John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, declared himself and the Party "for Socialism" at the recent Labour Party Conference. In reality, the Corbynite programme of more state intervention and ownership, higher wages and better welfare is a "pie in the sky" picture of a kinder capitalism.

We can call it Keynesianism, call it strengthening the state, call it left populism - all of these are part of the truth. On the other hand, calling it Socialism is an absolute confusion, particularly aimed at the Corbynite Labourist "mass movement".

This argument is not about splitting hairs or different emphases. It is a choice between two completely different views.

For the Corbynite's, their vision is neatly summed up in the title of Ken Loach's film, "The Spirit of '45". Following the Second World War, workers were not prepared to go back to the poverty and unemployment of the 1930s. This led to a Labour victory but it did not bring socialism. The Labour Government simply took over the management of British capitalism by giving a greater role to the state and presiding over an austerity economy.

For those really wanting a world where the interests of humanity replace the need for profit for the class of bosses there is a very different path. There is a desperate need to replace global capitalism with a socialist world based on cooperation and sustainably meeting human needs. That can't be the work of Parliamentarians, however apparently “well-meaning”, or state institutions. The only road to a human future is the revolutionary overturn of this rotting system – the self-emancipation of the Working Class.

The Capitalist Crisis

Since the early 1970's the global capitalist system has been in a crisis based on the inner dynamics of the capitalist system. For the third time in the 20th Century the system arrived at a situation where the rate of profit was not high enough to allow capitalism to thrive at the expense of the vast majority. Twice the situation was "solved" in the mass slaughters, destruction of capital and technical advances around the two World Wars.

For the last 40 years the national ruling classes and their transnational organisations and multinational corporations have adopted a succession of quack remedies to maintain their positions. Economic theories have come and gone, production has been shifted to different areas of the globe and technological advance has been used at the expense of both the working class and the planet's eco-system.

Local wars around "spheres of influence" and control of resources have brought death and misery to millions. These have generally been fought by the proxies of the bigger states although in both Ukraine and Syria the big powers are now able to use their own war machines without any fig leaves.

During the last two decades a vast bubble of fictional values has been created to try and keep capitalism afloat. This was the key element of the "Great Crash" of 2008. The current crisis around the Deutsche Bank may well be the overture for the next act.

It is the reality of the depth and breadth of that 40 year crisis of the world system which is the real backdrop to any political machinations. It is also the reality which the left Labourists would be totally unable to resolve even assuming an imaginary future Labour Government comes about.

Socialism not State Intervention

During the period of relative economic stability and capitalist growth in the 1950s and 60s the governments intervened to "fine tune" the economy. There was even enough slack in the profit system to allow for, for example, large scale building of Council houses under the Tory Governments of the 1950s.

The capitalist economic orthodoxy was Keynesianism[1] based on using amounts of state spending to "stimulate the economy" i.e. to help generate profits. As the early stages of the crisis unfolded, the strategy was abandoned. A key milestone in the change in approach was implemented in 1976 by the Labour Government led by the Prime Minister, James Callaghan. In collaboration with the IMF[2] it was made official that trying to manage the crisis overrode considerations such as "social welfare"[3].

The phoney Socialism proclaimed by the Rt Hon[4] John McDonnell is no more than a desire to return to the days of 1945-51 Nationalisation and 1951-76 Keynesian state intervention. If such a change were possible two features need to be explained.

Firstly, despite any talk about "taxing the rich" or "squeezing the multinationals" the conjurors' smoke and mirrors hide the facts about where "disposable wealth" originates. The truth, rather than the illusions of all "the money tricks"[5], is that it is the working class who generate all wealth , the bosses who rob a great portion of it and the state who might then appropriate part of that stolen "surplus value".

Secondly, we have to be quite clear that the programme would only serve to attempt to "renovate" capitalism. Tinkering with tax rates, setting some higher levels of wages, restoring elements of welfare that have been hacked to pieces could all make life temporarily less unbearable for some workers. However, those improvements could only be temporary and insecure in the face of the ongoing crisis of late capitalism. Only the destruction of that system, the overthrowing of the power of capital and the minority bosses' class[6] can provide a genuine alternative to ongoing misery and deprivation.

The Capitalist Spectrum ...

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"[7].

How the process has accelerated since then! Within a week of the Labour Party leadership declaring themselves in favour of interventionism in favour of working people, calling it Socialism, the Tory Prime Minister addressed her Party Conference, declaring herself in favour of interventionism in favour of working people, calling it One-Nation Conservatism.

Unlike real farce, this is more than a laughing matter. What it shows is that the Corbynite prescriptions are precisely within the range of options for capitalism just as are the Tory prescriptions both before and after the "Brexit" decision. This returns to the key point – within the range of bourgeois options there are always shades of thought, those chosen vary from time to time. Tory, Tory/Lib coalition, Old Labour, New Labour or Corbyn's "New Old Labour" are all on the same menu – "Suitable for Capitalism".

The danger with Corbyn's variation is that he and his cheerleaders present this mish-mash of state support for capitalism and call it "Socialism". Those seeking a real alternative face certain disillusion until they break through that delusion.

... Or a Socialist Future

Central to the road to a real "Socialist" or "Communist"[8] future is the working class[9] organising ourselves in our own interests. That self-organisation starts in defending ourselves against the capitalist attacks but has to grow over to overthrowing bourgeois power and laying the basis for a truly human future.

The Communist Workers Organisation and our comrades in the Internationalist Communist Tendency[10] seek to maintain and extend a clear view of the need for and the road towards an end to the abominations of capitalism. We do not expect that road to be short or straightforward since the building of a revolutionary movement has to be based on the rise of a revolutionary class consciousness. It cannot come about through Parliament and it cannot come about by pretending that supporting a pro-capitalist Labour Party is a stop gap solution. The Parliamentary quackery of Corbyn/McDonnell's Labour Party will lead not to Socialism in any shape but only to the demoralisation of those who support it.

KT

October 5 2016

[1] After John Maynard Keynes, Cambridge economist and government advisor.

[2] International Monetary Fund. Formed in 1945 following the Bretton Woods Agreement. It has remained as one of the key institutions in the global capitalist framework

[3] nationalarchives.gov.uk

[4] The Right Honourable is a title used by those such as Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell who have been "elevated" to the Queen's Privy Council. For Mr McDonnell see gov.uk

[5] Robert Tressell's exposee of wage labour as "The Great Money Trick" still makes for an excellent read. See docs.google.com

[6] Named by Marx and Engels as the "bourgeoisie" in the Communist Manifesto. See marxists.org

[7] Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Chapter 1.

[8] Classical Marxist writings used the words interchangeably

[9] Named by Marx and Engels as the "proletariat" in the Communist Manifesto. See marxists.org

[10] See www.leftcom.org