General Election
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Lib Dem politics in a nutshell, let’s be nice to everyone and if everyone else is nice it will all be nice. Effectively that means keep things as they are and tie a few bonny bows around the trees in the local park.
The LibDems are not that nice. They are prepared to be nasty too. The non-entity who is their current leader is enough of a psychopath to be ready to press the nuclear button without hesitation. The good news is that she will never get the chance. The bad news is that someone else will.
Here is Stephen Colman’s take on the debate between Corbyn and Johnstone.
After the Liberals’ “pledge” (what is the difference between a pledge and a promise — a political pledge is just a worthless piece of paper) to “build an economy that works for everyone, not just the richest”, Corbyn pledges, in the foreword to their manifesto published today, that
“Labour will rewrite the rules of the economy, so that it works for everyone.”
But that’s precisely what the experience of all the reformist governments that there have been has shown cannot be done : the rules of the economy — the capitalist economy — cannot be “rewritten” to stop profits and profit-making having to have priority.
Where you have got class ownership of productive resources and production for sale with the aim of making a profit, definite economic laws come into operation which act with the force of laws of nature and impose themselves on governments, whatever governments may want to do (or have pledged).
Governments do not control the way the economy works; it’s the other way round. Governments have to conform to the imperative of allowing profit-making to continue unless they want to provoke an economic downturn. In the end, all governments are compelled to recognise and act on this. A Corbyn government (if it ever happens) would discover this is within a couple of years.
Capitalism simply cannot be reworked so that it works for everyone. It is a profit-making system that can only work in the interest of the few who live off profits.
I have incorporated that into my own remarks to upset ‘Guardianistas’ and Polly Toynbee fans.
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/135715932
The editorial in today’s Times talks about “Labour plans for socialist revolution” and says “Jeremy Corbyn’s election manifesto is a blueprint for a socialist revolution.”
Of course it is nothing of the kind. It is merely an attempt to put the clock back to the 1970s when there were council houses and nationalised utilities before Thatcher set out to undo all that the post-war Labour government had done. If Corbyn is a “socialist revolutionary” then so would Attlee and Harold Wilson have to have been too. But nobody called them that.
A real socialist revolution would see all productive resources transferred to the community so that they could be used, under democratic control, to directly satisfy people’s needs, both as individuals and as a community. There is nothing about that in Labour’s manifesto,
Someone on the BBC got it right when he described Labour’s manifesto as “radical reformism”. That’s more like it. Not that capitalism can be reformed to work in the interest of the many. All Labour governments, as government working within the framework of capitalism, have ended up imposing austerity through, for instance, “wage restraint” and “wage freezes”. We’ve seen the past and it doesn’t work.
“Labour’s programme is reasonable, not radical”
“Utilities and rail are public-owned across Europe. South Korea has full-fibre coverage. This is a plan to mend capitalism, not end it”
It looks as if the Tories are on course to win. One reason might be that Johnson is promising something he can deliver, i.e. the formal withdrawal of the UK from the EU (even though trade negotiations will continue) while Corbyn is promising what many voters judge to be pie in the sky (as it is under capitalism).
Another factor may be resentment amongst some that they were asked a question (as doesn’t happen all that often) only to find that attempts have been made to ignore or reverse their answer. In other words, such voters are now not so much concerned about the question (which they didn’t really want or ask to be asked) or even about the consequences of their answer as that their vote is being ignored. Lesson for the ruling class: don’t bring the people into your quarrels.
All the candidates in Cardiff Central, including the SPGB’s (and his cat), have their say:Today’s news announcement that one of the documents Corbyn has quoted may have come from Russia has an uncanny parallel with the Zinoviev Letter that brought down the first Labour government in 1924:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinoviev_letter
The trouble is that, as then, we won’t know till after the election is over whether it is a dirty trick or not.
I’ve told my penfriends how the British will be electing the Tories again, because the British love poverty.
Here, even the homeless are all Tories.
General Election – 12 December 2019 Mailout
All the capitalist parties, be they far ‘right’ or far ‘left’, and all those in between, have no intention of abolishing capitalism.
Every capitalist party accepts the notion that the means to life must be owned—not by all the people—but instead by a tiny minority. And the majority must go to work, and be dependent on a wage—either directly or indirectly—for their livelihood.
The General Election is in a few days and all the capitalist parties have been trying to persuade you that ‘the country’ will be better off if their party is in government.
All the capitalist parties will tell the voters that they have the best ideas, the best policies when it comes to jobs, and health care, and education, and transport, and housing, and defence, and the environment, and everything else.
All the capitalist parties not in government will lay most of the blame for ‘the country’s’ problems at the door of the capitalist party that is in government.
All the parties will claim they will tackle the underlying causes of ‘the country’s’ problems.
All the parties will claim they offer the voter real change.
All the capitalist parties believe it is a natural state of affairs for there to be people with vast wealth, and people who don’t have a pot to piss in.
All politicians believe that ants and people have this in common: Both need a queen (owning class) and workers.
All politicians think there must be leaders and led. And that they possess some innate quality that enables them to play the roll of the former.
Contradictorily, all the politicians say—with a straight face—that they are the servants of the people. If they (or their) party win the vote, they will do what is in the best interest of ‘the country’.
For details of our solution, an information pack and three months free subscription to our journal ‘Socialist Standard’ click here or write to:
The Socialist Party FREEPOST,
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Phone: 020 7622 3811
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After the LibDems’ claim that:
“The Liberal Democrats will build an economy that works for everyone. not just the rich.”
and Labour’s that:
“Labour will rewrite the rules of the economy, so that it works for everyone.”
Here’s the Tories claiming they too can control the economy (from a leaflet on the NHS that came through my door on Saturday):
“With a majority government, we can continue to grow our economy”.
Oh yes? How? Since when has any government been able “to grow the economy”? The capitalist economy grows itself (accumulates capital out of profits) but in fits and starts, irrespective of what governments do. In fact, governments have to react to the way the capitalist economy moves and the phase of its boom/slump cycle that it happens to be in. They dance to its tune not vice versa.
Today’s news announcement that one of the documents Corbyn has quoted may have come from Russia has an uncanny parallel with the Zinoviev Letter that brought down the first Labour government in 1924:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinoviev_letter
The trouble is that, as then, we won’t know till after the election is over whether it is a dirty trick or not.
I think the anti-semitism meme in the media was a concerted dirty trick.
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