The reason that even a small absolute rise in interest rates caused asset prices to crash in 2008 was that the trashing of currencies by continually increasing liquidity – The Greenspan Put – after 1987, had artificially lowered yields, with no increase in surplus value, sufficient to compensate. Yields fell so low that, even the tiniest rise in interest rates, represented a huge proportional rise, and a corresponding huge fall in asset prices, as a result of capitalisation. The delusion of conservative social-democracy that wealth could be created out of thin air, simply by inflating asset prices had run out of road. That attempts, after 2010, have again resulted in the surreal conditions of negative yields, simply underlines the point that this model can no longer work. Even negative yields, financial austerity to limit economic growth, and even the physical lockdown of economies, not to mention Brexit and Trump and Biden's trade wars have not stopped the underlying laws of capital from poking through, and causing the demand for labour and capital to rise, and global interest rates to rise.
The conservative social-democratic centre could not hold. The two immediate alternatives were on the Right and Left. Hence the growth of a petty-bourgeois, populist Right, which had grown along with the growth of the petty-bourgeoisie itself after 1980. From being the foot-soldiers of conservative parties like that in Britain, the Republicans in France and the US, they either seized control of those parties, or split to form alternatives to them such as UKIP, and so on. They asserted all of those traditional petty-bourgeois nationalist ideas that were already dead by the late 19th century, and even more delusional today, but for which they were able to mobilise electoral support, in conditions where conservative social-democracy, had so clearly failed, with the GFC and its aftermath, and where the ruling-class, as it had done in the 1970's, shrank away from the alternative of progressive social-democracy, for fear of unleashing the forces of the industrial proletariat. The fact, that any such turn to progressive social democracy, of returning to the idea of the need to accumulate real industrial capital, to produce the surplus value required to fund their own revenues (interest/dividends, rents, taxes) would also, cause interest rates to rise even more sharply, and so asset prices to crash even more spectacularly than in 2008, was a further obstacle to such an alternative. Hence, the determination to defeat Syriza, Podemos, Sanders and Corbyn by any means.
But, in doing so, the ruling class, in trying to cling to conservative-social democracy has only dug itself into a bigger hole, just as it did, in printing money tokens to try to keep asset prices inflated. Rather than consolidating the centre, it has simply strengthened the petty-bourgeois Right nationalists, whose interests are imminently antagonistic to their own. In France, the result was to strengthen the forces of Le Pen, in Germany of the AfD, in the US of Trump, in Britain of Farage. And, now, we see the logic of that play out, as Trump and his petty-bourgeois nationalist regime causes interest rates to rise, and asset prices to crash, anyway. The same happened with the rise in UK rates under Truss, and now with the government of Starmer/Reeves.
So, why would the ruling class in any way see Brexit Britain, which has been headed down that same route for the last 40 years, as in any way a bridge, other than a bridge to nowhere, a step only into the abyss? The only glimmer of rationality for the ruling class, resides in the attempts of the EU to cling to social-democracy, and those same petty-bourgeois forces are also fracturing even that, with the consequence of Brexit Britain being not to act as a bridge, but as a conduit, and support for them.
As Marx set out in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 9, this observation of the fact that progress takes place on the basis of the advantage of certain individuals, at the expense of the species, is what leads to the reactionary moralism of Sismondi. It can also be seen in the pessimism of other similar petty-bourgeois trends, manifest in environmentalism and so on.
But, Marx set out why this process, ultimately, leads to the resolution, and why it is reactionary to seek to stop it or reverse it. Engels continues, the narrative presented by Rousseau, which can also be found in Hobbes.
““It is an incontestable fact, and the basic maxim of all constitutional law, that the peoples gave themselves chieftains to safeguard their liberty and not to enslave them.”
Nevertheless the chiefs necessarily become the oppressors of the peoples, and intensify their oppression to the point at which inequality, carried to the utmost extreme, is again turned into its opposite and becomes the cause of equality: before the despot all are equal — equally ciphers.” (p 178)
As Lenin noted, it is only during this period, prior to bourgeois society, that the term “the people” has any real legitimacy, because it is then that “the people” did constitute this more or less homogeneous mass, as against the rulers. However, bourgeois society arises on the basis of the differentiation of this mass of “the people” into bourgeois and proletarians. Hence, we have, not the equality that Rousseau envisaged, but a further negation.
Rousseau continues,
“Here we have the final measure of inequality, the last point which completes the circle and meets the point from which we set out: here all private individuals become equal once more, just because they are nothing, and the subjects have no other law than their master's will.” But the despot is only master so long as he possesses force and therefore, he cannot “complain of the use of force“ as soon as he is driven out”... Force alone maintained him, force alone overthrows him; and thus everything takes its natural course”. (p 178)
Again, we are not concerned with the validity of Rousseau's argument, but with the development of the argument itself, which proceeds on the basis of the dialectic. In other words, as Engels demonstrates later, the idea that ruling classes rely solely on force, also put forward by Duhring, is false. Rousseau, as an advocate of the ideas of bourgeois individualism, also sees the culmination of this process as the equality arising from The Social Contract, whereas it results in a new inequality, as the people differentiate into bourgeois and proletarians. At best, it results in a superficial equality of political and legal rights.
But, what Engels is setting out is not the accuracy of Rousseau's account, but this same method. Rousseau could not have applied Hegel's logic to determine that account, because Hegel had not been born, yet his account proceeds on this same basis of the negation of the negation, the negation – equality – becomes inequality – becomes equality at a higher level.
“So, what is the negation of the negation? An extremely general, and for this very reason extremely far-reaching and important, law of development of nature, history, and thought; a law which, as we have seen, holds good in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in geology, in mathematics, in history and in philosophy, and which even Herr Dühring, has to follow unwittingly and in his own way in spite of all his huffing and puffing.” (p 179-80)
The application of this law, of course, does not remove the need to analyse every phenomena in its particular specificity. If I notice that apples, oranges, stones, feathers and aircraft are all drawn towards the Earth by gravity, the recognition of this does not remove the need to examine how each of these are affected by this law differently. It is, in fact, the observation of this commonality, underlying the particularity, that enabled the development of TheLaw of Gravity to be formulated.
“It is self-evident that I am not say anything concerning the particular process of development of, for example, a grain of barley from germination to the death of the fruit-bearing plant, if I say it is a negation of the negation. For, as the integral calculus is also a negation of the negation, if I said anything of the sort I should only be making the nonsensical statement that the life-process of a barley plant was integral calculus or for that matter even that it was socialism. That, however, is precisely what the metaphysicians are constantly accusing dialectics of. When I say that all these processes are a negation of the negation, I am bringing them all together under this one law of motion, and for this very reason I am leaving out of account the specific peculiarities of each individual process. In fact, dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.” (p 180)
Having imposed his “reciprocal” tariffs – there was nothing reciprocal about them – back in April, on every country under the sun, including on some inoffensive penguins living on an island, and claiming that the world would beat a path to his door to kiss his ass – much as the Brexiters had claimed that the EU needed Britain, more than Britain needed the EU – it was obvious that there was no substance to the claims of his “alternative facts”, and that no one was desperate to visit him, and still less to kiss his ass, other than, of course, the pathetic, and irrelevant Starmer, who has taken on the role of Trump Mini-Me, in Britain, from Johnson.
But, while Starmer degraded himself even further by disappearing up Trump's arse, it is apparent that even that did not produce the “trade deal” that was the purpose of the visit. What was agreed was only, basically, what in contract law is called “an invitation to treat”. In essence, keen to show something from the visit, Trump and Starmer agreed, in principle, some heads of terms to discuss as the basis of some future trade deal. But, the reality is that little is likely to come of that, because, in the end, Britain depends on its trade with the EU, far more than it does its trade with the US, and the things that Trump wants in a deal with Britain, would preclude even much of the existing trade between Britain and the EU, because in terms of agriculture or food products, for example, it would conflict with EU standards.
Within days, that was obvious, because when Starmer met with the EU, they agreed a similar form of words, that amounts to nothing more than heads of terms for future discussions. The EU will not sign anything more definite without Britain finalising any deal with the US, which precludes all those aspects that Trump wants to send to Britain, as a trojan horse into the EU. And, why is it that Trump, but also, now, Starmer, like May, Johnson and co., do not seem to understand what the EU is, as a proto state, and continue to think that they can somehow do deals with individual EU member states? In the end, when it comes to trade, tariffs and increasingly much more, the EU negotiates as a single state, and Brexit should have shown that no amount of attempts to do deals with individual EU states, will change that, because they do not have the authority to do so.
So, in an attempt to cover the fact that no one in the world was begging to do deals with Trump, he imposed his “reciprocal tariffs”, using a completely bogus formula for their calculation, dreamed up by Peter Navarro, who Musk has described as “dumber than a sack of bricks”. Then, as I wrote at the start of April, Trump chickened out of their implementation, days before they were due to come into force, and as he faced a cratering stock and bond market, and falling Dollar. As with every other time he chickens out, he tried to cover up by claiming that he was “suspending” their implementation for 30 days, to give time for countries to come and negotiate. No one other than Starmer did. So, Trump, having repeatedly claimed that deals were, as he spoke, being negotiated with more countries than actually exist – presumably his crack team were negotiating with also the penguins on various islands – he had to cover the fact of no deals by sending out his spokespeople to say that “letters were being sent out” to all those countries, telling them what the deal would be, and what the tariffs would be!
Having imposed 145% tariffs on China, which meant that trade between the two would stop, Trump had quickly capitulated, as he faced shelves emptying from US stores, and as the ports on the US West Coast fell silent. Although, it meant that tariffs on China were still at 30%, the climb down allowed US stock markets to rise. But, in the meantime, Trump announced that the EU was not negotiating in good faith, and even the, supposedly, more rational and experienced Scott Bessant, showed just how ignorant the US administration is, by claiming that the EU had “a collective action problem”. In other words, he seemed only then to have discovered that the EU negotiates as a bloc, a proto state, not as individual states. Confirming Einstein's statement that the definition of idiocy is repeating the same experiment over and over, and each time expecting a different result, Trump, announced the imposition of 50% tariffs on the EU. Again, the EU, understanding that Trump always chickens out, didn't blink, proposing its own set of sanctions on the US, to be detailed later. Sure enough, Trump has again chickened out.
This is, also, why Putin has realised that, for all of his bravado about imposing further sanctions on Russia, and so on, Trump is a busted flush, when it comes to the war in Ukraine. The last few years have shown that no matter how much money, and how many advanced weapons NATO pumps into Ukraine, much of which disappear given the huge levels of corruption in Ukraine itself, as also happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Vietnam, Ukraine cannot defeat Russia, and, indeed, cannot push Russia out of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Trump is not going to commit large numbers of US troops to go and fight in Ukraine – the leaked Defence Department papers showed it, Britain and other NATO countries already have Special Forces on the ground in Ukraine – because that would mean the start of WWIII proper, as against the phoney war currently being undertaken.
Already, with Trump's MAGA base seeing the reality of Trump's insane economic policies, much as happened after Brexit, in Britain, he can't further undermine that base by reversing on one of the main planks he built that support – opposition to the foreign wars conducted by the US under the Democrats, and other Republicans, such as Bush. So, his only option is further sanctions, which not only have proved ineffective, but, also, just encourage the development of more corruption, black markets and so on, as well as strengthening the ties between all those outside the remit of NATO/US imperialism, i.e. further strengthening China. So, the easy option for Trump, already indicated in his previous actions, is, instead, to pressure Zelensky to settle with Putin, and accept the loss of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
The main accumulation of real industrial capital, in the period 1980 to 2000 occurred, not in the developed economies, but in the newly industrialising economies of Asia, Latin America and so on, and, when global interest rates rose, it was they that were hit in their currencies, whereas it was the astronomically inflated financial markets that crashed, in the developed economies. Moreover, as I have set out elsewhere, the actions of central banks, by inflating the currency supply and credit, to raise asset prices, caused yields on those assets to fall correspondingly, but those yields, as Marx describes, as well as the policy rates of central banks, bear no necessary resemblance to the real rate of interest in the market. Marx notes,
“For instance, if we wish to compare the English interest rate with the Indian, we should not take the interest rate of the Bank of England, but rather, e.g., that charged by lenders of small machinery to small producers in domestic industry.”
(Capital III, Chapter 36.)
What was seen was that, although there was, in the period after 1980, a 50% rise in the size of the petty-bourgeoisie, the ability to obtain bank finance by it shrank. Whilst large capitals issued bonds totalling billions of Dollars, the funds from which they used to buy back shares, or make direct transfers to shareholders, and so on, rather than invest in capital accumulation, the petty-bourgeoisie was reduced to using personal credit, mortgaging their homes and so on to obtain the money-capital required. Meanwhile, banks, as well as using the liquidity provided by central banks to buy up government and corporate bonds, where they did make loans, they did so, not to finance real capital accumulation, but almost exclusively to finance property speculation.
A few years ago, Michael Roberts provided the following information.
“as of August 2013, loans outstanding to UK residents from banks were £2.4tn (160% of GDP). Of this, 34% went to financial institutions, 42.7% went to households, secured on dwellings, and another 10.1% went to real estate and construction. Manufacturing received just 1.4% of the total! UK banking’s principal activity is just leveraging up existing property assets. I identified the same point in work done for the pamphlet for the Fire Brigades Union on the need for public ownership of the banks and found that the big five banks in the UK hold £6trn in assets. This is equivalent to the amount that more than 60 million British people produce in four years. Yet the banks have earmarked just £200bn of this to investment in industry in the UK, a measly 3% of the total.”
The rates of interest paid by the petty-bourgeoisie to finance real, capital accumulation, even on a dwarfish scale, when they could obtain any such finance, far exceeded the yields on financial assets, particularly when the measures of QE and so on, resulted in the surreal conditions of negative yields on $20 trillion of global bonds, just prior to the recent rise in global interest rates, in 2022. What is more, during that same period, we saw the massive growth of pay day lenders charging interest rates of 4000% p.a., as well as a growth of all sorts of other such businesses, including pawnshops, and so on. That is without considering all of the unregistered loan sharks. In an era of increasing online gambling, large amounts of these loans went straight to finance gambling addictions and desperation.
Consequently, as I have set out, elsewhere, the rate of interest required to bring about any considerable reduction in economic growth, so called R*, is much higher than the rate of interest required to bring about a crash in asset prices, or R**. In the current period, as labour shortages have begun to bring about first a rise in household incomes, as more workers are employed, on longer hours, and begin to, also, then, cause hourly wages themselves to rise, a process seen in the period of the 1950's, and early 60's, that is even more the case. Household, current consumption is mostly financed by wages, and so higher interest rates do not impact that. In fact, to the extent that banks have to pay higher savings rates, households benefit from the additional interest paid to them. Higher interest rates causing mortgage rates to rise, impact house buyers, but the effect of that, is also to cause house prices to fall, at the same time that rising interest rates cause all asset prices to fall, via the process of capitalisation. If anything, in the medium to longer-term, higher interest rates, causing house prices and land prices to fall, makes an expansion of housebuilding, and consequent economic activity possible.
Idealism, if taken to its logical conclusion, results in solipsism, the idea that nothing real exists other than my mind. Everything else is just a construct of my mind, like virtual worlds being rendered in real-time, in a computer game. Hence, the idealist notion about the tree falling in the forest if there is no one there to hear it fall. As described elsewhere, the further development of science has also brought this around, once more, because, when we examine reality, at an even smaller scale, at the quantum level, we now find uncertainty once more, as presented by Schroedinger, and his cat, but, also, an uncertainty, which is resolved by the act of observation, as demonstrated in Quantum Entanglement.
“The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism. But in the course of the further development of philosophy, idealism, too, became untenable and was negated by modern materialism. This modern materialism, the negation of the negation, is not the mere re-establishment of the old, but adds to the lasting foundations of this old materialism the whole intellectual content of two thousand years of progress in philosophy and natural science, as well as in these two thousand years of history itself. Generally speaking, it is no longer philosophy at all, but a simple world outlook which has to be verified and implemented not in a science of sciences standing apart, but in the positive sciences. Philosophy is therefore “sublated” here, that is, “both overcome and preserved”; overcome in its form, and preserved in its real content.” (p 176-7)
In other words, the modern materialism understands and incorporates the fact that the true nature of reality is not what it appears to be on the surface. Our perception and comprehension of that reality is only an infinite series of approximations to it. Indeed, in the theories of a multiverse, there is not one material reality, but an infinite number of material realities – simultaneously.
In addition, that science, in examining the brain and nervous system, has demonstrated that the brain is an organ of the body like any other, and that the process of perception and thoughts are the manifestation of chemical and electrical reactions in the brain. Psychology and psychiatry studies those processes and reactions, on a materialist basis, as with any other natural science.
Engels notes that Roussea's doctrine of equality that Duhring plagiarises, manifests this same dialectical law of the negation of the negation, even though it was presented twenty years before Hegel was born.
“In the state of nature and savagery men were equal; and as Rousseau regards even language as a perversion of the state of nature, he is fully justified in extending the equality of animals within the limits of a single species also to the animal-men recently classified by Haeckel hypothetically as Alali: speechless. But these equal animal-men had one quality which gave them an advantage over the other animals: perfectibility, the capacity to develop further; and this became the cause of inequality.” (p 177)
We are not concerned, here, with the accuracy of Rousseau's depiction, which did not have the benefit of all the future discoveries of anthropology, but only with the development of the doctrine by Rousseau. Rousseau saw this inequality as progress.
“But this progress contained an antagonism: it was at the same time retrogression.
“All subsequent advances” (beyond the original state of nature) “meant so many steps seemingly towards the perfection of the individual, but in reality towards the decay of the race... Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts the discovery of which produced this great revolution” (the transformation of the primeval forest into cultivated land, but also the introduction of poverty and slavery through property). “For the poet it is gold and silver, but for the philosopher iron and corn, which have civilised men and ruined the human race.”.” (p 177-8)
For 18 months, the Zionist state, in Israel, has been systematically carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians, on an industrial scale, using the latest weapons of mass destruction, provided, not just by its own huge military-industrial complex, but those of the even bigger imperialist states in the US, Britain, Germany, and other countries in the EU. There has been no secret about that genocide for those prepared to simply open their eyes and ears. The trouble is that many in the media, as well as the politicians in those western imperialist states chose to keep their eyes and ears firmly shut, and simply lie, when it came to the actions of their ally, just as many of them did, in the 1930's, when Hitler came to power, and, as well as smashing the German workers movement, also, unleashed the pogroms against Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled.
Of course, not that you would know it, from the rewriting of history, since, but many of those, like Churchill, who welcomed the likes of Mussolini and Hitler, as the means for putting down the workers movement in Europe, and providing a buffer against the USSR, were themselves long-standing anti-Semites, and racists, so its no wonder that they didn't look too hard for the evidence of a developing genocide against Jews and others, taking place. At least, not until such time that they had already decided to go to war with Germany, for their own imperialist motives, and so, duping the workers into believing that it was a war against fascism, was greatly facilitated by suddenly recognising that Hitler and his Nazis were not at all nice people!
Anyone who cared to look at what Hitler was saying before he came to power, let alone after the German conservatives put him in power, as Chancellor, could have had no doubt about the racist, anti-Semitic nature of the Nazis ideology, and what they would do. But, for Churchill, and others in the western ruling class, that was not a major concern, at a time, when, in Italy, the workers had risen up, during the 1920's, to begin occupying the factories, and establishing workers councils, much on the lines of the soviets in Russia, before Mussolini smashed them; when, in Germany there had already been failed workers uprisings in 1918 and 1923, and where the Communist Party, backed by the USSR, mobilised hundreds of thousands of workers, and secured the votes of millions more, whilst the Social Democratic Party, which nominally still considered itself to be “Marxist”, mobilised nearly twice as many again; where Britain itself had seen the General Strike in 1926; where revolution had erupted in China, in 1927; where France had seen General Strikes and a Popular Front government containing Communists; and where a revolution was underway in Spain.
Indeed, when Hitler and Mussolini, together with Japan established the “Anti-Comintern Pact”, in 1936-7, the western ruling class must have seen their dreams coming true, of their battles against the working-class, and its still only bastion, in the USSR, being fought for them. Indeed, not only did Britain sign a naval agreement with Nazi Germany, but, when Hitler and Mussolini took an active role in supporting Franco against the elected Popular Front government in Spain, Britain, France and other western powers stood by, as German bombers flattened Guernica and other towns and cities. Only, when Nazi Germany, having achieved these advances, and, then signed its deal with Stalin, before moving on to initiate its plans to create a unified European state under the tutelage of the German Third Reich, did France and Britain begin to have concern over their own imperialist positions, and the US, began to see the potential for its own imperialist ambitions being challenged by a unified European state, also, in alliance with Japanese Imperialism.
So, there is considerable precedent for the imperialist powers, and their media turning a bling eye to the racist, and, indeed, genocidal actions of their allies, before suddenly discovering what everyone else could see, when it suits their own imperialist interests. As Owen Jones has documented from day one of the Zionist genocide against Palestinians, the Zionist regime has been extremely candid about its intentions to carry out systematic, war crimes and genocide, but what is more, its politicians, most of its media, and its own soldiers, via social media, have even documented the carrying out of those war crimes, the deliberate slaughter of Palestinian civilians, and the implementation of that genocide.
There has never been any excuse for anyone not knowing that the Zionist regime intended to undertake a genocide against Palestinians, and that, for the last 18 months, that is precisely what it has been doing. Yet, anyone that simply pointed to the readily available facts was branded an “anti-Semite”, in line with the Zionist interpretation of that term, enshrined in the IHRA definition. Thousands of Labour Party members were expelled on that basis, including, of course, Jeremy Corbyn, its former Leader, respected candidates were prevented from standing, and so on. In the US, even before Trump, the Biden administration sent in its own goons, often alongside Zionist thugs, to break up peace camps on university campuses protesting the genocide. Trump has only taken Biden's policy to its next step, by calling for foreign students, and even US citizens to be deported, now leading to his attacks on Harvard.
In Britain, Starmer himself argued that the Zionist regime “had the right” to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians, by cutting off water and energy supplies and so on, and that position was supported by Emily Thornberry when challenged. So, why, now, has western media suddenly become critical of the Zionist regime, and its genocide against Palestinians? Why have even pro-Zionist politicians like Starmer, Lammy and others, now, suddenly, discovered what everyone else has known for 18 months, that the Zionist regime is committing war crimes and genocide? The simple answer is that Zionism has done the dirty work that was set for it, by imperialism.
As I set out more than a year ago, the grisly truth is that there is, now, no future for Palestine. The cruel deception that imperialism perpetrated, for more than half a century, supported by the social-imperialists, of the chimera of the Two Bourgeois States Solution, had finally been exposed for the fiction it was. Even more starkly, the even more delusional idea, put forward by petty-bourgeois nationalists, that the Palestinians were somehow going to get the support of other bourgeois Arab states, in the region, to be able to defeat the Zionist state, raze it to the ground, and create, in its place, a secular state of Palestine, which would have been a thoroughly reactionary project, even were it credible, has also collapsed, along with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Syrian state, and the power of Iran.
Set aside all of the Old Testament gobbledegook used by the Zionists to cover their desire to establish a Greater Israel, the real basis for such a desire is the quite simple, 21st century, materialist and economic reason that, in the age of imperialism, small states are no longer tenable. For more than a century, the minimum scale of production for capital has grown so large that it requires large single markets to sell into. The US, China, the EU are such large single markets, and its no coincidence that, across the globe, where smaller nation states exist, they have been forced to come together to form similar trading blocs, which are just a precursor, as with the EU, to forming a single political unit, a single, multinational state. The Middle-East is no different, and the role assigned to Zionism has been to forge such a bloc, combining with other pro-US states such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and so on, as set out in the Abraham Accords.
More than a year ago, I set out what the course of events was likely to be, and so it has been. The Zionist state has flattened Gaza, making it uninhabitable. It did that with the full blessing and backing of western imperialism, which, as seen earlier, in the case of the statements of Starmer and Co., fully legitimised, in advance, the implementation of that genocide. Similar supportive statements came from the Biden regime, and from politicians in the EU, and its member states, along with the weapons to do so. Alongside it, the Zionist regime has stepped up its pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank, and its further seizing of Palestinian land. Its latest statements on occupying Gaza, and annexing the West Bank simply confirm what they have been doing, and will continue to do. A few weasel words, and sanctions against some settlers in the West Bank, as against the Zionist regime itself, which the West continues to arm, is just window-dressing.
The Zionist regime, as I set out, would, also expand into Lebanon, where the much vaunted resistance of Hezbollah was also, seen to be a mirage. Finally, as I set out at the end of last year, and start of this year, the theatre of war would then move to Syria. That happened faster than I expected, as Assad's gruesome regime collapsed, allowing the Islamists to seize power, and also allowing the Zionist state to occupy further land in Syria, right up to Damascus. All of that has weakened Iran, and its remaining proxies in Iraq, and Yemen.
None of this can be seen separately from the growing global inter-imperialist conflict between the US and China/Russia, the other part of which is the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, and the simmering tension in Taiwan and the South China Sea, where the US is using Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and others to perform a similar role, as that of Ukraine, but without, yet, open warfare.
In the Middle-East, China has made great advances in its relations with the Gulf States, and given the long historical relation between Russia and Iran, which, itself, now exerts influence in Iraq and Yemen, represents a challenge to US imperialism. The great power of China, as the US economy has declined in the last half century, is the ability of China to offer considerable economic advantages to those with whom it forms alliances. On the one hand, it sucks in vast amounts of materials and other primary products, and on the other, it can not only provide vast amounts of manufactured products, but it also offers large amounts of real investment in infrastructure, and industrial capital, whereas, the United States has only been able to offer the potential of increasing paper wealth in its expansion of fictitious capital, via inflated financial and property assets.
To catch up, the US has had to promote the idea of a Middle-Eastern economic bloc. In fact, prior to the Iraq War, many of the states of North Africa, were already being drawn in towards the EU, on a path similar to that which saw the accession of former Stalinist states in Central and Eastern Europe. Its not hard to see why the US would, again, see that kind of expansion of the EU, as a large, developed, single economy, now drawing in the oil and gas resources of the Middle-East, which it had seen as its own global reserve, for decades, as being a threat. The Iraq War, and the actions of Saudi backed Islamists in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, in 2011, put an end to those closer relations and economic developments in North Africa. Now, it is the US's proxy, the Zionist state in Israel that is the spearhead to forming such an economic bloc.
The main thing that stood in the way of that was the continuing conflict with the Palestinians. It was not the objections of the other bourgeois Arab states that presented a problem, they had shown themselves happy to reconcile not only with US imperialism, but also with the Zionist state itself. The problem was with the Arab masses in those states, many of whom are themselves grossly oppressed by the existing ruling classes. So long as the conflict with the Palestinians continued, and flared up, periodically, it would stand in the way of such normalisation. It also meant that, in those conditions, Iran would gain ground, further undermining the US friendly Arab regimes. So long as Hamas could launch another set of, ineffective attacks on Israel, to which the Zionist state could be counted on to over-respond, the Arab masses would demand that their rulers make no peace with Israel.
The Two Bourgeois States delusion had run its course, and the Palestinians had become even weaker, the divisions between Palestinian and Jewish workers much greater, as I had described forty years ago. The rational course of action, for Zionism and US imperialism, was to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and that is what the Zionist regime has done. All those deluded petty-bourgeois nationalist, “anti-imperialist” souls that kept telling us that Zionism was losing, who looked to one group of petty-bourgeois nationalist saviours to rescue the Palestinians, saw their hopes dashed, though many of them continue to delude themselves in that way, as I wrote a few months ago. They are now clinging to the hope that the same western media that has covered up the genocide for the last 18 months, is, now, beginning to report it, and to more actively criticise the Zionist state, and that even some of those politicians like Starmer, Lammy etc., are now criticising the Zionist state rather than expelling members for having done so.
It is another forlorn hope. The western media and politicians are only offering up their criticism and crocodile tears, now, because Zionism has more or less completed the task set it. They are not even stopping the supply of weapons. Gaza is going to be occupied, and will not be rebuilt until the Palestinians have been physically removed from it. Trump's video, circulated a while ago, is only a ghoulish caricature of what lies ahead. The PA is already simply a puppet of the Zionist state, and of US imperialism used to quell any resistance of the Palestinians in the West Bank, against further settlements and annexation. The fate of the West Bank is also sealed. The only role of criticism of the actions of the Zionist state, is to further distance the West from any consequences of the war crimes and genocide cases being undertaken, and to exert leverage over the Zionist state in the forthcoming negotiations with the Gulf states and others, in relation to the normalisation of relations between them.
Of course, its not just the UK and US Company Law that gives this indefensible right to shareholders. Whilst, the more developed forms of social-democracy in Germany, and elsewhere, introduced the concepts of co-determination, which were integral to the EU's Draft Fifth Company Law Directive, and the Bullock Committee Report on Industrial Democracy in Britain, they all continued to give shareholders those rights, simply in a more corporatist form, with worker directors on boards, who would always be in a minority, and always simply act as a cover. Moreover, by the 1980's, with progressive social-democracy in retreat, and conservative social-democracy ascendant, even these mild proposals of further industrial democracy were scrapped.
Boards of Directors, dominated by shareholders, have, as Haldane notes, simply increased the proportion of profits going to dividends, and other such transfers to shareholders, as rising share prices, with no accompanying, proportional rise in surplus value/profits, caused dividend yields to fall. Dividends and cash transfers to shareholders were not the only means of asset-stripping real industrial capital. Profits were used to buy back shares, thereby, pushing share prices higher still.
Haldane noted that, where, in 1945, the average shareholder held shares in any given company for an average six years, in 2015, that was just six months. That average itself, covers a huge variation, and is misleading, because vast amounts of shares change hands in seconds, as a result of modern electronic trading. The Directors, appointed by those shareholders to protect the shareholders interest, not the company interest, themselves are usually tied to the shareholders, by the provision not only of astronomical salaries, but also, preferential share ownership via share option schemes, and so on. These Directors, themselves, usually have a very short duration at any one company, being given golden handshakes when they leave. Directors have also issued corporate bonds, to borrow money-capital, to be used, not for investment, but simply to buy back shares, to boost share prices. That additional supply of corporate bonds would have reduced bond prices, and raised bond yields, other than for the fact that those bonds were bought up by commercial banks, increasingly with liquidity provided to them by central banks.
And, as noted earlier, it was not just share and bond prices that were inflated. The liquidity poured into property markets, massively inflating property prices, encouraging ordinary workers to feel obliged to engage in such gambling, themselves, for fear of missing out. Up until the 1980's, the average house price was equal to around 2-3 times average household income. That was largely because banks and building societies would only give mortgages to that amount. But, of course, at that time, the majority of households were, themselves, multi-occupied, consisting mostly of a couple and their children, some of whom, were also old enough to work. The majority of single people lived at home, with their parents, into their twenties, until they married. The number of single member households was less than 20%.
But, in the 1980's, house prices, along with other asset prices soared in an inflationary spiral, fuelled by the increased liquidity pumped into the system by central banks, both in the form of money tokens, but also in the form of credit, as credit restrictions were lifted. I have, elsewhere given the data in relation to US GDP growth as against the rise in the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ, between 1980-2000, which illustrates the point made earlier about the use of borrowing and liquidity to finance real capital accumulation, as against its use to finance unproductive consumption, and speculation on asset prices. US GDP rose by 848% between 1950 and 1980, from $294 billion to $2,788 billion. Between 1980 and 2000, it rose from $2,788 billion to $9,951 billion, a rise of 257%. Between 2000 and 2012, it rose to $15,094 billion, a rise of 51.68%. I have chosen these dates because they are the closest I can get to periods of the Long Wave, i.e. 1949 – 74 (uptrend), 1974-1999 (downtrend), 1999 – (uptrend).
The Dow Jones Index rose from 200 in 1950, to 824 in 1980, to 11,723 in 2000, and to 13,593 in 2012. In terms of annual compound growth this is then, 4.83%, 14.2%, and 1.24%. In other words, between 1980 and 2000, the Dow Jones Index rose by three times as much on an annualised basis, as it did in the high growth post war boom period from 1950 to 1980. For the S&P 500. it rose from 16.93 to 107.94, to 1469.25, to 1379.32 over the same period. That is compound annual rates of 6.37, 13.95 and - 0.53 respectively. Put another way, in the period of post-war growth, US GDP rose by 848%, between 1950-1980, whilst the Dow rose by only 312% and S&P 537%. Whereas, between 1980-2000, US GDP rose by only 256%, whereas the DOW rose by more than 1300%, and the S&P by just under 1300%!
Engels, then, applies this same process to history. Initially, everywhere, there is common ownership of land. At a certain point, as social productivity rises, this common ownership becomes a fetter on the further development of production. Common ownership dissolves, as certain members of society accrue private property, which they pass down via inheritance. As Marx describes, inTheories of Surplus Value, Chapter 9,
“although at first the development of the capacities of the human species takes place at the cost of the majority of human individuals and even classes, in the end it breaks through this contradiction and coincides with the development of the individual; the higher development of individuality is thus only achieved by a historical process during which individuals are sacrificed for the interests of the species in the human kingdom, as in the animal and plant kingdoms, always assert themselves at the cost of the interests of individuals, because these interests of the species coincide only with the interests of certain individuals, and it is this coincidence which constitutes the strength of these privileged individuals.”
But, just as common ownership becomes a fetter, and was negated by private property, so too private property becomes a fetter, and is negated by social property, the negation of the negation.
“But this demand does not mean the restoration of the old primitive common ownership, but the institution of a far higher and more developed form of possession in common which, far from being a hindrance to production, will on the contrary free production for the first time from all fetters and enable it to make full use of modern chemical discoveries and mechanical inventions.” (p 176)
This same dialectical law can be observed in philosophy. In antiquity, philosophy consisted of “primitive, natural materialism” (p 176). However, the very fact of thinking about this material world, and trying to understand it, leads to the question what is this thing – mind – that is doing the thinking, and appears to be something separated from, and different to this material world. Perhaps the clearest expression of that comes from Descartes in his “Meditations”, and his method of only accepting as fundamental truths those things that can be proved without reliance on the senses and their perception of that material world. That method he had developed in hisDiscourse on Method, in which he arrived at he conclusion that the most basic thing known is summed up as Cogito Ergo Sum, (I think, therefore, I am).
Our senses deceive us, says Descartes, and so we have to not rely on them for such proof. In fact, this is a precondition of science. We cannot simply take superficial appearances to be real, or fundamental. As Marx puts it, for example, in hisLetter to Kugelman, setting out The Law of Value, to understand reality, it is necessary to go beyond those superficial appearances and to look beneath the surface. Descartes, also, concluded that although the basic thing I know, is that, because I think, I must exist, that does not tell me what I am, only that I am something, a mind, that thinks. In other words, my mind exists, as the thing that is thinking, but I still can't go from that to the assumption that, when this mind perceives the existence of my body that this is what “I” am. That would, again, mean accepting a reliance on my senses to truthfully, and accurately, provide me with the information about what we perceive as constituting our body, and the rest of the material world.
And, of course, that is correct, as all subsequent science has demonstrated. Yet, at the same time, it is not correct. It is correct that we cannot rely on our senses to tell us the truth about the material world, because our eyes can only give us certain information that is very superficial and subjective. If we could see in infra-red, or ultra-violet wavelengths, as some creatures do, the world would look very different, let alone if we had X-Ray vision. But, science does allow us to develop technology to see in those electro-magnetic wavelengths, so that the deficiencies of our senses are continually reduced, and we incrementally obtain a more accurate and truthful understanding of that material world.
However, the exploration of this material world, in the realm of thought, before science was able to study the true nature of perception, via the senses, and also to study the brain, and its functions, which are the means by which both those perceptions are interpreted, and, then, also, processed and manipulated, i.e. in the mind, via the thought process, inevitably gave rise to the idea that mind and body are completely separate, that mind is some aspect of God, or the soul, and so on.
In Yoga, for example, there is the concept that when “observing” the action of the mind in meditation, the “observer” is something different from the mind itself. More recently, science has framed this in other ways, for example, in trying to understand consciousness. In psychology there is the ego and the id.
“As such, it was incapable of clearing up the relation between thought and matter. But the need to get clarity on this question led to the doctrine of a soul separable from the body, then to the assertion of the immortality of this soul, and finally to monotheism. The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism.” (p 176)
In 1987, the financial crisis was ended when the one time gold bug, proponent of sound money, and devotee of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, trashed the Dollar, and pumped billions of paper Dollars into circulation, setting in place the Greenspan Put, the epitome of the conservative social-democratic (neoliberal) model, and delusion that wealth could be created from thin air via asset price inflation.
Having crashed by 25% in a day, and more over the duration of the crisis, a year later, the financial markets ended 50% higher! But, this delusion did not change the underlying reality. The Federal Reserve, and other central banks, increasing liquidity, (devaluing the currency), which then flowed into the purchase of fictitious-capital (shares, bonds and derivatives), as well as into other assets such as land, and existing property, spreading into art, vinyl records, wine, and later into things that were not even use-values, such as crypto-currencies, and so had no value at all, did not add one single machine to US productive capacity, or the ability of that real industrial capital to produce more surplus value. It simply inflated asset prices, and, thereby, reduced the yields on those assets.
Because the owners of fictitious-capital, i.e. the global ruling class, exercise control over real industrial capital, enshrined in company law, they were able to respond to falling dividend yields by increasing the proportion of profits that went to dividends. Hence Haldane's observation that dividend yields went from 10% of profits, in the 1970's, to 70%, by 2015. As I have set out, elsewhere, this same process spread through the economy.
In the early post-war period, the cost of land accounted for just 10% of the price of a new house. But, asset price speculation that drove up the market prices of existing houses, by the 2000's, meant that, builders could make surplus profits, by selling new houses at those existing inflated market prices. As with all such surplus profits, they are the source of the rent extracted by the landowner. Consequently, capitalised rents (price of land) soared, so that, as with dividends as a share of profits, land, today, accounts for 70% of the price of a new house, inflating the cost of production and prices of new houses, thereby restricting both demand and supply.
It was one reason that housebuilders sought to disguise the rise in those prices, by selling houses cheaper, but as leasehold rather than freehold. Governments, although they have feigned concern, as a moral panic erupted over leasehold, facilitated such developments, as they sought to continually goose housing demand, as prices soared, by introducing all sorts of scams such as rent-to buy, shared ownership, Help To Buy, and so on, because the fundamental model of conservative-social democracy was this delusion that wealth could be created out of thin air from continual asset price inflation. It is the same delusion perpetrated in a different manner by Modern Monetary Theory, and essentially no different to the ideas of John Law, and the Pereire Brothers.
What the ruling-class has done, over the last 30 years, and the last 20 years to an even greater extent, is essentially to asset-strip real industrial capital, by using inflated asset prices as the source of its wealth, a part of which it periodically liquidates – what financial advisors fallaciously call “taking profits” - when the ability to take even more of actual profits as dividends, became no longer feasible. As Haldane, noted, in that 2015 Newsnight, interview, reported by the BBC,
“that left far less cash available for growth-boosting investment and that firms risked "eating themselves".
Corporate short-termism - a focus on immediate gains rather than long-term prospects - was a rising problem for companies and pre-dated the financial crisis, he said.
Mr Haldane believes that one possible major cause of this short-termism is the nature of UK company law, which gives most decision making power to shareholders.”
Engels moves back, then, to mathematics, and the points made earlier in relation to the calculus. The argument used by Engels, here, follows that set out above in relation to the barley and insects. In other words, the negation of the barley grain is effected by means of it being transformed into a plant, and, thereby, raised to a higher power, as it is multiplied into many such grains.
So, he takes an algebraic quantity a, whose negation is, thereby, not zero, but -a, i.e. (not a). To think of a line of code – X = X + 1, i.e. X = -X (not X). This not X could equally be X2, or X – 1, and so on. The minus sign, in formal logic, does not mean minus, but "not". To take the barley seed, its negation is its transformation into the barley plant, and it is out of this process that the negation of the negation results in numerous grains of barley. Similarly, the negation of a is -a, and the negation of that negation is the the multiplication of -a, -a2, raising it to a higher power, but, in maths, -a2 is a2.
“It makes no difference in this case that we can obtain the same a2 by multiplying the positive a by itself, thus likewise getting a2. For the negated negation is so securely entrenched in a2 that the latter always has two square roots, namely, a and —a. The fact that it is impossible to get rid of the negated negation, the negative root of the square, acquires very obvious significance as soon as we come to quadratic equations.” (p 174)
Turning to the calculus, “those “summations of indefinitely small magnitudes”which Herr Dühring himself declares are the highest operations of mathematics” (p 174-5), Engels describes its use.
“In a given problem, for example, I have two variables, x and y, neither of which can vary without the other also varying in a ratio determined by the facts of the case. I differentiate x and y, i.e., I take x and y as so infinitely small that in comparison with any real quantity, however small, they disappear, that nothing is left of x and y but their reciprocal relation without any, so to speak, material basis, a quantitative ratio in which there is no quantity. Therefore, dy/dx, the ratio between the differentials of x and y, is equal to 0/0 but 0/0 taken as the expression of y/x.” (p 175)
Of itself, this is an absurdity. Nothing real can have a size/quantity of zero. A piece of wood with a length of zero metres is a piece of wood that does not exist, other than as an abstraction. Yet, even for elementary mathematics, we can't make simple calculations without zero. This same zero, in the context of the calculus, is the same as the point of tangency, where a straight line is equal to a curved line. In practice, what defining the point as a line of zero length does is to overcome the problem that formal logic has with dealing with the contradiction that, at this point, A is simultaneously -A, a straight line is also a curved line. The cost of avoiding that contradiction is to posit an abstract concept, a point of zero size, that cannot exist in the real world.
“Now, what have I done but negate x and y, though not in such a way that I need not bother about them any more, which is the way metaphysics negates, but in the way that corresponds with the facts of the case? In place of x and y, therefore, I have their negation, dx and dy, in the formulas or equations before me. Now I continue to operate with these formulas, treating dx and dy as quantities which are real, though subject to certain exceptional laws, and at a certain point I negate the negation, i.e., I integrate the differential formula, and in place of dx and dy again get the real quantities x and y, and then am not where I was at the beginning, but on the contrary have in this way solved the problem on which ordinary geometry and algebra might perhaps have broken their jaws in vain.” (p 175)
So, what, then caused the rise in interest rates, in the late 90's, that brought about the Asian Currency Crisis, Rouble Crisis, 2000 Tech Wreck, and, then, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis? The answer resides in Marx's analysis that the demand for money-capital does not consist only in a demand to finance real capital accumulation. As he sets out in Theories of Surplus Value, all money is imminently and potentially money-capital. So, when they sell this money-capital as a commodity (i.e. lend it to borrowers for a specific period) they do so, as with any other commodity, without any regard to the purpose of the buyer (borrower) of this money-capital. The fact that the buyer (borrower) of this money-capital only intends to use it to pay their bills, to fund their consumption (including of unproductive assets such as houses, cars etc.) or to finance their gambling addiction, does not change the basis upon which the owner of this money-capital sells its use-value, i.e. its ability to produce the average rate of profit.
In fact, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, the rate of interest reaches its peak, not when the demand for this money-capital to finance real capital accumulation, is at its maximum, but when firms find themselves needing to borrow money, simply to pay their bills, so as to stay in business.
“It reaches its maximum again as soon as the new crisis sets in. Credit suddenly stops then, payments are suspended, the reproduction process is paralysed, and with the previously mentioned exceptions, a superabundance of idle industrial capital appears side by side with an almost absolute absence of loan capital.”
It is a sort of return, temporarily, to the conditions of usury. In fact, during this period, usury also, returns openly, in the form of the pay day lenders charging 4000% rates of interest. But, it is not only businesses that borrow money-capital. All households, and the state itself, borrows money, not to fund real capital accumulation, but to finance consumption, over and above their current revenues. Earlier, it was noted that, under Reagan, in the 1980's, the implementation of Voodoo (supply-side) Economics, and big tax cuts, created a huge and growing budget deficit, and turned the US from being the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor. Unlike the money that flowed into the Asian economies, to finance real capital accumulation (investment), the money that, now, flowed into the US – and a similar thing happened, in Britain, under Thatcher, at the same time, was used to finance consumption, including the money that went into the various forms of gambling in search of capital gains on financial and property assets.
As I set out in my book, part of it was also required to compensate for the fall in household incomes, as wages stagnated, or even fell. Money-capital, borrowed to finance investment, i.e. the accumulation of real industrial capital (as against what has come to be termed “investment”, but which is just “speculation/gambling”, the purchase of inflated paper assets – fictitious capital), may have the effect of raising the demand for that money-capital, but, simultaneously, the accumulated industrial capital, also, produces additional surplus value, and realised profits, and so, the supply of additional money-capital. The consequence is, then, that the rate of interest does not rise, or rises only moderately, as Marx sets out in the earlier quote.
But, money borrowed simply to fund unproductive consumption, or financial and property speculation, and indeed, any other form of gambling, and speculation on assets, creates no new value, and, consequently, no additional surplus value/realised profits, and so no supply of additional money-capital, thereby, it does cause interest rates to rise. The spark for the 1987 global financial crash, when financial markets fell 25%, in a day, was this large rise in US demand for money-capital to fund its unproductive consumption, including the state spending that was no longer covered by its tax revenues, resulting form Reagan's large tax cuts for the rich. In other words, the same Voodoo Economics used by Truss, in 2022, and by Trump, today.
So, to great fanfare, the so called reset between the UK and EU has been announced at a press conference in London, with Starmer and Von der Lyon. The details are still and inevitably sketchy. But, from what has been set out, the fanfare seems typically overblown. Inevitably too, as James O'Brien rightly stated, those that were responsible for burning the house down by arguing for Brexit, are now sniping from the sides at those trying to put out the fire, and rebuild the house.
If only the accusations from the likes of Farage, Patel, Badenoch and the gutter press that this represents some great reversal of Brexit were true, but they are not. It is an indication of just how out of touch with the real world, and the views of voters those people are that they can seek to present any such reversal as in any way a bad thing. The only thing they can cling to is a rigged vote, on one day, 9 years ago, despite the fact that everything they promised turned out to be a lie, and the Brexit they pushed for has turned out to be the disaster its opponents warned it would be. The travesty is that Starmer himself, and Blue Labour, also, behave as though none of that has happened, and as though they are bound by the one vote 9 years ago, that has been reversed in every opinion poll of voters ever since!
As O'Brien has rightly said on many occasions, the proponents of Brexit, once it was implemented, have wanted to prevent any further discussion of it. That is the mark of their own lack of confidence in the thing they vehemently promoted, as the reality of its failure has been manifest on every day since. True, as Farage and his cult like followers continue to argue, Brexit was never really implemented. What we had, inevitably, was a Brexit in name only, with the deal actually amounting to Britain continuing to abide by EU rules, but without, now, having any say in the formulation of those rules. Inevitably, because the EU is Britain's largest trading partner, and just as, if you want to export your goods to the US, or China, or elsewhere, they must conform to the rules and standards applying in those countries, so too with the EU. It is why the Customs Union itself was never the main issue, because, as in fact, Donald Trump, even, realises, it is the non-tariff barriers that are the main frictions to trade.
So, it would never have been possible, in the real world, to have negotiated a deal in which a different Brexit existed, where Britain could have said it would establish its own rules and regulations, without that meaning that its trade with the EU would have cratered even more than it has already done, as a result of the additional red tape, and checking of goods has caused. The EU can set its own rules and standards, so can the US, or China, because they are huge economies in their own right. Britain is not, and although the Brexiters hanker after some closer relation with the US, it is 3,000 miles away, and constitutes only a small part of UK trade, as against the EU, which is 25 miles away, and constitutes the majority of its trade. So, although to use O'Brien's phrase the cultist supporters of Brexit continue to use the line that another Brexit could have existed, but it goes to another school, the reality is that the other school is one that only exists as a work of fiction in their minds. The reality of their argument was spelled out by a caller to O'Briens show on LBC, who proclaimed that they had very strong opinions on the matter, but who could not express what they were, or why he had them, and concluded that he would have closed the borders!
Totemic of that attempt by the proponents of Brexit to have no one discuss it after its implementation, and the disaster it has caused, is the issue of fishing. Despite the fishing industry accounting for only the same proportion of employment and GDP as the tattooing industry, it was made into a great symbol of the need for Brexit to ensure “freedom”. Jacob Rees-Mogg even talked about the fish around Britain's coast being “happier”, as a result of Brexit. Every day, the journalists that promoted Brexit, as a source of easy news stories and sensationalism, were in some fishing village or another, shoving a camera under someone's nose to speak about why they need Brexit to defend “British” fishing. Farage went down the Thames on a fishing boat, just as more lately he went along with small family farmers to protest about the problems they face, even though most of those problems are the result of the Brexit he advocated, and of the deals done after that by the Tories with Australia and New Zealand!
In fact, the consequence of Brexit has been to seriously undermine both the British fishing industry and agriculture, because of the problems of it selling into the main export market in the EU. Not that that should have been a surprise, because its what those opposed to Brexit argued would happen. Indeed, even one of the very few economists that backed Brexit, Patrick Minford, himself had said, before Brexit that the result would be to destroy British fishing, agriculture and a large part of its remaining manufacturing industry, but that “it would be worth it”. The same Minford, in backing Thatcher in the 1980's, argued that unemployment was a price worth paying. Of course, it is always workers that pay that price. Yet, even today, we have idiotic, Left nationalist supporters of Brexit claiming that there was something pro-working class in it.
It is only the brain-dead, core Brexiters, mindless economic nationalists, whose ideas are based on blind faith, prejudice and bigotry that refuse to accept the reality of what Brexit has done, whose interests it promoted, and the reactionary nature of what it represents, as an attempt to turn the clock backwards, in the delusional aim of representing the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, and of industries whose time has passed. So, as O'Brien notes, from being on every newspaper front page, every news headline, prior to Brexit, the fishing industry disappeared from the media overnight. That is until, now.
All of those that caused the
destruction of the fishing industry by advocating Brexit, now
proclaim a continuation of the deal done by Boris Johnson, for
another 12 years, to be a “betrayal of Brexit”. If
only it was. In reality, nothing has changed other than the current
arrangements are extended, whereas the proponents of Brexit would
like to have undermined the British fishing industry even further, by
reducing EU fishing rights around Britain even further, just as they
would like Britain to undermine its already diminished trade with the
EU further still, by insisting on diverging further and faster on
rules and regulations and standards.
As part of the reset with the EU, Britain has agreed talks on re-joining Erasmus. But, it is an indication of just how flimsy this reset is that, even this is only up for discussion, at this stage. There is no reason other than political why Britain has not agreed to Erasmus membership, or a Youth Mobility Scheme. It has similar reciprocal arrangements with other countries outside the EU. The reason that Starmer has been so opposed to such a deal with the EU, is purely political. He knows that if you agree to what amounts to the free movement of labour for young workers and students, there is no logical or juridical basis for denying it to everyone else. If such a scheme is introduced, then, immediately, there will be cases brought under human rights and other laws by people claiming age-discrimination against them, and demanding that their own right to free movement be restored.
Also, to greater fanfare, and with some notable deception, the agreement to enable British people to have access to e-gates, at airports and so on, was announced. What was originally requested was that British citizens be able to use the EU passport holders queues, rather than the non-EU queues that Brexit has imposed on them. The term e-gates, meaning electronic passport holders, not EU passport holders, has been sneaked in, to muddy the waters. In fact, this change was going to happen anyway, and does not just involve British passport holders. The new electronic exit and entry systems being introduced in the EU, as well as in Britain and elsewhere, in which travellers will have to sign up to, and provide biometric data, finger prints and so on, has been in the process of being rolled out for months, and once introduced, will mean that everyone would pass though such e-gates.
So, this has been much ado about nothing. There is no having cake and eating it, no Labour Brexit that gives the benefits of EU membership without any of the obligations of membership. The Brexit cultists will continue to hate it, without being able to explain why, and everyone else will respond with an appropriate yawn. Starmer must go, and take Blue Labour with him. We need a real reset, by re-joining the EU at the earliest opportunity, as part of building an international socialist alternative based upon a Workers' Europe.
