1. The Weakness of Starmerism
2. Obligation and Class Consciousness
3. On Jeremy Corbyn's Defence Fund
4. Why are the Tories Invulnerable?
5. The Biopolitics of Herd Immunity
Critical Keir studies does the job yet again with the vacancy at the heart of the Labour leader's politics on the receiving end of the analytical scalpel. Coming second was a brief meditation on the breakdown of family bonds as a transmitter of voting behaviour as older, Labour loyal generations pass away and their now middle-aged to elderly children disproportionately punt for the Tories. The post on Jeremy Corbyn's legal fund does exactly what it says on the tin, while the next piece considers the polling quandary stumping politics at the moment: how high does the body count have to go, how many people have to suffer for the Tory figures to diminish significantly? And bringing up the rear is a look at the biopolitics of encouraging people to go back shopping and, to use Rishi Sunak's suspect phrase, eat out to help out. And what do you know, in an eventuality not at all foreseen the infection rate is climbing again as I write. Well done the Tories.
Walking into the second chance saloon, who might you find propping up the bar this month? I'm going to select three posts you might have missed. Here is the class politics of points-based immigration. i.e. Why are the Tories so intent on this scheme? Conditional and transactional politics considers the nature of contemporary politics and something the left needs to grasp if it's going to get anywhere. And lastly, you should read this piece on the SNP, because a sequel post is highly likely over the next few days.
Any guesses for next month? Well, I'm not entirely sure what my pour out from my fingertips yet! But chances are more Keir Starmer, more Tories, more Coronavirus. Make sure you tune in to find out.
8 comments:
«brief meditation on the breakdown of family bonds as a transmitter of voting behaviour as older, Labour loyal generations pass away and their now middle-aged to elderly children disproportionately punt for the Tories.»
Another point about this that I sometimes make and perhaps bears repeating and is not directly about property (readers will be surprised!) is about how one defines the constituency of "left" parties, e.g. Democrats in the USA and Labour in the UK.
Traditionally "left" parties have represented "outsiders", that is the "servant classes", which usually have had an ethnic base, because it is lower status, and usually immigrant, communities that are the outsiders that have to make do with "servant class" jobs. While Republicans and Conservatives have represented incumbents.
In the USA the democrats used to represent in particular the irish/jewish/italian "servant classes" in New England the german/scandinavian ones in the Midwest. In the UK Labour used to represent the irish/scottish/welsh/northern "servant classes". In both cases especially the urban proletarians, as jobs in the "dark satanic mills" was what attracted those "outsiders" to move from their distant rural areas to the cities.
This BTW explains why in both the USA and the UK so many rural "servant classes" vote Conservative/Republican even if it is against their class interests: they feel that they belong to the "insider"/"incumbent" ethnic group as the ruling classes. Most obviously in the case of the very poor hillbillies who died in great numbers for the american Confederation to defend the right of their superiors to own slaves.
The ethnic base of both Democrats and Labour is also evident in the disproportionate number of ethnic family names in their leadership ranks (from Cuomo to Kinnock). BTW In Australia the divide is even more stark: the two main parties represent the descendants of deportees (largely irish/northern) and of gaolers (largely english).
Then over the decades a large chunk of the ethnic "outsider" bases of both Democrats and Labour have been elevated by the policies of their parties to just-about "insider" status, and this has made them incumbents and even rentiers (e.g. good pensions, property ownership).
Then Democrats and Labour had a choice: whether to be based on class interests, and continue to be the parties of the "servant classes", and thus acquire a new ethnic base, or to be based on ethnic interests, and keep being the parties of the irish/jewish/italian or irish/northern/celtic ethnicities, but switch to champion their interests as minor "insiders" and incumbents.
The New Democrats and New Labour chose the latter course as the path of least resistance. The usual Tony Blair "Sierra man" quote as to "middle-aged to elderly children disproportionately punt for the Tories":
“I was canvassing in the Midlands on an ordinary suburban estate. I met a man polishing his Ford Sierra, self-employed electrician, Dad always voted Labour. He used to vote Labour, he said, but he bought his own home, he had set up his own business, he was doing quite nicely, so he said I’ve become a Tory.”
The problem is that it is not clear why there is a need of a third party to represent "insider" interests of incumbency, as the Conservative tories mostly represent the interests of incumbency in various form of property, and the Liberal whigs those of various forms of incumbency in privileged market positions. That way lies PASOKification, but that is very welcome to the champions of incumbents.
«The New Democrats and New Labour chose the latter course as the path of least resistance.»
As to this another quote from Tony Blair, characteristically lucid, from far back, when the "Prince of Darkness" had not completely seduced him:
“Post-war Britain has seen two big changes. First, and partly as a result of reforming Labour governments, there are many more healthy, wealthy and well-educated people than before. In addition, employment has switched from traditional manufacturing industries to a more white-collar, service-based economy. The inevitable result has been that class identity has fragmented.
Post-war Britain has seen two big changes. First, and partly as a result of reforming Labour governments, there are many more healthy, wealthy and well-educated people than before. In addition, employment has switched from traditional manufacturing industries to a more white-collar, service-based economy. The inevitable result has been that class identity has fragmented.
Only about a third of the population now regard themselves as ‘working-class’. Of course it is possible still to analyse Britain in terms of a strict Marxist definition of class: but it is not very helpful to our understanding of how the country thinks and votes. In fact, of that third, many are likely not to be ‘working’ at all: these are the unemployed, pensioners, single parents – in other words, the poor.
A party that restricts its appeal to the traditional working class will not win an election. That doesn’t entail a rejection of socialism’s traditional values: but it does mean that its appeal, and hence its policies, must address a much wider range of interests.
Only about a third of the population now regard themselves as ‘working-class’. Of course it is possible still to analyse Britain in terms of a strict Marxist definition of class: but it is not very helpful to our understanding of how the country thinks and votes. In fact, of that third, many are likely not to be ‘working’ at all: these are the unemployed, pensioners, single parents – in other words, the poor.
A party that restricts its appeal to the traditional working class will not win an election. That doesn’t entail a rejection of socialism’s traditional values: but it does mean that its appeal, and hence its policies, must address a much wider range of interests.”
The argument is a bit innocent or disingenuous: unlike Sierra man most of the newly better off working classes are still mainly "proletarians", so in effect "upper working class" like most of then middle classes, and share with the lower working class an interest in good wages, safe jobs, decent pensions, good public services, a strong safety net for both sickness and unemployment, despite them also being in part rentiers. So they should continue to be more "labour" than "tory" (or "whig").
What has turned them more "tory" than "labour" is that thanks to Conservative and New Labour redistributive policies on the tory side, their properties, in the south, have given them much, much bigger and more visible gains, starting at £30,000-£40,000 a year, than any pro-proletarian gains they may have had from better wages, pensions, safer jobs, nicer public services etc.
Blissex continues to purvey this economically illiterate mantra about workers being made richer by rising house prices that confuses capital gains for profits, and confuses debt for affluence.
Marx in the The Eighteenth Brumaire discusses exactly what the reality is of this property debt, in relation to the ruination of the French peasants in the years after the revolution - See Here.
In addition to that example could be cited the experience of slaves in the US following the civil war, who were reduce to debt bondage via share-cropping, and also the experience of the Russian serfs after the 1861 Emancipation. The trick was pulled off again, in the 1980's by Thatcher, who encouraged tens of thousands to buy council houses, who were then ruined by mortgage debt, and lost their houses when interest rates rose in 1990.
And, of course, its as though the sub-prime crisis of 2007/8 never happened for Blissex! In the US and elsewhere tens of thousands of "embourgoisified" workers who had become the proud owners of rapidly inflating property suddenly found they could not pay the interest on the debt, and became forced sellers, leading to prices crashing by 60%, which, as in 1990 meant their debts on the massively inflated prices of the property now hugely exceeded the actual market prices of that property, which had come back to something more approaching sanity. Similar drops occurred in Ireland, Spain, Greece, whilst it was only emergency action by Brown that prevented UK prices dropping more than 20%.
And, now as rising unemployment from the Tory imposed lockdown crisis, alongside rising inflation and rising interest rates from the same cause, and the astronomical levels of debt and borrowing it has induced, means that an even bigger asset price crash, including for property is inevitable.
Still in Britain the insane lockdown policy is so far only causing severe economic and financial damage, the damage to health and livelihoods lies ahead. Across the globe that is leading to tens of millions going into severe malnutrition and death from starvation. according to UN agencies. According to Oxfam an additional 500 million people globally are being needlessly driven into poverty as a result of the economic consequences of government imposed lockdowns.
Those responsible for imposing this economic calamity, and who supported it should be held to account in the harshest terms.
At different but related times Tony Blair, when he still was talking of socialist values”, said or wrote:
“polishing his Ford Sierra, self-employed electrician, Dad always voted Labour. He used to vote Labour, he said, but he bought his own home, he had set up his own business, he was doing quite nicely, so he said I’ve become a Tory.”
“A party that restricts its appeal to the traditional working class will not win an election. That doesn’t entail a rejection of socialism’s traditional values:”
My political point here is that "Sierra man" was right in saying “I’ve become a Tory” because he self-described his interests as property and business-owning, and probably was an employer too, if not of apprecentices and junior electricians in his contractor business, of gardeners, cleaners, etc. for his home.
That type of shopkeeper/small businessman is the bedrock of tory support, and they are totally opposed to “socialism's traditional values” unless they are particularly enlightened and realize the precariousness of their situations.
To get their vote one *must* reject “socialism's traditional values” and that is, as R Hattersley well described in his 2001 article, what the Mandelson Tendency entrysts of New Labour did and still do today; and that's also why they attacked dismissively or ferociously the "trot-leaning" politics of G Brown and E Milliband.
What Labour can appeal to are the proletarians (or even the self-employed) who are relatively well off (even those like me in the top 5-10% by income) but who realize how weak their relationship with their employers are, how big are the risks of ruin because of accidents, illness or unemployment, how incredibly expensive private or or self insurance is, and that property profits are not "forever" except for the older "lottery winners" who bought in the 1970-1990s in the southern tory areas, and that being caught on the wrong side of even that property market will be very, very bad, as it was for property owners in the north starting from the 1980s.
"vox clamantis in deserto", "jimini cricket" :-)
In my precious post about “the proletarians (or even the self-employed) who are relatively well off (even those like me in the top 5-10% by income) but who realize [...]” I left implicit some points but to be sure:
* I don't think that Labour-style social-democratic "northern european" style policies can be supported just or even mostly by the "networked immaterial working class" that our very public sociologist mentions.
* Therefore I agree with first-edition Tony Blair that “A party that restricts its appeal to the traditional working class will not win an election.”.
* But the Labour coalition cannot include those voters who do reject social-democratic values, because the only way to include them is to adopt tory or whig values, and leave without representation whose who have social-democratic interests and values ich is a big aim of PASOKifiers), with the excuse that "they have nowhere else to go" (“There Is No Alternative”, “We are all thatcherites now”).
* I don't think that the socialized/financialized capitalist system is in any risk of falling apart anytime soon, there are bigger risks of a substantial reversion to partially pre-capitalist conditions, so worse-is-better "one last heave" aims are delusional, and I think that with "eternal vigilance" and hard bargaining a limited but quite valuable degree of social-democracy is tenable.
Blissex,
Since your thesis of voters being motivated by paper capital gains on residential property would only really hold true in London and the South, would it not be a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that the increasing popularity of the Tories in the Midlands and the North is driven more by the fact that the Tories' punitive policies on benefits have forced into self-employment (and thus into petit-bourgeois identification) the workers who were dispossessed by the 1980s collapse of traditional mass-employment industries?
I can understand seeing Starmer as a disappointment, after Corbyn. His caution and anodyne policy stances can lead to despair. But the groundwork established by the 2008 crisis and subsequent austerity, now being followed by COVID disruption and subsequent depression will surely continue to change the Overton Window over the next decade. Leaders will adapt and respond; or be replaced. Ditto for parties; as we have just seen with the Tories.
«Since your thesis of voters being motivated by paper capital gains on residential property would only really hold true in London and the South»
Indeed mostly, and they are not "paper", any more than gains on an ISA are "paper".
«would it not be a reasonable hypothesis to suggest that the increasing popularity of the Tories in the Midlands and the North is driven more by the fact that the Tories' punitive policies on benefits have forced into self-employment (and thus into petit-bourgeois identification) the workers who were dispossessed by the 1980s collapse of traditional mass-employment industries?»
That's a possibility, but I don't think it was determinant. For example there are property owners in "the north" that are so stupid to continue voting Conservative because they are deadly afraid of "the trots" confiscating their properties, despite the Conservatives having done pretty much the same. But then look at this graph:
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6d8bb600-65ba-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56?source=next
It seems pretty clear that the Conservative surge in Mansfield coincided with a huge drop in UKIP votes. Also note the collapse in LibDem votes since 2010.
That all proves how right Tony Blair etc. were, that only with a strong switch to europhile "aspirational centrism" with an europhile "aspirational centrist" leader like Umunna or Starmer would Labour surge 20 points ahead of the Conservatives, just as it happened with Starmer ;-).
The article with that graph: https://www.ft.com/content/5822e600-5f55-11e8-ad91-e01af256df68 also reports that in Mansfield there is now as part of "regeneration" a Sports Direct plant and that is mostly staffed by polish immigrants, and perhaps that may have influenced voting.
The Conservative coalition, just the Labour one, or the "Leave" one, is made of varied interests, and even people with "values", and what matters among that complicated mess is what gives them victory.
My guess is that property and business rentierism is what *usually* does it for the Conservatives, not that every single Conservative voter everywhere only cares about property and business rentierism.
Property and business rentiers are critical to the Conservatives (and New Labour) because they both have an overriding interest in property, and that interest can swing easily, in the sense that if that interest is disappointed and property and business redistribution fall, many of the the ravenously greedy "aspirational" re-distributionists will vote remorselessly against the Conservatives (or New Labour) to punish them, that is their vote is transactional.
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