SEB on Brexit
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Socialist Economic Bulletin
http://socialisteconomicbulletin.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/brexit-cannot-have-favourable-outcome.html
Including knocking the left case for Brexit:
Quote:More technical arguments that, for example, EU state aid rules prevent a radical programme of nationalisation are equally spurious. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell do not propose a large-scale programme of nationalisation, for very good reason. There are not the spare funds to purchase the equity of the energy, transport, building and other firms and the banks. And the political situation simply does not allow any nationalisation without compensation. It would just be posturing to suggest that court orders ruling in favour of private property rights would be overturned or physical seizures of property take place.They predict real falls in living standards and rising prices (alongside falling investment)
Quote:However, Brexit itself makes this both less likely and less effective. Private sector investment becomes less likely with Brexit because investment is driven by returns, the key factors being the size and growth of the target market. Outside the EU, the UK economy is a far smaller market than a component of the Single Market. It will also experience slower growth.
All UK investment also becomes less effective outside the EU. As Adam Smith demonstrated long ago the effectiveness of investment is determined by the size and scope of the market, including, but not confined to well-known factors such as ‘economies of scale’. As the size of the market in which the UK can operate is restricted, the efficiency of investment declines.Could somebody help me out on Brexit?Do you have any idea what’s “driving” the “hard Brexiteers”; Gove, Fox, Johnson, etc.?Why are they so hell bent on getting Britain out of the EU?Is in something visceral, something emotional that is fuelling them, like the prospect of Britain rising once again – the plucky little country that used to rule the waves, and can do so again, once it’s free of the EU? Something they are taught “on the playing fields of Eton”; i.e., that there is something superior about them because they have been born on these islands, that they should therefore stand alone, and not lump themselves in with all these dreadful foreigners? That is, something irrational, the way people passionately support a certain football team, but don’t quite know why?Or is it that they are hoping to gain some personal financial advantages when Britain has left the EU?I tend towards the former opinion, but I may be wrong.Has anyone got the answer?
Since staying in the tariff-less and friction-less single market is in the overall interest of the British capitalist class, there can only be two explanations for the behaviour of the Tory Breshiteers: either they are using popular prejudice to further their careers and climb further up the greasy pole or they are stupid (or both of course). Business chiefs are beginning to get fed up with them — sometimes their political representatives get out of hand and bugger things up for them. This could be a case in point.
Hi ALBYes, perhaps you’re right.I’m still thinking maybe that there is an element of my explanation in there as well. I would guess that in the schools and institutions these people go to, they are still often inculcated with ideas of superiority, whether by class or by “ethnicity” – echoes of the Raj and all that – and that some of them absorb these irrational ideas.I am sure that Johnson, for example, feels superior both because of his class and his “Britishness”.I saw a couple of business experts interviewed on the news this morning, one Chinese, one Ghanaian. They were talking about trade opportunities between the UK and China and African countries post Brexit.The interviewer asked the Ghanaian a question and referred to “the British Commonwealth”, upon which the Ghanaian rapidly put him in his place and said there is no such thing as “the British” Commonwealth, it’s just called “the Commonwealth”.Meel
ALB wrote:Since staying in the tariff-less and friction-less single market is in the overall interest of the British capitalist class, there can only be two explanations for the behaviour of the Tory Breshiteers: either they are using popular prejudice to further their careers and climb further up the greasy pole or they are stupid (or both of course). Business chiefs are beginning to get fed up with them — sometimes their political representatives get out of hand and bugger things up for them. This could be a case in point.it might be argued that some elements of the capitalist class have no real interest in a tariff free and frictionless single market. For some small capitalists the hassle and cost of European regulation may outway the benefit. Not all businesses export and import. In my opinion the Brexit debate is one between big capital and small capital. In the short term small capital has won. In the long term big capital will always win out over small capital.
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