growth
of real capital.
In the end,
the latter won, and the representatives of socialised capital, and
social democracy were thrown backwards. The interests of the owners
of fictitious capital were furthered by money printing, and lax
credit regulations, to cause bubbles in the prices of shares, bonds
and property. The political representatives of that fictitious
capital, were thereby strengthened, and so conservative regimes were
established across Europe and North America, and along with it the
professional politicians in the existing social democratic parties
themselves adopted more conservative ideas.
It is that
consensus between these professional politicians of all main parties,
and the social milieu of journalists, and so on around them, which
has defined the political centre during that period. But, that
political centre existed on the basis of very definite economic and
social conditions that arose during that time. Those conditions were
themselves necessarily time limited. It is only possible to keep
inflating asset prices bubbles for so long, before they burst, and
those that exist are bigger than ever and more likely to burst than
ever. And the other side of those asset prices is massive amounts of
debt.
When the
state attempts to pay off its own debts, as in Greece, and elsewhere
by austerity, then it also reaches a point where that is no longer
viable. Not only does the economy shrink, and become less
productive, thereby undermining the potential to pay off the debt,
but there is a limit to how much can be screwed out of workers to
cover those debts too. Trying to overcome this by the old methods,
of yet more debt, of “extend and pretend”, only exacerbates the
problem, as Greece demonstrated, and which is why Varoufakis and
Syriza were correct to have initially rejected that non-solution, of
simply covering the existing debts, by further loans from the EU and
ECB etc.
The only
solution for Greece, as elsewhere, was to write off the debt, which
means when applied generally a massive fall in stock, bond and
property markets, destroying the fictitious paper wealth of all of
the bond, share and property owners, in order to promote the real
wealth creating power of society. But, of course, the current
political centre could not promote such a policy, because it is
precisely on the ground of inflating the prices of fictitious capital
that it has rested and grown for the last thirty years, and it is to
the social forces that depend on that, on which its own political
fortunes depends.
The
political centre wants to continue in the old way, but the economic
and social reality makes it impossible, as Greece, and elsewhere has
shown, and the more the parties of that political centre attempt to
continue in the old way, the more they ensure its collapse. That is
why, in Greece, that political centre collapsed, PASOK was destroyed
and the same was true of the centre-right. It is what led to the
creation of Syriza, not really as the kind of far-left, or
revolutionary party it has been described as, but only really as the
kind of social-democratic party that Labour, or the German SPD
represented in the 1960's, and 70's. Syriza, Podemos, and Corbyn's
Labour Party do not represent some kind of new radical left
formation, but only demonstrate the extent to which traditional
social democracy had been undermined, and shifted to the right over
the last 30 years.
Syriza,
Corbyn, Podemos and other formations across Europe, as well as
Sanders in the US only indicate the nature to which the underlying
social relations has caused a shift of where the political centre now
needs to be. The destruction of those parties of the political
centre across Europe, also symbolised by the Liberals in the UK,
which are a physical manifestation of that political centre, is the
necessary consequence.
And that is
why the hope of the Blair-rights, and of the Tory media that those
elements in the PLP can simply ignore the social reality and organise
a coup against Corbyn and the Labour Party is simply wishful
thinking. They first hoped that after Corbyn's election as Leader,
that a large number of Blair-rights would leave as the SDP did in
1981. They did not leave, because they knew it would be political
suicide. It would be to follow the Liberals into oblivion. Nor can
they anymore leave today than two months ago, for the same reason.
Odious
eulogists for Blair, such as John McTiernan continue to hope that
some sort of coup will be organised, but that is just as unlikely.
Those Blair-right MP's, who are seeking to override the democratic
decisions of the Labour Party by seeking to organise a coup against
Corbyn, and seek legal support to prevent him standing in any
subsequent election, are already guilty of bringing the Party into
disrepute. By plotting such a coup, they are acting as a party
within a party, and such be expelled from the Party forthwith, by the
NEC. It is also up to the party members to bring to heel any MP's
who give succour to such thoughts.
But, let us
assume that a handful of MP's launched such a coup against Corbyn, an
that the bosses' courts backed them up in preventing Corbyn from
taking part in such an election. What would be the consequence?
Firstly, it means that Corbyn and his supporters, as I suggested some
time ago, should organise an Emergency Rules Conference to ensure
that the Party's rules are changed for election of the Leader, to
prevent such a challenge. The PLP should have no more greater right
in nominating candidates then any other party member. That is what
One Member One Vote should really mean.
Secondly, it
would mean that CLP's would be infuriated that MP's should take such
a callous, undemocratic attitude towards their own party members, so
that those MP's would be told to nominate Corbyn, or be threatened
with their own deselection. Thirdly, Corbyn, and his supporters
would use the party machinery to themselves challenge any such ruling
in the courts, delaying any such election for months, during which
time there would be civil war inside the party, with large numbers of
MP's being put under daily pressure and facing deselection, which
currently they do not.
Thirdly,
even if all that failed to stop Corbyn retaining his position, the
Blair-rights would have won nothing. The Party would not split as
much see the Blair-rights within the PLP, fly off as a spark that
would burn brightly for a fraction of a second, before dying out. As
against the real Labour Party, of half a million members, with all of
the trades union movement standing behind it, the Blir-rights would
have a party comprising just a couple of hundred members who
temporarily were MP's, and a small portion of party members who might
follow them into oblivion.
The vast
majority of members who already support Corbyn would be joined by
others, who would be disgusted at the extent to which a handful of
MP's put themselves above the party, and undermined its opposition to
the Tories at a vital moment. The party has already seen the return
of trades unions that left because of the dominance of the
Blair-rights. The reality would be that the Blair-right MP's would
be rather like the Tory MP Mark Reckless, who held his seat as a
UKIPPER only for a few months until the election brought appearance
into alignment with reality. They would have given their political
careers a definite and short duration by their actions, as the real
Labour Party, whatever name legalities might cause it to have to
assume, would simply eclipse them, at every subsequent election.
That is why
they have not split before now, it is why they are unlikely to split
in future, and why any attempt at a coup against Corbyn would be a
disaster for them, and so why they are unlikely to attempt it.
But, for
that very reason, Corbyn and the party should not cause confusion
over Syria, by giving these Balir-right wreckers, and their party
within a party the opportunity to defy party policy with a free vote.
Unlike Trident, the party's policy over Syria is clear, and past
experience dictates why Labour should not support an attack on Syria.
There should be a whipped vote, imposed by Corbyn in line with party
policy, and if that means some Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers decide
to walk, so be it. We could probably do with a smaller, more select
and cohesive Shadow Cabinet anyway, alongside a much greater role for
the party itself in providing policy support for the Leader.
We have to
end the undemocratic, and elitist privileging of MP's over other
party members, and now is the opportune time to do it.
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