Lessons For The Left
Lesson 8 – Programme and Politics (ii)
The fetishisation of winning elections, as against the building of a principled movement and party of the Left, leaves Paul chasing rainbows, and as he does so, his politics and programme are led ever further astray.
He says,
“The scale of slump, and the money already spent and borrowed, could open the door to a permanent change in the economic model in a way the 2008 crisis did not — if the left can seize the opportunity.”
True, but the question is how, and its not on the basis of Starmer, or a Popular Front with the centre.
He says,
“If you are tempted to leave the party, thinking a new, pristine left one could replace it: that is exactly what the elite and their allies want. In addition, the serious differences on the left — over “identity politics”, Brexit and increasingly human rights in China — would blow any such party into two fragments immediately.”
That is correct, but it doesn't remove the task of fighting out those issues too. In reality, I doubt that these differences amount to blowing the party into two. The Stalinoid influences – in which I include the various fragments of the SWP, as well as the SPEW outside the Labour Party– are really not that huge, its just that they carry with them an established heritage and organisation. I suspect that out of the half million Labour members, it is the 90% that continue to oppose Brexit that are more representative.
The starting point must be socialist internationalism, and all the values that go with it. Socialist internationalism is based upon the analysis that the working-class is a global class. The foundations of our values, therefore, are class, solidarity and internationalism, the building of the greatest class solidarity across borders. All of our politics and programme should be founded upon that. It is why, Marx and Engels put so much effort into building the First International, and, indeed, it has been the failure to build such an effective organisation that explains the failure of the working-class to make real progress in over a century, whilst capital has become global, and the ruling class has become an effective global ruling class, establishing its own global para state bodies, and allocating capital freely across the globe to optimise its returns, and strengthen its rule.
The last thing that the Left should do now is to liquidate its politics and programme, simply in search of an illusory electoral alliance for the limited purpose of an ephemeral election victory. The values that Paul puts forward in order to try to win over voters to this alliance are vague and meaningless. They are idealistic pious wishes, not grounded in reality.
He says,
“Social justice can be the unifying idea.”
This is the equivalent of the calls for “fairness” and “morality” that the petty-bourgeoisie promoted, and that Marx ridiculed. The concept “social justice” is vacuous and meaningless. Its simply moralism, unrelated to reality. To ask for social justice is liking demanding a “Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work”, or demanding that workers receive the full fruits of their labour. If it were to mean anything at all, it would mean the negation of capitalism itself, and so is the equivalent of an ultimatistic demand for Socialism Now. But, in reality, it will be interpreted as meaning that greedy workers should not ask for too high wages, so that the less fortunate should have a piece of the pie too, because we are "all in it together." Its seen in the opposition to “gold plated public sector pensions”, in the naïve belief that because some workers have lost decent pensions all workers should accept that same condition.
Then having gone from these vague pious wishes, Paul is led further down that path. He says,
“Just as important as what’s in the narrative is what’s not in it. I wouldn’t propose an alternative budget with billions attached to each line. You may need that at election time but it does not need to be central now.”
But that was partly where Labour failed in 2019. They had all those unfunded promises thrown in as bribes precisely at the last minute, whereas such spending programmes do need years of background discussion and explanation so that they can be accepted. In fact, as I've set out elsewhere, there was, in fact, nothing particularly socialist in most of those promises anyway. They amounted only to old style Keynesianism and statism. The fact that Boris Johnson is today promising a green revolution, and huge infrastructure spending should be evidence enough of that. And, Paul attempts to run away from the actual reality of these pledges by a collapse into even more fantasy. He says,
“all we need to say is: borrowing is cheap, the Bank of England can control the yields on government debt, and the real debate is whether we spend the money on patching up an unfair system or building a new one.”
But that is precisely the kind of Magic Money Tree nonsense that will not be accepted. Borrowing is not cheap. For many small businesses its non-existent. For many households its extortionate from payday lenders and loan sharks. Yields on bonds are low because of QE and austerity, but the massive increase in borrowing means yields must rise. The Bank of England can't control yields, as inflation rises, and money printing to buy bonds used to finance consumption, will, indeed, cause inflation to rise, and yields to rise in consequence. This is just a repetition of the nonsense promoted by John Law and the Pereire Brothers that ended in tragedy, or that was pursued in the Weimar Republic with even more dire consequences.
And, unfortunately, Paul also falls into the same reliance on catastrophism that sections of both the Left and Right have adopted as they have failed to gain any traction for their own ideas, and schemas.
He says,
“Capitalism is failing.
It is impossible to predict what the world will look like after Covid-19, except to recognise that it has exacerbated every problem within late-stage neoliberalism.”
Alternatively, it has simply speeded up processes that were already taking place within capitalism, such as the move to online shopping, home working and so on. It has simply speeded up the process by which dying high streets are buried, but they are replaced by electronic highways, that are much more efficient and productive.
Paul continues,
“Capitalism is hitting its planetary limits: both climate chaos and the first economic slump triggered by a zoonotic virus illustrate that.”
Nonsense. That is just old style Malthusian catastrophism. There is absolutely no evidence that capitalism is hitting planetary limits, any more than was the case with the limits that Malthus claimed had been reached in the 19th century. We have the ability, even with current land in cultivation, and with current technologies, to feed the world to the level of European consumers, about five times over, if that capital and technology was applied to all cultivated land. The evidence is, for example, in the continued fall in agricultural prices in real terms, and the same is true of other raw materials.
The coronavirus is not the consequence of capitalism, any more than was the Black Death. In fact, capitalism, by the development of science and technology, and the cleaning up of cities and urban areas, the introduction of clean drinking water, the provision of effective sewage and drainage systems, has put an end to the devastation that diseases like the Plague, Cholera, Typhoid, Diphtheria, Polio, Smallpox and so on used to inflict regularly on global populations. Moreover, the economic slump has not been caused by coronavirus, but by the idiotic policies of lockdown that governments have introduced, spurred on by catastrophists and sensationalists themselves!
Paul claims that,
“In turn, we now have the outbreak of a new Cold War between the USA and China, which itself will deepen the downturn.”
Or else, it is just another aspect of Trumpist economic nationalism, which is contrary to the interests of global capital, and will be reversed when Trump leaves the White House, and which will then see a rapid increase in global trade and economic growth. In fact, already US consumers are busy buying huge amounts of goods online that are being produced in China, and shipped across the Pacific to the US West Coast. Ships from China to the US are bursting at the seams, and the price for shipping has increased correspondingly.
He says,
“With a one-hit pandemic, UK GDP is likely to slump by 9% or more this year. That on its own will change the fiscal dynamics of the UK forever. But if there’s second wave, according to the OECD, in the three months before Christmas GDP will plummet by 21%. In that case we would see mass bankruptcies and unprecedented levels of unemployment.”
Forever is a long time. Globally the signs are for a V shaped recovery, unless countries again repeat the mistakes of idiotic lockdowns. China, in particular, seems to be recovering quickly. If governments impose further lockdowns then that may change, but for now, it is mostly a hit to new value creation (GDP) that is taking place, not a destruction of large amounts of physical capital, which remains available for use when lockdowns are lifted. The profitability of that capital remains high, but costs have been increased, and money printing is causing inflationary pressures, as it is feeding into consumption, whereas previously it fed purely into financial and property speculation. Its not the fiscal dynamic that will be fundamentally changed, but interest rates, with a consequent effect on asset prices, and consequent shift in the emphasis of the owners of fictitious capital, forced to accept that change, and to begin again to look to revenues from their assets, rather than capital gains on them.
Paul argues,
“In either case, it is possible that the Tories will attempt to swallow the economic costs of a No Deal Brexit within the wider stimulus package they have designed for the virus. But we’ll be in a world of mass precarity, youth unemployment and a disintegrating global order.”
But, it won't be the economic costs of a No Deal that will be the problem. It will be the complete dislocation of the economy, as borders are clogged, shelves empty, entire industries cannot function! We have seen the government scenarios of 7,000 lorries parked at Dover and its environs. The RHA have pointed to the fact that only about a quarter of British trucks will be able to continue to operate in Europe. There will be all of the grounded aircraft, the stopping of transport of nuclear materials for healthcare, the closing down of large parts of the pharmaceutical industry and so on, because Britain will no longer have EU compliant regulatory regimes. The same may even close down energy supplies, given that Britain now relies on energy supplies from Europe via gas pipelines and electricity connectors. All of that would be chaos and catastrophe that would break out within days, to an extent that its hard to see how the government could survive the outrage it would face. Of course, it could impose martial law, and the fact that Starmer has not only accepted, but actively encouraged all of the restrictions on civil liberties, will no doubt have encouraged those that want to pursue that course in the government.
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