Gordon Brown is in big trouble. The financial system he piloted to prominence during his years as Chancellor is in ruins. Rupert Murdoch has turned The Sun against him. The majority of the UK population is in favour of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his letter-writing skills have slipped, angering army wives and mothers.
Brown’s plight is a pale reflection of the political crisis engulfing capitalist governments throughout the world as disaffection grips the masses whose lives are being destroyed by attempts to prevent a slump unparalleled in history. Despite trillions of stimulus dollars, pounds, euros, and the lowest interest rates ever set by central banks, unemployment is soaring worldwide.
In an attempt to repair the damage to his reputation as warm-hearted saviour of the global economy, Brown is trying a populist appeal to the massed ranks of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the many other well-meaning members of the Stamp Out Poverty Coalition.
At the weekend G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Scotland, Brown took up Brendan Barber of the TUC’s call for a tax on financial transactions within the UK – something within the powers of the national government, at least in theory.
The chorus of disapproval was almost deafening.
The response from Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner gave a clear and succinct voice to the objective force that is capital. Geithner said there was broad agreement that "growth remains the dominant policy imperative across our economies". US unemployment, which hit a 26-year-high at 10.2% in October, highlighted a "very tough economic environment" that will take a period of sustained growth to correct.
"Government policy has to provide a bridge to growth led by the private sector," he said. "We're now in the middle span of that bridge." In an interview with Sky News, Geithner added: “A day-by-day financial transaction tax is not something we are prepared to support."
Geithner, late of Goldman Sachs, insisted that government had to stay cautious (apart from giving bankers untold billions) and warned: “If we put the brakes on too quickly we will weaken the economy and the financial system, unemployment will rise, more businesses will fail, budget deficits will rise, and the ultimate cost of the crisis will be greater." In other words, business as usual is the goal.
Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF joined the opposition to a transactions tax. Flaherty said Canada was working out how to reduce taxes, while Strauss-Kahn opted for a politer more diplomatic response – it’s just too difficult to measure international transactions. Unsurprisingly the banks including Barclays and HSBC aren’t in favour either.
All of the voices in this song-fest are united in their blind subservience to the status quo. The chorus against a tax on financial transactions shows two things. Firstly, reform of the global capitalist financial system is out of the question. Secondly the dependent relationship that links the state to the productive and financial components of the capitalist economy has to be shattered before we can move forward.
The world is now ready for a society that places the satisfaction of needs as its primary goal. Rather than attempting to tax the proceeds of gambling in the global casino, the casino should be shut down and the capitalist state deconstructed. Geithner, Brown and the other apostles of capitalist growth have had their day.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label The Sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Sun. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A crisis of leadership
The sudden resignation of the Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell is another indication of the turmoil at the top of British politics as the main parties struggle to occupy the same small piece of territory – the so-called “middle ground”. While all parties claim to have the interests of the “whole nation” at heart, all they are really interested in is garnering the votes of a few crucial voters in key marginal seats who determine the outcome of general elections.
This is made more difficult by changes in the political landscape. One of the indelible features of the recent globalisation period is the convergence of the existing political parties to the point where voters find it difficult to separate their policies and outlooks.
In their 10 years in office, the Blair-Brown axis have taken up and deepened Thatcherite policies on a whole range of policies and issues, from privatisation to competition in the public sector and being tough with the trade unions.
Not to be outdone, the Tories have welcomed many of the government’s policies – including the invasion of Iraq – but have struggled to find an idea they can call their own. New Labour has, for example, in recent weeks stolen Tory policies on inheritance tax, crime and the family. Now Tory leader Cameron is forced to attack New Labour for not doing enough to tackle poverty just to make himself heard.He himself is the leader of a deeply divided party.
Under these conditions, the Lib Dems find it difficult to get any attention, especially with a leader whose charisma rating – deemed so crucial in these days of image and spin – was off the radar. So he had to go. Which brings us to another leader with a personality problem, according to the bourgeois media. Gordon Brown is clearly a control freak with an authoritarian streak whose heavy handed approach has dismayed many New Labour MPs - especially those in marginal seats. Now the knives are out in his own party, with Blarites and assorted disgruntled former ministers putting the boot in.
Some of those who have backed New Labour – like the Murdoch News International empire – are also having second thoughts. Irwin Stelzer, the economist and a close adviser to Murdoch, told The Guardian this week that the media tycoon recognises the resurgence of the Tories under Cameron. "You'd have to think that Murdoch is a closed minded dunce not to think that he recognises that something is happening here in Britain, that the political landscape has been shaken up and he has to look at it," Stelzer said. He described Brown’s decision not to call an election as "an appalling blunder".
What might finally swing Murdoch papers like The Sun behind Cameron is the European Union treaty issue, where the Tories are demanding a referendum and Brown is resisting. The paper’s political editor Trevor Kavanagh even suggested this week that the New Labour project was in danger of being revealed as nothing more than an illusionist’s trick and could easily fall apart. That’s the sort of comment that would reflect the thinking of the paper’s owners. The Lib Dems are not the only party with problems.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
This is made more difficult by changes in the political landscape. One of the indelible features of the recent globalisation period is the convergence of the existing political parties to the point where voters find it difficult to separate their policies and outlooks.
In their 10 years in office, the Blair-Brown axis have taken up and deepened Thatcherite policies on a whole range of policies and issues, from privatisation to competition in the public sector and being tough with the trade unions.
Not to be outdone, the Tories have welcomed many of the government’s policies – including the invasion of Iraq – but have struggled to find an idea they can call their own. New Labour has, for example, in recent weeks stolen Tory policies on inheritance tax, crime and the family. Now Tory leader Cameron is forced to attack New Labour for not doing enough to tackle poverty just to make himself heard.He himself is the leader of a deeply divided party.
Under these conditions, the Lib Dems find it difficult to get any attention, especially with a leader whose charisma rating – deemed so crucial in these days of image and spin – was off the radar. So he had to go. Which brings us to another leader with a personality problem, according to the bourgeois media. Gordon Brown is clearly a control freak with an authoritarian streak whose heavy handed approach has dismayed many New Labour MPs - especially those in marginal seats. Now the knives are out in his own party, with Blarites and assorted disgruntled former ministers putting the boot in.
Some of those who have backed New Labour – like the Murdoch News International empire – are also having second thoughts. Irwin Stelzer, the economist and a close adviser to Murdoch, told The Guardian this week that the media tycoon recognises the resurgence of the Tories under Cameron. "You'd have to think that Murdoch is a closed minded dunce not to think that he recognises that something is happening here in Britain, that the political landscape has been shaken up and he has to look at it," Stelzer said. He described Brown’s decision not to call an election as "an appalling blunder".
What might finally swing Murdoch papers like The Sun behind Cameron is the European Union treaty issue, where the Tories are demanding a referendum and Brown is resisting. The paper’s political editor Trevor Kavanagh even suggested this week that the New Labour project was in danger of being revealed as nothing more than an illusionist’s trick and could easily fall apart. That’s the sort of comment that would reflect the thinking of the paper’s owners. The Lib Dems are not the only party with problems.
Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor
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