The Programme of the Early Comintern, and the Transitional Programme (11/18)
Paul confuses the Workers Government with the Popular Front, and again the Popular Front with the United Front. He wants to build such a Popular Front to oppose what he sees as the potential for similar developments to those of the 1920's and 30's, which saw the rise of fascism. He does not actually speak openly of such an alliance being to fight fascism, but proposes that the basis of this alliance should be that of opposing “neo-liberalism”. The basis of this seems to be an equation of neo-liberalism, as representing the interests of the big multinational companies and global financiers with the support for fascism by the financial oligarchy in that earlier period. But, its not clear exactly who then would comprise this alliance, because such neo-liberalism is the guiding ideology of the large majority of the PLP, and much of the LP establishment in the country. It is certainly the guiding ideology of the other “progressive” parties that Paul sees as potential allies, such as the Liberals, Greens, SNP, Plaid. They would undoubtedly deny it, but we should judge them by what they do not what they say.
Moreover, the equation of big capital and the financial oligarchy with fascism is itself facile. If this association were so straightforward, then why does not the former always seek to promote fascism, rather than preferring to operate via bourgeois democracy? Fascism represents the interests of the owners of fictitious capital, by seeking to prevent a forward movement in social development, towards Socialism, when such a development appears likely. No such movement currently appears likely, and so the owners of fictitious-capital have no need of fascism from that perspective. The bigger threat to the owners of fictitious-capital, currently, comes from the opposite direction. The failure of socialists and of progressive social-democrats to push forward social development, even within the bounds of capitalism, by transforming the political and juridical relations, in line with the material productive and social relations, means that it hit a roadblock. 2008 was its clearest manifestation to date.
The failure to transform the EU into a functioning European state, is a manifestation of that. The fact that there has been a failure to implement even the limited proposals on industrial democracy put forward by the EU, and by the Bullock Report in the 1970's, is another. It has meant that the owners of fictitious capital continued to exercise control over real socialised capital. But, their short-term interests in maximising revenue from interest/dividends, and and nominal wealth from capital gains, is inimical to the interests of real socialised capital, and, thereby, also to their own long-term interests. When in the 1990's, the drive for ever higher asset prices, inflated by the action of central banks, led to ever falling yields on those assets, they sought to compensate by continually increasing the proportion of profits devoted to dividends/interest, so that less was devoted to real capital accumulation. According to Andy Haldane at the Bank of England, in the 1970's, dividends accounted for about 10% of profits whereas today they account for around 70%. As Marx pointed out 150 years ago, in this relation, the interests of this fictitious-capital, the interests of the owners of interest-bearing capital are diametrically opposed to the interests of real capital for this very reason.
In the 1980's and after, this failure of progressive social-democracy to move forward led to conservative social-democracy (neo-liberalism) filling the void. But, it had no way forward, and that led, in turn, to an increased support for reaction, for the interests of the small capitalists, and all those who sought to turn the clock back to an earlier version of less mature forms of capital, whose interests are represented by the Libertarians, the Moggites, Miseans, Brexiteers and so on. It is actually those elements that currently pose a bigger threat to multinational capital, and the owners of fictitious capital, not the proletariat and Socialism. If the owners of fictitious-capital need to resort to some form of Bonapartism today, it is not fascism they require, which is specifically aimed at the physical destruction of the labour movement, but something more akin to the role of Cromwell or Napoleon I. In other words a Bonapartism whose aim is to prevent not a further forward movement, but to prevent a move backwards, to prevent a social counter-revolution. In that sense, and that sense alone, even such a regime would be historically progressive, compared to the alternative.
A look at current political reality rather than trying to fit current reality into the boxes of the 1920's/30's, shows that it is the representatives of that reaction, those that represent the interests of the plethora of small capitals, of the white van man, of the attempts to turn back social developments, such as represented by the EU, that are mobilising all of the tools of fascism, and not surprisingly, because fascism itself also always uses these elements as its initial footsoldiers in order to defeat the workers. But, today, unlike the 1920's/30's, when the fascists did so on the basis also of an “anti-capitalist programme” required to draw in the petty-bourgeoisie, only in order to defeat the workers, it is the petty-bourgeoisie that is organising with the sole purpose of actually defeating large-scale capital. There is no reason whatsoever why multinational capital or the owners of fictitious capital should seek such a development and they don't! They have used their chosen tools – their entrenched power in the state – to oppose it, as I wrote a few months ago. They have used the courts to restrict the ability of government to push through Brexit without parliamentary approval, they used the inbuilt conservative social-democratic majority in parliament to frustrate it further. They have undoubtedly used the permanent state machinery to slow down and frustrate the Brexit process and so on. Similar measures have been used in the US against Trump who represents the same reactionary interests as the Brexiteers in Britain.
If Paul were consistent, and wanted to form a real Popular Front against reaction, then he would not make “anti neo-liberalism” the basis of any such alliance, but would indeed propose an alliance with those very neo-liberal forces in order to defeat the actual forces of reaction! Instead, rather like the reactionary “anti-capitalists” and “anti-imperialists” who seek to oppose capitalism and imperialism by allying with more reactionary petty-bourgeois forces, purely on the basis of their own proclaimed “anti-capitalism” or “anti-imperialism”, Paul also makes the touchstone “anti neo-liberalism”, and so aligns with even more reactionary forces on that basis, accepting the reactionary agenda of Brexit, and end to free movement and so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment