However, this led Ricardo into his own false explanation of the falling rate of profit. He argued that as capital could continue to expand, as a result of this rising productivity, created by machines, so the demand for agricultural/primary products would expand, i.e. demand for food and raw materials. Based on Malthus' own erroneous, catastrophist theory of population, Ricardo concluded that this agricultural/primary production could not keep pace with the demand, and would suffer from diminishing returns. The cost of materials would rise, and wages would rise, squeezing profits, and leading to Ricardo's own theory of collapse. Again, Marx explained in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 21, and in Capital III, Chapter 15, why this was also wrong.
“ According to Herr Dühring, the value which a thing has in practice therefore consists of two parts, first, the labour contained in it, and, secondly, the tax surcharge imposed “sword in hand”. In other words, the value in force today is a monopoly price.” (p 242)
As I noted some time ago, this same fallacy can be seen, today, as an explanation of inflation. For example, Michael Roberts tried to explain the inflation arising, after 2022, first by claiming that it was the result of supply constraints, following lockdowns, causing an imbalance of aggregate demand and supply. In which case, why was that not followed by a corresponding “deflation” of falling prices back to equilibrium levels, when those constraints ended and aggregate supply was brought into line with aggregate demand? Prices are still more than 20% higher, today, than in 2022, and the latest data show that they are rising at a faster pace once more.
Then, he tried to argue that the inflation was the result of higher costs of production due to the increase in energy costs resulting from the NATO/EU/G7 boycotts on Russian oil and gas. In which case, why were global prices, in aggregate, rising way before that, why haven't they fallen as global energy prices have again fallen, and how could a rise in energy prices, which accounts for only a small part of total production costs outweigh a general fall in unit costs that results from rising social productivity?
Finally, he argued that rising prices were the result of monopolies using their position to obtain monopoly profits, and so push up their prices. But, as Marx explains, whilst monopoly power can result in those monopolies obtaining surplus profit, i.e. a rate of profit above the average, the corollary of that is not higher aggregate prices, but lower than average profits for other capitals. In other words, there is a given amount of surplus value in aggregate to be shared out amongst capitals, and if some capitals – for whatever reason – are able to get a disproportionate share of it, by charging prices above their price of production, that does not create additional surplus value (which would itself mean abandoning The Labour Theory of Value), but simply reduces the amount of surplus value available to other capitals to share out, so that they must sell at prices below their prices of production.
The US Republicans, as well as the UK Conservative Party and Labour Party can no longer be considered social-democratic parties, as they have themselves been drawn into the mire of petty-bourgeois, nationalism, competing with the likes of Trump and Farage for the support of that particular section of the electorate. If social-democracy is to have any resurrection, it can only come from a growth of the currently weak forces of progressive social-democracy, as represented by the Corbyn Party in Britain, the Democratic Socialists in the US, and so on. But, for the reasons already set out, that progressive social-democracy, itself, can only be a transitional phase, which will have to move rapidly forward, before being replaced by Socialism.
A recent short article, even by a group of conservative social-democrats highlights this reality, but without recognising the inevitable consequence of their analysis and conclusion. In the article in Social Europe, they write,
“With only 5% of the world’s population and a growing economic backlog, faced with a world dominated by empires from Putin’s Russia to Trump’s United States and Xi Jinping’s China, Europe risks becoming a mere vassal of America...
Domestically, the second Von der Leyen Commission has decided to call into question the Green Deal, although it was the flagship project of her first term, as if climate change were not getting worse. It has also presented a disappointing multi-annual European budget, which does not provide for any real increase in spending and undermines cohesion policy in order to finance new priorities in research and defence. At the same time, the populist, Eurosceptic and Europhobic far right, aligned on Putin and Trump, has never been so powerful within both the Member States and the EU institutions.
It should now be clear that Trump is not, and never will be, an ally. Trump’s America is a major geopolitical, economic and cultural threat for Europe. However, becoming a mere American protectorate is not inevitable. Another path is possible, given the outrage sparked by the series of humiliations we are witnessing. The revival of a pro-European majority within the three institutions, and in particular in the European Parliament, would make it possible to change course, moving from vassalage to self-determination. It is up to the Parliament, which is responsible for overseeing the Commission and has the power to censure it, to demand a new direction in its work. To begin with, the European Parliament could block the reduction of European customs duties on American products, a measure that would certainly be approved by European voters. It should use this power, showing that Europe is capable of resisting blackmail.
As Mario Draghi has said, we will not become a geopolitical power by relying solely on improving our competitiveness and our internal market. We must become a true federal union, finally freed from the constraints of unanimity and endowed with competences in foreign and security policy.”
In other words, the EU must press forward to political union, and creation of an EU state. Progressive social democracy, can, and should support that goal, and, if its immediate plans are to be achieved, it will have to do so, but it is not enough. Even were Britain, for example, to see the reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist regime of Blue Labour thrown out, as the Blair-right, conservative social-democrats regroup along with the Liberals, and pro-Europe Conservatives, that would only replicate the situation existing, now, in France. A Britain back in the EU would certainly be a positive development, dealing, to an extent, with the need for growth, and, also, putting an additional £40 billion of tax revenues into the coffers, but it does not deal with all of those issues that existed prior to Brexit, and which, indeed, continue to plague the rest of the EU, as well as the global economy. It is why Marxists have always argued that we are not advocates of the existing EU per se, as a "lesser-evil", but recognise its progressive nature, on the path to international socialism.
Keir Starmer's, reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist, Blue Labour government is flailing like a drowning man. Starmer himself, who is even more lacking in principles, or original ideas, than he is in personality, was chosen, partly because of that, to be the cypher of the real forces behind Blue Labour, organised by the comically misnamed “Labour Together”, financed by opaque sources, with bank accounts in various tax havens across the globe. Blue Labour performed abysmally, in the 2024 General Election, despite the fact that it won a landslide parliamentary majority.
That landslide was down to the fraudulent nature of the electoral system, which amounts to ballot rigging. But, Blue Labour won less votes than did Corbyn's Labour in 2019, and 30% less share of the vote than did Corbyn's Labour in 2017. Even, now, it talks about the fact that it won a landslide, whilst avoiding the fact it won the smallest number of votes ever. Its argument is similar to that of Starmer's friend Trump, who is busy jerrymandering electoral boundaries, in the US, to enable the Republicans to win more seats! Yet, within less than a year, Blue Labour, under Starmer, has managed to reduce its popularity even more, as it inevitably began its period in office by attacking the working-class, and most particularly, the weakest and most vulnerable.
In doing so, as the Tories metamorphosed into Reform, Blue Labour's actions have not only facilitated that rise of Reform, but, also, driven core Labour voters away from it, and into the hands of the Liberals, Greens, SNP, Plaid, and various Independents. The most obvious manifestation of that came in the 2025 local elections, but is also seen in the most recent polling data, showing that, in next year's local and regional elections, Blue Labour is going to get wiped out in Scotland and Wales, to the benefit of the SNP and Plaid. To the extent that Reform benefit from that, it is only as a result of the vote for these other parties being split. The more the Blue Labour vote collapses, and goes to SNP, Plaid, or, in England, to the Liberals, Greens, or Your Party the less Reform will benefit. That is merely a completion of the process of the conservative, social-democratic centre collapsing, already seen by the metamorphosis of the Tories into Reform, on the Right.
Starmer's latest lurch to the authoritarian, racist and nationalist Right, in response, is set to hasten the collapse of Blue Labour. The trajectory of Blue Labour, as with the Tories, is into Reform, meaning the Labour Party will be rent asunder. That trajectory was set by all those Blue Labourist, jingoist Labour MP's and members that backed Brexit, and the Leave campaign of Farage and Johnson. Some of them, like Lee Anderson, made the transition quickly. Just as Starmer overnight abandoned all of the positions he stood on to win the Leadership, so, too, he will abandon any position, if he thinks it will get him more votes. Today, he says Reform's plans to repatriate legal migrants are immoral, but tomorrow he will embrace it as Blue Labour policy, denying he ever thought anything else, as he has done on every other position he has opportunistically abandoned.
Starmer says he has a personal friendship with the convicted felon and sex pest Trump. So, did Mandelson and Epstein!
When Starmer talks about the danger represented by Reform, he does not mean what socialists, and even progressive social-democrats mean by that. He does not mean that it represents a threat to workers, to minorities, and to basic rights and freedoms. If he did mean that, then, he would not have been adopting the same language, methods and policies that Reform pursues in Britain, and likewise that his friend, Donald Trump pursues in the US. On the contrary, he would have been using the fact that Blue Labour is the government to do the opposite! Rather than blaming workers and the most vulnerable for the economic difficulties Britain faces, he would have been blaming the role of fictitious-capital, and the fact of 14 years of fiscal austerity imposed to protect the paper wealth of the owners of that fictitious capital. He would have been blaming the Brexit imposed by the Tories, whipped along by Farage, and have been organising Britain's re-joining the EU.
Rather than his racist scapegoating of migrants, he would have been welcoming their contribution to the economy, and he would have been organising safe, available legal routes into the country for migrants, be they economic migrants or refugees, so that they would have been able to work, and provide for their own accommodation and so on, rather than being corralled into decrepit former hotels, where they provide an easy focal point for the ire of racists and bigots, whipped into hysteria by the likes of Farage and Yaxley-Lennon, and Musk.
What Starmer means by the danger of Reform is only a threat to the chances of Blue Labour winning the next election. It is the same as Macron in France, presenting the threat represented by Le Pen, simply as a means of goading the opposition votes behind him, or of Harris in the US, doing the same in relation to Trump. It is demanding that the voters support them, despite their appalling politics and actions that created the conditions for the rise of the Right-wing populists in the first place. It is what Starmer did in 2024, and which, in terms of votes, already failed, just as it failed for Harris, and failed for Macron, in the Assembly elections.
Starmer and particularly the reactionary, racist and nationalist forces that stand behind him in Blue Labour and Labour Together, has no concern for workers rights and freedoms, or even basic civil rights and freedoms. Their support for the genocide in Palestine, by their allies within the Zionist state in Israel is illustrative of that. Its why they could so ridiculously proscribe Palestine Action as being a terrorist organisation, in order to try to close down any debate and criticism of the government's actions, and those of the Zionist state. Its why they have arrested hundreds of grannies for protesting that decision, whilst they welcome Zionist war criminals into Downing Street! Its why they have arrested dozens of people on grounds of “anti-Semitism” simply for carrying Palestinian flags, claiming that its intimidating to Zionists, who they falsely equate with all Jews, and yet, deny that the use of flags by British neo-Nazis and racists, and their own attempts to wrap themselves in that same colonialist, blood stained flag is in any way divisive or intimidating to those who, over centuries, were oppressed by it!
Mosely was a Labour Minister too with position akin to Blue Labour
And, the fact that Starmer is not concerned about the real threat that Reform, and more particularly those that will ride on its bandwagon, represent to workers, and basic rights and freedoms, is shown, precisely by the fact that, in response, at every turn, Starmer has adopted those same measures!!! In response to Farage's racism, Starmer has sought to present his own racist policies, scapegoating migrants, for example. Now, Starmer responds to Farage's scurrilous proposals to stop all migrants coming into the country, and to send some of those already here, back to somewhere or other, reminiscent of Mosely, and then the National Front, in the 1960's and 70's, by proposing to clamp down on migrants by introducing a compulsory digital ID card!!! The Gestapo would have been proud of such logic, and measures, which would have made rounding up all the Jews, trades unionists, communists and others a far quicker and more efficient process.
If Starmer really wanted to deal with the problem of wages and conditions being undermined by “undocumented migrants”, as his friend Donald, in the US, refers to them, he would, instead, enable those migrants to enter Britain, by safe, legal routes. They would, then, not be subject to being trafficked or exploited by criminal gangs. They would be able to work legally, and obtain the required National Insurance number and so on, as well as being able to join trades unions and work with their fellow workers to obtain better pay and conditions for all. If Starmer really wanted to address the question of workers being undermined and undercut, he would not be watering down the proposals for workers and trades union rights, but would be strengthening them, and proposing much bigger rises in the Minimum Wage, including making it a Minimum Weekly wage.
If Starmer really wanted to prevent workers being undercut by undocumented workers – a problem that existed long before migrants were blamed for it, for example, the use of “lump” labour in the building industry - he would strengthen the ability of trades unions to organise committees of workers inspection, with a right to enter any workplace, and check for malpractice by rogue employers. When Marxists talk about the threat of forces like those of Reform or Trump, we do not mean the threat they pose to the electoral careers of careerist politicians, but the threat they pose, to the workers, and to our rights and freedoms, and when we talk, as Trotsky did, about the need to unite to defeat them, we do not mean lining up behind the same bourgeois politicians whose actions created the basis for the rise of that reaction, but, uniting, in action, with the millions of workers that were misled by them.
That includes, now, opposing Starmer's latest attack on workers' rights and freedoms in his proposals to impose a compulsory digital ID card. Blair attempted to impose ID cards in the early 2000's, and was defeated. Workers and the labour movement should defeat Starmer's reactionary proposals too, and mobilise wider forces in the process. Starmer claims that the purpose is to stop illegal migration, but that is clearly bullshit. The rogue employers employing undocumented workers, are not going to be asking for a digital ID any more than they currently ask for any other ID, or documents! As for the employers that do not engage in such activities, they have already noted that they have no difficulty in obtaining the required information. And, the large majority of migrants are, in any case, legal migrants who come here, with a visa!
But, imagine how much easier it would have been for Thatcher's bully boys to have stopped pickets moving around the country in 1984, if they all had to be carrying a digital ID, which, in any case, could be continually tracked. It is an authoritarian regime's dream. So, when they also refer to Estonia, as has been pointed out, several million people there, for a time found that there digital ID had simply disappeared from the computer systems, making them effectively “non-persons”, unable to access any services.
Their use of the flag not at all intimidatory and symolic
Imagine what a Yaxley-Lennon/Musk regime would be able to do with that kind of power, to be able to simply disappear millions of people, at first digitally, and then, literally! And, having all of this vital data in one place, also makes it much easier for hackers to simply get everything they want on millions of people. Its not as though UK governments have any kind of good track record in rolling out big computer systems.
Others have also pointed out simple questions such as “what if you don't have a smart phone?” I have only obtained a smart phone in the last few weeks. Before then I didn't even have a mobile phone of any kind. At least, the young salesmen understood, when, I pointed it out to him, the difficulties of doing anything without one. My wife still doesn't have a smart phone, but she continues to get messages sent to her old mobile that presume that it is. The government spokespeople, and reporters, seemed to have no conception of the problem that represents for their proposals. Only 82% of people over 65 own a smartphone, and although the percentage for the population as a whole is around 90%, that figure is distorted by the fact that many have more than one phone, and many phones are left unused. Even so, if 10% of the population do not own a smart phone, that is around 7 million people.
But, those are simply obvious problems with the actual implementation of such a scheme, assuming that the state itself is, and continues to be, a benign actor. If Starmer really does see the danger that a Reform government represents, then, placing that kind of power in the hands of such a regime is the last thing he should be proposing. But, of course, its not those real threats that Starmer is concerned about, but only the threat that he and Blue Labour might lose the election. So he has scrambled once more on to the territory of Farage, Trump, Musk and Yaxley-Lennon, to whip up racist and nationalist hysteria, and to propose a solution to a non-problem, by imposing yet another authoritarian, illiberal measure.
“A distinction must he made here. When Adam Smith explains the fall in the rate of profit from an over-abundance of capital, an accumulation of capital, he is speaking of a permanent effect and this is wrong. As against this, the transitory over-abundance of capital, over-production and crises are something different. Permanent crises do not exist.” (Note *, p 497)
Various catastrophists, today, are also waiting for this same final crisis of capitalism that Marx never predicted. Ricardo, himself, set out why Smith's argument, both in relation to the cost of production theory, and the rate of profit, were wrong. Ricardo argued that the value of commodities continued to be determined by the labour required for their production, but he was, then, unable to resolve the contradiction of why the workers' wages were not equal to the new value they created. It was left to Marx to explain that, by setting out the difference between the value of labour-power (wages), as against the value created by labour, the difference being surplus-value.
But, Ricardo, also, set out that Smith's argument about capital expanding faster than labour supply was, also, wrong, in the long-term, because capital would always bring forth additional workers. As wages rose, workers would have more children. Marx in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 21, analysing the work of Hodgskin, shows that is, also, insufficient to prevent the rate of profit falling. Marx says,
“We have seen that over 20 years, capital increased sevenfold, whereas, even according to the “most extreme” assumption of Malthus, the population can only double itself every twenty-five years. But let us assume that it doubles itself in twenty years, and therefore the working population as well. Taking one year with another, the interest would have to be 30 per cent—three times greater than it is. If one assumes, however, that the rate of exploitation remained unchanged, in 20 years the doubled population would only be able to produce twice as much labour as it did previously (and [the new generation] would be unfit for work during a considerable part of these 20 years, scarcely during half this period would it be able to work, in spite of the employment of children); it would therefore produce only twice as much surplus labour, but not three times as much.”
As noted, here, and in the earlier quote from Capital III, Chapter 15, the solution cannot come from just a rise in population, but has to come from a rise in the rate of surplus value, alongside it. How is that rise in the rate of surplus-value accomplished? By technological innovation, to raise social productivity. Not only does it resolve the crisis of overproduction of capital relative to labour, but it even creates a relative surplus population. Ricardo, writing later than Smith saw this role of labour-saving machines, in creating that relative surplus population. He noted that, when there was an excess of workers, capital had no incentive to invest in innovation and machines. Marx notes that Ricardo had remarked that machinery can only be introduced when wages rise above a certain level, and that, for example, at one point, women were used to pull canal barges, because they were cheaper than using horses.
In the 30 years after 1980, real capitalwas accumulated, output did increase, and the global working-class did increase, indeed, the working-class globally, doubled in size between 1980 and 2000, and increased by 30% after 2000 to 2010, making it the largest class on the planet for the first time. But, that increase was not even. There was again a combined and uneven development. The biggest increase was of the working-class in those newly industrialising economies. It was there, also, that this was reflected in a bigger proportional rise in real wages.
In the old developed economies, a 200 year process of the gradual disappearance of the petty-bourgeoisie, as it sank into the ranks of the working-class, was reversed. Since the 1980's, the size of the petty-bourgeoisie, in those countries, has risen by 50% bringing with it a rise in its social weight, and most notably where that petty-bourgeoisie always has most effect, in its electoral significance.
This was not a fortuitous reversal of workers being able to escapewage-labour, but a further deterioration of their condition, as growing unemployment threw them out of the labour market, forcing them into the misery and precarity of self-employment, as I have described before, culturally symbolised, at the time by a series of comedy dramas such as Only Fools and Horses, Minder, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, and Boys From The Blackstuff.
It was that which was reflected in the ructions in the UK Conservative Party, and its equivalent, the US Republican Party. Both had been conservativesocial-democratic parties, representing the interests of the ruling-class owners of fictitious-capital, but whose voter base and membership was dependent upon large numbers of the petty-bourgeoisie. In the late 80's, both saw a rise in the influence of that petty-bourgeoisie on their votes, and in their membership, as it asserted its power.
This immiserated petty-bourgeois was also closely tied to the other precarious social layers in the decayed urban areas in which it subsisted. The old social-democratic consensus was broken by it, in the form of Reagan and Thatcher. But, both set in motion a process that was out of their control. In the US, the Republicans began to be rent asunder, and saw the rise of the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, as manifest in the growing support for the Libertarians, and, in the early 2000's, the Tea Party, and finally Trump.
In Britain, Thatcher became increasingly a vehicle for those same kinds of petty-bourgeois ideas, which in the 1990's, also saw the development of its outriders in UKIP, and its subsequent brand names, as well as in the takeover of the party itself by the Eurosceptics. Its ultimate demise has come in the form of the split of its social-democratic voters and members to the Liberals, and its petty-bourgeois/Tory voters and members to the Farage Company.
Similar developments occurred in Europe. But, its in the US and UK where this process has been most pronounced. It was not just that the progressive social-democracy of the period 1950-74, which hit the buffers in the 1970's, as the long-wave turned to its crisis phase, gave way to the conservative social-democracy of the late 70's and 1980's, but that, as this conservative social-democracy presided over the effective asset striping of large-scale capital, as it promoted the illusion of paper wealth, in the form of inflating asset prices, it also, set the course for its own demise at the hands of the petty-bourgeoisie.
By the time of the 2008 global financial crisis, as the buffers were, thereby, hit, in relation to its own illusory ideas, the petty-bourgeoisie already had the momentum behind it. In the US and UK, social-democracy has already vacated the field, in terms of the political regime. Its only defence resides in the imperialist state itself, as representative of the ruling class, and in the hands of a relatively small number of progressive social-democratic forces.
Cameron was its last hurrah, as he tried to continue the model of Blair, just as Obama/Biden were its last hurrah in the US. In France, Hollande performed a similar role, to Blair, but his failure amid a continued opposition to a collapse into petty-bourgeois reaction, simply delayed the inevitable confrontation, as Macron, representing no real social forces, became its last encore, in France.
For Duhring, it is not economic processes that lead to a division of society into different classes, and emergence of a ruling class, but the use of force by some in society, to establish domination over others, which is, then, the basis of the economic/productive relations. Productive value, i.e. the value of a commodity determined by labour-time, is for Duhring, an idealisation, but, thereby, only an abstraction that does not exist in reality, because, from the start, production is always characterised by this existence of social and productive relations based on force. The value of commodities, therefore, is always, for Duhring, greater than the labour-time required for their production, because it always includes these additions for the exploiters in the form of rent, profit, interest and tax.
For Smith, by contrast, he arrives at this same false conclusion, but based not on force, but on economic processes. Why are wages less than the “value of labour”? Because, labour is plentiful and capital is scarce. So, Smith explains it simply on the basis of supply and demand, the “natural price” of labour and capital. But, its this that, also, leads Smith to the conclusion, also false, that, in the end, this will result in the supply of capital rising faster than the supply of labour, so that wages rise and profits, eventually, disappear. This is, also, the conclusion reached by Walras and others. It was Smith's explanation for the long-term tendency for the rate of profit to fall.
But, Marx explains that whilst this argument of Smith, in relation to falling profits, is valid in the short-run, and is the basis of periodic crises of overproduction of capital, relative to labour, it is false in the long-run. As Marx sets out, in Capital III, Chapter 15,
“Given the necessary means of production, i.e., a sufficient accumulation of capital, the creation of surplus-value is only limited by the labouring population if the rate of surplus-value, i.e., the intensity of exploitation, is given; and no other limit but the intensity of exploitation if the labouring population is given.”
So, in periods of boom, characterised by extensive accumulation, this explanation provided by Smith is valid. Capital expands faster than the labour supply/social working day, so relative wages rise, relative profits fall, and the rate of surplus value falls until, eventually, surplus value itself stops expanding, with any additional investment of capital. Capital is overproduced.
“There would be absolute over-production of capital as soon as additional capital for purposes of capitalist production = 0. The purpose of capitalist production, however, is self-expansion of capital, i.e., appropriation of surplus-labour, production of surplus-value, of profit. As soon as capital would, therefore, have grown in such a ratio to the labouring population that neither the absolute working-time supplied by this population, nor the relative surplus working-time, could be expanded any further (this last would not be feasible at any rate in the case when the demand for labour were so strong that there were a tendency for wages to rise); at a point, therefore, when the increased capital produced just as much, or even less, surplus-value than it did before its increase, there would be absolute over-production of capital; i.e., the increased capital C + ΔC would produce no more, or even less, profit than capital C before its expansion by ΔC. In both cases there would be a steep and sudden fall in the general rate of profit, but this time due to a change in the composition of capital not caused by the development of the productive forces, but rather by a rise in the money-value of the variable capital (because of increased wages) and the corresponding reduction in the proportion of surplus-labour to necessary labour.”
Starmer's Blue Labour government has recognised a Palestinian state. He has done so, in conditions where the Zionist state, in Israel, has destroyed Gaza, and continues its policy of genocide against Palestinians, now, also, in the occupied West Bank. The Zionist state has made clear its intention of annexing, at least, the majority of the West Bank, which, in reality, means it will annex all of it, simply formalising its existing rule over it, and the continued violent eviction of the Palestinian population by Zionist settlers, backed by the IDF. In other words, Starmer's recognition of a Palestinian state, is merely, a grotesque, performative action, designed for domestic consumption, to recognise the existence of a still-born corpse.
At any point, in the last 78 years, following the creation of the Zionist state, in Palestine, and, thereby, the creation of the Israeli nation state, British and other governments could have recognised the existence of a Palestinian state. They chose not to do so so, despite, for at least the last 50 years, many of them claiming to be in favour of a two-state solution! A Palestinian nation state did, after all, already exist, unlike the Israeli nation state, which came into existence, only in 1947, by itself, seizing a large chunk of that Palestinian nation state, and violently evicting 700,000 Palestinians. A Palestinian nation state existed, prior to that, as numerous Al Jazeera documentaries have detailed. But, it was not an independent nation state. It was already a colonial state, under the control of some colonial power, notably the Ottoman Empire, prior to WWI, and, then, Britain.
As with most colonies, the question is not whether a nation state existed, or not, but whether that state was politically independent. A nation state exists, where there is a nation existing, within defined national borders, possessing a common language and customs, and an administrative infrastructure. All of that applied to Palestine, both under the Ottomans, and under the British mandate, just as much as it applied to, for example, India, under British rule. The existence of this nation state, however, does not imply its political independence, and the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries, were precisely about the struggle for the independence of those existing bourgeois states, and not, about the creation of new, bourgeois nation states themselves. It is why Lenin, and the Comintern, distinguished between the national question, and the colonial question.
In terms of the national question, what was being discussed was the creation of new bourgeois states, as national minorities, within existing nation states, sought to separate. The position of Marxism, in relation to that, has always been clear, going back to Marx and Engels. We see it as a reactionary demand, which undermines the unity of the working-class as an international, not national class, and does so, by aligning the workers in each nation with their own rulers, against the workers of other nations. Whilst Marxists in the dominant nation, emphasise that they support the right of any oppressed national minority, to secede, freely, they, nevertheless, continue to argue against them doing so, i.e. argue against them exercising that right. In fact, as Marx set out in his 1850 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, we oppose, also, the weakening of the political unity of the existing state, in the form of the introduction of federal structures, too, because that is the first step to the break up of the state itself, and is used by reactionary nationalist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces to divide the workers.
“The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. A renewal of the present situation, in which the Germans have to wage a separate struggle in each town and province for the same degree of progress, can also not be tolerated. Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers. As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralization.”
In his polemic with the Luxemburg and Pilsudski, in relation to Polish independence from Tsarist Russia, Lenin made clear the reactionary nature of that demand, in dividing the working class.
“See to what monstrous conclusions this monstrous logic leads, even from the viewpoint of the programme demand for Poland’s restoration. Because the restoration of Poland is one of the possible (but, whilst the bourgeoisie rules, by no means absolutely certain) consequences of democratic evolution, therefore the Polish proletariat must not fight together with the Russian proletariat to overthrow tsarism, but “only” to weaken it by wresting Poland from it. Because Russian tsarism is concluding a closer and closer alliance with the bourgeoisie and the governments of Germany, Austria, etc., therefore the Polish proletariat must weaken its alliance with the proletariat of Russia, Germany, etc., together with whom it is now fighting against one and the same yoke. This is nothing more than sacrificing the most vital interests of the proletariat to the bourgeois-democratic conception of national independence. The disintegration of Russia which the P.S.P. desires, as distinct from our aim of overthrowing tsarism, is and will remain an empty phrase, as long as economic development continues to bring the different parts of a political whole more and more closely together, and as long as the bourgeoisie of all countries unite more and more closely against their common enemy, the proletariat, and in support of their common ally, the tsar.”
(The National Question In Our Programme)
And, that point was made even clearer, by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, in setting out that, as far as Marxists in the nation seeking to separate was concerned, they should emphasise their opposition to any such separation.
“The Social-Democrats will always combat every attempt to influence national self-determination from without by violence or by any injustice. However, our unreserved recognition of the struggle for freedom of self-determination does not in any way commit us to supporting every demand for national self-determination. As the party of the proletariat, the Social-Democratic Party considers it to be its positive and principal task to further the self-determination of the proletariat in each nationality rather than that of peoples or nations. We must always and unreservedly work for the very closest unity of the proletariat of all nationalities, and it is only in isolated and exceptional cases that we can advance and actively support demands conducive to the establishment of a new class state or to the substitution of a looser federal unity, etc., for the complete political unity of a state.”
(ibid)
With the colonial question, however, what is being discussed is not the creation of some new class state, but simply the political independence of an existing class state. Other than in the case of the French colonies, colonial empires did not incorporate the colony into the state of the colonial power. The state in India, for example, operated within India, under British colonial rule. There were no elections of Indian politicians to the British parliament, and so on. So, the question of the existence of a Palestinian nation state, is quite different to the question of whether this state was ever an independent state, which, clearly, it was not. The Palestinians, never reached that level of development to establish such an independent state, and, after, 1947, as the Zionist state arose, as itself, a colonialist and expansionist state, backed by powerful imperialist states, it took over that role.
The two-state solution was always a reactionary, bourgeois delusion, as I described 40 years ago, and was, in fact, used by imperialism to distract from any real solution to the problem. Ben-Gurion was clear what the acceptance of the wording of a two-state solution, proposed by the Peel Commission, actually amounted to for the Zionists. In a letter to his son in October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to "possession of the land as a whole". That is what has now played out. At the point that all prospect of an independent, Palestinian state has, now, been clearly demonstrated to be impossible, Starmer, and others, who have continued, and continue to back the genocide and destruction of Palestine, recognise its existence!
The real reason that conservativesocial-democracy has sought to raise retirement ages, to reduce holidays, to cut welfare spending and so on, is not because workers are living longer, need more health care and so on, because the rise in labour productivity of actual use-values, more than covers that. It is that the parasitic ruling-class, which has no useful function, has drawn more and more for itself out of social production. What is more, the fact that the bourgeois measure of productivity has slowed significantly since the global financial crisis of 2008 is, also, no coincidence.
After 2008, a growing proportion of GDP went to cover revenues to the ruling-class and its state not for actual consumption, but simply to finance the purchase of existing financial assets, as they sought to remedy the damage done to their paper wealth as the asset price bubble burst. Compare that with the period after WWII, when a progressive social-democracy built welfare states, and pumped huge amounts into real capital investment in plant and equipment in nationalised industries, into state infrastructure, which itself raised productivity, and during which time, even the parasitic ruling-class looked to increased real capital investment as the basis of their revenues from expanding masses of profits, funding their payments of dividends and interest. What is more, they did that despite national debt forming a much larger percentage of GDP than it does today.
In contrast, as testament to the fact that the system has become thoroughly decadent and based on gambling and speculation, today, we have huge dams built in Ethiopia, producing vast amounts of hydro-electric power, which is then used not to produce goods and services for the Ethiopian people, but to power huge computer banks used for Bitcoin mining! The current cost of mining those Bitcoins is $20,000 each, but the Bitcoin is itself a pure speculative asset, even more so than were Tulip bulbs during the mania. At least tulips are real commodities. But Bitcoin has no use-value other than purely for the purpose of speculation. You can't eat it, wear it, or produce anything else from it. It is a pure waste of labour-time, and only sustainable as long as speculators gamble that its market price will be higher tomorrow than it is today.
If you borrow to finance real capital accumulation, as happened after WWII, the increased mass of capital and profits provides the basis of paying back the debt, as well as raising productivity and profitability. If you borrow to finance consumption, or to finance simply the inflating of already inflated asset prices it spells inevitable catastrophe.
What changed in the 1980's, was that, in order to resolve the crisis of overproduction of capital relative to the labour supply, a technological revolution was introduced, in which machines using the latest microchip technology replaced huge quantities of labour. Productivity, real productivity, i.e. physical output per labour hour, rose massively, meaning that the unit value of output fell significantly. That fall in unit values of commodities meant that there was a huge fall in the value of constant capital, and moral depreciation of the vast quantities of existing fixed capital. So, the rate of profit rose massively, and a further huge release of capital was created. In addition, not only did wages fall, as the former relative shortage of labour turned into widespread mass unemployment, but the value of labour-power itself was reduced. The rate of surplus value, and, thereby, rate of profit was raised.
In these conditions as in all previous long-wave cycles, total output rose more slowly than net output, because with rising unemployment and falling wages, aggregate demand grows more slowly. Profits rose, but with the new technologies, and release of capital, a smaller proportion of those profits were needed to fund capital accumulation. Interest rates, thereby, fell, and that started a secular rise in asset prices. The ruling-class, a global class, now with no social function, and which rested upon its ownership of fictitious capital, increasingly saw its wealth and power deriving from those fictitious assets, as though they had some magical power to provide them with wealth and revenues independent from the need to accumulate additional real industrial capital, and, thereby, the production of growing masses of profits.
That impression was further enhanced by the growing deindustrialisation of the developed western economies, and the growing industrialisation of economies in Asia, and Latin America, and more latterly Africa. A global ruling-class of owners of fictitious-capital has no particular objective reason to favour capital in one part of the world as against another, particularly in conditions of US hegemony, and para state global institutions whose role is to establish an international rules based order, seeking to provide a level playing field for capital everywhere. The ruling-class can as easily own shares or bonds of companies or governments in Asia, as it can those in Europe or North America, and the new communications technologies enabled them to buy and sell these paper assets at the press of a computer key, creating a further problem for nation states and governments, as I will discuss later.
The use, by Duhring, of the phrase “overcoming of resistance” is, also, false, but serves a specific purpose for him.
“Why all this childish perversion and perversity? In order to pass by means of “resistance” from the “production value”, the true but hitherto only ideal value, to the “distribution value”, the value, falsified by force, which alone was acknowledged in past history:” (p 241)
What this means is this. Marx, building on the theory of Smith and Ricardo argues that the value of a commodity is equal to the socially necessary labour-time required for its production. Smith and Ricardo ran into a contradiction and dead end, because they did not distinguish the commodity labour-power from the value-creating process, labour. As a result, they could not explain why a worker who undertakes 10 hours labour, and so produces 10 hours of new value, receives as wages for that labour, only the equivalent of, say, 5 hours labour, i.e. their wages buy commodities/wage goods with a value of only 5 hours, leaving the capitalist with a surplus value of 5 hours, in the form of profit, which they share with the landlord as rent, the money-lender as interest, and the state as tax.
As Marx set out in Theories of Surplus Value, this led Smith to abandon the Labour Theory of Value, in favour of a cost of production theory of value, and its this that Duhring also advances in his own confused manner. Smith's argument is that the LTV applies up to the point where landed property and capital come into existence. At that point, in order to undertake labour, the labourer must have access to land, and that land is in the possession of landlords who will only allow its use in return for rent. (Note that Smith sees that the land – which has no value – does not add any value to the value of the commodities produced on it.)
Similarly, once capital exists, the labourer must have access to it, in the form of workshops, machines, materials, and so on, which are in the possession of the capitalist, who will only allow them to be used if the labourer pays to do so in the form of the capitalists' profit. As commodities, all of these elements of capital, unlike land, do have value, which is transferred to the value of the commodities they produce. But, the profit, then, still exists as a separate amount of value, in excess of the value of these commodities that form the capital. It is an appropriation of part of the value created by labour, as the price of the capitalist making it available for use.
The value of the commodity, then, becomes, for Smith, a summation of these different revenues – wages, profit, rent, interest – all of which are based on the “natural price” of these different factors of production, the amount the labourer requires to supply labour, the landlord to supply land, the capitalist to supply capital. As Marx notes, in fact, Smith moved between this cost of production theory of value and the labour theory of value. Unlike Smith, however, Duhring never recognises any period prior to the existence of landed property or capital, because his theory is based on the primary role of force.
In France, currently, the conservative social-democratic government of Macron is seeking to cut welfare benefits, and to increase the age of retirement for workers. The French conservative social-democrats, and other bourgeois political pundits, have, of course, used, as part of their justification for this, the example of Britain, where over the last 20 years, successive governments have got away with cutting the size of the welfare state, and raising the age of retirement and so on. Where the likes of Owen looked to best practice in terms of raising productivity by enhancing the conditions of workers, in the last 30 years the opposite has been the case. When the UK government sought to undermine the final salary pensions of state workers, for example, it used the disgraceful fact that non-state workers had already been deprived of theirs during the Thatcher years. Compare that, even to the welfarist notions of Winston Churchill at the start of the 20th century.
The, then, Liberal Winston Churchill was able to introduce the first Minimum Wage in 1909, saying,
“It is a national evil that any class of Her Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions… where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad by the worst; the worker, whose whole livelihood depends upon the industry, is undersold by the worker who only takes up the trade as a second string… where these conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration.”
An important point to note, here, is that, when Blair's government did introduce a Minimum Wage, not only did the Tories oppose it, despite it being set at a pitifully low level, but, because it was established and has continued as an hourly minimum rate, not a weekly, let alone monthly minimum amount, not only was it meaningless, but it actively encouraged employers to use zero hours contracts and other forms of precarity. It, thereby, created the very conditions in which, full-time, permanent labour was undercut "by the worker who only takes up the trade as a second string". Today, that second string is one that supplements various other kinds of precarious existence.
One of the central planks of their argument is that workers are living longer, and so, the proportion of the population that is receiving pensions, and that also requires more healthcare and so on, is rising. As I have set out long ago, and as Robert Owen describes, here, that argument is completely bogus.
In 2000, UK life expectancy was 78, and in 2025 is 82. For workers, particularly those in the more hazardous and arduous jobs, who also tend to live in the worst conditions and locations, it is much lower than that (up to 19 years lower). In percentage terms that is a rise of around 5%. But, taking Owen's point above, productivity in Britain, rises by around 2%, every year! So, in just 3 years out of that 25 year period, each worker in Britain, would have raised their output, on average, by more than enough to cover the increased number of pensioners and their consumption of social output. In fact, to emphasise the point, taking the period since 1950, when the welfare state was established on a larger scale, the average life expectancy was, in 1950, nearly 69. It was after that that life expectancy rose most notably, itself, in part due to the welfare state, better healthcare, living conditions and diets. Yet, far from raising the retirement age during the following decades, they were reduced, as well as pensions improved, and for those still working, they had shorter working days, and more holidays.
By 1990, the average life expectancy had risen from 69, to 76, a rise of 10%. Even using the false measure of productivity employed by bourgeois economics, the point is clear. Bourgeois economics measures productivity on the basis of GDP per hour worked. That is a false measure for many reasons. Firstly, GDP measures only the new value created, and not the total value of output. Secondly, what we are concerned with is not the value of the output, but its physical quantity. Pensioners, after all, do not eat, or wear the value of output, but the physical use-values themselves. As Marx demonstrated, as actual productivity – the number of use-values produced per labour hour – rises, the unit value of those use-values declines. But, even using the false bourgeois method of calculating productivity, it has risen far more than the proportional rise in life expectancy. Between 2000 and 2008, it rose by around 15%.
As I have set out before, if you want a more accurate measure of just how much productivity has risen, mostly as a result of the microchip revolution of the 1980's, it is signified by the fact that 25% of all the goods and services produced by mankind in its entire history on the planet, were produced in just the first ten years of this century!!! Yet, according to the likes of Macron, the fact that workers are living a couple more years longer than they used to, has so upset things that they must now work longer, have shorter holidays, longer working-days and so on. Come back Robert Owen!
The economic nationalists, of both right and left, claimed that Brexit/Lexit was vital, because they wanted to “get their country back”. One delusion, in that, of course, was that “the country” had ever been theirs to begin with, at some point. You can only get back what has been taken from you, and the reality is that “the country” had never belonged to the petty bourgeois reactionaries of either the right or the left. As a capitalist state, “the country” had always belonged to the ruling-class, the bourgeoisie. That ruling-class, which, originally, arose in the 15th century, as owners of industrial capital, and became dominant in the 18th century, by the end of the 19th century, had been transformed. It is no longer the owners of industrial capital, but the owners of fictitious-capital. It no longer depends on profits for its revenues, wealth and power, but on its ability to utilise its control of the state to extract interest, rent and capital gains.
The interests of that ruling-class, as Marx describes, are, therefore antagonistic to the very form of property - industrial capital - that brought it into existence, in the first place. The nature of industrial capital, its dynamic, forces it to accumulate, to use the profits it creates, via the exploitation of labour, and creation of surplus-value, to plough back into the accumulation of ever more capital, the building of additional factories, machines, production of more raw materials, and setting to work of more labour so as to produce more new value and surplus value. That is not, now, the interest of the ruling-class. Its revenues come from interest/dividends, rents and realised capital gains. But, all of those revenues are deductions from profits, and so reduce the ability of industrial capital to fulfil its mission, to continually accumulate.
As Marx notes, of course, this antagonism between the ruling-class, as owners of fictitious-capital, and industrial capital, which is, now, the collective property of the associated producers, i.e. the workers within each company, (socialised capital), must always be resolved, in the end, in the interests of the real industrial capital, because, without that industrial capital producing the surplus-value/profits in the first place, there can be no interest/dividends, rent or taxes to be deducted from it. If, the ruling-class owners of fictitious-capital, continue to use their political power to drain interest, rent, and taxes without there being a greater accumulation of real capital, and so, surplus-value/profits, the consequence is asset stripping, the selling off of real industrial capital, to finance those revenues, and the more that asset stripping occurs, the smaller the real capital base and ability to produce surplus value to finance those revenues. The ruling-class can try to delude themselves all they like, by printing money tokens via central banks so as to buy up fictitious-capital, inflate its price, and so, provide the illusion of capital gains, but, the delusion of those bubbles, eventually, is shattered, as the bubbles burst. That is what has happened over the last 40 years, and it is relevant to what is happening, now.
The ruling-class, their ideologists, and bourgeois media talk about “investment”, when what they are actually talking about is speculation/gambling. Its the difference between owning a race-horse, and betting on one. They mean by investment, not actual investment, i.e. the accumulation of additional capital, which produces new value and surplus-value, but the purchase of merely fictitious-capital assets, nowadays, not even with the purpose of deriving interest from them, but, primarily in the expectation that the price of those financial assets will be higher tomorrow than it is today, i.e. gambling on obtaining a capital gain. They believe that such capital gains are possible even without the real industrial capital, which underlies those financial assets, expanding or producing additional profits. Indeed, look at the times when those asset prices have risen most, for example, the 1980's/90's, and most recently during the lockdowns, when capital accumulation and economic growth was curtailed, and that is obvious. By contrast, in the periods when capital accumulation and growth was greatest, and profits grew along with it, in the 1960's and 70's, for example, asset prices, in real terms, actually fell.
All that was required for that was that the demand for these assets was greater than their supply. When that delusion resulted in those asset price bubbles bursting, as in 1987, 90, 94, 97, 2000, 2008, they simply sought to inflate those bubbles again, by printing more money tokens to use to buy those assets, and, at the same time, to use their control of the state to impose fiscal austerity to limit economic growth/real capital accumulation, so as to be able to divert more money into the purchase of those paper assets, rather than into real capital accumulation. We saw the ruling-class, during this period, use their position to prop up the share price of companies by using the pension funds of the workers in those companies to buy the shares, usually, then, resulting in those pension funds suffering huge losses, as the share prices crashed anyway. As I set out recently, Trump has done that, so did Robert Maxwell, and it was seen at BHS, and other companies. Maggie Thatcher did it on a huge scale, in the 1980's, via the privatisation of state owned industries, selling of council houses etc., and, now, Rachel Reeves is seeking to do the same thing, by having public sector pension funds buy up financial assets.
When, we hear talk about “investment”, in Britain, or anywhere else, its important, then, to realise that often this “investment” is no such thing, but purely the purchase of fictitious-capital assets. It is just gambling pure and simple, like betting on a race horse, or buying a lottery ticket. The point has been made by economist Angus Hanton, in his book, Vassal State: How America Runs Britain, who says that he questioned the ONS about inward investment, and they confirmed that they did not distinguish between the actual direct investment in real capital, and merely the purchase of UK shares, bonds and so on, by foreign companies, and individuals.
As I have set out elsewhere, because shareholders exercise control over companies they do not own, and because they only require around 30% of the issued shares to exercise control, in the end, it is these shareholders, as individuals that, thereby, gain control over other companies, even when it appears that it is a company, rather than individual shareholders that buy up the shares of other companies. It is the global ruling-class that comprises only around 0.01% of the population – forget about the 1%, the large majority of who are relative paupers, compared to them – that controls those shares and other financial assets, and, via control of the banks and finance houses, which control vast amount of money in pensions funds etc., exercise control over the vast majority of companies, across the globe.
So, although Starmer and Reeves have talked in grand terms about the “investment” coming in to Britain, whether from the US, or from elsewhere, in large part, that is bunk. Even former Liberal Leader Nick Clegg, who jumped ship after his opportunistic coalition with the Tories led to the disasters of Brexit, and austerity, and became PR man for Meta, has said so. The Guardian reports that,
“Huang, who was due to join Donald Trump at Wednesday night’s state banquet with the king, said he was taking an equity stake in Nscale, a UK cloud computing company, and predicted it would earn revenues of up to £50bn over the next six years.”
Jensen Huang is CEO of Nvidia. Note that the £500 million “investment” he is making, is not an investment at all. It is not £500 million of actual spending in Britain on new buildings, equipment, employment and so on, but is simply Nvidia buying up £500 million of shares in Nscale!
If some foreign company, such as Toyota, builds a factory in Britain, where none previously existed, then, yes, that is real capital investment. It employs additional workers and so on, and those workers produce real new value and surplus value. But, if a foreign company simply buys up a controlling proportion of shares in an existing company in Britain, that does not represent any new real capital investment. It does not mean any new factories, machines, employment and so on.
What it does mean is that the foreign company/shareholders get control over any new technology/ideas and so on that the British company had previously developed, and it means that the interest/dividends screwed out of the profits of the British company, now go to the foreign country, and can be used there. That is what Britain used to do, when it dominated the world economy in the 18th and 19th century, but now the shoe is on the other foot, as, for example Indian companies, such as Tata, are able to have control over British capital, and send the interest/dividends back to India. It is what the US tech bros are doing, here, using Trump's visit, the fact that Starmer and Blue Labour are disappearing up Trump's arse, as Britain becomes a third rate economy, now its outside the EU, to do.
That doesn't mean that no real capital investment occurs, but, since Brexit, there has been a reduction in the attractiveness of Britain for that real investment, as against, the purchase of shares, and existing property, to just extract interest, rent and to gain access to technologies, brands and so on, which, at any point can simply be transferred elsewhere. A look at the closure of steel plants, the Honda factory in Swindon and so on, illustrates the point that, as a result of Brexit, Britain has increased its costs of production, because of all the red tape and frictions Brexit has imposed on it, and so, is less attractive as a location for production.
Much talk has been given to the “investment” by US tech companies in Britain, attendant on Trump's visit, but much of that “investment” is of the type described above. In other words, not investment at all, but simply the taking over of a controlling share in existing British companies. Its a cheap way of acquiring the technologies developed. Some actual investment is promised, in the shape of the building of data centres, but such centres employ very few people. Typically, around a dozen or so people. Its hardly comparable to the investment of, say, Ford, in Britain, in plants that employed thousands of workers. What these data centres do do, however, is to consume huge amounts of energy, and its not clear that Britain even has the capacity in its energy infrastructure to meet it, without causing energy prices to rise sharply, and denying existing consumers a secure supply. Its rather like the situation described recently, in Ethiopia, where a huge hydro-electric plant is being used not to supply cheap power to domestic consumers, but simply to power a Bitcoin mining operation!
James O'Brien, however, has done it again. He, of course rightly ridicules the petty-bourgeois nationalists, and their mouthpieces in the likes of The Daily Mail, Daily Express and so on. But, in doing so, he feels compelled to defend Starmer, claiming that, as a a result of the Brexit those petty-bourgeois nationalists promoted, Starmer had no choice but to disappear up Trump's arse. Bullshit! Starmer has had 6 years since he took over in 2019, as Labour Leader, to have argued the case gainst Brexit, which would have been pushing at an open door. He could have been negotiating with Brussles to rejoin the EU during all that time, ready to have stood on that promise in 2024, and be now taking Britain, on a fast—track back into the EU. He could, then, have told Trump where to get off. But, no, Starmer has actively pursued the same reactionary nationalist agenda, and as he and those around him made clear, has shown a genuine personal affinity with the grotesque that is Trump. That close personal affinity is not just manifest in the choice of the awful Mandelson, but, also, in Starmer's active support for the Zionist genocide in Gaza.
And, the irony is that this seems like a repeat of the conditions in late 1999, just before the huge run-up in technology shares ended in a massive bust of those shares in March 2000, with the NASDAQ dropping by 75%. Only in part was that because the Internet had been overhyped, and because on the back of it, huge (actual) investments in ICT infrastructure, particularly the roll-out of vast amounts of fibre optic cable, and switching gear had been undertaken by the likes of CISCO, which proved to be a massive overproduction of commodities, which, then, at best lay idle, and at worst became scrap. A lot of the data centres being built, today, will equally be seen to represent a huge overproduction.
Global stock markets, and particularly those in the US are at even higher, more inflated levels, today, and that level is even more narrowly based, resting on the stock valuations of basically just 7 huge, US tech companies, such as Nvidia. When those share prices crash, which, as in 2000, they inevitably will, especially as the globe is enmeshed in a huge debt crisis in a way it was not in 2000, the crash in asset prices will make 2008 look like a blip. Of course, in 2000, when technology stock prices crashed, a lot of companies that should never have existed went bust, as their share price went to zero. And, although there was a huge overproduction of fibre optic cable and so on, some of which lay dark for so long that it was useless, as technology moved on, the reality was that as the internet did expand, in the following years, it did require that investment in infrastructure. Ironically, as governments across the globe engaged in policies of fiscal austerity, a lot of that infrastructure never did get built. Its not just highways that are filled with potholes, but in many countries the broadband networks are equally inadequate.
The simple corruption seen with the Blue Labour government, in just the last year, and the revelations about why they appointed Mandelson, despite knowing about his relations with Epstein, indicates that we can't just assume that decisions are made purely for the benefit of the British ruling-class, and certainly not for the interests of the British economy, as against the short-term interests of a few individuals. The decisions of Blue Labour to continue with the pursuit of the disaster of Brexit, even when a clear majority of voters, now, oppose it, and want to rejoin the EU, can, now, be set within this context of a series of personal connections with Trump and his coterie, and with the tech bros. It ties a declining UK to the US, and, in the process, drives a wedge between the UK and EU, making any future EU membership more difficult. The ridiculous commitment of the UK to AUKUS, as well as to the US inspired Pacific trading bloc, has the same effect.
But, that is not sustainable for the reasons I have previously outlined. It is no more rational for the UK to align itself with the US economy, at least 3,000 miles away, with the Atlantic Ocean separating them, than it is to align itself with a pacific trading bloc on the other side of the planet! It is never going to replace Britain's trade with the EU, and dependence on that trade for its prosperity. The situation has arisen because of Britain's political and military/strategic alignment with US imperialism, in conditions of a continual decline of Britain's former imperial role, whilst the EU, has failed to quickly consolidate itself into a state, and to impose itself, as an alternative to US imperialism, in terms of that military/strategic power. But, its not the EU that is being ripped apart by seeking to align with the US. It is the UK.
In the end, economic reality trumps politics. In the end, Britain will have to accept the economic reality that its future prosperity, indeed, its existence, depends on being a part of the EU.
