It is a minor historical irony that the financial markets crash of 2008 comes about at a time when there is no dissent from the neoliberal consensus at any point on the spectrum of establishment politics.
For three decades now, people have been told - by politicians of all parties - that there is no alternative. Understandably, most of them have come to believe it. Young people, in particular, haven’t heard any narrative other than free market ideology.
That much has been brought home to me by my recent experiences as a mature student. Last year, I sat what Americans would refer to as ‘economics 101’ for the second time in my life. It’s not that I particularly needed a refresher on the essentials of supply and demand curves, but the course was deemed a prerequisite for the more advanced modules I’m taking this year.
In a classroom full of people mostly a generation younger than myself, I was struck by the differences between the students of 1981 and the students of today. Fittingly for kids keen to get a well-paid job in the financial services sector, they are a lot more smartly dressed, for a start.
And they take things rather more seriously, too; they don’t tend to skip classes, because they have paid for them after all, and I somehow don’t get the impression they too spend much time hanging around in the college coffee lounge rolling spliffs. That’s probably because they are busy with part-time, or even full-time, jobs.
But most striking of all was that most of them tended to think capitalism is great. Where in the Thatcher period we were angry because the Tories had put three million people on the dole, the consensus - in 2007, anyway - was in praise for a system seen as virtually guaranteeing 42-inch screen plasma televisions and two weeks’ annual holiday in Thailand to all but a few unfortunates.
In the first week, the lecturer explained about the differences between free market capitalism and Keynesian demand management, and asked students to vote on which they favoured. When I replied that I was a socialist who didn’t favour either, the derision towards the old git in the corner was almost palpable.
Put simply, anti-capitalist ideas clearly no longer have the resonance they did when variants of Marxism influenced a sizeable minority in the Labour Party, with substantial parliamentary and local government representation, and when a network of shop stewards was able to popularise such notions in many workplaces.
Nor does the left advance a systematic diagnosis of what is wrong with capitalism as it is now, and what can be done about it. Books outlining an Alternative Economic Strategy no longer feature prominently on university library shelves.
That brings me back to the current crash. There have been plenty of predictions that meltdown on Wall Street and in the City will generate a revival socialist fortunes. Interestingly, many of them have come from the right, featuring prominently in quality newspaper opinion slots.
There’s also renewed optimism from some on the left. Alex Callinicos of the Socialist Workers' Party, for instance, reportedly told a recent public meeting in Tower Hamlets that the crisis represents a ‘moment of opportunity’ for rebuilding the left.
He's not necessarily wrong. But the important thing to stress is that any upturn in our fortunes isn’t going to happen automatically. For a start, the first thing we have to do is to articulate a coherent set of counterproposals, and as far as I can make out, work on that task hasn’t even begun.
Then we have to popularise our ideas, and that will require a political vehicle to give them organised expression. I’d like to think the British left is capable of doing that, but after the experience of the last period, I’ve got this horrible suspicion that another moment of opportunity is going to just walk on by.
Posted at 14:57, 30 September 2008
Comments (63)
Dave
Are you attending the LRC national conference on November 15th? That would be a good opportunity for you to put some suggestions as to how we can advance socialist ideas, popularise them, and indeed what those ideas ought to be.
Look forward to your input.
PS I was doing some union recruitment on a university campus recently and was genuinely surprised by one young woman who was studying full-time and also working full-time (night shifts) for Enfield Council. No wonder she and others don't have much time to sit around smoking weed philosophically or to smash the state.
she can catch up on her kip in lectures... ;-)
Yes we have to be quick!
And talk about practical action not Marxist dogma.
The theory will develop out of the action - not the other way around.
But for that to happen we have to start acting.
I've blogged on it today funnily enough.
If this crisis gets out of the financial world and into the 'real'world, there may be more of a response to it from 'ordinary' people. No socialist organisation could remain silent in the face of mass unemployment and homelessness. But from what I read in the papers, the boss class is optimistic that it will be contained within the financial sphere. Also, I was wondering what with billions being committed to this and billlions to the Olympics, won't the state be bankrupted?
Yup.
But not to any element of the existing left individually or as a group, three decades of ignoring class issues means any attempt to get back on the bandwagon will be accurately regarded as barefaced opportunism.
A new left will grow, as the original left did, from the grass roots...a background in plackard waving and swinging one's pants in Grosvenor Square will count for nought.
Dave,
Can you kick off with a few suggestions of what these counterproposals to the current economic system might be?
Justine, I think it highly unreasonable for you to expect one of Britain's most highly esteemed Leftwing bloggers to deem to actually set out a programme, make demands etc, argue for actions.
Is Sir Jeremy Paxman ever asked to say what he would do? That is the sort of thing that only fruitloop Trotskyites require. Less of the lese majeste, please.
And on the question - Dave is actually spot on when writing (but probably only because he is quoting a revolutionary socialist) that "Callincos (said)... that the crisis represents a ‘moment of opportunity’ for rebuilding the left.
He's not necessarily wrong. But the important thing to stress is that any upturn in our fortunes isn’t going to happen automatically."
But as for "articulate a coherent set of counterproposals, and as far as I can make out, work on that task hasn’t even begun."
Oh, yes it has - see endless Trotskyite websites or my own -
Expropriate (i.e. seize,don't buy) the banks - compensation only in the case of proven need.
Not a penny to business, no bank bailout - let them go to the wall
The state to provide mortgages, etc to those requiring such.
Execute all present and former directors of FTSE100 (and foreign equivalent) companies and all individual shareholders holding 5% of a company or more or having assets currently valued at £10M or more.
It's a shame I've only just mow got my SWP email (of their paper).
I don't support them but their demands are clear (and correct) and clearly articulated (if fudging on what they mean by 'nationalisation') e.g.
“Fight for decent pay and jobs | Secure our pensions | No home repossessions
Nationalisation for the public good would involve nationalising to protect jobs and to stop repossessions. It would involve using the huge amounts of cash held in the banks to build affordable council homes.
But as banks crash and shares collapse it becomes clear that the way of the market is to make ordinary people pick up the bill. We should refuse to pay.
We should organise around immediate demands – to save our homes, jobs and pensions.”
And to cap it all, and to counter the riposte made to me in the previous post, the SWP articles is illustrated by a photo, taken last week of, er, trade unions demonstrating in Wall Street against the bail-out!
Dave wrote;
"I’d like to think the British left is capable of doing that... "
If the 'British' bit of that was discarded there would be a bigger pool to swim in.
As they did in Manchester the other weekend.
I am not convinced that a set of transitional demands is what we need.
Surely we should be advancing some basic social democratic and Keynesian proposals as demands on the Government (cut interest rates, raise public spending, raise the wages of the low paid etc.) whilst building the strength of the movement that can go beyond these?
Certainly we also need to advance arguments in support of public ownership and campaign against privatisation. Our focus in the next couple of years will be on the defence of jobs and public services. These struggles could give us the new generation of militants who will see further than we can and will cast us aside, but to achieve this we need to be where the movement is and will be, particularly in the trade unions.
Where Callincos might be right in stating "that the crisis represents a ‘moment of opportunity’ for rebuilding the left", perhaps someone should point out that his organisation scuppered the best chance the left in Britain had to do that for decades, by breaking up (or indeed smashing) the Socialist Alliance, in return for the dead-end of hanging around on Galloway's coat-tails. If it wasn't for his group's "tactics", the left might be in a much better position now, not just to "rebuild itself", but to do something a whole lot more useful for the class and society at large than just being in a position to do some swift navel-gazing.
Such a left might take the approach of Lutte Ouvriere a decade or so ago (1995?) in publicising a 10-point (?) "emergency plan" of what to do now. As anything that was once broadly social democratic/old Labour/Keynsian is now supposedly "revolutionary", in these TINA times, even the things that Jon mentions above would probably be considered by the ruling class to be "transitional demands".
Of course, I wouldn't point these things out myself, as I wouldn't want to be accused of "sectarianism". Oh no, not me.
Just seen Gordon Brown on Channel 4 new being interviewed by Jon Snow. It's alright, he says all we have to do to mitigate the financial crash is apply for lagging grants. The man seems to be a sandwich short of a picnic, either that or he doesn't want to frighten the horses.
I was wondering how long it would take for that clown Southpawpunch to suggest killing someone!
"Execute all present and former directors of FTSE100 (and foreign equivalent) companies and all individual shareholders holding 5% of a company or more or having assets currently valued at £10M or more."
Punchie
Is this before or after you shoot me, Dave, most of the left and women who wear asda knickers?
Who exactly would you let live apart from Paris Hilton and a few right wing business women that you fancy?
Stroppy, imagine this scenario. If it hasn't happened yet exactly like this, it will have occurred in a similar manner.
Scene - Board meeting of energy /pharmaceutical / bank company
CEO: Can Mark, our new inland Director for Sales give us an update?
Mark: I will but first I have something important to share with the board. Last week, before sleeping, I was visited by the Archangel Gabriel who told me I must give up my previous ways and accept Christ as my saviour and only act in a Christian manner henceforth. The Archangel made particular reference to the ways of mammon and the ‘eye of the needle’ lesson.
I have since established that our proposed price increase will - increase excess winter deaths, as defined by the NHS, due to increased fuel prices by 300 (energy company) / lead to an additional 300-400 deaths amongst cancer patients as NICE will no longer consider the drug to be priceworthy (pharma company) / lead to additional 300 repossessions of those who are unable to pay their mortgage - with consequent increase in ill-health, disrupted education for kids (bank) nfffnffffffffff
CEO: Get security in here now. Dave, shut him up. Get him on the floor.
Mark: nnnfffffffffff. I am not mad. I have had my entire figure independently audited by our economists. ngggggg
CEO. Kick him harder. Break that neck if you have to. Yes, that’s right…. OK….(crack). Get me the Head of Security to get rid of the body
Companies are but a conspiracy of killers. The bigger the company, the larger the death toll.
Of course such a demand now, for execution, under a socialist regime may sound bizarre, clownish even to those who have nothing to say nor a website or recognised name to say it with but then so is the - widely stated – current socialist demand to seize companies.
If things did kick off then I would expect things that are now outlandish to be conventional (votes for women – how outrageous and ‘unnatural’ that was). I would expect companies to ameliorate their conduct – in the same way that they now like to cover themselves against any possible law suits in future so a situation with a growing revolutionary movement could see companies worry about their actions – it may disable them – if they think they may, in a few years, pay for their murderous actions with their neck.
But that‘s just one of my demands – I made others.
Do any of your Labour party types have anything to say on what should be done. Do you support, for example, the donation of millions from public funds to those like the Qatari royal family (oh, sorry the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, where I am sure that ‘sovereign’ really mean’s the ‘sovereign’s’) who own parts of the banks.
Is it a good idea to 'invest' money in banks to er, get the profits? - No! don't get any profits just pick up the losses! Hmmm.
Is this modern Keyneism - maybe boosting the Mayfair short let apartment trade, Cote D’Azure brothels and Johnny Walker Gold label sales will let Doreen in Dunstable keep her house, you think?
"Execute all present and former directors of FTSE100 (and foreign equivalent) companies and all individual shareholders holding 5% of a company or more or having assets currently valued at £10M or more."
My God you're a fucking blowhard arsehole.
Not that I'm particularly up for cuddling FTSE 100 directors or large shareholders either, mind.
Volty
You'll be on Punchie's list:-)
"Execute all present and former directors of FTSE100 (and foreign equivalent) companies and all individual shareholders holding 5% of a company or more or having assets currently valued at £10M or more."
I suggest we execute all members of the local government pension scheme who benefit directly from the large shareholdings the scheme holds in many companies.
Also let's hang the trustees, like Mick "capitalist roader" Cash, of the Railways Pension Scheme which has fueled parasitic speculation by investing in hedge funds.
DEATH TO THE CAPITAL MARKET KULAKS!
Southpaw, what do you think, say, the French will do when your assassination squad show up on the doorstep looking to shoot directors of "foreign equivalent" companies (presumably the CAC40 index)?
Tom P
SPP does seem to be rather mad, and I wouldn't hesitate in distancing myself from his planned shooting spree, but in fairness he does clearly state individual shareholders.
I would suggest that there is a qualitative difference between being an individual shareholder and a shareholder via membership of a pension scheme.
Well, 'shoot the bastards' does have the merit of being readily encapsulated in a three-word slogan, and would seem to have widespread popular resonance right now.
Max Hastings in the Daily Mail this morning muses over the possibility of hanging bankers. Perhaps SPP should get in touch.
Dave are you *sure* about economics students being anti-capitalist, like, ever ?
They weren't at Red Warwick in the 70s. One of the most right-wing departments, students as well as well as staff in fact. And not just relatively so, but I think there was something called Monetarism back then.
Anyway, the Morning Star has its headline today calling for nationalising mortages. Is thata first step towards a socialist economics programme?
Well Andrew, I guess that those who signed up to do economics and economics alone were usually rightwing.
The class I went to, though, was an option for first year students and plenty of people from the politics department chose to sit it, for obvious reasons.
Southpaw is on to something.
I had been thinking it would be great if the governments said:
"We will bail out your hopeless business - but everyone who has been on the board in the past five years has to go to jail."
I was pondering an approporiate term and then I thought - stay in prison until until your business is back in profit.
Let the market decide!
"Where in the Thatcher period we were angry because the Tories had put three million people on the dole, the consensus - in 2007, anyway - was in praise for a system seen as virtually guaranteeing 42-inch screen plasma televisions and two weeks’ annual holiday in Thailand to all but a few unfortunates.
In the first week, the lecturer explained about the differences between free market capitalism and Keynesian demand management, and asked students to vote on which they favoured. When I replied that I was a socialist who didn’t favour either, the derision towards the old git in the corner was almost palpable."
So it's not only the Daily Mail who think education was better in their day & the younger generation have no values, eh?
Hoho!
OK, my wording could have been better checked - I meant to propose those individuals (note) holding more than 5% of FTSE100 companies - I'm sure anyone who does must have a wealth of £10M plus.
I don't get the point about the CAC100 companies, I was proposing a British programme but of course these things need to be done on an international basis and from reading Besoncourt (?)of the LCR is now more popular than any of the Parti Socialiste main figures in polls, the French ruling class will be guillotined long before ours.
But anyway this is a fetishing of one part of a suggested programme by a group of apparent Labourite types. What about the rest of what I proposed?
What you are all clearly incapable of doing is giving your view on what should be done.
Megabucks for bankers, nationalise (by paying a lot) just the debts of a company but not get your hands on its profits - is that ok with you Keynsians? Do you have an alternative?
And it appears from Private Eye, the head honcho, big Karl is on my side as well. In what may well an exclusive interview with himm in Highgate London, he says that the bankers should be strung up; it's the only language they understand.
"from reading Besoncourt (?)of the LCR is now more popular than any of the Parti Socialiste main figures in polls, the French ruling class will be guillotined long before ours".
Besancenot. And you will doubtless be disappointed to learn that the LCR is opposed to the death penalty.
BNot so sure about the Ligue Southpaw. Bit of a contretemps today. Though Besancenot's relations with Roullin of Action Directe suggest you may well be right about the NPA and the Guillotine.
Well, the left does have better answers and I do think the LEAP articles (on the LRC website) are worth checking out. And there are opportunities for the left putting forward our ideas.
For example, what is happening with pensions? Financial advisers are playing Russian roulette gambling badly with your livelihood. And with the current economic crisis. The deficits will get worse.
And these are the times to put forward our own demands, for example, on pensions i.e. What about bonds to develop affordable housing or to make the existing housing stock energy efficient? What about investment in medical research or in alternative transport or sustainable agriculture?
If you want something riskier with the potential for growth why not start-up funds for firms with something worthwhile to market?
Or a whole vast array of things that need resources to produce the goods and service that are needed to make sure the world is a better place in the future?
Jon Rogers misunderstands "Keynesianism" (if such a thing exists) - what the UK and US governments are doing now are classically Keynesian policies when faced with a crisis of liquidity. Reading Keynes provides a useful critique of neo-liberal economics, but to be blunt, when the whole financial system of the most powerful economy in the world goes tits up, the left needs a bit more.
SPP at least has the merit of spelling out a few basic demands, but succumbs to populism with the "hang the bastards" approach - as if the crisis was caused by "wicked" bankers (a crass cross-class approach, popular at the moment with the right in the US congress, who are demanding the arraignment of various executives of failed financial institutions).
I think the LO-style "emergency programme" has much merit - eg intransigent defence of worker's living standards, linked to demands for expropriation- but surely we need a tool to carry it out Anybody up for a mass working-class party founded on this programme?
I can't think of anything I have written to say it is the, I don't know, personality? (as in 'wicked') of the bankers.
It is the capitalist system that is the problem and a few bankers (not Mr Smith, asst branch manager,Bognor Regis South but Lord Brown, Vice Chair, Megabank) who along with like directors at other large businesses, and more, should be executed by a workers government for the large scale killing (as I write about above) they have overseen.
That's a complete class (not cross class,or populist approach) and I have missed the bit where the American right have called for any sanction at all against bankers, save (some) saying they should not be given cash.
But Bayley is correct in his last para - "I think the LO-style "emergency programme" has much merit - eg intransigent defence of worker's living standards, linked to demands for expropriation- but surely we need a tool to carry it out Anybody up for a mass working-class party founded on this programme?" I agree.
And how about so something immediate as well - through trade unions calling for the TUC to call a demo in the City of London with the slogan 'don't bail them out - use to money to improve public services'. Teamsters and more have already marched against the US bail-out in Wall St.
And he is also correct that near no-one above has made a comment on what to do. Anyone fancy losing their political virginity and arguing for something?
But then to see a former ostensible Trotskyist, Harpymarx [Groucho,I presume] coming up with something Anita Roddick may have written makes me think it best for some people do keep shtum.
Whether they take the money off you 'ethically' Bodyshop or with no such pretensions (Boots); with high quality (BA) or abusing you to your face (Ryanair) or if it is "start-up funds for firms with something worthwhile to market" they are all capitalist bastards, frankly but it is also no solution, just a different type of exploitation.
The contribution above by harpymarx is a little odd. Her suggestions quite strange or to be blunt daft.
For example she suggests that "Financial advisers are playing Russian roulette gambling badly with your livelihood." Actually financial advisors do not invest but simply advise individuals what to do with their money.
She goes on to suggest that with regard to pensions that we need "bonds to develop affordable housing or to make the existing housing stock energy efficient?" Has she not noticed that the current government is making grants available to make houses energy efficient? Moreover why would such bonds be attractive to investors given that in a falling market that the return on investment, which could not but be low and much delayed, would mean that the pension fund might well fail thus losing those relying on it for their pensions to lose everything. As for the idea that pension funds should "invest in medical research" how can she be so ignorant not to know that they already do? And investment in "alternative transport or sustainable agriculture" cannot but be a lunatic idea, from the npoint of view of those hoping for a pension, as they have a low rate of profit.
Even more crazily she asks "If you want something riskier with the potential for growth why not start-up funds for firms with something worthwhile to market?" A good question but has she a suggestion herself? Of course not! And such a suggestion pre-supposes a maket and thus exploitation in any case. So much for her name checking poor marx in her monicker.
@SPP - I don't believe that YOU think it's all wicked bankers, but many do - and I think our slogans and demands shouldn't play with this sort of populism. It's a reflex habit of the SWP that I dislike, using slogans with minimal content, which collapse their politics into what they perceive as the "mood of the day", rather than using slogans and demands to build unity in action with those who DON'T agree with revolutionary socialism, without negating our all politics. Besides, arguing about how many people you wish to kill to show off how r.r..r.revolutionary you are .....it's a bit immature isn't it?
Liked the demo idea, though ;-)
Harpymarx's suggestions - were you being serious? Don't mean to sound rude (very easy on the net), but NOBODY'S investing at the moment - nobody's lending; the clue is in the term "credit crunch"!
Not sure that the existing organised left is up for the challenge; the AWL have just posted back up an old article, saying
"The most urgent questions that need to be discussed are those raised by the popular front of so large a part of the ostensible left with Islamist clerical fascism" err, no, the most urgent question is how the workers' movement confronts an impending massive capitalist crisis....
The SWP have gone back to sect-building (probably less harmful than Respect....)
The ISG have disappeared up George Galloway's arse.
Workers Power just enjoy wearing leather trousers.
Permanent Revolution's recent experiment in being nice to people - occasionally interrupted by their cadre Bill J's internet rantings - seems to be centred round an incredibly minimalist approach to the Convention of the Left ("let's have another workshop")
All against a background of the rehabilitation of Stalinism-lite, caudillo-worship and Greenery.....
Are the SP capable of doing anything more than building just another version of themselves? (honest question)
God, it's depressing.......
'Workers Power just enjoy wearing leather trousers.'
Sorry? Am I missing something here?
Oh, did a woman interrupt the boys club? better call her stupid and tell her to shut up.
Actually Harpy marx's points are far from stupid.
the big institutional investors like your pension fund do indeed play russian roulette with people's future and livlihoods, and it is indeed the financial advisors for those pensions funds who are a major player in the stock market.
And is it stupid to suggest bonds to develop a solution to the housing problems, and sustainable agriculture, etc. Not at all, indeed that would be a sensible alternative economic policy for the left to support, long term government backed bonds offering security and a modest interest rate to raise funds for long term strategic investment. Llabur governments have done this sort of thing in the past.
Ahh, but this is the real problem. We don''t want to think about any policies that actually might address real world problems, that affect real living working women, men and their children.
We would rather wank ourslves stupid while dreaming of waving red flags at the barricades, while heroicly singing the Internationale, the whole thing will be breathlessly exciting and far froom mundane, and we will look very striking with our red bandana. Onwards comrades, forward to the r-r-r-revolution.
sad, delusional and utterly futile.
Southpaw: "makes me think it best for some people do keep shtum. "
This from the dysfunctional sociopath who continually writes adolesent drivel about shooting people.
Can I ask a question - or rather pose a scenario - which may well reveal my economic ignorance, political flakiness or both. I'd genuinely welcome others pointing me to a logical flaw in this nightmare scenario.
Britain is a medium sized country that plays host to a world sized market in money. That market is now going belly-up. As a socialist is there any reason not to support its nationalisation?
It couldn’t be a moderate nationalisation, involving compensation at above the currently deflated market rates. We couldn’t afford to do that. The banks need sound money to restore trust we’re told – but who would trust a mouse to lift an elephant? It’s not clear Britain can do this on its own the way America can – or at least not without incurring debts of the size we incurred in World War 2 (which we only paid off last year I seem to recall....)
So what would happen if we nationalise the banks without compensation, or with minimal compensation?
Wouldn't all the 'hot' money run away? Well, perhaps not quite all - but enough, enough...unless we introduced exchange controls immediately. & then we would have not merely nationalised the British banks but be perceived to have ‘stolen’ huge quantities of foreign capital, or so it would seem in Washington, Brussels, Riyadh and Tokyo. Not to mention Beijing and the lairs of the Russian oligarchs. A cold and hungry Christmas would then presumably beckon...
Is there actually a way out of this mess for Britain which leads in a progressive direction?
Oh, did a woman interrupt the boys club? better call her stupid and tell her to shut up.
I didn't notice anyone calling HER "stupid", but her suggestions. That's a difference. Or are we back to "if you disagree with me you're just insulting me so I'll get in a (ahem) strop about it"? I do hope not - I thought I had noticed Andy having made great strides in recent months in his methods of debate, comment, etc.
AN's second comment is pretty much right, though.
"As for the idea that pension funds should "invest in medical research" how can she be so ignorant not to know that they already do?"
I know a fair bit about pension funds and I'm not aware of them doing so in anything but an indirect way (holding shares in pharma companies). There have been attempts to develop some policy here (the Pharma Shareholders Group) but I thought that had died. Is there something else going on?
I think Harpy is right to raise these sort of questions because the way institutional investment has worked in recent years is questionable to say the least.
There;s a big pool of capital in pension funds that at the moment is not being deployed in the interests of those it belongs to. Part of the reason we are where we are is because 'shareholders' (actually fund managers) have not used our capital effectively, or exerted ownership in respect of companies they invest in. As argued by Chris Dillow, there's been a failure of ownership in respect of public companies, so what do we do about it?
It makes a lot of sense to me therefore that we have a serious look at how our pensions are funded because there are both threats and opportunities here. But I am a bit of a pensions geek.
Charlie, you make a good point about how expropriation would be taken in New York, Shanghai etc.
In a similar debate over at http://www.haloscan.com/comments/mandel/6817036716161963712/ I say that I think that such a move would be a revolutionary act - they wouldn't take it lying down - but as such a move would only take place in a very positive situation, where things doubtless could well be in a similar state elsewhere (e.g. Paris), I think it would be more than Britain that would be a target of warships seeking their money.
But of course it has been pulled off before (in the Russian Revolution) and I think places like Argentina have also successfully refused to pay some of their debt on a permanent (but not socialist) basis.
I don't see traditional nationalisation as any great advance - many shareholders in bus companies welcomed being bought up in the late 40s by the state. And I do think a large body of resonance could be developed for the idea - why does Tesco have so much money; because it’s taken it from us. Let's recover our stolen property - expropriate the bastards”
@ Richard. Yes, and that’s how we move forward, we do so jointly on what we agree on. If I was active in a trade union branch I’d seek now to try and move such a resolution about a demo in the city (but also with more slogans that would appeal to financial workers as well). The TUC has been remarkably quiet on this issue (or not reported) but as there is talk of large scale unemployment looming for some (particularly FS workers) it should (but never will, unless pushed) go for it. Are there any trade unionists here that would want to take up such a suggestion.
There’s no reference to Harpymarx’s sex by anybody except Newman which just underlines his slur of sexism. Often there is a sharp class here between those who argue for (reformist) socialism and revolutionary socialism. That’s how it should be; the former clearly has a majority hold here and wider. But when pure, unalloyed pro-capitalist sentiment albeit with a sort of LibDem gloss is posted "start-up funds for firms with something worthwhile to market" than it’s hardly surprising it gets a withering response.
It’s simply a convenient lie for Newman to argue that some such as me “don''t want to think about any policies that actually might address real world problems” I have clearly made points doing just that above and he will also be aware that in a comment, just above his, on free school meals elsewhere on this site, I support this move and also campaigns for free public transport.
But then would do you expect from an acolyte of George Galloway whose contributions now often remind me of the third wordlist, soft on the ‘socialist’ countries (e.g. Cuba) that the CPGB (the real one) may have written in the 80s. It’s quite normal for such rightward moving elements to go apoplectic when arguing with those in favour of socialism and not a kinder capitalism - and also to lie about the (unfortunate) necessity of revolutionary violence.
Oh for the love of god Andy, what are you, her bodyguard or something? I'm sure Harpy is more than capable of speaking up for herself without your gallant charging to the rescue when she's confronted with (shock horror) a perfectly civil counter argument from (bigger shock horror) a... man!
It's an act of the most incredible disrespect to an obviously intelligent and articlate woman, to jump in and be so patronisingly "protective" in that way.
And nor was she the first woman to post a comment on this thread here.
And was it VP, or Jim Denham, that you banned from Socialist Disunity for supposedly using language about people with mental health problems as a form of abuse?
So just what is is 'dysfunctional sociopath'. Hypocrite.
Hmm. It seems you people know each other perhaps a little too well.
Southpawpunch: thank you for your reply. I'm glad we agree that nationalising banks without compensation is a truly revolutionary demand that would call forth a strong reaction from Capital.
I think where we might differ is that making demands of that nature outside of a revolutionary situation has always seemed to me to be....well, a bit pointless. So I've never really accepted the basic idea behind Transitional Demands as a concept.They quite often seem counter-productive to me: asking for things people eventually work out - sometimes work out quite quickly - to be objectively impossible in the current contemporary circumstances. But I know people who believe in the efficacy of Transitional Demands think that one of their benefits is as a 'consciousness raiser'.
So my question remain to those people who think addressing the issue is more important than just making propaganda points: is there an obvious solution, in policy terms, to the current financial crisis which gives any kind of advantage to the Left?
@Andy Newman - who are your policy policy proposals addressed to? a Labour government? how do they address the immediate threats caused by the current crisis - to jobs, homes and livelihoods? I honestly don't understand. I would have thought that our immediate concerns on housing should be about the fact that the credit crunch will dry up even the existing paltry schemes for affordable housing, done in partnership with developers whose finance plans have just turned to dust.The answer? - surely a call for a massive expansion of social housing, and the confiscation of empty properties.
Demands to stop repossessions, and the protection of private tenants, who find their landlords defaulting to on their buy-to-let mortgages, are important to. It's not a matter of rrrrevolutionary posing - its a matter of addressing what you call "the real world" - a world in which the finance for your housing bonds has just dried up. Why not just call for remutualisation?
@Dave - the poke at WP is to with the fact that they just seem to be in to macho posturing, looking at their press a sort of Red Action with A-levels. Sorry to offend, if you're in to leather trousers.....
SPP:
No, the person he banned for that was SWP'er JohnG, who is a regular commenter at Shiraz Socialist amongst other sites. I'm not banned from SU blog as far as I know.
Charlie,
I take your points but let's think about what I imagine may be achievable - with a lot of imagination - in the near term. Maybe a state bank that has bought other UK banks on the cheap as they suffer crises. And then this state bank, let's call it say Girobank or National Savings, is there in the market offering loans, mortgages and accepting savings - maybe with a lot of imagination it may even had a monopoly (it'd take a very left wing government to do this)
And then what would you have - a Post Office Telephones, a British Gas, a British Rail sometimes in the 70s.
But is that socialism - do the workers feel they are running the company, do the users feel they are not being exploited (I remember the pre-privitisation BT and its astronomical profits, always expressed as 'they make £x a second' by the press), do you think this bank will do socially useful projects like in the way that the state (and later privatised) rail companies never built any new lines?
I'm not against reforms but I can't get enthusiastic about 1948 redux. The right wing Republicans got a fair resonance with a correct and basic point - why should we give our money these businesses.
I don't think I making any extreme demands here. It sounds pretty extreme (most people would popularly call it 'theft') to give (in the US case) $700bn to some businesses - that's $2000 from each American. I think 'let's take back our stolen property' would be capable of generating support.
It's noticeable that, generally saving the out and out capitalist replies no answer to your question is coming from the Labour Left and similar.
Thanks, VP.
Nationalisation of the banks, without compensation is a demand that needs to be qualified.
Numerous small investors, pensioners, wage earners, small shop keepers and students have bank deposits and savings.
It needs to be made clear that these deposits are guaranteed.
The most important immediate task is to break the logjam in interbank lending by centralising financial capital into one banking institution.
This could be done by an emergency bill to amalgamate the banks into one government controlled body. Effectively, this would lead to a national State Bank.
This is only a state capitalist measure, since it presumes the continued existence of capital as money, profit and loss and participation on international financial markets.
Therefore, it would still be subject to international pressures, such as big withdrawals by international depositors.
At the moment the British Banking system is being kept afloat by deposits from Asia and the Middle East.
The US has lurched towards State Capitalism with the Freddie/Fannie and AIG interventions, while the Treasury is being looted by the bankers to keep capitalism afloat.
Brown could soon be forced to intervene even more forcefully than he did over NR and HBOS.
But socialists don't support unconditional bailouts.
Moving from a state capitalist bank, in the direction of socialism would require two main things:-
1) Workers Control - i.e. trade union representation on the board, with the right to veto management decisions.
2) Moving towards nationalisation of the banks asset holdings and a system of centralised investment. Banks don't just sit on money. They are constantly involved in investments and stocks and share dealings and the primary means for equalising the rate of profit between businesses. When they withhold investment, business that are deprived of their credit line are in imminent danger of bankruptcy. A nationalised bank can use this leverage to increasing take a state holding in manufacturing and services. Homes with failing mortgages can become state property and let out at affordable rents. Movement of capital in and out of the country can be monitored and controlled.
Ultimately, a state bank would be a prereqisite for a planned economy and able to make investments in socially necessary production schemes drawn up by workers, unions and technologists and scientists.
Currently, initiatives for energy production - such as renewables, nuclear power and restarting domestic coal production depend on the whims of private investors. A state bank would be a precondition of solving the energy and environmental questions in a socialist way.
The financial crisis remains very volatile and is far from being solved. So trade unions need to be passing motions dealing with these issues in the coming weeks. Making sure that Brown and Mandleson feel the hot breath of the Labour movement on their necks.
I remember the "BT making xxx quid a second profit" headlines, but they certainly weren't pre-privatisation, but more in the mid-90s around the height of the tabloid "fat cats" headlines.
Regardless: here I agree with SPP's last comment. Old-style nationalisation was crap. But we all know that decrepit nationalised industries and services get deliberately run down in order to push support for their privatisation ("it surely can't be any worse if Branson runs it", two years later: "yet it can, renationalise it now"). I want the state running as little as possible, but certain services need to be run in a way that puts them above the whims and profit interests of both the treasury and various exorbitantly paid directors. At the same time, calling for "workers' control" isn't always the right answer. Why should the workers of a bank decide what happens with my (fictional) savings? Or what my bank charges are? Or why should -only- NHS workers decide what happens at my local hospital? What is inconvenient for the workers might well just what patients need. Most people put their own interests first, not those they are supposed to be serving (current account holders, the sick, railway passengers, etc.) Ok, the workers -might- be better qualified than the rest of us on many issues, it's imperative that service users have a siginificant role in deciding how important services and companies are run. Also, if workers' control equals "trade union representation on the board" as prianikoff states we're playing not only fantasy British economy but fantasy trade unions. Of course, if it gets this far, presumably the trade unions might have changed a good bit in the process, but giving some out-of-touch union bureaucrats any kind of control over any industry, private or state-owned is rubbish. Look at Germany.
Prianikoff since when did placing a trade union bureaucrat on the board of directors of a company constitute workers control? Such things have been tried before in both the USA and germany to no good end.
"..since when did placing a trade union bureaucrat on the board of directors of a company constitute workers control?"
I never mentioned the word 'bureaucrat".
Nor was I suggesting a workers' participation scheme.
How the unions control their representatives is down to the level of internal democracy and political consciousness within them.
When the Tories wanted to destroy the Nationalised Rail and Coal industries, they brought in Beeching and McGregor.
These private sector hatchetmen pushed through massive cuts against public and union opposition, leaving the remnants for re-privatisation.
The consequences for the subsequent development of British transport and energy policy are still playing out today.
High rail fares, over-dependence on road transportation, dependence on imported gas and a looming shortage of generating capacity.
Creating a State Bank with a union veto over management would be a powerful weapon against economic sabotage and misuse of public money by rich bankers.
But without a government to reinforce it, workers control at local level or over a state enterprise will always be in danger of being subverted.
"Creating a State Bank with a union veto over management would be a powerful weapon against economic sabotage and misuse of public money by rich bankers."
This sounds like a demand for the current situation to me, not someting for the future. Yet in the current situation, who would exercise the "union veto over management" that you suggest? Some bureaucrat. No-body else.
Anyway, whatever kind of "workers' representative" only having some kind of veto is a long, long way from any kind of workers' control. It's not even remotely near co-management.
dzb "This sounds like a demand for the current situation to me"
Every time a bank fails the question of nationalising the banks is raised in practice.
It's virtually one a week at the moment, I've lost count. The biggest US banking failure earlier this week, A massive German one today....
So, yes, why shouldn't it be adopted by the TUC and affiliate unions as policy, right now?
The alternative is more prevarication and deals with bankers by the Brown/Mandleson team, who represent a centre bloc against both a Blairite coup in the LP or an attempt by the unions to dump New Labour entirely.
Meanwhile a big recession gets nearer, which is not a good situation for union organisation.
The phrase I used was:-
"trade union representation on the board, with the right to veto management decisions. "
Which IS workers control.
As opposed to workers management, which is something that requires a reduction in the working week, the right to regular mass meetings, education and training.
That will only happen within a fully socialist system.
No Prianikoff you did not mention bureaucrats I did. The point being that the unions as they are presently constituted and as they are likely to remain until a massive working class offensive can oust them are run by bureaucrats. That is to say a layer of people who derive their living from bargaining with the bosses and who do not have the same material interest in destroying capitalism that is the lot of the vast majority of wage workers.
Certaily any element of workers control of production is under the present system of production constantly under threat and can be abolished as and when new technologies arrive on the scene. As has happened time and time again in engineering for example. But that frontier of control marks one of the flash points for the class struggle and indicates why the workplace remains central to any socialist strategy in this country as elsehwere.
Mike Neprimerimye wrote:
'the unions as they are presently constituted and as they are likely to remain until a massive working class offensive can oust them are run by bureaucrats.'
This sounds pretty abstentionist to me.
One of the reasons for the low level of militancy in the unions has been, precisely the long period of boom and availability of cheap credit.
All fuelled by the rise in home ownership and belief in ever-rising house prices.
With that swirling down the boghole, many workers will be forced to react in the traditional ways. Strikes, occupations and sit ins etc...
We're also starting from a position where the left is far better placed in many unions than it was in the 1970's, which began with Scanlon, Jones, Chapple and Gormley in the leading positions.
Bush and Brown were forced to do a turn on "neo-Liberalism" faster than Torville and Dean. Dialectical thinking would indicate that the unions could change just as fast.
Mike Neprimerimye wrote:
'the unions as they are presently constituted and as they are likely to remain until a massive working class offensive can oust them are run by bureaucrats.'This sounds pretty abstentionist to me.
quotes and writes prianikoff.
Interestingly he doesn't point out that Mike Pearn is right, although everyone (else) can surely see this.
Anyway: a "trade union veto over management" can hardly be workers' control. Under workers' control I understand workers running things, not just occasionally saying "no".
Hmm. There is, of course, a long standing theoretical debate about how any form of workers control might actually work - and a practical decision to take every time such a possibility raises its head.(Which, let's face it,hasn't exactly been that often).However, I do wonder how far anyone on the Left would be happy with 'workers'(sic) control of the institutions of the financial markets.
Meanwhile, over on his 'Idle Scrawl' blog, Paul Mason of Newsnight ( ex-Workers Power according to wikipedia) seems to be saying this is not just a 'Minsky Moment' (a predictable fuck up in the global financial markets brought about by the inherent logic of financial capital as analysed by Hyman Minsky, whom I've never read) but that the British state is seriously considering adopting Minsky's Left Keynesian policy response to such problems. What is that response?
"As socialisation of the towering heights is fully compatible with a large, growing and prosperous private sector, this high-consumption synthesis might well be conducive to greater freedom for entrepreneurial daring than is our present structure". (Minsky, HP John Maynard Keynes, New York 2008, p164-5)
Mason is saying, I think, not merely that a Swedish solution is on the cards - but the socialisation of the banks won't automatically be temporary. A new style capitalism with the financial sector owned (or persuasively regulated) by the State is potentially possible, or at least within the ambit of 'legitimate' policy debate.
Either Mason's got this very wrong, or really big things are afoot...
An interesting point, but isn't Mason a qualified musician and not an economist? In some sense, the state guaranteeing all private (?) savings deposits, as in Ireland and now Germany, is basically state control of the banks, in all but name, isn't it?
Oi, there's nothing wrong with being a qualified musician and wannabe economist.
Anyway if Paul Mason has any influence, this could be the first time the Workers Power split has had any importance to the wider world: does he take the WP line (capitalism is in crisis and the revolution is just around the corner) or the Permanent Revolution line (no it isn't)?
Yes, Mason is - or was - a musician. But he's also a good journalist. I'm not suggesting he's a guru, just a intelligent commentator with his ear to the ground and a background in left wing politics.
Guaranteeing deposits is one thing, controlling the operations of the banks is another. If the first step automatically implied the second surely governments would now be directing their banks to start trading with one another again...
Bodenburg:"...Under workers' control I understand workers running things, not just occasionally saying "no"."
Pearn inserts the term "bureaucrats" for trade union representation. You interpret a veto as meaning occasionally objecting to what the managers do.
But I said neither of those things.
In fact, your definitions of workers control are seriously out of kilter with Marxism. As I pointed out earlier, you're confusing it with workers' management.
Having a veto over management is tantamount to dual power within an organisation.
They no longer have unlimited powers to hire and fire, transfer money abroad, engage in fraud and commercial secrecy.
The fact that the unions are emerging from a low level of struggle isn't an argument against such demands.
Perhaps you think if a few thousand people have a Stop the City demo and absail down the Gherkin it would make an iota of difference?
What's needed is a bridge between the existing organisations of the working class at their current level of consciousness and the objective needs posed by the economic crisis.
Unless the unions start to engage with the current situation by making their own demands, they will be tailing behind events.
This of course, is leading to greater international rivalry, as Ireland or Germany offer to protect international investments.
Without a clear socialist action programme, the result will be confusion and growing nationalism.
Not only does the left need to combat the false solutions of the BNP, it needs to expose the prevaricating pro-business agenda of the Liberals, Tories and most of all, Brown's team in the LP.
The main thing to stress is that the 1,000 richest people in Britain, who own over £400 billion in capital, have to pay for the banking crisis, not workers, students and pensioners.
Similarly on an international level.
Nationalisation of the banks is NOT happening on a thoroughgoing basis, as is required by the situation.
As the crisis deepens it more nationalisations may be forced on capitalist states, but what individual states are doing at present is a piecemeal attempt to prop up their national banking systems, without fundamentally threatening the private shareholders in the banking system, or the big capitalist deposits.
Demanding full scale nationalisation, a state bank and a union veto over commercial secrecy,control over the movement of money and protection for the small saver is a first step.
It's CERTAINLY part of a socialist transitional programme:
"The workers and peasants, organised in unions, by nationalising the banks...abolishing commercial secrecy, imposing confiscation of property as a penalty for concealment of incomes etc.. might with extreme ease make contol both effective an universal - control that is, over the rich, and such control as would secure the return of paper money from those who have it, from thos who conceal it, to the treasury, which issues it.."
VI Lenin " The Impending Catastrophe and How to Avert it"
Bodenburg:"...Under workers' control I understand workers running things, not just occasionally saying "no"."
Pearn inserts the term "bureaucrats" for trade union representation. You interpret a veto as meaning occasionally objecting to what the managers do.
But I said neither of those things.
In fact, your definitions of workers control are seriously out of kilter with Marxism. As I pointed out earlier, you're confusing it with workers' management.
Having a veto over management is tantamount to dual power within an organisation.
They no longer have unlimited powers to hire and fire, transfer money abroad, engage in fraud and commercial secrecy.
The fact that the unions are emerging from a low level of struggle isn't an argument against such demands.
Perhaps you think if a few thousand people have a Stop the City demo and absail down the Gherkin it would make an iota of difference?
What's needed is a bridge between the existing organisations of the working class at their current level of consciousness and the objective needs posed by the economic crisis.
Unless the unions start to engage with the current situation by making their own demands, they will be tailing behind events.
This of course, is leading to greater international rivalry, as Ireland or Germany offer to protect international investments.
Without a clear socialist action programme, the result will be confusion and growing nationalism.
Not only does the left need to combat the false solutions of the BNP, it needs to expose the prevaricating pro-business agenda of the Liberals, Tories and most of all, Brown's team in the LP.
The main thing to stress is that the 1,000 richest people in Britain, who own over £400 billion in capital, have to pay for the banking crisis, not workers, students and pensioners.
Similarly on an international level.
Nationalisation of the banks is NOT happening on a thoroughgoing basis, as is required by the situation.
As the crisis deepens it more nationalisations may be forced on capitalist states, but what individual states are doing at present is a piecemeal attempt to prop up their national banking systems, without fundamentally threatening the private shareholders in the banking system, or the big capitalist deposits.
Demanding full scale nationalisation, a state bank and a union veto over commercial secrecy,control over the movement of money and protection for the small saver is a first step.
It's CERTAINLY part of a socialist transitional programme:
"The workers and peasants, organised in unions, by nationalising the banks...abolishing commercial secrecy, imposing confiscation of property as a penalty for concealment of incomes etc.. might with extreme ease make contol both effective and universal - control that is, over the rich, and such control as would secure the return of paper money from those who have it, from thos who conceal it, to the treasury, which issues it.."
VI Lenin " The Impending Catastrophe and How to Avert it"
It's nice that the far left has a number of seats on the leading committees of some of the smaller unions. But the base of the unions as a whole and that of the left within them has shrunken dramatically since the 1970's. The trots on those leading committees are then isolated and have not been elected to their positions on the basis of their revolutionary views. Which is why they can so rarely lead actions.
By contrast the right wing leaders Prianikoff mentions were, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, forced to lead major strikes. What mattered was that the left, including the now defunct CPGB, had a real base in the unions and workplaces that could force the bureaucrats to fight.