Socialists For Small Government?

From Chris Dillow's Stumbling and Mumbling blog:

Shrink the state: a leftist aim, April 17th 2009

David Semple thinks the left should join American tea parties, which protest against high taxes. I think I agree. The desire to shrink the state should be a leftist aim. I say so for four reasons.

1. Big government cannot be redistributive government. If the state is raising 40% of GDP in taxes, it must tax the worst off, simply because the rich, even in the UK and US, aren’t that rich or plentiful.

This pdf gives us the numbers. Table 2 shows that the tax system - leaving aside benefits - actually adds to inequality. This is because direct taxes cut the Gini coefficient by 4 percentage points, but indirect taxes add 5 points to it. And table 21 shows that the poorest fifth of households with children pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than the richest 10%: 37.2% against 33%.

2. A big state hurts the worst off. Right-wing nut jobs might pose as victims of “ZaNuLabour.” But whether we look at Purnell’s welfare plans, repressive anti-immigration laws or the policing of protests, it is ordinary people who are the real victims of an overly powerful state: newspaper sellers, poor foreigners, the unemployed and ill. The left should be on their side.

3. When the state has lots of power, there’ll be a big fight to control it. And it’s the rich and powerful that win such fights. Why do you think banks get big bail-outs whilst ordinary workers are flung onto the dole with little compensation?

4. Belief in big government rests upon the notion that there’s an elite of leaders which has the wisdom and know-how to manage our affairs from the top-down; this is why New Labour found common cause with corporate bosses - both share the same ideology. But it is an utterly anti-egalitarian notion. It is also utterly wrong.

Lenin and Politics

The essay below I wrote in early 1990. I wish I had been much more aware of libertarian socialist/anarchist critiques of Bolshevism then, and I would be more wary now of saying Western socialism can cope with more bureaucracy. Plus it understates my own feelings about how far the powers-that-be would go to stop a democratic socialist government in the West taking power and implementing its programme. Having said that, there is a lot in it I still agree with...even more so now!

PS Sorry for all the footnotes...


“Lenin was a political genius who despised and distrusted politics.”

Lenin was undoubtedly a political genius in that he was able to seize a fleeting opportunity during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and gain power for the Bolsheviks. He organised a successful coup d’etat and let the peasantry “do the work of the proletarian revolution.” [1] He was distrustful of politics, however, in the way that many avowedly Marxist political parties throughout Europe in the early Twentieth Century were developing. He was particularly concerned about the German Social Democrats, who through theoreticians like Eduard Bernstein and politicians like Karl Kautsky, had “revised” Marxism [2], so that the SPD could declare that parliamentary politics, rather than violent insurrection, could bring about socialism. Lenin’s disillusion with many European Marxists was heightened when the SPD and other socialist parties failed to opposed the First World War [3], and when the avowedly revolutionary Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries supported the Provisional Government in Russia during 1917 [4]. In State and Revolution Lenin wanted to show why parliamentary politics was a dead-end for Marxists, due to the nature of contemporary capitalist states and democracies.

Lenin disagrees strongly with those Marxists who believe the state is “above” class conflict: it is, he says, “a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.” [5] In capitalist society, “A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power”: Lenin sees the state as primarily a coercive force. [6] He adds that “Bourgeois states are the most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states…in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” [7] Lenin concludes, through his interpretation of Marx and Engels, that “The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution.” [8] Lenin is aware, however, of some of the writings of Marx and Engels that suggest that peaceful change is possible, and hence “revisions” have got an excuse to claim that parliamentary politics is what socialists should concentrate upon. [9]

Lenin’s main objection is based upon what he sees as major changes to capitalism since the era of Marx and Engels. Lenin believes that the state has changed due to changes in capitalism: “Imperialism- the era of bank capital…gigantic capitalist monopolies…the development of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism- has clearly shown an extraordinary strengthening of the ‘state machine’ and an unprecedented growth in its bureaucratic and military apparatus in connection with the intensification of repressive measures against the proletariat both in the monarchical and…the freest, republican countries.” [10] To quote Bukharin, from whom Lenin got many of his ideas about Imperialism: “In former times parliament served as an arena for the struggle amongst various factions of the ruling group…Finance capital has consolidated almost all of their varieties into one ‘solid reactionary mass’ united in many centralised organisations. ‘Democratic’ and ‘liberal’ sentiments are replaced by open monarchist tendencies.” [11]

These changes means, says Lenin, that those “petit-bourgeois democrats” who believe that socialism would arrive with “the peaceful submission of the minority to the majority which has become aware of its aims” causes “in practice…the betrayal of the interests of the working class…”[12] The apparently democratic features of capitalist society, in fact, help the capitalists. Lenin cites Engels as being both “most explicit in calling for universal suffrage an instrument of bourgeois rule”, [13] and believing that “In a democratic republic…’wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely’, first, by means of the ‘direct corruption of officials…; secondly, by means of an ‘alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange’…”[14] The illusion of power that parliamentary government can control capitalism is, says Lenin, most powerful under a democratic republic and that is why it “is the best possible shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell…it establishes power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.” [15] As a result “the servile social democrats…acted the role of pliant accomplices of the imperialist state.”[16]

Lenin also criticised parliamentary politics on the grounds that it did not allow meaningful democratic participation on politics, He observes that “in the ordinary course of events, the majority of the population is disbarred from participation in public and political life” [17], and “If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy…we see restriction after restriction upon democracy…in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.” [18]

If Lenin saw parliamentary politics as ineffectual in changing the nature of capitalism and alienating to the mass of people, how did he see the political system changing after a socialist revolution? Lenin saw the 1871 Paris Commune as the model of a future socialist society, and believed that the soviets that emerged in Russia during 1917 could become latter-day versions of the commune. Lenin believed that “The commune…replaced the smashed state machine ‘only’ by fuller democracy” [19]- “democracy” which saw the participation of the whole population in the running of the functions previously carried out by the state. Lenin notes that “The first decree of the Commune…was the suppression of the standing army, and its replacement by the armed people…”[20] Since Lenin saw armed force as the mainstay of all states, all authority in the commune/soviet would flow from this. Lenin saw mass participation as the answer to the threat of a bureaucracy emerging as a result of the administration needed during the “first stage” of communism. The rationalisation of capitalism during the Imperialist stage would help this process considerably: “the great majority of the functions of the old ‘state power’ have become so simplified and can be reduced to such exceedingly simple operation…that they can be easily performed by ever literate person…and…these functions can…be stripped of every shadow of privilege.” [21] In time there would be a “gradual ‘withering away’ of all bureaucracy, to the gradual creation of an order…under which the functions of control and accounting, becoming more and more simple, will be performed by each in turn…and will finally die out as the special functions of a special section of the population.” [22]

Despite opposing the parliamentary system, Lenin saw the possibility of mass participation in the running of the country: “The way out of parliamentarianism is not…the abolition of representative institutions and the elective principles, but the conversion of the representative institutions from talking shops into ‘working’ bodies.” [23] Like Marx, Lenin saw such institutions as being a “a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.” [24] The representatives are delegates of their constituents and “have to work…execute their own laws, have themselves to test the results achieved in reality, and to account directly to their constituents.” [25]

Lenin’s belief that the commune can create freedom via direct participation in democracy starts to put into doubt by his plans for the economy under socialism. He declares that “Until the ‘higher’ stage of communism arrives…socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption…” [26] Also, “All citizens become employees and workers of a single country-wide state ‘syndicate’. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of the work, and get equal pay.” [27] Lenin believes that “Marx was a centralist.” [28]

Before examining the anti-democratic and arguably “anti-political” tendencies of Lenin’s post-revolutionary vision, it is worth considering two major flaws in Lenin’s critique of capitalist political systems. Firstly, his discussions of the capitalist state depended a lot upon Marx and Engels; the problem was that their “discussions of specific and concrete social institutions was concerned almost exclusively with moments, of rupture, destruction and reconstruction in European history- the years 1789, 1848 and 1871 being the recurrent foci. Lenin was transmitted no knowledge at all of the realities of stability of the complex networks if institutions and practices which constituted the body of western society.” [29] Also “Marx wrote in a period where there was a consensus…about the impossibility of a pluralistic and consensual politics.”[30] Between that period and 1914 there was an increase throughout Europe in the scope of liberal democracy, and Polan points out that “Even…minimum liberalization and democratisation implies the possibility of evolution towards something more substantial.” [31] Radicals like Lenin “were confronted with a quite unfamiliar world of ‘competitive open’ politics, in which much of their established thought and practice became simply irrelevant.” [32]

The second major flaw was that Lenin was Russian; Czarist Russia was probably the most politically repressive and socio-economically backward country in Europe. Indeed, Russia was barely capitalist. [33] Lenin’s distrust of the social democratic belief that socialism could come through parliamentary legislation was because in Russia “there existed no possible connection between the state and freedom, there was only a profound antagonism,” [34] while in much of Europe “the connection between the state and freedom was law.” [35] Similarly, his prejudice towards the “bourgeois state machine” which “would resist, sabotage and destroy social democratic movements”, [36] stemmed from the common Russian belief “that civil servants were not just corruptible, but that public administration was synonymous with corruption…” [37] Lenin believed from Russian experience that freedom under socialism “demanded a reduction in the tasks and responsibilities of the state.” [38] Yet this could not apply to Western socialism, which saw the introduction of measures essential for building socialism in advanced complex societies, such as state economic intervention and welfare provision, needing a large bureaucracy. [39] Lenin’s belief that direct participation could end the alienation of people from “politics” floundered in Russia, since most of the population had no experience of even the most minimal kind of participation, such as voting for parliament. As a result of “the comparatively low educational…attainments of the average Russian worker” [40], and a realisation that “The peasantry…was incapable of political initiative”, [41] Lenin had to, post-revolution, support “the swift re-introduction of specialists and one-man management” [42] and ask the soviets “to separate ‘the necessary, useful preparation of the masses for executing a certain measure and checking upon its execution…from the actual execution itself’.” [43] According to those on the left of the Bolsheviks “Bureaucracy was…the inevitable result of the…move way from proletarian self-activity.” [44]

A centralised economic system, as Lenin envisaged, would perhaps inevitably led to the Soviet Union coming under the control of a bureaucracy. However, Lenin’s state structure, combined with his distrust of politics, meant that a bureaucratic dictatorship was inevitable. The bureaucracy would arise to administer state functions: “Administration concerns the carrying out of an already determined policy”, says Polan, while “politics involves the discussion and negotiation of such policies.” [45] The soviets, however, could not offer “politics”, Polan says; for “If the ‘parliamentarians’ of the soviet system have to ‘execute their own laws’…we are talking about the same people as…administrators and bureaucrats.” [46] Also “The elected deputies…have to make the laws, carry them out and criticize them”[47] in a state which allows “no distances…spaces…appeals…checks…balances…processes
…delays…interrogations, and above all, no distribution of power.” [48] The system “demands…for Lenin’s political structure to work…an absence of politics.” [49] In short, “Lenin summarily overthrows any…claim he might have had of treating bureaucratisation as a serious problem.” [50] Lenin believed in practice that the “answer ‘to…bureaucracy was to fall back on the more advanced workers, on the proletarian elite, or, rather, on the Party.’” [51] Students of bureaucracy, such as Weber, would know that “this was…to make the cure even worse than the disease.” [52]

Lenin by 1917 denied “the very existence of problematic political ideas within the bulk of the working class.” [53] He saw the politics of other socialists being purely “private self-interest made public.” [54] This allowed Lenin “to abolish any possible distance between the gross economic position of an individual and his motivations”; [55] hence “there can be no genuine differences of opinion in political life” [56], pushing “to the limit the possibilities of economic reductionism that Marxism might contain.” [57] With all people in the same economic position, working for the state, there could be no genuine disagreements over ends in the Bolshevik system, according to this logic. As a result, all political oppositions to the Bolsheviks, whether or not socialist, could be justifiably eliminated. Under Lenin’s system “Politically, the people were abolished”, [58] and bureaucratic administration ruled supreme.

To conclude, it can be said that Lenin’s distrust of politics which was inappropriate to Russia in 1917, and the elimination of socialist groups and ideas that opposed him, such as the Kronstadt sailors [59], made his genius in making Russia socialist ultimately flawed. If he had accepted that social democracy and “revisionist” forms of Marxism were appropriate for Western parliamentary democracy, socialist regimes may have come to power in the years following 1917 which would have allowed a socialist transformation of advanced industrial societies, and saved the USSR from backwardness and isolation. Instead, Lenin’s belief that his model was appropriate to all countries, combined with his intolerance and suspicion of parliamentary politics, meant him exporting his model to Europe via the newly formed communist parties of the time. This led to the left either being split [60] or advocating socialism totally inappropriate to Western countries [61]. In time this led to the Soviet Union becoming an isolated bureaucratic monstrosity, and socialism in Europe being unable to find a viable alternative to capitalism, while being tainted through association with Soviet socialism, Lenin’s distrust of “politics” could be said to have put back socialism in Europe so far that to call him a political “genius” is rather ironical.

Footnotes

[1] G. Lichtheim, (1971) Marxism, pp.332-333
[2] V.I. Lenin, (1964) “The State and Revolution” in V.I. Lenin Collected Works, Volume 25, eds. S.Aspreyan and J. Riordan, p.386
[3] J. Callaghan, (1987) The Far Left in British Politics, p.1
[4] Lenin, op cit, p.393
[5] ibid, p.387
[6] ibid, p.389
[7] ibid, p.413
[8] ibid, p.400
[9] ibid, p.415
[10] ibid, p.410
[11] N. Harding, (1981) Lenin’s Political Thought, Volume 2, p.96
[12] Lenin, op cit, p.404
[13] ibid, p.393
[14] ibid, p.392
[15] ibid, p.393
[16] Harding, op cit, p.115
[17] Lenin, op cit, p.460
[18] Ibid, p.460-461
[19] Ibid, p.419
[20] Ibid, p.418
[21] Ibid, p.421
[22] Ibid, p.426
[23] Ibid, p.423
[24] Ibid, p.423
[25] Ibid, p.424
[26] Ibid, p.470
[27] Ibid, p.473
[28] Ibid, p.429
[29} A. Polan, (1984) Lenin and the end of politics, p.154
[30] Ibid, p.174
[31] Ibid, p.175
[32] Ibid, p.174
[33] Callaghan, op cit, p.3
[34] Polan, op cit, p.161
[35] Ibid, p.161
[36] Ibid, p.58
[37] Ibid, p.163
[38] Ibid, p.67
[39] Ibid, p.67
[40] Harding, op cit, p.126
[41] Ibid, p.212
[42] Ibid, p.126
[43] Ibid, p.191
[44] Ibid, p.265
[45] Polan, op cit, p.77
[46] Ibid, p.80
[47] Ibid, p.81
[48] Ibid, p.129
[49] Ibid, p.129
[50] Ibid, p.81
[51] Ibid, p.68
[52] Ibid, p.68
[53] Ibid, p.171
[54] Ibid, p.175
[55] Ibid, p.175
[56] Ibid, p.176
[57] Ibid, p.176
[58] Ibid, p.78
[59] Harding, op cit, p.272
[60] Callaghan, op cit, pp.3-4
[61] Ibid, p.4

How Monty Python Made Me A Socialist

I would have probably become a socialist of some sort anyhow. I was brought up in a working-class Labour-voting family (my dad did join the Labour Party for a while, but found out, like Oscar Wilde had claimed, the problem with socialism was "too many meetings"). I am also left-handed, so when I was a sprog and people said Labour was on the left, I sort of automatically identified with Labour!

Then came the Python connection. When I was about 9 my parents gave me "Monty Python Live At Drury Lane" on tape as a Xmas present. It had the Communist Quiz sketch in which Karl Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao and Che Guevara are asked questions about English football and pop music that they had next to no clue about. However, in the second part of the sketch Karl was asked questions about "workers' control of factories" to win a beautiful lounge suite (though he flunks it when asked about who won the 1949 FA Cup Final). It was there I fell for the idea of direct workers' control of their work places! After that I got out the "Great Lives" volume of a massive set of encyclopedias my mum had and looked up Karl Marx and it spoke about his support for workers' control of the economy. Being a mid-1950s mainstream sort of publication, "Great Lives" slagged Marx off, but he seemed a decent sort to me. So I have always been quite pro-Marx from quite a young age.

To Be Continued...

Still looking for a New England?

Two recent pro-English pieces from progressive bloggers. First, from Paul Kingsnorth:

England for the English, Sunday, October 28

This is getting worrying. Fresh on the heels of their really rather excellent Quality of Life policy review, which contained some seriously interesting thinking about green issues in British politics, the Tories are giving me another reason to take them seriously. Where will it end?

This time it's their proposal, announced yesterday, to ensure that only English MPs can vote on English matters in the House of Commons. Sounds like traditional Tory Little Englandism? Not so. Here's why.

The English are uniquely ill-served by post-1997 British democracy. The Scottish now have a Parliament, with elected members, a large budget and significant powers to run their own nation in their own way. The Welsh have the same to a lesser extent, as does Northern Ireland. And a good thing too - democratic devolution is always welcome. But all of these nations also have representatives in the British Parliament at Westminster, where Scottish and Welsh MPs can make decisions about the future of England to which they will never have to answer to their constituents – though English MPs cannot do the same in those countries.

Thus Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs at Westminster can vote, and have done, to impose controversial policies such as university tuition fees or foundation hospitals on the English which their constituents at home will not have to suffer and for which they will not be answerable at the ballot-box.

England is the only British nation without any form of democratic devolution. It is the only nation in Europe without its own parliament or government. It has fewer MPs per head of population than the other British nations, and receives less money per head from the treasury than either Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The British government has ministers for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – despite devolution – but no minister for England. The Scottish enjoy privileges, from free university education to a lack of academy schools, which the English can only dream of but for which the English have to pay. Meanwhile, Scottish MPs can ensure the government gets its way in denying those things to us south of the border.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not being anti-Scottish, Good luck to them. Scotland seems an exciting place to be these days, partly due to its renewed sense of nationhood. All I'm asking is for the same thing. England remains subsumed within 'Britain' while the other nations forge their own way. This is making a lot of people angry, across the political spectrum. Legendary Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who first invented this so-called 'West Lothian question' back in the 1970s, says that the unfairness of the political settlement since devolution is causing 'smouldering and growing concern in England, not least amongst some English Labour MPs.' This may be why almost 70% of English people - including me - now support the creation of a fully-fledged English Parliament, to square the circle created by devolution. Alex Salmond of the SNP supports us, by the way. There's a man who know which side his bread is buttered.

What's the government's reaction to this? They scorn it at every opportunity. They even resort, without irony, to the argument the Tories used when they opposed setting up the Scottish Parliament in the first place - that it will 'break up the union.' To which I reply: maybe it will. And if that's what the union's people want, that's what they should get. The Labour Party is dominated by Scots, and knows damn well that if the injustices of the British constitution are redressed, their power will be reduced. They know which side their bread is buttered too. Our job is to stop the buggers eating it. They did buy it with our money, after all.

Second piece is by Charlie Marks:
What England means to me
Charlie Marks, Thursday, October 11, 2007

The British ruling class has not only tried to stifle the national culture of Scotland and Wales: the radical tradition of the English working class is in dire need of popularization. For example, I did not learn in school about the Diggers, the Levellers, the Luddites, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the London Corresponding Society, or the Chartists, though the Suffragettes got a mention. Focus on events specific to England in the mainstream media did not stretch beyond coverage of sporting events.

It was no wonder that for a long time I confused England for Britain, and vice versa. Coming from an immigrant family further confused matters: could you be English if you were born in here but your parents were not? If my family came from Ireland but I was born here, did that mean I wasn’t Irish?

Unlike my Black and Asian friends at school, I did not face racism for being the child of immigrants, but I understood the hurt caused by jokes directed at the Irish and their use to divide people and prevent opposition to colonialism. Unlike my white friends, I knew a bit about the history of the British Empire, and could shoot-down claims that immigrants came to steal jobs or scrounge.

I have never experienced any animosity in Ireland for being English – and that is always the description, no one has ever said “Are you British?” upon hearing my accent.

As I grew up and became interested and involved in left-wing politics confusion over the issue of nationality returned. When New Labour allowed the creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly, it looked as if the contradictions inherent in the dual English-British identity held by most people in England were about to become antagonistic.

To this day, the idea that those “British” people in England might choose an English identity is rarely countenanced. If it is considered at all, it is as a threat. The reason for the denial or denigration of identity is that the development of an English national culture discrete from that of “Britishness” does in fact pose a threat to the British establishment. As Richard Weight wrote in his book Patriots,

“Over the coming decades, everything possible will be done to ensure the survival of the British state, some of which we shall never know about. The Empire may have gone, but capitalism – the economic system which helped to give birth to it – remains in existence. So too does the matrix of power relationships which evolved out of that economic system. It is highly unlikely that those who benefit most from capitalism would lose their privileges if Britain were to break up. But very few are prepared to take that chance.”

I would argue that the break-up of Britain is likely to pose a threat to power of the capitalist class. Would the independent nations of England, Scotland and Wales combine to pursue imperialist wars and colonial occupation in the Middle East as a junior partner of the United States? Would they have remained in the EU, and signed up to the establishment of a European capitalist super-state? Would the ruling class have succeeded in selling off public utilities and eroding the public provision of housing, healthcare, and education? Would there have been the policy of “managed decline” of the productive economy? I don’t think so.

The “matrix of power relationships” that evolved out of the demise of the British Empire have insured that Britain remains an imperial power – the process of decolonization did not result in Britain losing influence over its former colonies, and the close alliance with the United States is not just in recognition for the assistance provided during the Second World War, which itself came at a price.

It should be needless to say that what is essential to capitalists is detrimental to working people, and Britain’s role as a junior partner to the US, its membership of the European Union, and continued interference in the political affairs of former colonies, are essential for the capitalist class.

As a socialist, I do not seek an imperial or capitalist England, or a nation defined by religion or race. The abandoned Clause Four of the Labour Party’s constitution is probably the most famous affirmation (in the UK, at least) of what socialists seek, namely, “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service”.

In addition to this, socialists seek fraternal relations between nations and support the right to self-determination. At home, this should mean active support for the struggle to establish political representation at a national level for England – a cause which complements the movements for self-government in the other nations of the UK and would greatly improve the prospect of a united Ireland.

The nationalisms of Wales and Scotland are now reaching hegemony in the devolved institutions by implementing and supporting social democratic measures, stepping back from the neo-liberalism of New Labour.

The response to this from the capitalist press is to announce with outrage that inequalities in funding under the Barnett Formula allow this to take place, but to whisper that to increase the free provision of healthcare, etc., is simply not possible. In other words, their intention is not to see reforms that are beneficial to working class people implemented in England, but to see the reversal of these gains.

And there is a problem here – for as the former Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted before his departure, the Barnett Formula has been retained because it holds the union together. If funding is levelled down in Scotland in the next few years, the nationalist-led Scottish government would have a stronger case for independence.

The concept of England as a nation is unfamiliar to many English socialists, just as it is often imprecise for people in England. Socialist organisations encourage members to study the history of the working class internationally, often neglecting to examine and learn from the history of the working class in England, its radical traditions, and its struggle for political representation.

Just as the labour movement remains tied to the Labour Party, despite New Labour being recognized by workers as the party of capital, socialists in England (and some in Scotland and Wales) remain attached to the notion that the working class will come to power through the maintenance of the United Kingdom.

I hope that this will change, and that English socialists will come to realize that devolution completely rules out a multinational road to socialism and that devolution in England, far from being an irrelevant or reactionary development, would actually empower working people across the world.