h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>Can we please shoot down this canard that the UK has an abnormally low percentage of manufacturing for a modern industrial country? The table below shows that the UK is doing just fine, thank you.

It's not really about us having a "low" manufacturing base so much as that previous governments and the current one hung too much of the UK's economy on the financial sector on the understanding that it would always be strong. Ultimately, the lack of a diverse economy leaves a country open to economic crisis if the sector which it's hung on goes belly-up. That's one of the main reasons Brown had to throw billions of treasury money at the banks - we literally couldn't afford for them to fail like any other business (see, as an obvious example, Rover).

For what happens when a country hangs its economy on one sector and then can't bail it out, see Iceland.

>Labour's lurch towards Marxism in the 80s was a disaster for them

They didn't lurch towards Marxism, they lurched towards economic statism and economic planning; that's not the same thing. I don't think Michael Foot's manifesto was designed to create a dictatorship of the proletariat leading to a workers' paradise.

>just as the Tories moving to the Right under Howard brought electoral failure.

The Tories didn't move to the right under Howard, they moved slightly to the left. They'd moved to the right under his predecessor, Iain Duncan Smith, and Howard nudged them closer to the centre and took the first steps towards dealing with extremism in the party (several arch-Thatcherite MPs were deselected after he took power and he made the first moves to combat homophobia in the Tory party, something he's rarely given credit for) paving the way for Cameron in the same way Kinnock paved the way for Blair.

But apart from that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs Lincoln?

I disagree Zagreb. If Foot wasn't trying to prepare for a worker's paradise what the hell did he think he was doing in charge of the (old) Labour party? Maybe saying he lurched to Marxism is a bit strong for some, but he certainly wanted to take the party further to the left than it had been under Callaghan.

I'd say that both parties, Labour & Tory experimented whilst in opposition with moving towards the extremes of their political base and suffered as a consequence.

>I disagree Zagreb. If Foot wasn't trying to prepare for a worker's paradise what the hell did he think he was doing in charge of the (old) Labour party? Maybe saying he lurched to Marxism is a bit strong for some, but he certainly wanted to take the party further to the left than it had been under Callaghan.

Aye, he wanted to take it further to the left but that's not the same as "Marxism". Marxism, for starters, is basically any philosophy founded on Marx's ideas. You can be Marxist and fiercely in favour of unregulated capitalism, for instance; one of the British Marxist fragments took this position arguing that unregulated capitalism would bring about Marx's "workers' paradise" more quickly than anything else since it would lead to the collapse of capitalism more quickly than anything else.

Labour in 1983 were offering a manifesto that was certainly socialist, certainly statist, certainly dirigist, but not Marxist.

Incidentally, Callaghan's government wasn't a very leftwing one (and Callaghan had argued that the postwar consensus of large welfare state and tax & spend was broken back when Blair was still supporting unilateral nuclear disarmament), like most post-1945 governments it was basically managerial rather than ideological. Britain has had only two properly radical governments since the second world war: Atlee's and Thatcher's.

Well that fits with the narrative that's developing here, that the Political Left was on the way out before Blair, before Thatcher even.

>> but are actually economic Tories <<

What, increasing taxes (stealthily) and then borrowing even more and splurging it all on unreformed public services? I don't know any tory who'd recognise that as their economic policy.

RF

Yeah, RF, while maintaining and being 'incredibly relaxed' about increased inequality, favouring a deregulated financial sector, not raising income tax on the super-wealthy, talking about the deserving poor and thinking that markets know best are all traditional Labour values, eh?

In fact, calling them economic Tories is shorthand, as you probably realise, for them being so far to the right economically that they are qualitively different to any other Labour govt. To be fair to them, they did stop the poorest getting poorer still, and they did try to do it below the radar, hence 'stealth' taxes, and income support etc.

>Well that fits with the narrative that's developing here, that the Political Left was on the way out before Blair, before Thatcher even.

It demonstrates that economic statism was on the way out. When it came to a lot of other issues, especially those relating to racism and sexual freedom, the left kept fighting and eventually won.

The problem is that the left hasn't replaced state-socialism with any new idea yet. Blair's "third way" mixture of free-market economics and a "thriving" public sector was a half-baked idea which didn't work and failed to convince anyone other than his fellow Blairites. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, personally, and eventually decided it wasn't working, mainly because the private sector has no real interest in social welfare or "public-private" beyond as a method of sucking money out of the treasury.

As I argued earlier, the problem of climate change and the banking crisis are essentially ending the current economic consensus. This begs the question: what next? Public ownership of the banks? A new variant of capitalism? "social entrepreneurism"? The left has an opportunity to be a bit imaginative and start thinking how it can help fix things; the optimist in me says it's become more confident and capable of doing so; the pessimist in me thinks the Trotskyites will shout everyone else down.

swl,

> In this country, I'd wager that the vast majority of voters automatically equate Labour = Left and Tory = Right.

I'm not sure about that - I think the record low turnouts of elections recently suggest that people think that Labour = Tory. The Tories will most likely win, but that vote won't be a pro-Tory vote, but an anti-Labour vote.

I think you're right though that Europe has seen a shift to the right recently, and in some disturbing ways (particularly in Italy).

Zagreb,

> The solution is new ideas and new thinking. The last time the left had a completely new set of ideas was Marx and, erm, look where that got everyone.

I'd say that there are plenty of new ideas on the left (although maybe not as significant as Marxism) - the solution must be something different. I'm not sure what though.

Here's another view. What we need is not new ideas, but old ideas. Marx didn't create the Left. In fact, there was considerable revolutionary energy and organisation before Marx, largely anarchist in character. My view - and putting my cards on the table, I'm an anarchist - is that Marxism has been a huge and incredibly harmful diversion for the left (and the world generally), and that it is only now beginning to recover from it. Old (anarchist) ideas are beginning to gain more sway, as well as modern variants on those ideas (which is quite appropriate, as those ideas were designed for a very different age). There's a lot of merit to Gabriel Kolko's thesis in "After Socialism", that had it not been for Marx, the left would have won long ago.

Incidentally, Hugo Chavez is leading an effort to create a new International (it will be the Fifth International). This could be very significant for the left in coming years. I haven't read enough about it to give unconditional support to the idea, but from what I've seen the idea is to have an organisation that is much more decentralised, participatory, democratic, etc.

Dogster:

>>My view - and putting my cards on the table, I'm an anarchist - is that Marxism has been a huge and incredibly harmful diversion for the left (and the world generally), and that it is only now beginning to recover from it.

One obvious way is that some laziness dismiss the entire Marx canon on the basis of 'look what happened in the Soviet Union' Not particularly you, Dogster - but there's a general tendency to blame Marx for various interpretations which - well, weren;t particularly Marxist. Admittedly this justification comes close to the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy...but it's not entirely true that Marxist thought has led inevitably to disaster.

I hope i've made it clear enough that I'm far from an dogmatic, ideooogical Marxist (incidentally...Effers is way off the money to suggest that Marxism is just an ideology. He was a lot slippier and more non-commital than many people - including his supporters imagine: 'If all these people are Marxists, then I'm not one.' )

Actually, rather than an economic or political Marxist, I'm more of a philosohical one. It's important to remember that Marx was, first and foremost, a philosopher building on various strands that were current in his time - and on the general history of philosophy. So I'm far from arguing that Marx had a fleshed-out political solution.

But what have we been talking about above if not dialectical materalism and economic determinism? Useful concepts to throw into the pot, I'd say.

economic determinism<<

That´s what many financial analysts talk about using expressions as "those are the laws of market" but they wouldn´t call themselves Marxists.
From the little Marxism I know in relation to economy, Marx didn´t expose a corpus of ideology but a diagnosis of the power structures.
It´s not neccesary to know about marxism to realise that economy determines or affects, that´s the way I understand determinism here, all the aspects of a society.

Adair Turner, the president of the Financial Services Authority, the entity that regulates the British finance market, said recently "I wish I had a magical wand, I´d reduce the speculative operations with currencies" That expressions and other similar ones seem to me that there´s a kind of resignation about those unavoidable (?) laws of market. Laws that allow some traders to put in risk or simply attack a currency, as it happened at the begining of this month with the euro, something similar to what George Soros did to the pound time ago.

As well as I hate the whole idea of determinism, I hate that assumption that we can´t scape from speculators. The laws of market can´t be seen as the Laws of Nature.

I want to be optimistic. I expect that those laws change. I expect that all goverments consider that it´s neccesary a most effective regulation and control of financial operations. The funny thing is that in US, mainly, and in other countries, the state has had to rescue the banks for their bad practices. So, if at the end of the speculative fiesta the state is who pay the bill for all the mess, at least it should have more control to prevent that from happening again.
And... we also need actions to control the tax heavens, to control international transactions etc. That can´t be seen as an attack to the freedom of companies or banks to act, but as a protection of the whole society, who is who suffer and pay the bill of those bad practices.

And finally, that corporation or whatever they are, of northamerican lawyers and economists that adviced the last conservative Greek goverment to cheat about economy... aren´t going to be punished??

We need a lot of regulations and laws. It´s obvious where so much liberalism has led us.

::
Dogster:
Hugo Chávez´s idea seems good, but I wouldn´t join anything coming from him. He can´t talk about democracy.

Indeed, mar. I wsn't meaning Determinism in the sense of economics determining the 'natural' laws of the market. I meant in the sense of economic relationships governing the nature of society. Which we've talked about elsewhere.

>>t´s not neccesary to know about marxism to realise that economy determines or affects...all the aspects of a society.

That's a good point. It's pretty obvious and maybe no great insight - although arguably Marx said it strongest, if not first (and the right still tend to stress the importance of individual character). But what Marx said was, I think, slightly more subtle. It was that the effects of the abstraction of labour into Capital leads to the commodification of people and hence a stratified society. (and he also said some stuff about how restless such societies are).

In other words, it's just that society is shaped by the fact that some are rich and some poor, but that treating Capital as an abstract has some effects of its own. Like dealing in derivatives leading to the loss of homes and jobs which leads to (my guess would be) poor health outcomes, increased crime, etc. etc.

The fact that all this is totally obvious (isn't it?) perhaps suggests that Marx's influence has reached beyond people who'd ever call themselves Marxists.

>Here's another view. What we need is not new ideas, but old ideas. Marx didn't create the Left. In fact, there was considerable revolutionary energy and organisation before Marx, largely anarchist in character.

Very true, although the main leftwing stream of political thought prior to Marx was radical liberalism. Specifically, my personal definition of a pre-Marxist leftist would be Tom Paine. It's interesting that, despite the Marxist creep, a lot of those old leftist ideas have never really gone away. The whole anti-ID cards thing, for instance, has a lot more of Paine than Marx about it.

>My view - and putting my cards on the table, I'm an anarchist

Here's a thing - I used to be an anarchist a looong time ago. I gave up on the ideology because I found most of its practitioners to be poseurs, mysanthropic or pretentious (myself included; 'm accusing you of neither, of course) and I also decided that it was an unworkable ideology because it expected a lot of good faith from society as a whole and was too unwilling to compromise to the extent where its influence became negative - eg anarchists refusing to co-operate with police under any circumstances for ideological reasons. I'm still quite interested in anarchist theory for the same reason I'm interested in Marx's or Adam Smith's ideas, although I don't accept them.

>Incidentally, Hugo Chavez is leading an effort to create a new International (it will be the Fifth International). This could be very significant for the left in coming years.

Oh dear, *no*. The left really really needs to get away from people like Chavez. He's single-minded, paranoid, confrontational and deeply authoritarian.

I'm still wondering why no-one here has come up with any rational reason why we shouldn't treat political ideologies in the same way we would any other mythology?

As I said earlier, I accept I have myths in my life...I think it maybe impossible not to have a few in one's life. But the thing is to accept, that unless they are amenable to being tested, say like a religion, which is certainly a form of myth, IMO, why should we take a political ideology any more seriously than any other myth?

I think 'provisional' truth is the best we can ever hope for...which even science accepts, in the sense that *all* theories are potentially falsifiable.

What I can't stand is ideologues spouting stuff as if its *true*...even if they are quite fluffy and fimbly in their spouting.

I reckon Marxism will go the same way as all myths, religious or political, eventually..it will run its course, when society changes and evolves, as it always has done for the last few hundred thousand years of human culture, it will just cease to be relevant. IMO it already is irrelevant. But a few dinosaur myth/memes will hang on. but some may evolve into bird myth/memes?

Who knows?

>>I'm still wondering why no-one here has come up with any rational reason why we shouldn't treat political ideologies in the same way we would any other mythology?

Because unlike mythologies, political ideologies are necessary. We need some sort of structure to how we decide to allow our lives to be decided and manipulated for us. And unfortunately (sorry Ed) capitalism is the most obvious path to take. It's the logical extension of evolution by natural selection. I don't like it, but I understand it. You're healthy - you thrive. You're not - you die. Simple as that.

About Chavez: I think it's perfectly reasonable to be slightly suspicious about him. I do think he's been subject of a propaganda campaign against him, but nonetheless there does seem to be some real evidence against him. For my part, I'm going to watch what happens at the first meeting of the new International (in August I think) and keep an open mind about it. If I was involved in a left wing organisation of some sort, I'd argue for going to it in tentative support. My reasons being that the left is incredibly fragmented today, and the creation of a new International could be incredibly valuable. It wouldn't be if it became just an instrument of Chavez (or any other personality for that matter), but that's what would be seen after the first meeting.

Ed,

I absolutely agree with you that the criticism of Marx that it led to Stalinism and has therefore been proved wrong is, if put like that, lazy and wrong. Marxism is both an analysis of history and politics, and a revolutionary programme for change. There could be failures in the one and not in the other, for example. The anarchist critique of Marxism, which was developed at the time that Marx was coming up with his ideas, not long after with the benefit of hindsight, is that it was inevitably going to lead to authoritarianism. They said this from the point of view of agreeing with his analysis of history. Read this if I haven't already foisted it on you:

http://www.connexions.org/RedMenace/Docs/RM4-Bakunin-Jewell.htm

Just one quote from Bakunin to whet your appetite:

"The leaders of the Communist Party, namely Mr. Marx and his followers, will concentrate the reins of government in a strong hand. They will centralize all commercial, industrial, agricultural, and even scientific production, and then divide the masses into two armies — industrial and agricultural — under the direct command of state engineers, who will constitute a new privileged scientific and political class."

And this said in 1873!

Gabriel Kolko's criticism of Marx that I mentioned goes a step further, and says that anything based on Marx's theoretical work is likely to lead to authoritarianism. It's an interesting argument, but quite speculative. The basic idea is that Marxism is so obscurantist (and I would have to agree with that, having tried and failed to read Marx) that (a) it will only ever be understood by a small number, (b) it is sufficiently flexible and amorphous that its meaning can be more or less changed at will by those small number. In other words, it will necessarily function like a religious hierarchy, with the priesthood of professional Marxists interpreting the words of the prophet for the masses. The argument then is that this authoritarian mindset in the intellectual basis must lead to authoritarian outcomes.

OK so that's the argument. I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. I would certainly like to see an intelligent response to it.

Even so, I don't think that would mean that nothing in Marx is useful or insightful, it just argues against the use of Marxism as a whole as a theoretical basis.

Zagreb,

I agree that a lot of anarchists today are as you describe them. In addition to its deeper analysis, I think anarchism has a simplistic appeal which tends to attract a mostly young, angry, male crowd. Actually, I think this is true of almost any radical organisation, left or right wing. It doesn't mean it's wrong, just that it's radical.

Actually, my relationship to anarchism is a bit like Ed's to Marxism, I'm more interested in the analysis than the revolutionary programme. Indeed, I'm not sure that anarchists have a viable revolutionary programme, especially because most of it is predicated on using the trade unions, whose relevance and importance is fading (although, perhaps this may change).

> I also decided that it was an unworkable ideology because it expected a lot of good faith from society as a whole and was too unwilling to compromise to the extent where its influence became negative - eg anarchists refusing to co-operate with police under any circumstances for ideological reasons.

Well, to speak of an anarchist ideology might be slightly misleading - there are lots of currents in anarchism. (I don't object to the term ideology but to the idea of there being just one in anarchism.) The second thing you said (about refusal to compromise) I'm not sure applies to anarchism as a whole, but maybe to many of their chief organisations in practice today. It certainly doesn't apply historically - for example anarchists have been very willing to engage with others who disagree with them (notably in the Spanish civil war, although that didn't work out well for them).

The first thing you said though (about requiring good faith) might indeed apply to all of anarchism. I would put it differently though, not that it requires good faith, but that it requires a mass change in how people think. For anarchism to work, it's not just society that has to change, but people's attitudes. But actually I think is inevitable - if society is to change for the better, people's attitudes do have to change. Not everyone's of course - it would be hopeless to expect people to become saints - but a critical mass of people would need to be basically tolerant and respectful of others. That's far from true today, but I believe it can change. It may take many years (perhaps centuries). In the end though, unless we can achieve this, any political change is bound to fail in the long term. Although that's not to say that we can't ameliorate political problems in the shorter term, and it's extremely well worth working towards doing this.