Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

The EU Parliament overwhelmingly passed a joint resolution which is paving the way to demonizing the progressive Left in an attempt to equate fascists to those who fought against them.

On September 19, nine members of the European Parliament, on behalf of the Renew Group (former Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ALDE, now merged with Macrons Renaissance), made amotion for a resolution which wasadopted the same day by the European Parliament with the votes of the Peoples Party, the Social Democrats, the Liberals, the Greens and the Conservative Reformists. The foreword of this motion says that it aims to wind up the debate on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe.The resolution stresses the importance of keeping the memories of the past alive, because there can be no reconciliation without remembrance, and reiterates its united stand against all totalitarian rule from whatever ideological background. And it calls on all EU Member States to commemorate 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for the victims of totalitarian regimes.

This may all sound legit but its false premises and potentially dangerous outcomes might require a whole book to analyse. It can be summed up in one simple sentence: it is an attempt to equate fascists to those who fought against them.

Written in masterfully perfected language of European bureaucracy, it rewrites the past, the present, and the future of the continent. The how and why of the matter is key in understanding theTINA logic of a seemingly strange coalition of European establishment and the far-right.

The backbone of this resolution is historical revisionism, that we have been witnessing all over Europe (and beyond) for decades. Its main focus is the history of the Second World War and the postwar period. The upsurge of historical revisionism is particularly strong in former socialist countries where the justifiable condemnation of Soviet violent expansionism is used to stigmatise communism, as well as other socialist and leftist ideas, and rehabilitate collaborators of the Nazis in WW2. In these cases of whitewashing history, there are intentional omissions of crucial facts: for instance, that those who opposed Soviet invasions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were communists themselves, or that, in case of socialist Yugoslavia, it wasnt part of the Warsaw pact, to begin with.

The new EP resolution uses the abominable Hitler-Stalin or Molotov-Ribbentrop (their foreign ministers) non-aggression pact as its starting point, giving it a curious twist: it explicitly says that the pact paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.

Does that mean that what Hitler was doing until that point was just fine? Persecution of Jews, annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, were all just minor incidents that in no waypaved the way to the outbreak of the war?

Like in every case of historical revisionism, important omissions follow statements based on half-truths, such as the omission of the Munich Agreement, signed by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, France and the United Kingdom, thatpaved the way to Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia, or the Anglo-German Declaration of non-aggression that immediately followed it; or the lack of support for the antifascists in Spanish civil war from western democracies the attempt at so-calledappeasement of Nazi Germany. The resolution does not say that the initial pact between Nazi Germany and Japan signed in 1936 (later joined by Italy, Spain and several Nazi and Japanese puppet-states) was named Anti-Comintern Pact, stating communism as the main enemy of fascist forces. None of these facts exempt the Soviet Union from the responsibility for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

But we do not see resolutions about the responsibility of liberal capitalism for the outbreak of WW2.

The other main point of the Resolution, related to and stemming from revisionism, is the insistence on the victims of totalitarian regimes, naming explicitly Stalinism and Nazism, but using Stalinism and communism interchangeably, like in the statement that the Nazi and communist regimes carried out mass murders, genocide and deportations and caused a loss of life and freedom in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history. Equating racially-based genocides of the Nazi regimes with Stalins undeniable murders and mass incarcerations of political enemies is at least as problematic as ascribing Stalins crimes to communism. Equating ideology that has equality as its main goal with the one that advocates racial purity and genocide is logically untenable and hypocritical.

The only ideology, besides Nazi-fascism, that throughout the 19th and much of the 20th century used racism as a way to justify its crimes, was capitalism. Countless crimes mass murders, genocide, and deportations were committed, based on ideas of social Darwinism and inferiority of African, Asian, or Native American populations, all in the name of progress and gaining capital in the age of imperialism.

But its victims were (mostly) not European. Even today, the death toll of the battle for profit is rising every day, especially (but not exclusively) in Third World countries. Yet, there are no days or monuments commemorating victims of capitalism, even though the relation between the crime and the ideology is much easier to prove than that between Stalins crimes and communism.

Virtually no leftists be they communists, social-democrats, anarchists, democratic socialists or any other kind deny or whitewash the crimes of Stalinism, or take Stalins Soviet Union as their role model. So where does this need to condemn communism come from? One of the reasons is the renewed cold war against Putins Russia, reflected in the calling on Russian society to come to terms with its tragic past. Indeed, Putins administration has used invocations of Stalins times as the age of national strength, but never referring to communism. Stalin himself did not use the appeal of communism, but that of nationalist and imperialist sentiment, to mobilize the population for annexations of parts of Poland and the Baltic states. Regardless of its authoritarian regime and imperialist tendencies, todays Russia is by no means the power that presents such danger as Stalins Soviet Union once did. But it is a powerful tool for fear-mongering and protecting the status quo in Europe, as well as absolving extreme nationalist governments of Eastern European EU countries.

The other reason creeping in from the pages of the Resolution is concealing the deficiencies of the current EU and the ever-expanding inequality gap between the countries of the core and those of the periphery, particularly in Eastern Europe. It states that, after the end of WW2, some European countries were able to rebuild and embark on a process of reconciliation, while other European countries remained under dictatorships some under direct Soviet occupation or influence for half a century and continued to bedeprived of freedom, sovereignty, dignity, human rights and socio-economic development (my emphasis). This statement, aside from being a wrong and sweeping generalization, overlooks the fact that many of these countries, Russia included, went from being severely underdeveloped agricultural societies to industrialized countries with developed infrastructure and strong workers rights, not to mention a higher level of womens emancipation than most countries of the capitalist center. It also intentionally simplifies the causes of contemporary unequal development within the EU, omitting important facts, such as the history of predatory privatizations during the so-called post-socialist transition period, and the very structure of the Union that ensures the perpetuation of inequality.

On the other hand, equating Nazism and fascism with communism, while resounding the US presidents reflections on nice people on both sides during conflicts between racists and antifascists in Charlottesville in 2017, enables European establishment to delegitimise and discredit its only true and viable opponent the progressive Left.

The fact that this Resolution is a joint effort of the right-wing and neoliberal parties in the European Parliament shows that its declarations of concern over all forms of Holocaust denial, including the trivialization and minimisation of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators, are just that. Rewriting the past of WW2, in which leftist antifascist movements, as well as the Soviet army, were the backbone of fight against Nazis all over Europe in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, France means rewriting the future of Europe, in which only the progressive and internationalist radical agenda can overcome the horrific results of neoliberal policies and the upsurge of neofascist forces that those policies enabled.

The EP resolution on remembrance aims at maintaining the status quo that brought the continent and the planet on the verge of collapse. We have to fight it!

A touch of irony for the end. One of the most cynical, though often unnoticed facets of the resolution is its condemnation of totalitarian regimes, in the age of surveillance capitalism (term created by Shoshana Zuboff). Totalitarianism implies total control over all aspects of citizens lives, and both Hitler and Stalin could only have dreamt of the means that surveillance capitalism offers to states, as well as big businesses, to control the most intimate desires and actions of entire populations.

Milena Repaji is a historian and member of DSC Belgrade 1

Photo on top: Socialists demonstration on Mai 1, 1912 at Union Square, New York City

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New EU resolution: how anti-fascism and fascism became the same thing - DiEM25

According to legend, in the balmy days before the First World War the Times once carried the headline: Fog on Channel, Continent Isolated. Now the fog that pervades the Brexit process leaves Britain isolated. This issue of International Socialism appears before 31 October, when Britain is due to leave the European Union with or without a deal. There is no point in speculating about the outcome of the obscure struggle involving Boris Johnsons government, the opposition forces (including Tory rebels) that now have a majority in the House of Commons and the EU-27. But some things are nevertheless clear.

Inter-imperialist conflict

First of all, the dimension of inter-imperialist conflict between Britain and the leading Continental powers over Brexit is now very evident. This has been made explicit by the arch-European federalist and all-purpose bully Guy Verhofstadt, ex-prime minister of Belgium and now the European Parliaments Brexit Coordinator. He told the Liberal Democrat conference in mid-September: The world order of tomorrow is not a world order based on nation states or countries. Its a world order based on empires The world of tomorrow is a world of empires in which we Europeans and you British can only defend your interests, your way of life, by doing it together in a European framework and in the European Union. The implicationget with the European empire or perishis reminiscent of a remark by a leading figure in the administration of George W Bush (widely thought to be senior White House adviser Karl Rove) in 2002, at the high-point of neocon hubris before the invasion of Iraq: Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

As this example shows, imperial power has to confront often highly recalcitrant realities not of its own making. Indeed, there was less swagger in Verhofstadts tone a few days later, when he said in the European Parliament: The European Parliament will never accept that the UK can have all the advantages of free trade, and not align with our ecological, health and social standards We will never accept Singapore by the North Sea. In other words, the EU-27 (in particular France, the Netherlands and other north European Member States) fear that Britain will use its break with the EU to adopt lower regulatory standards and undercut its firms.

One of the main thrusts of the Brexit negotiations has been efforts by Brussels to use its bargaining muscle to force Britain to remain what one commentator has described as a regulatory satellite of the EU. Johnson has intensified these worries by dropping Theresa Mays pledge to maintain a level playing field where Britain keeps the same regulatory standards as the EU. According to the Financial Times, Johnsons chief Europe adviser, David Frost, has called on EU negotiators to commit to a best in class free trade agreement whereby the UK would be free to set its own regulatory standards after Brexit. As the commentator Wolfgang Mnchau puts it:

What one has to understand about the EU is its obsession with regulatory competition. The old European Economic Community may already have had lofty political ambitions in the 1950s. But it was born as a producers cartel. The EU would surely feel threatened by a Singapore-style Brexit in which Britain diverges from the regulatory standards that govern the single market. Even if the European Commission were ready to agree a trade deal that would leave the UK with regulatory autonomy, it would never be approved by the parliaments of all EU member states. France would surely not ratify.

These preoccupations arent irrational. Contrary to the widespread Remain-inspired portrayals of a ruined nation, Britain remains a leading capitalist state. According to Tony Norfields Index of Power (which ranks states according to their GDP, foreign direct investment, transactions in their currency, banking assets and liabilities and military spending), Britain is number three, after the United States and China, and before Japan, France and Germany. These capabilities wont just evaporate after Brexit. In particular, a recent report by the Bank for International Settlements suggests that the hopes, notably by the French ruling class, that Brexit could be used to displace the City of Londons place as the pre-eminent global financial centre, are vain.

Since 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum, the Citys share of foreign exchange trading has risen from 37 to 43 percent (while its main rival, Wall Street, saw its share drop from 20 to 17 percent). Its share of trading in over-the-counter derivatives has gone up from 38 to 50 percent. London is the capital of capital and this report shows that despite challenging times, the fundamentals of the City remain strong, Catherine McGuinness, policy chair at the City of London Corporation, told the Financial Times.

Continental European politicians hypocritically blame Anglo-American finance for the 2007-8 crash (hypocritically because Continental banks, frequently operating through London, were highly active in blowing the bubble up). One of the EUs main successes has been to use the promise of access to the Single Market to force other states to adopt its regulatory regime. So, the prospect of a rogue Britain, the base of a City that seems to be going from strength to strength, acting as a Singapore by the North Sea is hardly attractive.

Mays Withdrawal Agreement sought to keep Britain alignedindeed to a significant degree subordinatedto the EU. In rejecting this, Johnson has little alternative but to follow what is in any case the instinct of the free-market Brexiteers and seek to draw closer to the US, which under Donald Trump has shown itself eager to undermine the EU. Brussels has played hardball in the Brexit negotiations in large part to prevent this happening (with the northern Irish backstop acting as a figleaf), but, in giving May so little, it has strengthened the hand of supporters of a hard Brexit, who now dominate the Johnson cabinet. Whatever the eventual form taken by Britains departure, these contradictions will continue to play out against the background of growing trade tensions between the EU and US, which have been exacerbated by a World Trade Organisation ruling allowing Washington to impose retaliatory tariffs on European goods because of Brusselss subsidies to Airbus.

Constitutional crisis

Secondly, the Brexit impasse has now produced a full-scale constitutional crisis. A few years ago I wrote: it looks as if constitutional issues will continue to act as the lightning conductor of British politics for the immediate future. Its always nice to be proved right, but I never imagined the prime ministers use of the royal prerogative power to prorogue Parliament (ie suspend its sitting) being struck down by the Supreme Court. Why has this happened? In part, the very process of leaving the EU of necessity raises major constitutional issuesfor example the 2016 Miller case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Parliamentary approval was necessary for the government to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and start the process of Britain leaving the EU.

But, more fundamentally, the crisis arises from the combination of three political realities: the tough negotiating position taken by the EU, the Tories losing their parliamentary majority in the 2017 election and hence the power of minoritiesthe hard Brexiteers and hard Remainersto block the kind of compromise solution attempted by May in the Withdrawal Agreement. The resulting paralysissignalled by the successive defeats May suffered in the House of Commonsrepresented the progressive and remarkably rapid breakdown of the modern British political system, whereby capital can rely on a strong executive controlled by the party that has a majority in the House of Commons.

This process has accelerated during the few weeks Johnson has occupied 10 Downing St. The parliamentary impasse allowed him to grab power, but the manner in which he has exercised it has made the constitutional crisis worse. He formed a cabinet dominated by hard Brexiteersa government representing a faction of the Tory Party to an extent unprecedented in British political history; Margaret Thatcher ran a tight ship but she tried to accommodate the different currents in her party with her cabinets; Tony Blair was more factional, but still managed to find a place for the soft left. Johnson has appointed a government that will leave him very little wiggle room on his pledge to leave the EU by 31 October.

The prospect of a no-deal Brexit freed the hard core of Remainers on the Tory back benches (including senior figures in Mays cabinet such as Philip Hammond) from any inhibitions they might have about rebelling and encouraged the opposition parties to start cooperating with them and with each other. Hence the succession of defeats for Johnson in the House of Commons. The row over his decision to prorogue Parliament for five crucial weeks in the run-up to 31 October symbolises the breakdown of constitutional norms. It also vindicates those, notably Tony Benn writing in 1982, who argued that the prime ministers exercise of the Queens prerogative powers deriving from common law rather than Act of Parliament, which has been traditionally interpreted as a matter of executive discretion, represent a dangerously undemocratic concentration of power.

We are seeing a collapse in the understandings of constitutional practice traditionally shared within the political elite and the ruling class more broadlythe famous conventions that form Britains unwritten constitution. The significance of the Supreme Court judgement of 24 September in the second Miller case, which struck down Johnsons prorogation of Parliament, is that the judges are now openly taking upon themselves the responsibility of interpreting and enforcing these conventions. The key passage in the judgement is all about constitutional principles, not the interpretation of precedent or statute:

The Government exists because it has the confidence of the House of Commons. It has no democratic legitimacy other than that. This means that it is accountable to the House of Commonsand indeed to the House of Lordsfor its actions The first question, therefore, is whether the Prime Ministers action had the effect of frustrating or preventing the constitutional role of Parliament in holding the Government to account The answer is that of course it did.

It was on this basis that the Supreme Court humiliated Johnson by striking down this action which had such an extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy, drawing the stinging conclusion that his advice to the Queen to prorogue Parliament was unlawful

It was outside the powers of the Prime Minister to give it. This means that it was null and of no effect It led to the Order in Council [implementing the prorogation] which, being founded on unlawful advice, was likewise unlawful, null and of no effect and should be quashed. This led to the actual prorogation, which was as if the Commissioners had walked into Parliament with a blank piece of paper. It too was unlawful, null and of no effect.

Leaving aside for the moment the blow this represents to Johnson and his hard-Brexiteer allies, this judgement represents in effect the Supreme Court beginning to assume the role of a constitutional court that assesses the actions of state bodies and citizens in the light of its interpretation of constitutional principles. The US Supreme Court has been doing this for over two centuries, but on the basis of a written Constitution; the British Supreme Court is taking on this role in the absence of one. The breakdown of the constitutional consensus is likely to continuequite apart from the mess at Westminster, there is growing support for another independence referendum in Scotland.

It seems inevitable that there will be more judicial law-making. But, as the judges become more explicitly political in the judgements, what J A G Griffith calls the myth of neutrality that has been central to their ideological positioning and political legitimacy will dissolve. Already the decisions taken by the courts in the two Miller cases have been hotly contested by the Leave campremember the Daily Mail headline branding judges as Enemies of the People after the first case.

Moreover, although the effect of the judicial interventions to defend parliamentary sovereignty against executive discretion in the two Miller cases isnt problematic from a socialist perspective, that doesnt mean we should welcome the judges becoming the arbiters of the constitution. Griffiths description of their role, though dating back to the 1970s, retains its validity today:

Judges are concerned to preserve and to protect the existing order. This does not mean that no judges are capable of moving with the times, of adjusting to changed circumstances. But their function in our society is to do so belatedly. Law and order, the established distribution of power both public and private, the conventional and agreed view amongst those who exercise political and economic power, the fears and prejudices of the middle and upper classes, these are the forces that the judges are expected to uphold and do uphold.

His defeats in the House of Commons and at the Supreme Court meanwhile leave Johnson boxed in. The traditional way out for a prime minister in his position would be to dissolve Parliamentbut under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011, introduced by the David Cameron-Nick Clegg coalition, this now requires a two-thirds majority of the House of Commons, and his opponents have denied him this up to now. Hence his efforts to make a last-minute deal with Brussels.

But will the EU-27 do Johnson this favour? They may think it better to leave him to pick up the political tab for the economic disruption a no-deal Brexit may cause. The replacement for the backstop he unveiled in proposals announced on 2 October look unlikely to meet the demands of Brussels and Dublin. And could Johnson get the kind of deal the EU would give him through the Commons? But leaving the EU on 31 October without a deal will mean defying the Benn Act, the law named after its main author, Blairite MP Hilary Benn, which his opponents passed forbidding such an outcome. This would put the constitutional crisis on steroids.

Electoral fragmentation

Sooner or later, however, the contending forces in Parliament will test their support in a general election. Demanding that this happens as soon as possible is one of the few tools Johnson has left. He reacted aggressively to his humiliation by the Supreme Court, trying to frame the conflict as one between Parliament and the people. Behind this ploy lies the peculiar electoral arithmetic revealed in the European parliamentary elections in May (see Table 1). This is succinctly explained by David Runciman:

After the 2017 general election Britain looked like a 40:40:20 nation. The two main parties had more than four-fifths of the vote between them, fairly evenly divided, and the prize would go to whoever could peel off a few more of the rest, which included Lib Dems, Greens, nationalists, Ukippers and others. Just two years on, at least for the moment, Britain has become a 20:20:20:20:20 nation. Support for the two main parties has more or less halved after they each conspicuously failed to do what many of their 2017 supporters wantedeither failed to deliver Brexit or failed to stop it. Two other partiesthe Brexit Party and the Lib Demscurrently offer a home for anyone who thinks that either delivering Brexit or stopping it is the only thing that matters. So now the game has changed. The prize will go to whoever can turn their 20 back into anything resembling the vote share of two years ago. It doesnt have to be 4035, maybe even 30, will do, so long as they get it more quickly than the other side can manage.

The prolonged Brexit impasse has fragmented the electorate. In May, both the Tories and Labour found themselves running way behind Nigel Farages new Brexit Party, the Lib Dems and, in the Tories case, the Greens. By nailing the banner of hard Brexit to his mast, Johnson hopes to win back the Tory voters May lost to Farage and also failed to pick up some of the pro-Leave Labour voters she tried, largely unsuccessfully, to court in June 2017. Hence his efforts to secure an election date as close as possible to the 31 October departure day so that he can either pose as the hero who got Britain out of the EU or denounce Labour and its allies for blocking this outcome. A fragmented electorate can produce perverse results in the first past the post electoral system. It is on this basis that Johnsons supporters are predicting he could win a hundred-seat majority with what would probably be a historically low share of the popular vote.

Table 1: Results of European Parliamentary Elections, May 2019

Source: https://election-results.eu/national-results/united-kingdom/2019-2024/

Party

Share of vote (percentage)

Brexit Party

30.74

Lib Dems

19.75

Labour

13.72

Greens

11.76

Conservatives

8.84

SNP

3.50

Change UK

3.31

UKIP

3.21

Plaid Cymru

0.97

Behind this electoral calculus lies a larger plan to remake the British party system. How much this is Johnsons plan or that of his chief adviser, the political technologist Dominic Cummings, architect of the 2016 Leave referendum campaign, is secondary. But certainly Cummings expresses a genuinely populist hostility to the elitism of the British political system alongside various half-baked ideas about reforming the state. In any case the idea is that the Brexit crisis is polarising the electorate around attitudes towards Britain and the EU. According to this analysis, the choice of Leave or Remain, a secondary matter for most people at the time of the referendum, is becoming the basis of political identities. This is supported by research led by John Curtice, which found that voters are far more likely to declare a Brexit identity than they are to say that they have a party identity, and that this identification makes them more likely to vote and strongly affects their attitudes on the various issues thrown up by the struggle to leave the EU. So if the Tories capture the loyalty of the Leavers they can see off Farage and remake their political base.

The logic of this strategy is to begin to transform the Tories into something closer to a far-right party like the Lega in Italy or even the Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) in Germany than mainstream centre-right parties such as the Christian Democrats under Angela Merkel (in fact the Continental centre right is itself moving rightwards in an effort to stave off the challenge from the far right: witness, for example, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurzs on-off alliance with the fascist Freedom Party, or the rebranding of Les Rpublicains in France around Islamophobia and defence of traditional family values). Certainly some of the main things the Johnson government has donetrying to scrap free movement for EU citizens as soon as Britain leaves, purging pro-EU Tory rebels, including grandees such as Ken Clarke, playing fast and loose with the prerogative, scorning the Supreme Court and the House of Commonscan be seen as more than opportunistic ploys, as steps towards remaking the Tories.

If this strategy succeeded, British politics would start to resemble US politics for the past few decades, in which the fundamental socio-economic contradictions are displaced onto a bitter and personalised struggle within the political elite over issues that leave these contradictions in place. How well it would serve the interests of capital to have a Tory Party defined primarily by the break with the EU is another matter. One of the features of the present period, as noted in previous issues of this journal, is that the long-term effects of the 2007-8 crash have included a political crisis involving a loosening of the links between base and superstructure.

Its an open question whether this situation is sustainable for long. But its interesting how little the far right, when they get into office, has done to challenge the neoliberal economic regime against some of whose effects they campaigned in opposition: witness how the Lega and allies in the Five Star Movement caved in to Brusselss demands to maintain budget discipline when in government together. (The main, and very important, exception is Trumps pursuit of a trade war with China.) The Tories under Johnson are extravagant in their championing of the free market. This must be some comfort for business leaders roiled by Brexit but queasy about the possibility of a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn.

Breaking out of the impasse

Focusing on the more immediate political struggle, we should be clear that, despite Johnsons multiple institutional defeats, its the Tories (or perhaps more precisely the ruling Tory faction) who are on the front foot. They are clear about what they wanta general election in which they brand the other parties as saboteurs of the Brexit people voted for in June 2016. So too are the Lib Dems, whose new leader Jo Swinson is trying to make them the Remainer party by pledging to revoke Article 50, ie to stop Brexit without another referendum.

It is the Labour Party who are neither clear nor on the front foot. Corbyns instinct to try to finesse the Leave/Remain divide by focusing on essentially class issuesausterity, economic insecurity and inequality, the decay of the welfare statewas basically sound. The problem is that his voice has been muffled by the din made by the campaigndriven by Tom Watson and other leading figures in the Shadow Cabinetfor Labour to become a pro-Remain party. Corbyn has resisted this, both because it contradicts his basic strategy and because it would drive the Labour supporters who voted Leave into the arms of Johnson and Farage. But he hasnt been helped by the fact that key allies such as John McDonnell have joined the pro-Remain camp.

So there has been a drip-drip-drip of concessions, and an increasing tendency to block with the pro-Remain parties (in particular the Lib Dems and the Scottish Nationalists) and the pro-European Tory rebels, for example, in frustrating Johnsons demands for a general election. This is politically dangerous for two reasons. First of all, the Lib Dems in particular are no real allies. Swinson and her predecessor Vince Cable have been very open in their hostility to the idea of a Corbyn governmenteven as a stopgap in the event of Johnson being forced to resign. Secondly, and more fundamentally, allying with the neoliberal centre over Brexit makes it easier for the Tories to portray themselves, absurdly, as outsiders whose efforts to fulfil the will of the people are being blocked by the establishment. Labours traditional reverence for the institutions of the British state, what Tom Nairn once called the ideological subservience of Labourism to parliamentary necromancy, makes it easier for Johnson & Co to portray it as part of this establishment.

Maybe, when there is an election, Corbyn and his supporters can repeat what they achieved during the election campaign in June 2017 and shift the debate from Brexit to class. McDonnell has been building a programme of solid economic reforms, more of which were unveiled at the Labour Party conference last montha Green New Deal with 2030 as the deadline for a net zero carbon economy, a 32-hour working week in the next ten years, free personal care. In advance of the conference, the Financial Times ran a series of articles in which it scared itself and its readers about the prospect of a Corbyn government. It quotes a business lobbyist:

Whenever we hold events I always ask, what are you more worried about, a Corbyn government or a no-deal Brexit? Now the universal answer is Corbyn I would be worried about Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Seumas Milne, they dont give a fuck about the City of London, says one senior Labour figure. I think a lot of money would be shifted out on day one. There are a lot of people who are worried about the future financial security of the City.

This, then, is another ingredient in the mixthe possibility that the Brexit crisis might produce a left-wing Labour government committed to breaking with neoliberal austerity. The polls dont look good for such a prospect, since they have consistently given the Tories a lead since Johnson took over. But then they looked pretty bad for Labour in 2017. The Labour vote rose from a projected national vote of 27 percent in the local elections on 4 May to 40 percent in the general election on 8 June.

Repeating this looks tough but not impossible. The political scientist Matthew Goodwin wrote recently:

Many of [Labours] radical policies are more popular than people think. A new poll of a nationally representative sample of British voters for UnHerd Insight confirms a trend of ongoing and strong public support of nationalisation. Overall, 55 percent of all voters said that they supported the nationalisation of water, 52 percent supported the nationalisation of electricity and 51 percent felt the same way about gas. Remarkably, 60 percent supported the re-nationalisation of rail. Among Labour voters the figures were much higher: More than 70 percent supported putting utilities back into the public sector and more than 80 percent wanted the same for rail networks.

Such numbers reflect the large numbers of Brits who perceive the economic system as rigged in favour of the rich, and who are incredibly pessimistic about their economic prospects. In the shadow of the financial crisis and austerity, they feel squeezed by low growth, the rising cost of living and often have no direct memory of earlier decades, when key industries were controlled by the state.

Nor is nationalisation the only part of Labours radical agenda that enjoys fairly widespread public support For example, large majorities support a battery of policies that Corbyn will offer at the looming general election, including: Capping rent prices at the rate of inflation, increasing income taxes for the top 5 percent of earners, requiring businesses to reserve a proportion of seats on their boards for workers, scrapping university tuition fees, ensuring that at least 60 percent of Britains heat and electricity come from low-carbon or renewable sources by 2030, and re-nationalising utilities like energy and water.

These figures help to explain why Johnson talked about levelling up at the Tory party conference and why his chancellor of the exchequer Sajid Javid is turning on the spending tap. They understand that Corbyn is a real electoral threat. Turning the polls round again would require a very determined effort by the Corbynistas to mount mass agitation in support of their programme, willing Labour to get past the Brexit impasse and project a real alternative to the Tories. This campaign would have to overcome very intense media attacks and the usual sabotage by the Labour right, who will no doubt be reviving their farcical but damaging accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn. And if Labour did manage to tip enough of a fragmented electorate their way to win office, all this would soon seem in retrospect the easy part, as the new government sought to navigate the storm of opposition that would come from capital, the EU and the state itself, quite possibly amid the new global recession, signs of which are accumulating.

The fate of such a government would depend crucially on its ability to mobilise mass support from below. A paradox of Corbyns advance has been that, in the very hopes it has raised, it has encouraged people to wait for a Labour government. The resulting passivity has been encouraged by trade union leaders who always use the prospect of Labour in office as a substitute for actually doing their job and organising strikes. The problem has been exacerbated by the bitter divisions on the radical left over Brexit. The impasse in Westminster has also played a part, since it has turned the citizen mass into mere spectators of the frenzied manoeuvres in the House of Commons.

But now we are experiencing a revival of mass movements that originates outside the Brexit drama, or indeed the conventional parameters of the labour movement. This is, of course, the movement against climate change. Over the past year we have seen this swelling in scalefrom the initial school strikes, through the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests that paralysed central London in April, to the global climate strikes on 20 and 27 September. 20 September in Britain was notable both for its national scale, perhaps the biggest wave of countrywide protests since the height of the movement against the Iraq War, and for significant trade union involvement (including official endorsement from the TUC).

Buoyant though the protests have been, they unfold beneath the shadow of a process of climate change, evidence of whose acceleration is building up alarmingly. That shadow became literal in August, when the fires in the Amazon brought darkness at noon to the Sao Paulo megalopolis 2790km to its south. This ecological catastrophe also highlighted the political struggle over the environment, with Brazils far-right president Jair Bolsonaro giving the green light to the destroyers of the Amazon. Elsewhere in this issue Eduardo Albuquerque and Cludia Feres Faria argue that his presidency represents the drive to break down the political barriers to a new, more predatory version of capitalism that seeks to profit from the destruction of nature. Greta Thunbergs denunciation of world leaders at the United Nations on 23 September has made the political polarisation visible at the global level.

So XR is completely right to proclaim a climate emergency, as the blind process of capital accumulation threatens the survival of human civilisation. But the movement of which it is part is at its very early stages. It has taken giant steps forward in the past year, as the fear of catastrophe has ceased simply to paralyse and become a stimulus to action. But halting climate change requires an immense global transformation, the radical reorientation of the world economy with vast implications for how we live. The barriers this faces are even greater than those that would confront a reforming Labour government in Britain. Everyone participating in this movement will undergo an immense and testing learning process.

Every socialist worth their salt should get involved in this movement. We have things to contributeunderstanding of capitalist economic mechanisms, experience of past struggles and their lessons, organisation and the skills it requires. But we also have a huge amount to learnfrom those who initiated these movements, who dont come from the conventional left, but also because we will all have to work out together how to take the struggle forward. There will be plenty of arguments over strategy and tactics along the way, but, if handled sensibly, they can be productive.

In all probability, the struggle to halt climate change defines the terrain on which anti-capitalist politics will develop in coming decades. It has the potential to renew a radical left badly damaged by the defeats and disappointments of the recent past. In the more immediate short term, the positive response that Corbyn and McDonnell have made to the climate protests and Labours adoption of a 2030 zero carbon target could help strengthen their own project.

But we cant lose sight in all this of the necessity of opposing the far right. Bolsonaros fiddling as the Amazon burns, like Trumps climate denial, dramatises the connection between the different struggles. In Britain, we face the more immediate threat that Johnsons power grab threatens to drag the whole political scene sharply to the right. Contrary to fond dreams of Remainers who see the EU as a bastion of progressive values, this will make British politics more like those in continental Europe, where the far right is a well-established electoral force in many countries. Witness the extraordinary decision of the incoming president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to appoint a commissioner responsible for Protecting the European Way of Life by enforcing tighter immigration controls.

This means that campaigning against racism and fascism remains essential. There are, of course, connections with the climate struggle, as floods, drought, and desertification drive people in the Global South from their homes. The advance of the far right continueswitness the successes the AfD has enjoyed in recent state elections. Building Stand Up to Racism and its counterparts elsewhere will be even more important in future. In Britain, defending free movement for EU citizens remains vital.

Shamefully some on the radical left find sophisticated pseudo-Marxist arguments to oppose what Lenin called freedom of migration. They point, for example, to the fact that freedom of movement is one of the EUs four freedoms (the others are of capital, goods and services) that underpin the Single Market; but this freedom is denied those from outside Europe, as von der Leyen has underlined in seeking to strengthen the EUs borders.

This is true enough, but this doesnt alter the fact that, when Britain finally leaves the EU, over 3 million workers here will lose the rights and the security they enjoyed the day before. This will make the working class in Britain weaker, not stronger. From a class perspective, defending free movement is a no-brainer. The Labour Party conference understood this when it voted in support of free movement; how sad it was to hear as principled an anti-racist as Diane Abbott say that Labour in office will use free movement as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU.

There is a thread running through all these different fronts in the struggle. We are confronting a system whose crisis is taking increasingly destructive forms and that is more and more trying to set us against each other. The task of socialists is to build a fighting solidarity of workers and the oppressed that unites us all against our common enemy.

Alex Callinicos is Professor of European Studies at Kings College London and editor of International Socialism.

Notes

References

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Benn, Tony, 1982, Arguments for Democracy (Penguin).

Bradley, A W, K D Ewing, and C J S Knight, 2018, Constitutional and Administrative Law (Pearson).

Callinicos, Alex, 2015, And Now the British Question, International Socialism 147 (summer), http://isj.org.uk/and-now-the-british-question/

Callinicos, Alex, 2019a, Shambling towards the Precipice, International Socialism 162 (spring), http://isj.org.uk/shambling-towards-the-precipice/

Callinicos, Alex, 2019b, Betting on Infinite Loss, International Socialism 163 (summer), http://isj.org.uk/betting-on-infinite-loss/

Callinicos, Alex, 2019c, Brexit and the Imperial Constitution of Europe, in Nanopoulos, Eva, and Fotis Vergis (eds), The Crisis behind the Eurocrisis: The Eurocrisis as a Multidimensional Systemic Crisis of the EU (Cambridge University Press).

Choonara, Joseph, 2019, Economic Warnings, Socialist Review (October), http://socialistreview.org.uk/450/economic-warnings

Curtice, John, 2018, The Emotional Legacy of Brexit: How Britain Has Became a Country of Remainers and Leavers, https://whatukthinks.org/eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WUKT-EU-Briefing-Paper-15-Oct-18-Emotional-legacy-paper-final.pdf

Dworkin, Ronald, 1986, Laws Empire (Fontana/Collins).

Goodwin, Matthew, 2019, Corbynomics is more Popular than you Think, Bloomberg Opinion (2 October), https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/corbynomics-more-popular-think-040009783.html

Griffith, J A G, 1977, The Politics of the Judiciary (Fontana/Collins).

Khan, Mehreen, and Jim Brunsden, 2019, Boris Johnson Demanded that EU Allow UK to Diverge from Standards, Financial Times (3 September), http://www.ft.com/content/227f7270-ce8f-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f

Lenin, V I, 1972, The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, in Collected Works, volume 13 (Progress), http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/oct/00.htm

Mnchau, Wolfgang, 2019, The EU will Never Abandon the Level Playing Field, Financial Times (22 September), http://www.ft.com/content/81ff4e88-dbb3-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17

Nairn, Tom, 1964, The Nature of the Labour Party (Part I), New Left Review, I/27, https://newleftreview.org/issues/I27/articles/tom-nairn-the-nature-of-the-labour-party-part-i

Norfield, Tony, 2016, The City: London and the Global Power of Finance (Verso).

Norfield, Tony, 2019, Index of Power Update, 2018-19: China #2, Economics of Imperialism (17 September), https://economicsofimperialism.blogspot.com/2019/09/index-of-power-update-2018-19-china-2.html

Pickard, Jim, and Robert Shrimsley, 2019, Jeremy Corbyns Plan to Rewrite the Rules of the UK Economy, Financial Times (1 September), http://www.ft.com/content/e1028dda-ca49-11e9-a1f4-3669401ba76f

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Riders of the storm - International Socialism Journal

PM Fico finds the Dankos move absurd and convened a session of the Coalition Council for Tuesday

Speaker of Parliament and leader of the co-governing Slovak National Party (SNS) Andrej Danko withdrew from the coalition agreement on August 7. He explained this move as an absolute necessity to reset rules and adjust relations within the ruling coalition. He also cited the need to set completely new priorities that would be reflected within the process of drafting a new budget.

The favourable socio-economic situation of 2017 shows the need to focus on new challenges and priorities that need to be reflected in the coalition agreement and the new Government Manifesto, said Danko, as cited by the TASR newswire. When the countrys economy is doing well, citizens themselves must feel it too.

Smer, SNS and Most-Hd parties signed the current coalition agreement on September 1, 2016, after the fourth party in the coalition, Sie of Radoslav Prochzka, disbanded.

The opposition sees Danko's move as an effort of SNS to cover up the scandal involving the distribution of EU funds by Education Minister Peter Plavan.

Danko denied the accusations and recalled that the system for drawing on EU funds in the education sector was set up in December 2015, when Smer nominee Juraj Draxler was at the helm of the education department.

As Danko said in an interview given prior to his party's withdrawal from the Coalition Agreement, the biggest mistake made by Education Minister Peter Plavan (SNS nominee) was that he did not make a comprehensive change in the drawing of EU funds and continued along the line of his predecessors, who unfortunately had seen the absorption of EU funds as a competition between private companies and universities.

"This then degraded into a war among private companies," Danko said, as cited by the SITA newswire. "I do not find this fortunate. The absorption of EU funds should have been set directly into universities."

Prime Minister Robert Fico and the leader of the strongest ruling party, Smer, finds Dankos move absurd. He is convening a session of the Coalition Council for Tuesday, August 8, where it is expected that Danko will explain his withdrawal from the coalition agreement.

He [Fico] expects that the SNS chair will explain to his partners the absurd decision by the Slovak National Party which doesnt introduce peace and stability into society, said Beatrice Szabov, the prime ministers spokesperson. She added that Smer will act responsibly towards voters and the country as a whole at the session.

The Most-Hd party expects that Danko would arrive at the coalition meeting with a tangible proposal of what he needs to change in the coalition agreement. The party also expects an explanation as to why he decided to withdraw from the agreement. Bla Bugr, the leader of Most-Hd, said this after the partys leadership session on Monday evening.

This is an issue that needs to be discussed at the Coalition Council, said Bugr on Monday. We will require explanations. There are things that are solvable, while there are things that are not.

Bugr considers the situation to be serious, adding that he does not know exactly what Danko requires.

SNS vice-chair Jaroslav Paska indicated that the cabinet may collapse and that the current situation may even lead to an early election.

President Andrej Kiska met Danko following the announcement that he was withdrawing from the coalition agreement. Kiskas spokesman, Roman Krpelan, told TASR that the president thinks it the task of the leaders of the three governing parties Smer, SNS and Most-Hd to discuss the issue among themselves at coalition sessions.

The opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party also sees Dankos withdrawal as an effort of SNS to divert the publics attention from the scandal involving the distribution of EU funds for science and research by the Education, Science, Research and Sport Ministry, which is led by Peter Plavan, a nominee of SNS.

Therefore, hes provoking a seemingly serious conflict within the coalition, reads a statement signed by SaS leader Richard Sulk, vice-chairs ubomr Galko and Jana Kiov and chief of the SaS caucus Natlia Blahov.

SaS believes that Danko would like to get rid of the Education Ministry.

Hes obviously found out that this is a sector where a lot of real work needs to be done for students, teachers, for Slovak society, rather than stealing, they said.

If this transparent August game by the SNS leader leads to the break-up of the government, SaS is ready for early elections and ready to take power. It still views itself as the sole realistic alternative to Smer and the current coalition.

The opposition OaNO-NOVA said that dividing the loot of EU funds for science and research is so important to SNS that its head is ready to cause chaos in Slovakia for it.

Responding to Dankos withdrawal from the coalition agreement, Veronika Remiov and Igor Matovi of OaNO-NOVA said that the action taken by the SNS head is proof that the coalition is unable to govern together and that instead of addressing the main issues in Slovakia, like education and health care, it will now quarrel about spheres of influence.

Andrej Danko has failed in managing our country and has shown that he is unable to communicate, said Remiov and Matovi. After the coalition council session on Thursday [August 3] he pretended that everything was fine, but today hes sending paper notes to his coalition partners as if they werent members of the government but classmates at primary school.

They added that this move wont help Danko cover up the scandal concerning the distribution of EU funds for science and research.

Political scientist Juraj Maruiak said that it is difficult to assess the situation at the moment, as the formulation of the withdrawal from the coalition agreement is very extensive. He believes that coalition partners will try to negotiate in a way that allows the coalition to continue.

It seems that Danko is not satisfied with the SNSs position within the ruling coalition, said Maruiak, as cited by TASR, adding that tensions between Smer and SNS have already been growing for some time. We will see. The strengthening of the position of SNS will probably be in question. I also think that Danko sees this as a way to cover up the situation that has arisen surrounding the education minister and the scandal with the distribution of EU funds.

7. Aug 2017 at 23:38 |Compiled by Spectator staff

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SNS leader Danko unexpectedly withdraws from coalition agreement - The Slovak Spectator

We may be living through one of those moments in history that future historians will look back on as a watershed, a period of flux that marked a transition to quite different economic and social arrangements. Unfortunately, in human history a moment can be a very long time, so long that it could be decades before the final shape of the new arrangements are even evident; and in the interim, there could be many dead cat bounces of the current system.

What is clear is that the established order broadly defined as neoliberal globalised finance capitalism is no longer capable of delivering on its promises of either growth or stability, even as it generates more inequality and insecurity across the world. In Marxist terms (as befitting the 150th anniversary of Das Kapital), the property relations under which production is organised have become fetters on the development of productive forces themselves, and generate more and more alienation. This may explain why, perhaps even more significantly, the system is also losing legitimacy in most countries, under attack from both right and left.

Whether we look at straws in the wind or green shoots in the ground, there is no doubt that there are incipient signs of change. But at this point there are many directions in which such change could go, and not all of them are progressive or even desirable. That is why it is important to get social and political traction for alternative trajectories that focus on more equitable, just, democratic and ecologically viable outcomes for most of humanity.

The question what is your alternative? is a familiar one for most progressives, and too often we are overly defensive or self-critical about our supposed lack of alternatives. In truth, there are many economically-viable, socially-desirable alternative proposals in different contexts. The problem is not their lack of existence but their lack of political feasibility, and perhaps their lack of wider dissemination. But it is certainly true that the alternative does not consist of one over-arching theory (or even framework) that can subsume all others, since there are many good reasons for being sceptical of the days of the grand theory that supposedly could take care of everything.

While rejecting the totalising theory, it is possible to think of a broad framework around which there could be much agreement, even among people who do not necessarily identify themselves as of the left, but are nevertheless dissatisfied with current economic arrangements at both national and international levels.

Much current discussion on economic strategies for global capitalism is framed around the financial crisis of 2007/8 and its continuing repercussions. But it does not really need a crisis to show us that the past strategy for growth and development has been flawed in most countries. Even during the previous boom, the pattern of growth had too many limitations, paradoxes and inherent fragilities. Everyone now knows that the economic boom was unsustainable, based on speculative practices that were enabled and encouraged by financial deregulation. It also drew rapaciously and fecklessly on natural resources, and it was deeply unequal. Contrary to general perception, most people in the developing world, even within the most successful region of Asia, did not gain.

The financial bubble in the US attracted savings from across the world, including from the poorest developing countries, so that for at least five years the global South transferred financial resources to the North. Developing country governments opened their markets to trade and finance, gave up on monetary policy and pursued fiscally correct deflationary policies that reduced public spending. Development projects remained incomplete and citizens were deprived of the most essential socio-economic rights.

A net transfer of jobs from North to South did not take place. In fact, industrial employment in the South barely increased in the past decade, even in the factory of the world, China. Instead, technological change in manufacturing and new services meant that fewer workers could generate more output. Old jobs in the South were lost or became precarious and the majority of new jobs were fragile, insecure and low-paying, even in fast-growing China and India. The persistent agrarian crisis in the developing world hurt peasant livelihoods and generated global food problems. Rising inequality meant that the much-hyped growth in emerging markets did not benefit most people, as profits soared but wage shares of national income declined sharply.

Almost all developing countries adopted an export-led growth model, which in turn suppressed wage costs and domestic consumption in order to remain internationally competitive and achieve growing shares of world markets. This led to the peculiar situation of rising savings rates and falling investment rates (especially in several Asian countries) and to the holding of international reserves that were then placed in safe assets abroad. This is why the boom that ended in 2007/8 was associated with the South (especially in developing Asia) subsidising the North: through cheaper exports of goods and services, through net capital flows from developing countries to the US in particular, through flows of cheap labour in the form of short-term migration.

The collapse in Northern export markets that followed the recession brought that process to a halt, and recent moves towards more protectionist strategies in the US and elsewhere, as well as the persistent mercantilist approach of surplus-producing countries like Germany, have made it more difficult since then. In any case, such a strategy is unsustainable beyond a point, especially when a number of relatively large economies use it at the same time.

In this boom, domestic demand tended to be profit-led, based on high and growing profit shares in the economy and significant increases in the income and consumption of newly-globalised middle classes, which led to bullish investment in non-tradeable sectors such as financial assets and real estate as well as in luxury goods and services. The patterns of production and consumption that emerged meant that growth also involved rapacious and ultimately destructive exploitation of nature and the environment. The costs in terms of excessive congestion, environmental pollution and ecological degradation are already being felt, quite apart from the implications such expansion has on climate change.

There have been other negative impacts. Within developing Asia, for example, it led to an internal brain drain with adverse implications for the future. The skewed structure of incentives generated by the explosive growth of finance directed the best young minds towards careers that promised quick rewards and large material gains rather than painstaking but socially necessary research and basic science. The impact of relocation of certain industries and the associated requirement for skilled and semi-skilled labour led to increased opportunities for educated employment, but it also led bright young people to enter work that is typically mechanical and does not require much originality or creativity, with little opportunity to develop their intellectual capacities.

At the same time, crucial activities were inadequately rewarded. Farming in particular became increasingly fraught with risk and subject to growing volatility and declining financial viability, while non-farm work did not increase rapidly enough to absorb the labour force even in the fastest growing economies of the region.

The boom was not stable or inclusive, either across or within countries. The subsequent slump (or secular stagnation) has been only too inclusive, forcing those who did not gain earlier to pay for the sins of irresponsible and unregulated finance. As economies slow down, more jobs are lost or become more fragile, insecure and vulnerable; and people, especially those in the developing world who did not gain from the boom, face loss of livelihood and deteriorating conditions of living. This is why it is so important that we restructure economic relations in a more democratic and sustainable way.

There are several necessary elements of this. Globally, most now recognise the need to reform the international financial system, which has failed to meet two obvious requirements: preventing instability and crises, and transferring resources from richer to poorer economies. Not only have we experienced much greater volatility and propensity to financial meltdown across emerging markets and now even industrial countries, but even the periods of economic expansion were based on the global poor subsidising the rich.

Within national economies, this system has encouraged pro-cyclicality: it has encouraged bubbles and speculative fervour rather than real productive investment for future growth. It has rendered national financial systems opaque and impossible to regulate. It has allowed for the proliferation of parallel transactions through tax havens and loose domestic controls. It has reduced the crucial developmental role of directed credit.

Given these problems, there is no alternative but systematic state regulation and control of finance. Since private players will inevitably attempt to circumvent regulation, the core of the financial system banking must be protected, and that is only possible through social ownership. Therefore, some degree of socialisation of banking (and not just the risks inherent in finance) is inevitable. In developing countries this is also important because it enables public control over the direction of credit, without which no country has industrialised.

The obsessively export-oriented model that has dominated the growth strategy for the past few decades must be reconsidered. This is not a just a desirable shift it has become a necessity given the obvious fact that the US and the EU are no longer engines of world growth through increasing import demand in the near future. This means that both developed and developing countries must seek to redirect their exports to other countries and most of all to redirect their economies towards more domestic demand. This requires a shift towards wage-led and domestic demand-led growth, particularly in the countries with economies large enough to sustain this shift. This can happen not only through direct redistributive strategies but also through public expenditure to provide more basic goods and services.

This means that fiscal policy and public expenditure must be brought back centre stage. Calls to end austerity are becoming more widespread in the developed world and will soon find their counterpart in developing countries. Clearly, fiscal stimulus is now essential, to cope with the adverse real-economy effects of the current crisis/stagnation and to prevent economic activity and employment from falling, and then to put good, quality employment on a stable footing. Fiscal expenditure is also required to undertake and promote investment to manage the effects of climate change and promote greener technologies. Public spending is crucial to advance the development project in the South and fulfil the promise of achieving minimally acceptable standards of living for everyone in the developing world.

Social policy the public responsibility for meeting social and economic rights of citizens contributes positively to both growth and development. This means especially the provision of universal good quality care services, funded by the state, with care workers properly recognised, remunerated and provided with decent working conditions. This also helps to reduce gender and other social inequalities generated by the imposition of unpaid care work, and has strong multiplier effects that allow for more employment increases over time and generate a bubbling up of economic activity.

There must be conscious attempts to reduce economic inequalities, both between and within countries. We have clearly crossed the limits of what is acceptable inequality in most societies, and policies will have to reverse this trend. Globally and nationally, we must reduce inequalities in income and wealth, and most significantly in the consumption of natural resources.

This is even more complicated than might be imagined because unsustainable patterns of production and consumption are deeply entrenched in richer countries and are aspired to in developing countries. But many millions of citizens of the developing world still have poor or inadequate access to the most basic conditions of decent life, such as electricity, transport and communication links, sanitation, health, nutrition and education. Ensuring universal provision across the global South will inevitably require greater per capita use of natural resources and more carbon-emitting production.

Both sustainability and equity therefore require a reduction of the excessive resource use of the rich, especially in developed countries but also among the elites in the developing world. This means that redistributive fiscal and other economic policies must be especially oriented towards reducing inequalities of resource consumption, globally and nationally. Within countries, for example, essential social and developmental expenditure can be financed by taxes that penalise resource-wasteful expenditure.

This requires new patterns of demand and production. It is why the present focus on developing new means of measuring genuine progress, well-being and quality of life are so important. Quantitative GDP growth targets, which still dominate the thinking of policy-makers, are not simply distracting from these more important goals but can be counterproductive.

For example, a chaotic, polluting and unpleasant system of privatised urban transport involving many vehicles and over-congested roads generates more GDP than a safe, efficient and affordable system of public transport that reduces congestion and provides a pleasant living and working environment. It is not enough to talk about cleaner, greener technologies to produce goods that are based on the old and now discredited pattern of consumption. Instead, we must think creatively about consumption itself, and work out which goods and services are more necessary and desirable for our societies.

This cannot be left to market forces, since the international demonstration effect and the power of advertising will continue to create undesirable wants and unsustainable consumption and production. But public intervention in the market cannot be knee-jerk responses to constantly changing short-term conditions. Instead, planning not in the sense of the detailed planning that destroyed the reputation of command regimes, but strategic thinking about the social requirements and goals for the future is absolutely essential. Fiscal and monetary policies, as well as other forms of intervention, will have to be used to redirect consumption and production towards these social goals, to bring about such shifts in socially-created aspirations and material wants, and to reorganise economic life to be less rapacious and more sustainable.

Since state involvement in economic activity is now an imperative, we should be thinking of ways to make involvement more democratic and accountable within our countries and internationally. Large amounts of public money will be used for financial bailouts and to provide fiscal stimuli. How this is done will have huge implications for distribution, access to resources and living conditions of the ordinary people whose taxes will be paying for this. So it is essential that we design the global economic architecture to function more democratically. And it is even more important that states across the world, when formulating and implementing economic policies, are more open and responsive to the needs of the majority of their citizens.

These are general points and obviously leave much to the specific contexts of individual countries and societies. But finally, we need an international economic framework that supports all this, which means more than just that capital flows must be controlled and regulated so that they do not destabilise these strategies.

The global institutions that form the organising framework for international trade, investment and production decisions need to change and become not only more democratic in structure but more genuinely democratic and people-oriented in spirit, intent and functioning. This is particularly the case with respect to the dissemination of knowledge, now privatised and concentrated thanks to the privileging of intellectual property rights. Financing for development and conservation of global resources must become the top priorities of the global economic institutions.

These proposals may seem like a tall order, but human history is replete with stories of major reversals of past trajectories and transformations that come when they are not expected and from directions that are unpredictable. What has been created and implemented by human agency can also be undone to bring in better alternatives. It may well be that the time is ripe in terms of greater social acceptance of such ideas and thoughts about how to refine and adapt them to particular contexts.

Jayati Ghosh is professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and the executive secretary of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS). She is closely involved with a range of progressive organisations and social movements. She blogs at triplecrisis.com and networkideas.org/jayati-blog

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Essay: After neoliberalism, what next? - Red Pepper

General News of Monday, 31 July 2017

Source: citifmonline.com

play videoKen Ofori Atta, Finance Minister

The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori Atta has given assurances that government will do whatever it takes to protect its socio-economic development programs from collapse.

He said the programs including the flagship Free SHS program, National Health Insurance Scheme, Planting for Food and Jobs among others, will be provided with the needed financial resources to ensure that they achieve the desired results.

Presenting the governments mid-year budget review to Parliament on Monday, Mr. Ofori Atta said despite the governments plan ensure fiscal discipline and prudent spending, it is committed to growing the economy through its various social intervention projects.

Mr. Speaker, despite the measures being taken to ensure that we maintain fiscal discipline, the government remains strongly committed to growing the economy and delivering services to our people through strategic allocation and efficient use of resources.

Our flagship programmes such as the Free SHS, NHIS, School Feeding, LEAP, Planting for Food and Jobs etc will be protected, he said.

The New Patriotic Party government secured the mandate to govern the country on the back of a number of social intervention programs including the Free Senior High School, Planting for Food and Jobs among others.

The Free SHS policy, which is expected to take off from September, will ensure government pays tuition among other fees for all students in public Senior High Schools for their three-year stay in school.

It is expected that the program will increase access to quality education and as well as reduce the rate of senior high school drop-outs due to nonpayment of fees.

The planting for food and jobs program, which was announced earlier this year by the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto, is aimed at revolutionizing the countrys agricultural sector and creating jobs.

As part of the program, government will provide farm inputs, fertilizer, and improved seeds among other resources to boost agricultural production.

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We will protect Free SHS, NHIS, others from collapse Ofori-Atta - GhanaWeb

ISLAMABAD - Speakers at a seminar arranged here on Saturday by Institution of Engineers Pakistan, Rawalpindi-Islamabad (IEP-RI) called for strict enforcement of code of ethics in construction industry to ensure public safety.

If a doctor makes a mistake, one person die and if engineer commits a mistake it kills hundreds of people, said key-note speaker Engineer Prof. Rafiq Muhammad Chaudhry while addressing the seminar that was also participated by the Chairman IEP-RI Engr. Hafiz M. Ehsanul Haq Qazi, Engr. Najumuddin and Engr. Shafiqur Rehman. The seminar was part of the institution's Continuing professional development (CPE) program for young engineers.

It was emphasized that there should be a zero tolerance for corruption and mal-practices in construction industry. Recent incidents, collapse of constructions structure of high-rise building led to massive human-loss. Ethically, concerned engineer should be made accountable for any such incident. Safety, health and welfare of public should be made fundamental requirements for undertaking any development project, Prof. Rafiq asserted. He emphasized that the engineers should be sincere to the society, having no compromise on basic design, specification and contract of the construction deal. While undertaking the construction work, the relevant engineers must apply latest professional techniques for achieving better results.

Prof. Rafiz Chaudhry who enjoyed rich experience, working in engineering sector, home and abroad emphasized that the engineering community must keep up dignity and honour of their profession.

He also gave detailed presentation on contract management among the relevant parties. He explained legal and moral responsibilities and obligations of each party in executing building contracts. Each contract should be according to the law of the land, he added.

Chairman IEP-RI Hafiz Ehsanul Haq announced that they would be holding a number professional development activities during the year for the capacity-building of the young engineers, enabling them to play productive role in the countrys socio-economic development.

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IEP for strict enforcement of code of ethics in construction industry - The Nation

Economic opportunity is vital to strengthening peace and stability, especially in fragile states and post conflict societies. Developing sustainable employment entails a strong partnership between the private and public sectors, as well as multilateral organizations. Kate Spade & Companys social enterprise investment in Rwandawhich enables women to be part of its supply chainis an innovative example of that partnership.

Rwanda suffered one of the worst genocides in history in 1994. The Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda claimed more than one million lives and left in its wake a near total collapse of political and socio-economic institutions. The leadership of Rwanda and its people embarked on an arduous journey to mend the fabric of their society, and out of the ashes of destruction rose a new and prosperous nation.

Today, Rwanda is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. There are several reasons for Rwandas economic and social progress. A growing body of research demonstrates that womens economic participation is essential for economic progressand for post conflict reconstruction and recovery. Women entrepreneurs drive GDP and create jobs, and the way women spend their income has a multiplier effect, as they invest it in education, nutrition, and other needs; this in turn improves the well-being of families and grows the standard of living. Rwandas leadership in gender equality has fostered a positive environment for womens political participation and entrepreneurship. Women comprise over 60 percent of the Parliamentthe highest in the world. Inheritance and land rights have been advanced, and there have been significant improvements on a range of indicators from education and literacy to health care. We have observed the impact that the private sector can have on womens economic empowerment in Masoro, a village of twenty thousand people roughly twelve kilometers away from Rwandas capital, Kigali. Like many rural communities, Masoro suffered from higher unemployment and lower earnings than the national average. On the positive, local artisans were skilled in embroidery and sewing.

Officials from Kate Spade & Company decided to make a social enterprise investment in this small community to test if this investment could produce economic and social returns. The company recruited 150 of the villages most talented and committed female artisans in 2013, and helped them set up their own worker-owned, for-profit social enterprise: Abahizi Dushyigikirane, Ltd. or ADC. Kate Spade & Company has worked to build the capacity of the workers and has been using them as a supplier for its related brands. In that way, the women and their families can prosper and Kate Spade & Company can have a dependable supplier.

According to a recently released study by Georgetowns McDonough School of Business, in partnership with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace & Security, Kate Spade & Companys initiative has already contributed to the empowerment of the women in Masoro. They are flourishing economically and socially. The women have improved their spending on necessities and are investing in the future. They are earning a decent and steady wage and receiving opportunities for training and development from ADC. The average woman working on the initiative has also reported higher levels of decision-making within her family related to personal finances.

This is evidenced by Appolinaire, a team leader in ADCs beading department. Appolinaire first applied to be a temporary worker at ADC in order to supplement her households income. To her surprise, she positively adjusted to the position right away, and especially enjoyed the camaraderie with other women. ADC offered Appolinaire an opportunity to take the sewing test required for a permanent position, which she passed.

With her new income from the factory, Appolinaire and her husband have been able to invest in a new kitchen, and they are gradually replacing their mud brick walls and dirt floor with bricks. Appolinarie says her voice is heard on all of the important household decisions. She no longer tends the land or cares for the cows. As she progressed at ADC and her salary increased, a young man was hired to do those chores. Clearly, she is becoming economically empowered.

On the business investment, the Georgetown study found that Kate Spade & Company has created a financially viable business model in Rwanda. The Masoro supplier will become more competitive as production increases. The increases are set to occur over the course of 2017 with the acquisition of another client. Kate Spade & Company is actively assisting in the search for a second client and potential investors to support their growth trajectory.

This innovative social enterprise investment offers a model approach for creating economic opportunity that is sustainable in marginalized communities. Other companies can also contribute to their bottom line and help to transform fragile and war-torn societies. Its a win-win approach: one that is good for business and good for society.

Originally posted here:

Empowering Women in Developing Economies - Council on Foreign Relations

At the time of Independence, UP (United Provinces until 1950, when it was renamed as Uttar Pradesh) was described as one of the best governed states, with tall leaders and some of the finest IAS officers. Today, it is the most important state in national politics, but remains poor and backward. Regional inequalities between the states in southern and western India and those in the Hindi heartland have shown increasing divergence rather than convergence in recent years. The reasons lie not just in the feudal, caste-based society that reinforces economic backwardness, but also in the states competitive and divisive politics of governance.

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Social change was slow in the colonial and immediate post-colonial period in UP. The Congress, which enjoyed a majority until the late 1980s, failed to use the states enormous physical and social resources to bring about socio-economic development. UP was described in the mid-1960s as the sleeping giant and later as suffering from the burden of inertia. During the 80s, for the first time, there was a slight shift away from agriculture to industry and economic growth surpassed the national average mainly due to the green revolution in eastern UP. Poverty was reduced, fuelling the assertion of the backward castes and Dalits.

This proved to be short-lived, though, with UP getting caught in a downward spiral in the 1990s. The collapse of the Congress in 1989 had made space for the politics of self-respect and dignity. Democratisation was accelerated with heightened consciousness of caste or communal identities and the rise of parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The BJP, too, was mobilising the electorate using its Hindutva ideology, leading to communal riots and the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Throughout the 1990s, UP had hung assemblies and short-lived coalition governments. Competitive populist policies led to steep deterioration in the states fiscal health and growth rate, leading to a debt trap.

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Two developments in the 2000s created hope of improvementthe weakening of identity politics and the emergence of majority governments. During the same period, however, UP witnessed a new wave of riots: Mau in 2005, Gorakhpur in 2007 and Muzaffarnagar in 2013. While the Mayawati government (2007-12) had introduced an inclusive economic agenda and witnessed no riot, UP has been seeing rapes, lynchings, riots and poor quality of public policy since 2012. Much of this has been due to communal politics and breakdown of law and order. The Akhilesh Yadav government, hoping to gain Muslim votes, did little to prevent communal incidents, and was accused of communalising the police and the administration.

The decline of the social justice parties has given room to the BJP and its new ideology of non-Brahminical Hindutva, aimed at bringing the lower castes into its fold. This explains the shift from the politics of social justice to that of aspiration among the upwardly mobile OBCs and Dalits, who are getting attracted to the promises of development made by Narendra Modi. This, and the BJPs communally charged campaign were responsible for its massive victory during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and again in the assembly polls this year. Although CM Yogi Adityanath has promised development of all, appeasement of none and no discrimination based on caste, religion and gender, his government has not been able to rein in cow-protection vigilantes and lynchings. Instead of focussing on development, Adityanath has introduced divisive policies such as the ban on illegal slaughterhouses and new rules governing the sale of cattle, which have created economic difficulties for Muslims and others dependent on the trade.

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There is indeed a close relationship between the divisive politics of identity and UPs continuing trajectory of economic backwardness. The state epitomises the Hindi heartlandcaste and communal mobilisation by political parties in their desire to capture power, riots, breakdown of law and order, negligent and poor governanceand needs a new leadership to bring in political order and development so that it can resume its position among the better-governed states.

(The writer is a national fellow at ICSSR and former professor at JNU, New Delhi.)

Read the original:

Why Big Up Is Way Down - Outlook India

General News of Monday, 17 July 2017

Source: Graphic.com.gh

The truck on the collapsed bridge at Garu-Tempane

Two bridges in the Brong Ahafo and Upper East regions have collapsed, disrupting socio-economic activities in the affected areas.

They are a wooden bridge over the Tano River at Nobekaw, which links the Asunafo South District and the Asutifi South District in the Brong-Ahafo Region, and the Tambe bridge that links the Garu-Tempane District to the Bawku Municipality in the Upper East Region.

From Sunyani Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah reports that three students of the Nobekaw Junior High School (JHS) escaped death narrowly when the Tano bridge in the area collapsed last Wednesday.

Fortunately, two of the three students who were crossing the bridge when the incident occurred managed to swim out of the river and saved their mate who did not know how to swim.

The students, Abass Seidu, 16, Ebenezer Ochere, 16 and Enoch Antwi, 15, were returning from Nobekaw in the Asunafo South District where they attend school to Kwakunyuma, near Mehame in the Asutifi South District.

Bad state

Residents of the area have been using the bridge, which has been in a deplorable state for so many years now, but the situation worsened last month when the area experienced series of torrential rains leading to the overflow of the river.

More than eight communities in the area have been using the wooden bridge.

Kwakunyunma and its surrounding communities have been hit hardest because of the absence of social amenities in the area.

Disruptions

The collapse of the bridge has halted socio-economic activities at Kwakunyuma and Nobekaw, including the surrounding villages. This is because residents of the two districts cross the river daily to transact businesses.

Teachers and students, who have been crossing the bridge to school, have since July 12, 2017 not been able to go to school.

The residents, who are mostly subsistence farmers, cannot transport their produce for sale in the major markets outside the area, while it has become very difficult to access health care in an emergency situation.

Means of transport

As a temporary measure, a-23-year old farmer, Mr Solomon Ozoro, has acquired a canoe to ferry people across the river at a cost of GH5.00 per person.

Call for help

After visiting the area to assess the situation, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Asutifi South, Mr Robert Dwomoh Mensah, called on the central government to assist the assembly to construct a proper bridge to replace the collapsed one.

He pleaded with the Ministry of Roads and Highways to consider the plight of the people and add the district to the list of beneficiaries of the bridges to be constructed under an agreement between Ghana and China, which was signed when the Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, visited China recently.

Tambe Bridge

In another development, Vincent Amenuveve reports from Bolgatanga that the Tambe bridge collapsed last Thursday, making it difficult for trucks, mostly loaded with cereals, to cross from Garu-Tempane District to the southern sector.

The development has compelled residents to find cumbersome alternative routes to get to Bawku.

The District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane, Mr Emmanuel Avoka, told the Daily Graphic that the collapse of the bridge was due to lack of routine maintenance since it was constructed in 2007.

He observed that owing to the ongoing construction of the Tamne Irrigation Dam in the district, about 30 heavy duty trucks plied the bridge several times within a day, thus putting a lot of pressure on the bridge.

Mr Avoka was, however, of the view that if routine maintenance works had been carried out on the bridge, the situation could have been prevented.

Reports, he said, indicated that some individuals had been going there at night to loosen some of the bolts and nuts holding the bridge.

"Looking at the level of collapse of this bridge,it will require a high-level technical expertise to fix it," he noted.

He further disclosed that he had informed the regional minister, Mr Rockson Bukari, and the Member of Parliament for the area about the situation and hopefully this week something would be done about it.

Impact

Mr Avoka further stated that owing to the collapse of the bridge, residents and other commuters from the area now spent about three hours to get to Bawku whereas when the bridge was functional, they used only 20 minutes to make the journey

He indicated that commuters now passed through Garu-Tempane to Gagbiri through Bugri and then to Bawku.

The DCE was also of the view that the construction of the Tamne Irrigation Dam, although a step in the right direction, had eventually blocked water from flowing freely hence putting extra pressure on other smaller bridges built over smaller rivers which might collapse as more rains set in.

Meanwhile, residents have made an urgent appeal to the authorities to fix the bridge quickly to facilitate the free movement of goods and services.

Excerpt from:

Bridges at Nobekaw, Garu-Tempane collapse; movement of people and goods affected - GhanaWeb

Sara, a 4-year-old child with Down Syndrome and the youngest in her family of ten, jumps into the dentists chair when accompanied by her oldest sister Galit. Beginning dental treatments at a young age will get her off to a good start and keep her smiling. Eden, on the other hand, is 21 and will never be caught smiling she is missing her two front teeth as a result of violent abuse at the hands of her mother. Then there is Naftali, the fourth out of 8 children in his family. Despite the fact that both his parents work hard, they are having trouble supporting the family.

By the time he arrived at DVI (Dental Volunteers Israel) he needed a root canal, fillings and a pulpectomy. And lets not forget the Refaeli family, victims of the Versailles Wedding hall collapse in 2001, who fell into financial difficulty when the mother was injured and unable to return to work and the father, after many surgeries got back on his feet only to be tragically killed by an exposed wire while leading his family into a bomb shelter. These are some of the patients of DVI the only 100% free dental clinic in Israel which serves Jerusalem residents aged 4-26. For chareidi families who have been blessed with many children as well as and many others, even the minimal co-pays required at the government clinics make dental care and oral hygiene services unaffordable. Youth from lower socio-economic backgrounds are particularly prone to dental disease and in fact, 80 percent of all caries occur in just 25 percent of kids. With a social workers referral, these individuals will receive top quality dental care from specialists from around the world who donate their time and expertise to the DVI clinic.

DVI- Dental Volunteers for Israel is a non-profit organization established in 1980 by Trudi Birger, a Holocaust survivor, who vowed to ease the suffering of others if she were to survive. Based on her ethic of giving to those in need as if they were a member of your own family, the DVI dentists and staff do much more than dental work they encourage youth to maximize their potential; they treat them with respect; they go the extra mile and often times provide patients with coats and schools supplies when seeing that just how poorly off they are. One of our dentists once asked his patient what he wanted to do when he grew up and the young man responded, No one ever asked me that before. Maybe I will become a dentist! Ten years later, he is one of our favorite local dental volunteers and he credits DVI with helping him succeed in life!

Annually, DVI treats approximately 3000 patients aged 4-26, representing over 11,000 individual treatments, and last year added the Free Dentures Program for Holocaust survivors and elderly in need. Over 130 dentists from around the world volunteer their services in addition to some of the local Israeli dentists who also volunteer their time.

DVI also serves as a teaching clinic for future pediatric dentists under the supervision of its clinical director Dr. Roy Petel who is a clinical instructor at the Hadassah School of Dental Medicine and a member of the Israeli Board of Examiners in Pediatric Dentistry.

Note: Families and patients have agreed to have their names used and displayed to assist the clinics efforts.

(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: DVI)

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A Hidden Treasure Amid Many Chessed Organizations in Jerusalem - Yeshiva World News