A one-party state for the rich

Shocked or surprised at Ed Miliband equating those struggling on benefits in the absence of jobs at decent wages with bankers and executives whose salaries resemble telephone numbers? You shouldn’t be.

Miliband’s speech on “responsibility” yesterday was only the latest in a long line of pronouncements and actions that marked the definitive end of Labour as a party dedicated to defending workers’ interests and reforming capitalism.

Even so, it was sickening to hear Miliband declaim: “To those entrepreneurs and business people who generate wealth, create jobs and deserve their top salaries, I’m not just relaxed about you getting rich, I applaud you.”

Joining in the open season on welfare claimants, Miliband couldn’t help himself and added: “We will be a party that rewards contribution, not worklessness.” People had to take work if it was on offer rather than claim benefits. And, in future, social housing should only go to those who “contribute” to society.

In over 3,000 words of his speech, he never once referred to unemployment as an issue at a time when the dole queue is heading for 10%. And, of course, he declined to use those two “C” words – class and capitalism. He did, however, find time to quote Blair on patriotism.

Worse, he invoked the wartime service of his father, Ralph, to whip up patriotic and nationalist sentiments about “community”. This is shockingly dishonest too because Ralph Miliband was regarded as a Marxist and wrote critiques of Labour and reformism in books like Parliamentary socialism. No doubt Ralph is turning in his proverbial grave this morning.

Ed Miliband is the latest in a long line of leaders of a party that made its unconditional peace with capitalism a long time ago. The die was cast as far back as the Callaghan government in the late 1970s, when the government went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. The attacks on wages that followed led to mass industrial action and the end of Old Labour as we knew it.

The context for parliamentary politics that enabled post-war Labour governments to create the health service and the welfare state changed in a qualitative way in this period. After prolonged class struggles, deregulated, free market globalisation emerged. This demanded flexible, cheap labour and shifting production from advanced to developing economies.

The basis for old-style reformist politics disappeared almost overnight. And out of this train crash came New Labour. The rise of Blairism was not therefore, as is often mistakenly assumed, simply a rightward move or a policy decision aimed at winning elections by capturing the “middle ground”.

More than that, it was a recognition and an acceptance that capitalism had changed and that the best could hoped for in future was for wealth to “trickle down” from the top to the bottom. Instead, cheap credit fuelled unsustainable consumption that globalisation called for. The rest, as we know, is history.

The Miliband speech was hailed by the miserable Fabian Society, whose research director Tim Horton said “some on the left may feel queasy about this. But they should understand its logic and cheer it.” Frank Field, the right-wing Labour MP who favours the break-up of the benefits system also hailed Miliband’s speech.

As one comment on Horton’s article, put it: “We now have a one party state, a political class which acts as an administrator of corporate excess, to facilitate resources from poor to rich.” A one-party state is a dictatorship in anyone’s language and that is what we have in a coalition of Tories, Lib Dems and Labourites. Overthrowing dictatorships, of course, is an entirely legitimate social activity.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

The 'R' word makes it appearance

That it is 300 years since a Speaker of the House of Commons was forced from office reflects a political crisis reverberating up from the deepest bowels of society. But a new Speaker, and new rules for the expenses system have as much chance of solving the constitutional emergency as the measures taken by governments and central banks have of fixing the global financial system.

Both the political and financial turbulence reflect seismic shifts much deeper in the class relations which are at the essence of today’s troubles. In Britain, claims for the cleaning of murky moats stir issues left unresolved by the English revolution, bringing them to the surface once more.

In the British Parliament, history found a place where the representatives of two classes could argue over the exploitation of the dispossessed third. The modern-day Liberals are the inheritors of the landowning aristocracy, and the Conservatives were established and continue to pursue the interests of capital of the specifically home-grown British variety.

At the end of the 19th century the representatives of the third class, the organised, industrialised workers, were persuaded by the Fabian Society that their interests could be pursued politically by a parliamentary party known as Labour, which would seek peaceful, gradual reforms and thus avoid the nasty Continental tradition of revolution.

Fast-forward 100 years and we find that the incessant, restless growth of capital periodically interrupted by worsening crises, has transformed national politics in every country. The period of parliamentary-based reformist politics came to an abrupt end around about 1979, marked by the fall of the Calllaghan government and the beginnings of the Thatcherite period of class war and corporate-driven globalisation.

Now, the collapse in demand for the products of transnational corporations addicted to credit-induced growth sets the agenda of every government which must attempt to find a route to stabilisation. But all routes are closed except those that destroy jobs, evict people from their homes, and wipe out their savings, forcing hundreds of millions into poverty and starvation.

Those who were persuaded that the market would provide them a better pension than the state are among the first victims. A report today by Ros Altmann, a governor at the London School of Economics, says: "Essentially the entire UK pensions system has been based on a bet that equities would always do well enough over the long-term to deliver reliably good pensions. The old idea that stock markets can always be relied on to deliver strong returns has left millions facing an impoverished old age."

This is not just a British problem. California is among the richest and is on the point of bankruptcy. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was last night facing a ballot defeat. Polls pointed to voter fury over the failure of the Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled legislature to balance the state's books. As Californians struggle with joblessness, home foreclosures and sharp losses in the stock market, the state has raised taxes, cut spending and borrowed to try and fix a $42-billion shortfall – and still remains more than $15 billion short of a balanced budget.

In Britain, voters aren’t going to be fobbed off with a few changes to the expenses system. Even the The Guardian, which has backed New Labour at every twist and turn, is now permitted to use the R word in its columns in an attempt to keep up with public anger which increasingly expresses itself in the use of the term revolution.

What voters are seeking is justice and retribution for the past – and access to power long denied them by a Parliamentary show that, when the curtains are drawn, is spending its time assembling a tawdry collection of crumpled receipts for dog food, pornographic movies and sticks of furniture together with fraudulent claims for mortgages on second homes. Introducing real democracy will require a social revolution that is both political and economic along the lines suggested by our People’s Charter for Democracy. Nothing less will do the trick.

Gerry Gold
Economics editor