Against Austerity

[alanjjohnstone]

Richard Seymour, LeninsTomb Blogger, promotes his new book .

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/28/right-only-economic-solution-austerity

 

"The elite argument for austerity was simple. The city's crisis was primarily one of overspending, driven by too many services for the poor, too many bureaucrats to run them, a union-driven cost of labour increases, and a corrupt and inefficient city management driving the productive layers out of the city with burdensome taxes. The solution was to reduce the burden of the unproductive on the productive, and let wealth creators keep more of their wealth. This argument was supported by the majority of the media. The union-led opposition highlighted the tremendous wealth enjoyed by the bankers and corporations who were demanding austerity, but the business interests were canny enough to recede into the background and refuse to publicly comment on controversies in which they were deeply involved."

[ALB]

We got an advance review copy and our review should appear in the May Socialist Standard. I've read it myself and Seymour, who led the revolt within the SWP, must have been itching to leave it. He comes out as open reformist, holding up the Syriza party in Greece as the model. He seems to have found his natural home in the Left Unity party.Having said this, his chapter on "Ideology", in which he explains that the capitalist class has not simply brainwashed the working class into supporting capitalism but that it is more complicated than that, is not at all bad. And he does make a case for electoral participation as against what he calls "anarcho-reformism", i.e direct action alone for reforms.

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