Three reasons to support the socialist platform

 Kathrine Brannan, from LU Cambridge and Henry Nowak a comrade from Germany, discuss their reasons for supporting the Socialist Platform:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Painting by Yves Messer

I would like to highlight three reasons for supporting the socialist platform, which I see as a crucial foundation for the party we all want to build. Firstly, this platform addresses the nature of the crisis that the capitalist economy is going through and, therefore, what policies a party of workers, students, unemployed and retired people should put forward in response. Secondly, it considers how our British debate is situated in a broader European context. Since, from the very beginning of building LU, the Greek Syriza, the French Front de Gauche, the German Die Linke , have been proffered as references, then it is appropriate, conversely, to see how a party, built on a strong socialist, programmatic basis can help our brothers and sisters on the Continent.  Thirdly, and more implicit than explicit in the platform is the need for ongoing political education; internally, to provide the membership with the tools to perform the tasks ahead and externally, especially for the young generation which has suffered the decaying school system.

1)      The crisis and our response

Dozens of books and hundreds of academic papers have been written on the analysis of the economic crisis. Mainstream economists have been squabbling about it in a free for all blame game. For these guys it all boils down to: who is responsible for the bubble? They all seem to agree the 2008 crisis was a mere speculative bubble problem. For them, it can be compared to the 1637 Tulip Mania, the 1720 South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles, the pre-1919 stock market bubble, and so on. Of course, according to neo-classic economic theory (the stuff they teach students at business schools), markets being rational forces, this would never have happened if the state had not tampered with what is credited as an ‘even playing field.’ In this theory, low interest rates and easy access to consumer credit and mortgages are the cause of all the trouble. And budget deficits, don’t forget budget deficits…

More unorthodox economists (that’s what they call the less insane among the practitioners of the ‘dismal science’) basically agree on the nature of the disease. But point their finger at the financial actors: the banks, the hedge funds, the speculators. The radical ones will hone in on the financialisation of the economy and growing income inequality.

The problem is thus described as one of a cancerous growth of worthless assets which stifle the ‘real economy’. In this context the solution proffered is that of revitalising this ‘real economy’ by ( a) putting shackles on the financial sector ( see all the calls to revive the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking) and (b) boosting consumption. The radical versions will add state financing of infrastructure projects which will create thousands of jobs. Usually Roosevelt’s TVA is the projected model rather than the more politically embarrassing examples of the building of the Autobahn or the draining of the Pontine Marshes. Various ‘take the money from the rich’ schemes are often attached alongside these job creation projects. The difficulty with this type of analysis and the solutions it engenders is that no one admits to the elephant in the room. This is the big elephant noisily feeding on the pile of assets, little caring whether they are toxic or not; feeding on them and producing them at the same time. In technical terms it’s known as the circulation of capital.  Setting apart or even thinking separately the two types of capital (productive and speculative) is impossible within the context of a capitalist economy. They are, to use a theological term, consubstantial.

To quote Marx (in volume 2 of Capital):

‘Money capital, commodity capital and productive capital do not therefore designate independent kinds of capital whose functions form the content of likewise independent branches of business separated from one another. They denote here only special forms of industrial capital, which assumes all three of them one after the other.’

So, if we want to understand the problem, we have to take a look at what goes on in the engine room of the ship, rather than  in the passengers’ cabins or in the galley. To quote Marx , and again, from volume 2 of Capital:

‘Industrial capital is the only mode of existence of capital in which not only the appropriation of surplus value, or surplus product, but simultaneously its creation is a function of capital. Therefore with it the capitalist character of production is a necessity, Its existence implies the class antagonism between capitalists and wage labourers. To the extent that it seizes control of social production, the technique and social organisation of the labour process are revolutionised and with them the economico-historical type of society. The other kinds of capital, which appeared before industrial capital amid conditions of social production that have receded into the past or are now succumbing, are not only subordinated to it and the mechanism of their functions altered in conformity with it, but move solely with it as their basis, hence live and die, stand and fall with this basis. Money capital and commodity capital, so far as they function as particular branches of business, side by side with industrial capital, are nothing but modes of existence of the different functional forms now assumed, now discarded by industrial capital in the sphere of circulation—modes which, due to social division of labour, have attained independent existence and been developed one-sidedly.’

(…)

‘It expresses furthermore that exchange value, not use value, is the determining aim of this movement. Just because the money form of value is the independent, tangible form in which value appears, the form of circulation M…M’, the initial and terminal points of which are real money, expresses most graphically the compelling motive of capitalist production—money-making. The process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production’

So that’s where the crisis originates: from the nature of the process of production (industry, transport and services) and from the ‘feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production’ (Marx, in Capital Vol 2) that derives from that nature. The reason for these bouts of speculative fever is that periodically it just doesn’t pay off to invest in production. For reasons it would be too time-consuming to get into here, there is a tendency for the rate (not the amount) of profit to fall. A tendency: just because we are aging inexorably does not stop us having good days. Yet, the tendency is there, and each small injury, each benign viral infection takes longer to heal. So when profit declines, capital will catch a fever and swells, and swells, into a huge Humpty-Dumpty. The fall is part of the story and any attempt at putting it together again is doomed.

The image of fictitious capital as a malignant swelling or cancerous growth has its limits and can even be deceptive. Certainly, once a tumour has reached a certain stage it becomes impossible to remove without taking out the affected organ. However, there is no cure to the financial cancer within the present capitalist system. The humungous accumulation of fictitious capital is stifling the capacity of society to reproduce itself.

The capitalist mode of production, which today encompasses the whole world, has entered a phase of ever deepening crises. The financial debacle of 2008, the debt crisis  wreaking havoc in several EU states, the speculative bubbles appearing and bursting at an accelerating pace, are not the cause but a symptom of the present crisis, When capital moves towards the financial and commercial sector and all kinds of ‘get rich quick’ schemes, and away from industrial production and infrastructure the reason is that, from a capitalist viewpoint, satisfying the needs of the population, ensuring the reproduction of society, is no longer profitable. Production, to the extent it takes place, is increasingly performed in sweatshops, such as the notorious Bangladeshi textile or Chinese electronic factories. No amount of regulation and taxation of banks and financial institutions will change this.

The time of the ‘great compromise’ of 1945-1979 is over, never to come back again. There is no social-democratic alternative to neo-liberalism. For the working population, in this country, as in the rest of Europe, the only way out is for an alliance of wage earners, students, unemployed and retired people to take over the management of society and to engage in a reorientation of all means of production towards the fulfilling of the basic needs of the population; food, housing, transport, education culture, healthcare etc.

The choice is not between some kind of ‘New Deal’ and hard-line neo-liberalism but, rather, between Socialism and barbarism.’

2) Beyond the White Cliffs

By giving our future party a clear socialist profile, we assert that a society where the needs of the population are the priority; actually ruled by a majority, a society committed to scientific and technical progress is not only necessary but possible here and now. We will also contribute to the constitution of like-minded parties on the Continent.

When we examine the state of the “left of the left” in Europe, the parties that are hailed as models by some in LU, we are confirmed in our resolve to support the Socialist Platform.

The July conference of the Greek Syriza under Alexis Tsipras, which is now considering the possibility of entering in an alliance with the social-democratic PASOK, saw an insidious attempt to muzzle and fetter its left wing.

In Germany, a few days before the elections to the Bundestag, the federal parliament, opinion polls seem to indicate that Die Linke has not being able to take political advantage of the dire situation of a increasing number of working people, the “Prekariat”, oscillating between unemployment, so called “minijobs” (the German equivalent of 0-hour contracts) and the Harz 4 welfare benefits. And where it shares power with the SPD, the German Labour Party, as in Berlin, they support the austerity measures that are implemented.

In France, the Parti de Gauche, led by Mélenchon, a splinter from the Socialist Party of François Hollande, is squabbling with its partner in the Front de gauche, the Communist party, over alliances for the coming municipal elections: the CP would like to continue running on common slates with the SP, whereas the PdG wants FdG slates.

In all three cases, the lure of traditional electoral and parliamentary politics as usual, under the cover of “realism” and “lesser evilism” is pulling the parties away from the vision that ignited the hopes of hundreds of dedicated supporters whose work got those parties off the ground.

Keep in mind the lesson of the Italian version of a Left party, the Rifundazione Comunista  which plunged into insignificance after joining a “left” coalition government under Romano Prodi. (On the political left, you lose your body not long after losing your soul!)

This is not what we want!

In all four parties, and in others throughout Europe, there are real revolutionary forces that strive to reorient their organization away from their leaders’ attempts to become the left sugar coating of bitter austerity measures.

The emergence in Great Britain of a party openly and firmly committed to a socialist reconstruction of society would be a signal for these forces and would act as a catalyst for the real left all over Europe.

3) We want education (and we don’t want “no education”)

We want to build a party. My third reason, maybe the most important, for supporting the Socialist Platform has to do with education, in the highest sense of this word.

What is the purpose of a political party? For the ruling classes it is primarily to represent their interests in the legislative and executive branch of government and, as a side benefit, to provide sinecures to some of their members. Starting around the end of the 19^th century, with the developments in Continental Europe of mass parties organizing workers (in Germany) and workers, poor farmers and civil servants (in France), followed by the trade unions sponsored Labour Party in Great Britain, representatives of the working class were able to represent their constituents’ interests in the parliamentary arena.

But there is a fundamental difference between “their” parties and “ours”. Ours, while intervening actively on behalf of the interests of labour on the traditional playing field, at the municipal and national – and today European – levels, has another dimension: the education of their members and circles of influence. This educational process works in a number of ways: politically educated party members are better fighters for their ideas in all circumstances. They are more self-assured, more independent and assertive. But an educated membership is also the best guarantee against the development of a bureaucracy of apparatchiks monopolizing positions in the leading bodies of the party. Remember that it was by manipulating the large numbers (200,000) of inexperienced, uneducated new recruits admitted into the party in 1924 (the “Lenin Levy) that Stalin consolidated his grip on the Russian Communist Party. But educational activities in the broadest sense are also how the party attracts and recruits new members.

Historically, the first working class political organizations were educational societies. The German Arbeiter-Verein (Workers’ Society) in Brussels was founded by Marx and Engels at the end of August 1847 for the political education of German workers living in Belgium. Later, in London, Marx was an active participant in the educational activities of the German Workers Educational Society. The International Working Men’s Association itself was conceived both as an organ of workers ‘solidarity and education: in his Inaugural Address to the International, Marx wrote: “One element of success they possess — numbers; but numbers weigh in the balance only if united by combination and led by knowledge.”

Closer to us, the mass workers’ parties, be it the pre-WW1 German SPD, the Communist parties in France or in Italy after WW2, whatever one may think of their policies, were huge educational institutions where hundreds of thousands of workers were given access not only to the ABC of socialism, but to the full cultural heritage of civilization. Only a party whose program is a socialist program can fulfil such a goal.