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The Labour Party is doubling down on its fiscal conservatism anti-reform position. Under the headline “Labour leadership preparing to adopt more welfare cuts” today’s Times reports:
“Labour will have to adopt more Conservative welfare cuts to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, senior party figures have said.”
This includes the notorious “bedroom tax”.
Rachel Reeves, Labour Shadow Chancellor, told the Today programme on bbc radio 4:
“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been through the division lobbies and voted against what the government have done. Does that mean we are going to be able to reverse all those things? The sad truth is that we are not going to be able to do that, because of the dire economic inheritance that an incoming Labour government will face.”
We’ve heard this before — we can’t do what we would like to do because the previous government left the economy in a mess. But this won’t do. The state of the capitalist economy is not the result of government incompetence (though it could be if it hasn’t been respecting the logic and priorities of capitalism) but of the normal workings of capitalism which no government can control. The present economic situation has not been caused by “Tory incompetence” but by capitalism.
So what Reeves is in effect saying is that capitalism does not allow a future Labour government to restore previous social reforms. A Labour government would be (and would have been) in the same position as the Tory government of having to deal with what the vagaries of capitalism throw at them. They will be forced to be “fiscally responsible” throughout their whole period in office.
As we keep on saying, the problem is not the Tories of Labour, it’s capitalism.
This seems to be the season for international conferences. We are on the mailing list of one of those invited to this one last weekend in Milan:
JRCL Tankyu-ha; Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA; Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori; JRCL (RMF); League for the Fifth International; Noviy Prometey; Partido Obrero (PO); CoReP; Lotta Comunista; League for the Fourth International (LFI-NIdI); Rivoluzione Comunista; Controcorrente; Internationalist Standpoint; Occhio di Classe; NPA; Committee for a Workers International (CWI); AMR ControVento. Majdoor Samachar-Kamunist Kranti.
We are on the mailing of the last named (from India). It is not clear why they were invited, since the others all seem to be Trotskyists or other vanguardists whereas they are workerists who hold that revolutionaries have nothing to tell workers but should just record what factory workers tell them.
Anyway, here is their contribution on “Lenin’s imperialism thesis”:
“Lenin’s imperialism thesis:
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. It is moribund capitalism. In the imperialism stage, production relations become fetters on the productive forces…
Some bizarre expressions of this:
In 1938, as per a Trotsky, the productive forces had stopped growing!
And in the 1970s, as per a fringe left group, 1914 onwards the number of wage workers in the world had stopped increasing!
If nothing else, the incomparable leaps in productive forces post-1970 should have sufficed for a decent burial of Lenin’s imperialism thesis. ”I bet that went down well with the others.
We were invited to a meeting by the CWO a few years ago to discuss setting up a No War But the Class War group. Also present was the Anarchist Communist Group. Here’s the thread about this:
Only two days later Starmer has doubled down on being a fiscal conservative. Labour used to seek working class support on the basis that they would spend money on social reforms that benefited workers.
Not any more. This is what he is reported as saying yesterday:
“It was ‘a big mistake’ for the left to equate spending money with radicalism as he insisted that fiscal discipline was fundamental to winning power” (today’s Times)
I suppose it could be said that Labour has learnt that you can’t reform capitalism in the interest of the workers and so is no longer promising to do so; admitting that reformism has failed and embracing capitalism as it is.
Socialists draw a different conclusion. Yes, Reformism has failed (as we knew it would), so the only alternative is to get rid of capitalism and replace it by socialism, common instead of class ownership of productive resources and production for use not profit.
In the end we relented and decided to leaflet South Ruislip after all. Managed to pick up the LibDem leaflet and, of more interest, Piers Corbyn’s.
The LibDem leaflet was the usual vague stuff except it didn’t include a bar graph claiming to show “it’s a two horse race”. They’ll be lucky if they save their deposit.
I hadn’t realised what a conspiraloon Jeremy’s brother is. Here’s some extracts from his election communication.
“When Boris Johnson — who sought my advice in earlier times on climate matters — imposed the lockdown in 2020, he and the other parties joined a global coup d’etat using Fake Science against our rights & freedoms, orchestrated by sinister global elites behind the World Economic Forum (WEF) & World Health Organisation (WHO):- Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil and the Big Banks.”
“Man-Made climate doesn’t Exist. Support #ZEXIT = Zero Carbon exit!”
“End all ‘Virus’ Injection programs NOW!”
“Men are men and Women are women! STOP Transgender grooming propaganda of children and mis-identity madness in schools!”
“KEEP CASH!”Everything except for free tinfoil hats.
Didn’t find Lawrence Fox’s election address but it can’t have been as bad as Piers Corbyn’s.
The Labour Mayor of North Tyneside has resigned from the Labour Party as he was deselected from standing again apparently because he appeared on a stage with Ken Loach who had been expelled as a leftwinger.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-66225028.amp
I heard him on the radio saying that in the video Starmer had done for his bid to become Labour Leader he had a clip from Loach. What a brazen hypocrite that man Starmer is.
Bijou, do you know anything more about this?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128099226-capitalism-s-endgame
A review of that book will be published in the September Socialist Standard
It’s getting better. Now he is saying that he doesn’t mind being labelled a “fiscal conservative”:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-government-spending-b2376121.html
He had previously declared Labour was defender of “conservative values”. Why doesn’t he come out and drop the “fiscal” bit and say outright that he’s a conservative. That would be logical for him. After all, as chief prosecutor he occupied a top post in the coercive side of capitalist state and got a knighthood for it.
But of course he might just be giving the impression that he is conservative in order to win over Tory votes and get to enjoy the fruits of office.
Whichever it is, he’s a despicable individual. Of course we know that it doesn’t matter if a pro-capitalist politicians is a saint or a sinner; even a saint couldn’t make capitalism work for the benefit of the majority. But when somebody’s record shows them to be just a cynical opportunist then that can be pointed out.
Mike Lynch of RMT is quite right when he says that “most people can’t spot the difference” Labour and the Tories but is being too soft on him when he adds “and that’s a shame for somebody who’s probably, as talented as Keir Starmer is” and naive when he calls on him “to show he’s on the side of the working people.” He can’t do that because he isn’t. He knows that, if he becomes prime minister, he will have to against workers and is wanting to assure the overseas speculators who lend the government money that he intends to be.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/mick-lynch-labour-criticism-strikes-b2376188.html
Britain has gone and done it. As from the middle of next year Britain will be part of the Pacific.
What a joke.
“the government’s technical estimates suggesting it will add just £1.8bn annually to the economy after 10 years, the equivalent of 0.08% of Britain’s gross domestic product.”
Government ministers are telling the dominant section of the capitalist class still suffering from its loss of unfettered access to the EU market to be grateful for small mercies. They are more likely to be thinking “it’s Badenough but it could be worse.”
Here’s the details of the procedure under which private corporations can sue member-states of this trading arrangement:
Dylan Riley gets a mention in this month’s Socialist Standard in this article:
According to this, it is section 114 that deals specifically with “treating”:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treating_(law)
We did think of reporting them but concluded that they would be able to talk their way out of it. Still, if we had complained the police would have been obliged to knock on their door.
Their case has something in common with this one mentioned by Wikipedia:
“An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event; however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.”
There’s a link given to the Guardian’s report of the incident:
I see that the person “treated” could also be charged.
The situation of banks in Britain is different from that of those in the US in that they have not had to compete so much for deposits. Depositors have stayed with them, allowing them to have a bigger “net interest” margin and so bigger profits. How long this will last is another matter.
After all, she was in the Labour Party and stood for them for the council. In saying she wants to see “a fairer, less profit driven system that works for society and for the planet”, she is echoing the Old Labour ideal of a more humane capitalism. Not possible of course. The present Labour Party openly fully supports the profit system. They want it to be more efficient rather than more humane. No wonder she left them. The next step, as you point out, would be for her to reject the whole profit-driven system in favour a non-profit system.
It will be this article:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1948/strikes.htm
It was introduced as;
“[This is the second of two articles by Anton Pannekoek. The first appeared in the November WESTERN SOCIALIST under the title “Public Ownership and Common Ownership.” As is the case of the first article we are not in agreement with the views expressed. We therefore append our comments.]”
Below is what the WESTERN SOCIALIST editors commented. Far from an endorsement and no doubt what you would have expected, DJP.
Editorial Comment
Pannekoek follows in the footsteps of a long line of people who have discarded old errors only to take up new ones. Observing the failure of labor parties and trade unions to function as agencies for socialism, he turns now, not to the growing numbers of genuine socialists, but to the groups of workers throughout the world who have lately been given vent to their discontent in “wild strikes”. “They may have no intention to be revolutionary”, he says, “but they are”. In this manner does he take his place in the ranks of the “unconscious revolutionaries”.
Revolution is a conscious act. It can no more issue from blind and sporadic revolts of workers than it can from the fulminations of labor politicians or the bread and butter activities of the trade unions. It can result only from the conscious and deliberate efforts of workers who have become socialists. The failure of laborism, which Pannekoek wrongly calls parliamentary socialism, has not been a failure to introduce socialism. That has not been its aim. Its failure has been to make capitalism fit for workers to live under.
Pannekoek speaks of state officials becoming the “directors of a planned economy, regulating production and consumption”. Does he really believe that capitalism can be planned? An elaboration on this point would be interesting. Even in Russia, where the highest possible degree of state control exists, the government has frequently been compelled by unforseen factors to modify its plans. Commodity production does not lend itself readily to plans.
He speaks also of the “capitalist mechanism of increasing prices”. If the capitalists really possess such a mechanism, why did they not put it into operation during the depression years instead of wringing their hands in agony as prices tumbled steadily? And why do they resist wage increases? Surely it would be easier for them to add these increases to prices.
Until Pannekoek pays greater attention to the real voice of socialism, he is simply exchanging one set of illusions and disappointments for another.
I thought we had reviewed that book by Nick Heath, but apparently not. But I remember now. We were going to but the reviewer said it was boring, a real trudge to get through, and had no index, and didn’t submit a review because he didn’t want to have to offend the author.
We certainly discussed it here before:
Incidentally, Brian Morris had a letter in the June Socialist Standard defending Marx as philosopher.
