The only force capable of carrying out a national solution that could succeed is the people who embody what a nation is and who must preserve the nation and its culture if they are to survive – and they are the workers of that nation…
Capital’s global ambitions got us into this mess – only workers’ nationalism can get us out
WORKERS, MAY 2009 ISSUE
It is now urgent for us to re-focus on Britain – the rest of the world thinks we’re bankrupt. Inevitably attention has been diverted by conflict and devastation in the Middle East over the past couple of months. They must look to their own future; we must deal with an emergency for our class, those we are responsible for, the people of Britain. To the west the USA is in the grip of temporary “euphoria” – in quite a clinical sense – with its new figurehead. And meanwhile here, the government is forced by capitalism into such a level of indebtedness that it will now resort to printing money to keep its head above water. Will advice from Zimbabwe be sought?
This “looking-out-for-yourself” fear gripping capitalism is breeding growing disparity and rivalry between national capitalisms – their governance on a national basis – fuelling the danger of conflict and ruining their attempts at “global” inter-capitalist cooperative solutions. The only force capable of carrying out a national solution that could succeed is the people who embody what a nation is and who must preserve the nation and its culture if they are to survive – and they are the workers of that nation.
The euro, again
Within the European Union the crisis is beginning to create fractures in the semblance of unity as governments take measures to either pacify or repress growing protests in several countries. For example, many countries tied to the euro object to Britain having certain advantages in imports, and the call goes out, with Mandelson throwing them a lifeline, that Britain should get on with reconsidering adoption of the euro (no doubt avoiding a referendum at all costs).
National self-interest for us, workers, is a strength; for capitalism it is seen as a spiral downwards in a “retreat into narrow self-interest”, helping to fuel the collapse of confidence and growing fear of the breakdown of cooperation among an international finance capitalism.
This is the same for all nations – who must find their own solutions. And without nationalism there can be no internationalism.
Back in October the International Monetary Fund assessed that the world banking system had come very close to total collapse – and the fear of such catastrophe was a useful tool to instigate fraud on a colossal scale as finance capital scooped up national funds from workers in every land who were forced to stump up their hard earned cash.
Thus we see capitalism desperate for global solutions, intent on spreading its empire to save itself – but our advantage is the strength of the national unit. A collapsing capitalism is dismayed by retreat into self-interested nation states, but working peoples can be emboldened by achieving unity on the national scale.
Revival
Look at the working class revival in France, Greece and now in Britain where the fight back is coming from some unexpected quarters, with many strongly objecting to the open borders of the EU and its dispersal of undercutting, compliant labour. Knowledge is spreading of the losses Britain has already suffered, to conditions, to law, to cultural traditions and now, yet again and on a greater scale, to jobs and skills.
National wealth and resources are being frittered away relentlessly. The use of oil and gas revenue for foreign adventures and dole in the Thatcher years and subsequently has been spelled out in Workers.
Other examples of the abandonment of strategic reserves are the sale of national gold reserves (at the cheapest point) and earlier the loss of steel under Thatcher and her successors. Now, in a world crisis, companies like Tata Steel can, at a whim, shift resources out of Britain to suit themselves.
What remains of manufacturing must now be defended at all costs and it is particularly important to fight to keep those with skills. A thousand apprentices were recruited for new shipbuilding on the Clyde. What do we make of that? Great, but with a new generation of aircraft carrier being the end point, is re-armament and war being seen as a solution? And anyway, the story ended in March this year when they were all sacked. There’s no security with capitalism, above all not in militarism.
Yet even after all the cuts over decades, still 4.5 per cent of national output is in engineering. Banking is about 4.3 per cent – yet billions of pounds are thrown at one, while the other starves.
To create a real, tangible national unity we need a national plan that reverses this seizure and squandering of our nation’s historic wealth and resources. The massive investment should be going into, for example, infrastructure that reinforces the reality of ‘nation’: into extending fully Britain-wide rail; water resources; clean coal, reviving that industry; innovative nuclear power; manufacture of things here; a single, national bank; clearing out of foreign bases and confiscation of alien assets.
The Icelandic solution
Certainly a wish list that would not go unopposed! But is the alternative any easier? Stumping up handouts to the bottomless pockets of mystery financiers; spending a fortune on imports; having our national currency trashed; printing money, thus devaluing our hard earned cash and risking runaway inflation. Is Iceland’s fall a taste of what we will have to fight? Look at it being coerced into joining the EU by 2011 (“fast tracked”) and adopting the euro even sooner? Strong voices are raised, social conflict breaks out – who wants a 200-mile, rich fishing zone cut to 12?
In Scotland we have the separatist Salmond similarly pushing for the “euro for Scotland”, but voices are strong enough to at least hold him to ridicule for his portrayal last year of a “Triangle of Prosperity” which unfortunately for him included both Iceland and Ireland (first in Europe to declare itself “in recession”). The resultant growing anger of Irish workers may be enough to make them resolve to reject the EU and its second attempt to make them vote for its constitution.
The capitalist crisis in east Asia in the 90s has some lessons - but at least Japan had enough indigenous industry to see it through its chronic trade deficit and decade of decline. That is not the case with Britain, also injured by its loss of resources as outlined above. The TUC seemed ignorant of this situation in last year’s over-optimistic assessment of the “UK as the world’s 4th biggest economy”.
The clock can certainly be turned back to find some suitable comparisons – for instance, the worst economic outlook since 1945. “The Slowdown echoes the Great Depression of the 1930s,” said the new deputy governor of the Bank of England; the Bank itself now has interest rates at the lowest since its founding 400 years ago.
Marx’s portrait of the crisis of just over 150 years ago is apt – telling of capitalism’s incessantly recurring crises, its continual downward spirals and increasingly more vicious nature as it scrambles for the last drop of profit.
And, of course, all of this pinpoints a serious juncture in the process we have long defined as the absolute decline of capitalism. This story is now getting the exposure it has richly deserved for so long – revealed in all its gory details. The extent of both its hoard and its worthlessness came as a surprise to many.
The pyramid of hidden wealth now collapsing may have serious consequences for workers and the stability of their nations, especially here in Britain, and in the USA. A capitalist system that could survive such a crisis would inevitably be more vicious and controlling than before, with their enemy clearly the workers whom they have to exploit more vigorously. Already widespread plans are in place in the US to repress “civil unrest” – and there are many signs here that Britain is moving in a similar direction.