Yes yes, the trouble with social democracy. In fact there is no trouble with social democracy. The aims are to develop a society where merit triumphs over entrenched priviledge, where work is rewarded with fair pay and the objectives of society are defined by non monetary values. All that is laudible, The problem is two fold, firstly what post war, keynsian social democracy created, and secondly what we wil discuss here, The curse of social democracy. The problem is social democrats.
Or social democratic parties. By essence they are driven by comprimise, by not repeating mistakes of leninist socialism, and by keeping capital happy. As politicians they adore compromise and avoid risk., The whole climate change politic is flawed, not the science, because Social Democrats are scared they might risk something far bigger in future for their parties' if they dont do anything.
Social democrats seek to appease capitalism as part of their compromising faith. In part that is because of one of the failings of post war social democratic policy and the imbalance in power trade unions managed to exert in western economies. Inflation, or rather currency devaluation due to too high a supply of monies paid in wages. The 'new deal' on the whole as a movement across the last world war and over into the sixties, in the western economies and Japan, spurned inflation due to consumption outstripping supply and wages creating personal surpluses which meant family spending, the big one in the economy, was not subject to penny pinching. We spent the pounds and dollars and let the pennies look after themselves.
Big capital it is proposed, had already decided that wage pressure, collectivist union power and therefore manufacturing were erroding their ability to extract profit and capital value from the national economies. Also they had decided to globalise themselves, by family and corporate dynasties. The greater national good and paternal capitalism were dead. They lived in tax havens and spent their monies in the jet set resorts and big cities. Nationalism was something to be avoided because of course, Hitler had dispossessed the wealthy Jewish elite via the ballot box first, then by a corporate take over of an entire nation and continent. Internationalism, trading blocks and globalisation became a mantra, which has only recently been turned upon by a minority in the rich elite who now back nasty-nationalism, given form in Trump and Brexit. The two countries who followed Neo Liberaism the most aka post social democractic policy, ended up with politicians utilising the rhetoric of Hitler and other nationalist fascists to avoid the blame being laid upon the door of the wealthy.
Social democrats are then far too into comprimise. We can understand that capitalism is a force which is a little like reverse gravity, it means trickle up, accumulation of wealth via speculation. There is no investment without risk. Social democrats have aimed to appease capitalism instead of harnessing it in reining it in. Appeasement means allowing Capital to do what it wants to do essentially, and dressing it up for the population in some terms that seem progressive and sensible. Capitalism will happen the same as river beds will errode the earth and create valleys. It is a process which is not inevitable in human nature, but rather that there are large elements of human nature which facilitate its' processes,.
What people in many western economies have to understand is the nature of modern capitalism is rentier on a national basis. Globally it still invests in value multiplication and the free maker of manufacturing, but only in the People's republic of China, a socialist one party state. Rentier capitalism lives very nicely indeed on our own existences, and it does not need to care about value multiplicatioon in the west any more, if there is more money to be made at a lower risk from housing, food, health, transport and education. When you consider the 'modern technological based manufacturing base' excluding car manufacturing, then we see that in many western countries it is closely tied to government spending such as on health via national health insurance in many countries, and the quasi national insurance Medicare in the USA: Capital likes living off our backs, especially if it can control some simple parameters via government polocy and in other areas, use complex paramaters such that governments buy value added goods and services from them, and lay down any public provision as competition to that " competition" .
Of course compulsive competitive tendering has arrested inflation in some key areas of public provision. However many privatised utilities have been able to extract above consumer price index price rises by virtue of price parity, virtual /practical monopolies and obfuscation of pricing and costs over time to the consumer. In some cases the game is very much revealed such as with the railways un the UK, where both passenger faires have increased way above headline inflation for many years,
while subsidies too have increased rather than decreased. Competitive tendering for virtual monopolistic contracts is in reality, legalised corruption with the best legal team winning any inconvenient challenges to the proposition.
Once we understand more of the nature of the beast of Capitalism, we can start to harness it and lead it into areas which benefit society, We can move to a more symbiotice relationship beofre, at some point it becomes inevitably that the resources of the finite planet be divided out to the benefit of more humans. The social democrats have unfortunetly taken the view that capitalism should have more freedom and given that freedom society can reap rewards via taxation and growth in income outstripping inflation. The reverse has been true. Inflation now is hidden in areas which benefit capital. Property and consumer debt. The money supply is far greater here than any exchequor would be allowed and of course the entire credit system was over stretched to the point of it crashing in autumn 2008. Wage deflation has been the key tool in keeping currency deflation at bay.
The point here in taking this all into the melthing pot, is that rentier economies evenutally price everyone but the richest out of the market-of-living,. We start to go into debt just to survive with a roof over our heads. Forget people living on welfare long term, we are talking about working.poverty in full time employment, where monthly ends just do not meet without credit debt. The natural end point of government for capitalsim, by capitalism is slavery for a large minority of society,. As long as most of the people can be kept happy most of the time.....if not, then play the Hitler card, Nasty foriegners, The enemy within, The white worker the victim of the pressure of immigrants and racial or religious minorities. Brexit, Trump.
Social democrats dare not tackle the rentier issues. They are risk aversive. The bold, modernist risk taking of the new deal era, are replaced by moderation and out right mediocrity. Furthermore they created a privelegde "generation class", the baby boomers who enjoyed the benefits of cheap or free education, jobs a plenty, shorter career routes from lower qualifaction-bases, job security and promotion prospects. They are the bastard child that the Keynsianists didnt predict. An ungrateful, selfish brat who lived off double digit growth and high public spending, only to shun this when it was them paying the lion's share of the tax bill, and eat up neo liberalism in a time when wages were starting to slow down in growth for them.
Omce we realise the rentier nature of modern capital in the west as a whole, and this generation issue, metastatic - standing upon, suppressing - the needs of societies today, we can start to realise the need for a re-evaluation of the relationship between democratic governance and the forces and mechanisms of capitalism. We can start to say, no you do not have the right ot make me poor or deny me having as good a material wealth as you just because you own the means of supply to the necessities of living. In one scentence, we cannot go on with a generation and a class of "buy-to.rents" dominating society and government policy. We need a fairer society, We need a better referee.
In future, distribution of goods and services will be done differently. The world has a 'set point' in terms of agricultural proidcution and natural resources, where the demands of a population of ten billion plus outstrip supply, and beyond which a linear economy will self destruct into terminal inflation. For now appeasing capital and hoping for the best beyind re-election is the main issue with the Social Democratic Movement.
No comments:
Post a Comment