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Here is the answer to the question posed in an article in next month’s Socialist Standard “Who would benefit from a no deal Brexit?” given by Philip Hammond who until a month or so ago was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, i.e. the treasurer of the British capitalist state, who we must assume knows what he’s talking about on these matters:
“Johnson “is backed by speculators who have bet billions on a hard Brexit — and there is only one outcome that works for them: a crash-out no-deal Brexit that sends the currency tumbling and inflation soaring,” Hammond wrote in the Times on Saturday. “
This is similar to Corbyn’s claim that no deal would be a”bankers’ Brexit”, though more accurate in that it those involved, and who financed the Leave campaign in 2016, are not so much bankers as speculators, hedge fund operators and vulture capitalists who don’t want to be subjected to EU regulation of their particular financial axtivities.
Hammond represents the mainstream UK capitalist view which wanted to Remain but, in view of the result of the result of the referendum, now wants to settle on a deal which would keep Britain in the frictionless single EU market. It is clear from Hammond’s statement that they recognise that the Leave campaign was financed by a maverick section of their class in its own sectional interest.
More grist for our view that the whole business is a dispute within the British capitalist class in which the working class has no interest and should not take sides. But what a sorry sight to see so many workers getting so passionately involved on one side or the other.
Shouldn’t this subject be discussed in the World Socialist Movement section here as it essentially concerns internal party affairs?
Oh them, the old Eurocommunists founded by Spanish Communist Party leader Santiago Carrillo. Some of them are advisers to Corbyn.
I think that them and Podemos contest elections as a joint list?
Corbyn is sitting on the fence over Brexit so as to keep the Labour Party together. But he is also trying to do something with which we can have some sympathy — to take current political debate away from this issue and discuss the problems ordinary people are facing. While we say Neither Brexit not EU but socialism he is saying Either Brexit or EU we need reformism. It seems that in the current political atmosphere he is facing the same uphill task as us.
Meanwhile the Brexiteers are employing the dangerous language of surrender, treason and betrayal. As Andrew Sparrow commented in the Guardian’s daily live coverage of the issue on Thursday (at 11.20):
”The argument against such language is that it is inflammatory because it frames Brexit, an issue that is supposed to be about trading relationships with friendly countries, in terms of warfare, with the EU depicted as an enemy power.”
Yes, Brexit is basically all about trading relationships and so, as far as working people are concerned, not worth getting worked up about either way.
According to the Spanish newspapers Errijon’s difference with Podemos and Iglesias is that he is more favourable to the governing so-called “socialist” party the PSOE (which translates as Spanish Socialist Workers Party!) and wants to see a “progressive alliance” government.
Sanchez the outgoing prime minister has described Errijon as a “possiblist” (presumably as opposed to Iglesias who had raised impossible demands as a condition for supporting a PSOE government and which has led to a general election in November).
So it is “possible” that Errijon sees himself as a future minister. In other words just another reformist and/or careerist.
Perhaps Robbo in Spain can cast more light on this.
Read this online pamphlet while I was away. It is very good. I know it is on the WSPUS site but we should consider promoting it too. In any event those here who haven’t read it yet should.
Brian, of course there will be shortages, some temporary, some permanent, in a socialist society but the solution won’t be “economic” (in terms of money costs, prices, etc) but technical, a question of organisation and conscious choice.
If you check back in this and other threads on the subject you will see I have guessed that the aim of limiting the rise in global average temperature to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2099 is unlikely to be met.
What I have been objecting to is other, alarmist guesses of a rise of 5. 6, or 7 degrees.
A rise of 2 degrees will still cause problems (rising sea levels, mass population movements, more extreme weather) that capitalism won’t be able to cope with properly. But it won’t be the extinction of humanity or the end of the world.
Yes, and what they mean by scarcity isn’t the normal meaning, i.e a shortage of something, but the non-existence of “sheer abundance” (of everything growing on trees). So, for them, “scarcity” will always exist with some form of market system the best way to deal with it.
“I fail to see how socialism will not be economising on scarce resources.“
Brian, to see economics as being about “economising on scarce resources” is accept precisely the basic assumption of academic bourgeois economics. All their textbooks define economics as the study of how societies allocate scarce resources between competing uses. On this assumption, economics will always exist whereas Marx’s position was that it was the study of the impersonal forces governing the production and distribution of wealth that arose when items of wealth were produced to be sold on a market with a view to profit. So, what is being studied is an “economy”. Since in socialism there is no production for sale or profit it is not an “economy”.
Of course socialism will not want to waste scarce resources but the way they are used will be decided by conscious decision not market forces. Production will be under human control. Which is what socialism is all about, so that it can be directed at satisfying human needs.
More climate alarmism. People will be getting the impression that we are a climate alarmist party whereas we are not. The French scenarios, as Michael E Mann points out, are based on assumptions which nobody knows for certain, in particular a high “climate sensitivity” (the relationship between an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in global average temperature). The worst-case scenario which gets the sensational(ist) headline treatment is also based on nothing being done to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels (which is unlikely and indeed the intention of the authors to avoid) but in fact for it to increase as production does.
Why is the same headline and bold type treatment not given to Mann’s guess that:
““I suspect, when all is said and done, we’re probably looking at something in the range of 3-4°C and no higher, at least for near-term warming,”
Forgot to add:
Petteri Taalas, who is secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said he fully supported UN climate goals, but he criticised radical green campaigners for forecasting the end of the world. Dr Taalas agrees polar ice is melting faster than expected, but he’s concerned that public fear could lead to paralysis – and also to mental health problems amongst the young.
“We are fully behind climate science and fully behind the (upcoming) New York climate summit”, he said. “But I want to stick to the facts, which are quite convincing and dramatic enough. We should avoid interpreting them too much. When I was young we were afraid of nuclear war. We seriously thought it’s better not to have children. I’m feeling the same sentiment among young people at the moment. So we have to be a bit careful with our communication style.”Marx himself didn’t use the word “economics”. He wrote of “political economy” as in the subtitle of Das Kapital: “A Critique of Political Economy”. By this he meant the study of the impersonal economic forces that came into operation when production was carried on for sale on a market with a view to profit.
The “Classical” Political Economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo and the others believed that these forces were natural forces i.e. that production for sale on a market with a view to profit was the natural way to organise the production and distribution of wealth. Marx “critique” was that it wasn’t but was only a passing phase in the development of human society
The next stage would be socialism based on the common ownership of the means of life which would allow production to be geared to meeting needs not sale and profit. On this basis the economic forces that “political economy” studied would cease to operate and there would be nothing for such a branch of science to study.
in other words, “political economy” and “economics” only exist under capitalism and there is no such thing as “socialist economics”. It’s a contradiction in terms as socialism will not be an economy.
The term “Marxian economics” refers to the analysis of capitalism that Marx pioneered. It is not about how production and distribution will be organised in a socialist society.
Fair enough except I don’t see the bus “hurtling” towards the cliff edge. Rather it is cruising along at 60mph towards a cliff edge 100 miles away. Someone suggests that this is too fast, so the drivers says ok I will reduce the speed to 50mph. There’s also a raving maniac at the back insisting that the cliff edge is only 5 miles away. There’s also a socialist suggesting that they change direction but nobody is taking any notice, partly because they can’t be heard over the ravings of the maniac.
There are only two reasons for studying modern academic economics:
- To know what the enemy, the intellectual defenders of the capitalist economic system, are saying, the better to refute them;
- If you need a qualification in economics to get a better job under capitalism (but you don’t have to believe it, just pretend you do).
There is this criticism of modern academic economics on this site here:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/publications/economists-not-on-this-planet/
