It’s been a good few years since I last attended a Trotskyist cadre school. But from what I can dimly remember of my Marxist training, it’s an odd definition of ‘socialism’ that equates the doctrine with handing over skyscraper loads of dosh to some of the most immensely wealthy people on the planet.
Yet it is precisely this fallacy that is doing the rounds in the wake of the Paulson/Bernanke Wall Street bail-out package, expected to secure congressional approval today. Take some recent comments by Texas congressman Jeb Hensarling, for instance.
This rising conservative Republican star - an economics major, astonishingly - argues with apparent seriousness that the plan puts America on ‘the slippery slope to socialism’. Come again?
The US hasn’t even got as far as universal healthcare provision yet, so I sadly suspect common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange is still some way down the agenda.
Meanwhile, for senator Jim Bunning, another Republican, what we are witnessing is nothing short of ‘financial socialism’. Such is the intellectual level of the mainstream right on the other side of the pond these days, it seems.
I guess it has been so long since we’ve witnessed a full-on red revolution anywhere on the planet that the US ruling class has quite forgotten what self-respecting Bolshevism actually looks like.
But here’s a hint, guys; Marxist theory does not usually regard handing over suitcase after suitcase of high denomination dollar bills to investment bankers as the hallmark of authentic proletarian power.
Sorry to have to break it to you, but what generally happens in these cases is that workers get to expropriate bosses. The process is quite the reverse of what Paulson and Bernanke - pictured - are trying to do, it seems to me.
But more laughable still, if only on account of her closer geographical proximity, is this nonsense from dear old Janet Daley, a 1960s leftie herself, in today’s Daily Telegraph:
The next election - both here and in the US - is shaping up to be a referendum on free market economics. All those old anti-capitalist diatribes are being resuscitated with triumphal delight by the side that definitively lost the great political argument of the last century.
The Tories will not just be running against Labour and its current leadership. They will be running against a reinvigorated soft Marxist ideology which will infect the news coverage and analysis.
Hang on a minute. If the great political argument of the last century was indeed ‘definitively’ lost, how come the question is still being debated? It can only be that the settlement was not so definitive after all. Capitalism remains open to critique.
And if the next general election is to be ‘a referendum on free market economics’, where exactly are those of us all in favour of ‘reinvigorated soft Marxist ideology’ supposed to put our Xs?
New Labour certainly offers no alternative; Gordon Brown’s conference speech last week went out of its way to stress the party’s pro-market stance, for instance. So much for any referendum element when Britain next goes to the polls.
For clarification, it needs to be stressed that all of the actions so far in this crisis - emanating either from Washington or London, or the other European administrations that are now being sucked in - have ultimately been carried out in the interests of the capitalist ruling classes of the countries concerned.
In saying that, I am not maintaining that any given measure was wrong, or that better alternatives were readily at hand. It is true that the economic consequences of doing nothing would be dreadful for ordinary people.
But socialism this isn't. People such as Hensarling, Bunning and Daley should have the courage to acknowledge that it is the system in which they are part of the privileged minority that has brought this situation about. They could at least say 'thank you' to the rest of us, who are being forced to foot the bill.
UPDATE: The US right is serious on this one; they have put the world at risk of prolonged recession, on a point of doctrine. And I thought that conservatives were supposed to be pragmatic.
Posted at 15:51, 29 September 2008
Comments (14)
You should be fair to the likes of Jeb Hensarling. Such men are, at least, sincere believers in the dogma of the free market. When they see this mass, unprecedented government intervention they genuinely oppose it out of principle; from their libertarian-capitalist point of view this is part of what "socialism" means, and they are appalled that "side" is carrying it out.
What libertarian idealists like him can't comprehend is that the "free market" is *always* a mirage, that government action is necessary to protect the rich and powerful every single day, in the military, in "law and order", in the govenment subsidies to the corporates, in the completely rigged and protectionist system of international trade. Pragmatists like Bush and Co realise this, and know full well that bailing out the banks is about defending capitalism, that there is no "principle" being abandoned. They shouldn't be surprised however that many true-beliving market followers like Jeb actually *believe* the neo-liberal bullshit that's been forced down their throat for decades, and are aggrieved when it is abandoned overnight.....
There's little that sums up the socialist case better than the credit crisis - or how business both sucks the lifeblood from you through your surplus labour but also by purloining payments made you to the state as tax etc to fill their own coffers.
Did anyone notice the banks gifting billions to the public purse when they were flush with cash?
Can I put in a request to Darling for £1000 for the Southpawpunch website - or just for my holidays?
It's correct that it is ludicrous to see gifting megabucks to businesses as 'socialism' but nonetheless I was kind of hoping that the 'pure' free market advocates who are using such terms would put up more of a fight; if you're going to argue for capitalism, it's only reasonable you accept it's flip side as well.
If I were them I'd try and get a referendum on the following question - "The state is going to pay out $700bn. Should that all go to the banks or should we pay every US resident $2000 each?"
I just wondered where this money is going to come from. If they are giving it to the bankers, does that mean that theywon't be spending it on public projects? I don't know how much money America actually spends on public projects, but it also applies to this country. Does it mean that hospitals will close? or schools? Points out the need for council housing. This would never have happened if they hadn't sold home ownership as the way forward, or are there other factors driving it?
Of course giving 700 bn isin't full socialism. To accomplish full socialism, you'd have to add 100 tons of marijuana and at least one million human skulls.
Dave wrote "In saying that, I am not maintaining that any given measure was wrong, or that better alternatives were readily at hand."
What about the proposals of the Left Economic Advisory Panel, Ken Livingstone and several union leaders? They've all called for the wholesale nationalisation of the failed institutions, including the profitable parts, rather than just socialising the losses whilst keeping the profits private.
That surely would be better than the course of “ trickle up socialism” whereby working class tax-payers money is used to keep the bankers fat and rich and bloated.
But ANYTHING government does - apart from occupying other countries - is Socialism!
As for where the money is coming from: the right are already arguing that taking on all this private debt is putting a strain on public finances, and will require spending cuts. George Osbourne is promising cuts to local services by freezing council tax, and arguing for further cuts to public borrowing. McCain is aiming to reform healthcare by cutting employer contributions and social security (pensions) is already in the firing line.
It's a neat trick - heads they win, tails we lose - and the taxpayer gets a double whammy in the form of higher taxes and reduced services.
The one hope is that as these developments start to hit more than just the underclass - who only have themselves to blame - there will be a reaction, despite the stranglehold the right have on the media. Otherwise we'll just have to wait for neoliberalism to implode - which will be messy.
If they want to cry socialism, why do it for the Wall Street bailout? The real socialistic/socialistesque move was the bailout of Fannie and Freddie. Together, they own/guarantee £2.7 trillion in home loans (over half of the outstanding mortgages in the US).
I am sorry Dave but (uncharacteristically) your comment today is a cop out. The "No" vote in Congress is a victory of the populist, right wing of the US Republican Party. Now some on the left who have emerged from Trotskyism have been known to forecast 20 of the last three recessions. But this one looks like 1929 with (globalisation) nobs on. The massive purchase of toxic debts by the public authorities has to happen if the descent into slump is not to be very rapid indeed. Of course the public interest has to be represented by appropriate ownership of the failing banks and financial institutions. The demand on the state (here and elsewhwere) should be for those who fraudulently or with culpable negligence sold or resold the toxic mortgage debts to be chased, arraigned in court and required to disgorge their excess "compensation" payments.
The US is now something of a financial, political and muilitary "busted flush". We urgently need to create (and hold to account) GLOBAL institutions to regulate what is a more or less totally globally integrated system. The 19th century "national states" are quite inadaquate - as is now being demonstrated in the US.
Why are we talking about ways of averting this crisis?
We should be trying to make it worse.
I dont think many serious socialists believe that the job of the left is to make the crisis "worse." That is mere games playing - but dangerous. Given the present political balance of forces the odds are that the far right would gain the worse this crisis becomes. Certainly without something effective to say about the crisis and what should be done to respond to it the left will lose what remains of its (actual and potential) base among working people.
I've just read that $700 billion is low, and that they may need up to $5 trillion. Each day brings more amazing numbers and more bank failures/absorptions.
I disagree with John Palmer when he states 'we don't want to make it worse' (and it's always a bad sign when those on one side in debate pompously refer to themselves as the 'serious' ones; often that's shorthand for traditional or , conservative) socialists certainly don't want to give public funds to the banks (is he really calling for state support of these private businesses, as a socialist!), which given the sharp falls on Wall St when the plan to do such was defeated - would certainly have that effect.
He is correct in that we are not globally in a good situation - how great it would have been to see an America labour movement marching in Washington saying ‘stop this attempted grand theft by the banks’ but stuff like going after bankers who “with culpable negligence sold or resold" whilst ok misses the point - why just get them for 'toxic debt'? It's the day in, day out role of bankers, for example, to flog expensive bank accounts to consumers through a process of culpable negligence.
I'm also not convinced that having the $700 bn in the US Treasury, rather than in banks, will necessary make the situation worse. And you just know the banks, a few years hence, will be able to wriggle out of supposed guarantees to pay back some money (by setting up loss making divisions to hold their worse bets?). And you also know that the $700 bn figure will rise- once a burglar has worked out you don’t lock your back door he will keep on returning.
I'd imagine necessary cuts in federal programs if the package was agreed e.g. on road building, may have more of an impact that possibly a few ‘bad’ banks going under - and their business being picked up (and with market forces stopping interest rate rises - to a degree - soaring too high) by other ‘good’ banks.
I think socialists should demand not a penny to the banks and the expropriation - no compensation except in the case of proven need - of them all.
And certainly I think the first demand, (and less so, the second) would reverberate now.
Whilst recession may loom; and the far right could rise from this it's not fated. It was only misfortune and bad decisions that meant it wasn't the KPD that won the last time in Germany and not the Nazis - and what a different world a socialist Germany and a socialist USSR in the late 20s would have led to. We have everything to play for and I personally like the monotony being broken.
Punchie
It might have escaped your notice - because you mediate reality through Trotsky's writings rather than what is happening out there - that the AFL-CIO are not marching on Washington in support of the transitional programme. Bummer, but there you have it.
If you are going to start quoting space cadet analogies from the 1930s, try reading up on the Great Depression. The impact was rather worse - and rather more disastrous for the left - than a few cancelled roadbuilding projects.
Well, yes, the American (and most other - but not all) Labour /Left movements are not in a good shape - but then I said that!
And my reference to the 20s / 30s was in response to Palmer's remarks; I'm simply stating that there's no particular reason that what happened them, or now - when Left forces are weak - means that the right forces would win - an analysis grounded firmly in how we are NOW.
But then you're not actually saying anything are you? e.g. “In saying that, I am not maintaining that any given measure was wrong, or that better alternatives were readily at hand. It is true that the economic consequences of doing nothing would be dreadful for ordinary people.”
Has your long forgotten quasi Marxist training and your recent economics training made you incapable of stating anything, or not?
I'm stated my views. What about yours e.g. in favour of giving $700bn to the banks ("I am not maintaining that any given measure was wrong… true that the economic consequences of doing nothing would be dreadful..") or not?
Southpawpunch