Posted in Ideology

It’s hard to disagree with Left Unity about anything much, other than their existence

Left unityI have read several times now the founding statement of Left Unity (set out below) which was carried with the support of three-quarters of the delegates at its founding conference. I agree with it all with the exception of the existential clause, a commitment to “engage in elections offering voters a left alternative” as a party to the left of Labour. What’s more I suspect that a large proportion of Labour Party members, perhaps even a majority, would think the same.

Not all of course. Blairites are not against capitalism. Blair himself wants a ‘new capitalism‘: “the change we seek should not be about replacing the free enterprise system or the market but about sustaining them in a way that is stable and enduring.” Ed Miliband also seems to want “to save capitalism from itself“, to create a “responsible capitalism” in which socialist values and capitalism are in some kind of perpetual dialectic: “While there’s capitalism, there’ll be socialism, because there is always a response to injustice.” Continue reading →

When will Labour tackle market failure and revive the role of the State?

scared businessman hiding on the ground with business graph down conceptThe roll call of shame and disgrace about the record of the private banks, privatised utilities and outsourcing companies has now reached such a pitch that surely Labour must now challenge the whole culture of ‘the market knows best’ and in the extreme form of the neoliberal ideology that ‘government should get out of the way and leave it all to the market’. That is now so utterly discredited that patching up a failed system or tweaking at the edges the overblown corporate power or regulatory cosiness simply will not do.

As everyone can see, the marketising obsession that Thatcher and Reagan initiated in the 1980s has now run its course, disastrously, not only in bringing about the worst financial crash for a century and the prolonged austerity that has followed, but now an almost daily succession of scandals that should destroy any political party that continues blindly to pursue it. Continue reading →

In the Belly of the Beast

The 2014 issue of journal Socialist Register is the 50th since the journal was founded by Ralph Miliband – together with John Saville – in 1964. Tomorrow will see a discussion in Parliament, chaired by John McDonnell MP, on the legacy and ongoing relevance of the political project he initiated (see details below)

The concern to interpret anew, but rigorously and relevantly, the politics of Marx became the hallmark of the politics of the Register: theory, by all means, but theory that bore relevance to the editors’ preoccupations with contemporary politics”. (Marion Kozak) Continue reading →

Battle-lines for 2015: Tory permanent austerity v Labour decent affordable society

cameron at the lord mayorsCameron, surprisingly, has really let the cat out of the bag. In his speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet (complete with champagne, roast duck and assorted fruit meringues) he let slip to his audience that the Tories would not restore public expenditure after the structural deficit had been eliminated, but would maintain austerity indefinitely (though not of course for the worshipful dignitaries enrobed before him who’ve had a good austerity). Continue reading →