Branch Meeting: Economic Blocs and Money

At Thursday night's branch meeting, comrade F gave a short lead off on the history of money, financial crisis, and what would happen to money in a socialist society. I hope the comrade won't mind if I skip over his comments on money's history, and proceed to the issues that provoked discussion

F raised a few pointers about the tendency within global capital toward the setting up of regional blocs, of which the European Union is the most advanced example. He showed how the Euro is intrinsic to the EU project, and is breaking a path for the African Union, and to a lesser extent, the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, and NAFTA. It is also likely the dynamics of global capital may encourage further centralising processes. Global economic bodies could assume even greater influence than is wielded by the IMF and World Bank now. One interesting point F also picked up on was the linkage between state forms and currencies - as the Euro was as much the offspring of the EU proto-state as it was of the coincidence of continental capital's interests, moves in this direction by other economic blocs will proceed side by side with the growth of cross border bureaucracies with their own supranational, albeit regional, aspirations. This being the case, after capitalism has suffered its permanent and irreversible defeat at the hands of the global working class, is it likely that money will wither away with the state?

Beginning with the withering away of money, D thought this was likely, though J added it very much depended on the concrete circumstances in which socialist revolution takes place. For example, as we saw in the case of Russia, a moneyless society cannot be constructed within the borders of a single, internationally isolated country.

P flagged up the contradictions of the EU and AU projects. On the one hand, the EU bureaucracy is a neoliberal tool in the hands of capital, but the centralisation of political authority and capital across the Eurozone territory could open up certain political opportunities for deepening the internationalism of the European labour movement. In the case of the AU, a centralised bureaucracy and currency could open up developmental processes that have not been possible due to the continent's history of weak, semi-colonial states.

A disagreed. Whereas Marx and Engels welcomed the development of nation states in the 19th century as agents that facilitate development, broadly speaking that was in capitalism's progressive phase. From the early 20th century and the division of the world into imperialist spheres of interest, that was no longer the case. Turning to the Euro, A felt it would not be taken up by other countries because of the contradiction between the conditions inside the Eurozone and outside it. In fact, it is possible the reforms that made the Euro possible could head into reverse. So far, continental capital has reaped the benefits of a period of stable accumulation, but if that was to change, the national interests of German, French, Italian, etc. capital would reassert themselves and the financial unity symbolised by the Euro and the European Central Bank torn asunder.

Replying to this, P argued if the Euro continues to strengthen internationally and Britain's trade with the Eurozone remains on an upward trajectory, the more attractive entry will be to "our" ruling class. Up until now, what has prevented Britain from doing so is the centrality of finance capital to the interests of the British bourgeoisie, which is very much bound up with the City of London remaining at the centre of global finance capital. The second key variable is the widespread opposition of the British population to monetary union. On economic crisis, P was doubtful the Euro would fragment back into national currencies. He suggested the ruling class would find other ways of insulating themselves against any crisis, such as accelerating EU expansion to allow flows of cheap labour from the East and Turkey into the metropolitan heartlands. This itself would have certain consequences, such as anti-immigration sentiment, and, ironically, the progressive integration of the European working class. The key is socialists must have a flexible response to crisis.

The remainder of the discussion was taken up with the discussion of the moneyless society, where comrades contrasted how we fight for socialist politics with the SPGB, despite our identical objectives. Summing up, F reiterated that you could not move from a society premised on the accumulation of capital for accumulation's sake to one based on production for need overnight.