Of course, the party leadership will say that the Conference itself voted not to prioritise a vote on Brexit, but that is the same kind of dissembling nonsense that Blair and Brown used to engage in. The fact, is that Brexit is the single most important issue facing the country, and facing the Labour Movement at the present time. It should not have been a matter of requiring a priority vote, and everyone knows that the leadership used its position, and used Momentum to get it de-prioritised!
65% of Labour voters voted Remain, and yet the party is set to ignore the views of this huge majority of its supporters, and to follow the Tories into a Brexit that will damage workers' interests. An even larger proportion of Labour members, and particularly of all those young, new members that have entered the party, and brought Corbyn to power, oppose Brexit, and all of the racist, xenophobic, nationalistic and bigoted views that goes with it. The Labour left seems set on self-destruction, and to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once more, because it is leaving the door open for the Blair-rights, and the Liberals to be the channel for the progressive voices of those young members, whereas it should be the voice of international socialism that sings most loudly to them.
At the last election, I correctly predicted that the Liberals, who are a proxy for the ideas of Blairism, would fail to make any impact, because the ideas they present are now not relevant to the current global economic conditions. Labour won over a large number of voters, particularly young voters, because it offered something new, more relevant to today's global economic and social conditions, and most significantly, although it stood nominally on the ground of accepting the EU referendum result, it was the only realistic option for opposing the hard Brexit position of the Tories. But, there is an elastic that can only be stretched so far here.
The reason that the Blair-rights offer no real alternative is that the current economic and social conditions mean that the practical solutions fall into two completely opposing camps. Either, real capital will be reorganised by an authoritarian nationalist regime, or it will be reorganised on a progressive basis, across the EU, and these options apply in suitably adjusted forms across the globe. Real capital must be reorganised for the simple reason that for the last thirty years, economies have been run to meet the short-term interests of fictitious capital, to maximise interest payments, by progressively increasing dividends at the expense of reinvested profits, and to inflate asset prices, such as shares, bonds, and property (and all the derivatives thereof), rather than promoting economic growth. The potential for that has come to an end. The warning shocks for it came with the financial and property crises of 1987,1990, 2000, 2008 and 2010.
As profits, interest payments, and rent continued to increase, but these revenues were encouraged into financial speculation rather than accumulation of real capital, by central bank policies to provide guaranteed capital gains on those assets, the growth of profits was inevitably going to be outstripped by these rising asset prices, so that even with higher levels of dividends, and rent, these revenues represented progressively lower yields. The effect of central bank policies of QE, has been to reduce the yield on government bonds in the EU to near and often below zero, even for those countries like Spain that were embroiled in the Eurozone Debt Crisis of 2010. Across the globe that is the picture for these central bank guaranteed assets, whilst by contrast we see smaller companies unable to obtain loans, or facing high levels of interest to borrow, and we see individuals facing 30% interest on their credit cards, and 4000% interest on their payday loans! That process of driving economic policy on the basis of inflating asset prices to ever higher levels, the other side of which is the build up of ever higher levels of private debt is unsustainable, and will not be sustained. The bubbles will have to burst, the debt will have to be written off.
But, that means that real capital must again take centre stage. All of the money that went into speculation in shares and bonds, that went into Buy To Let property, or even just of people feeling they had to buy a house to “get on the property ladder” before prices went higher (a clear indication of every bubble in the past, going back to the Tulipmania) will run from such speculation as fast as it can. Many will feel they never want to get into such activity ever again, as has happened when every previous bubble has burst, and left people who thought they were rich with nothing but worthless bits of paper or property. That money, running from such speculation, will need to be channelled into the accumulation of real capital, if the conditions are to be created in which real surpluses are created capable of paying sustainable levels of interest and so on, and enabling further accumulation of capital.
But, in the modern world, the only rational basis for such a reorganisation of capital, of creating the conditions in which infrastructure is put in place, and capital is allocated on a rational basis, is one that is larger than the existing nation state, certainly larger than the puny individual nation states of Europe, including Britain. That is why the EU was created in the first place. It is why even large national economies such as the US have found it necessary to create economic blocs like NAFTA, why South American countries created Mercosur, and similar economic blocs have been created in Asia, and now in Africa. Brexit is a reactionary throwback that has its eyes set on the past, and is an attempt to swim against the tide of history, an activity that others have tried in the past with disastrous consequences.
A progressive social-democracy could reorganise capital on an EU basis. It would work to undermine the power of interest-bearing, fictitious capital, by changing corporate governance laws, so as to remove the unwarranted power of shareholders, and by increasing industrial democracy; it would reverse the policies of austerity that have been implemented by conservative governments, and begin instead to institute a programme of investment in infrastructure renewal, and so on. It would also create the conditions for productive-capital to operate on the basis of optimum sized units across the EU, whilst organising programmes of re-training and so on for workers made redundant from those plants that were closed down as part of such a rationalisation. It would necessarily involve the removal of all those barriers to free movement of labour within the EU, so that workers were not only retrained, but able to move easily from one country to another, with all of the same rights and benefits absolutely guaranteed for them and their families.
Such a reorganisation is not a socialist solution. A Socialist solution involves the workers not only taking direct control themselves of the means of production, but also beginning to organise production not on the basis of capitalist production geared to the maximisation of surplus value/profit, but the maximisation of production of use values, of the actual goods and services that every citizen requires, and increasingly to co-ordinate and plan that production in an integrated, and rational manner, via a democratic planning process. As Marx said, the socialised capital of the co-operative and joint stock company is a transitional form of property between capitalism and socialism, and social-democracy as the political reflection of that transitional form of property occupies a similar role. But, we are some way from convincing the majority of workers of the need for that yet. What is certain is that neither is possible on a national basis, the EU is the minimum size of economic and political unit within which such a programme could be effected.
The alternative is that capital is reorganised within the bounds of the nation state. That is the programme that Trump is advocating; that Le Pen advocated; Wilders, the AfD, as well as Farage, and sections of the Tory Party. Unfortunately, it is still the ideal of not only the irrelevant Stalinists of the Communist Party, but also of the wider layers of the Labour Left that have been influenced by them in the past, in programmes such as the Alternative Economic Strategy. But, such nationalist economic strategies all have one thing in common, they all imply a severe reduction in the living standards of the working-class. That is the immediate consequence of being cut-off, even in part, from international trade and capital. The consequence of that is that in order to push through the policies, and to beat down the opposition of all those who suffer from the lower living standards, the government/regime has to become increasingly authoritarian. It is being seen again in Venezuela.
Nationalism has a necessarily reactionary logic and dynamic. It is what leads to the autarchic and authoritarian regimes of Kim in North Korea, of Hitler in Germany, of Stalin in Russia, and Mao in China. As the living standards of the workers begin to fall, the regime finds excuses for it. It seeks out scapegoats. For Kim the obvious scapegoat is the potential threat from South Korea and the US, for Hitler the Jews had already been such a scapegoat, but it was rapidly extended to the socialists, the trades unionists, communists, gypsies and homsosexuals. For Stalin, it was the Trotskyists, rapidly followed by the Bukharinists, and other “fascists” and saboteurs. The result was millions murdered by these various regimes, and many more millions dead as a result of the insane nationalist economic policies they adopted.
But, even in terms of economic policy the same kind of reactionary dynamic is set in place. The attempt to introduce national “socialist” policies of itself not only reduces living standards at home, but it leads to retaliation and a dislocation of economic relations that are vital even for capitalism let alone socialism. And, when those dislocations and retaliations occur, it means that the nationalist regimes do not admit their error, and reverse course, rather they double down on those errors and get driven even further into autarchy. What is more the adoption of those policies adds grist to the mill of nationalists in other countries, who say, “if country A can adopt import controls, or immigration controls, then we must do the same!”
A small indication of this process, has indeed been seen with the development of Labour's policy, and in its attempt to prevent discussion of Brexit at conference. We have gone from a situation where a year ago, Jeremy Corbyn and Dianne Abbott were clearly arguing against immigrants being blamed for Britain's ills, and insisting on the need for free movement to one where they are both now arguing for immigration controls, and an end to free movement. Yet, as Pete Firmin noted, in a contribution to the conference debate on referral back on Brexit, the most important issue is that of free movement; it is not the concern of being in or out of the single market or customs union uncritically, but of advancing the interests of workers across the EU, including Britain.
Of course, Corbyn and Abbott argue that they are not about blaming immigrants for Britain's problems, but Clive Lewis is quite right when he says that as soon as you start to talk about stopping free movement, as soon as you talk about supporting immigration controls (and the same applies to import controls) you are blaming immigrants and foreigners. It does become a nationalistic support for racism and xenophobia whatever good intentions you might have had to begin with. And the reason that Abbott and Corbyn and others have been led by that nationalistic dynamic into this support for ending free movement, and for immigration controls is precisely because of their acceptance of Brexit. They have failed to grasp the nettle of standing up to all of the bigotry that stood behind the Brexit vote, and they are now being dragged down into the abyss by it. That is why the leadership could not allow the issue to be debated democratically at conference.
We know what the consequence of Brexit will be. Even just with the Brexit vote there was an upsurge in racist attacks. A lot of EU citizens living in Britain are now feeling decidedly insecure, and for good reason. There has been a massive drop in the number of EU citizens coming to Britain, and many of those already here are looking to move back. With the EU economy growing much faster than the UK, especially in countries like Poland, that trend is likely to intensify. But, the treatment of EU citizens here, is likely to also create a backlash against British citizens living in the EU. The well is already being poisoned by this nationalist reaction, and this is only the start.
We have seen Moody's downgrade Britain's credit rating one again in the last few days. It is unlikely to be the last such downgrading. The UK economy, more than most has been built upon that illusion of debt, and massively inflated asset prices mentioned earlier. Its low level of productive investment, low wages and poor conditions have encouraged a lack of investment in productivity raising equipment, with the productivity of the UK, consequently lagging well behind that of France and other EU countries. The big investment banks and other financial institutions that have earned large amounts of foreign currency that has sustained much of the rest of the UK economy, are themselves quickly relocating to Frankfurt, Paris, and Dublin so as to remain inside the EU, and that will have a consequent effect on the UK economy. Many of the big foreign firms engaged in production will follow them.
Already UK inflation is rising sharply as the Pound sinks, and as it sinks further, inflation will spike higher, which along with the ever diminishing credit rating will push up UK borrowing costs, causing the existing asset price bubbles, particularly in property, to burst dramatically. What will be the response of the nationalists then? They will not admit their error, but will double down on it, spicing up their rhetoric against immigrants and other scapegoats. The Brexit bigots, perhaps we should call them Brigots, will see the collapsing NHS and public services not as a consequence of their decision to leave the EU, and the economic consequences of it, including the fact that EU workers are no longer available to provide those services, but will, as they do now, simply blame foreigners all the more.
We will see then exactly what lessons the Brexit supporters such as John Mann did learn from Nazi Germany. The Brigots having been appeased by such people, as well as by Corbyn, Abbott and co., will confidently extend their argument, in the same way that Hitler and the Nazis did, to demand not only an end to free movement, but the forced repatriation of all those foreigners that they claim are the cause of the problem.
The road for socialists and for progressive social-democracy does not lie down that road of appeasing the Brigots and Brexiteers, but of standing firm against them. Labour's current policy continues to be ambivalent and contradictory, in an attempt to appease those reactionary elements for electoral purposes. Even in that it is short-sighted. 65% of Labour voters voted Remain. In what way does it make sense to piss them off to appease the 35%? Even in those Labour constituencies that voted Leave, by the largest margin, the fact is that only a minority of Labour voters voted Leave, as John Curtice has shown in his analysis based on the British Electoral Survey. What Labour's leadership is actually doing is appeasing the reactionary supporters of other parties, who will not be won over to Labour. What Labour needs to do is to win over the progressive elements of that 35% of Tory voters who voted Remain, along with hoovering up all of the Remain voters who voted for the Greens, the SNP, Plaid and the Liberal Democrats.
At present, Labour is risking losing the support of that 80% of young people that back Remain and oppose Brexit along with all of the other brigotry that goes with it. It risks setting itself on a course that will drive it further away from progressive policies and into reactionary nationalist politics. Instead of providing a vision of hope and sunny uplands, it risks descending into a dark nationalist abyss. We do not need a more prolonged transition into that abyss, but a sharp reversal of course, away from it. We need a policy that loudly and confidently proposes an exit from Brexit, and a programme of international socialism.
No comments:
Post a Comment