How quickly a country can collapse – socially and economically. Lebanon and Sri Lanka are the latest examples.
Mark Blyth is a political economist highly respected across the political spectrum for the clarity and bluntness of his dissection of complex issues. On a 2021 podcast he had expressed the view, in his typically succinct way, that Brexit had been a turning point for the British economy – with the past year in particular suggesting that little was left except an enormous “Rentier Class” living off hundreds of billions of profits of privatised companies. The social media is full of the amazing profits being made by the shareholders and bosses of these companies - which add insult to injury by failing to undertake basic investment in infrastructure. There’s been quite a spate of books recently about “Rentier Capitalism” of which this looks the most interesting
As far as action is concerned, Richard Murphy has been a rare voice pushing in the past decade for tax justice and probably has the most detailed programme. His brief outline is here – and the 30 page detailed programme is here
But forgive me for wanting to focus on the part of the UK I know best – Scotland, from which Mark Blyth also happens to hail. Having been against the idea of Scotland separating in 2014 from the UK, he was “outed” recently on Twitter as having changed his mind – although he has subsequently confessed to finding it difficult “to make a positive case for independence” and has apparently just been axed from the Advisory group he joined a year ago. The Scottish Government last month decided to make a bid for a second referendum on the issue (for October 2023) – with the 2 candidates for the Conservative party leadership both strongly opposed to allowing it.
It’s not easy to find a good discussion on the internet about the issues involved in the idea of Scotland separating – but I’ve just come across a fantastic one superbly chaired by a young trade union woman. All the participants are Scottish and the tone is respectful;
Common Weal is an important Scottish Foundation which has run a podcast for quite some time and here features Richard Murphy to take us back to the UK economy.
The social media are having a great time with such fake ads as this one for the UK government
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561657960819937282
update; and lo, 2 days later, James O'Brien was also talking of "the failed state" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPduUCpjkNE
26 August - How Chris Grey's latest post put it -
Domestically, that means a rapidly worsening cost of living crisis. Inflation is at its highest since the early 1980s and still rising, with households facing their largest ever recorded fall in living standards, and the Bank of England predicts five continuous quarters of economic recession. There are multiple strikes in the rail network, the docks, the courts, the postal service and elsewhere, and more to come. With a growing ‘Don’t Pay’ campaign in the face of what for many will be impossible energy bills, talk of civil unrest and disobedience does not seem hyperbolic.
There are now chronic labour shortages in almost every occupation, so that even as food prices rise to a 40-year high there is food rotting in fields for lack of people to pick or harvest it. The NHS, and especially the ambulance service, is at breaking point, as, not unrelatedly, is the social care system. In fact it is hard to find any part of the public or private sector which is not, in some way or other, under alarming strain. The beaches are awash with sewage, like a metaphor. And, though you’d hardly know it, we are still living with the effects of a pandemic, including an estimated 1.6 million people in England alone living with Long Covid, and presumably the possibility of a new wave to come.
Throughout all this, the leadership contest means there has been, in effect, no functioning government. The notional Prime Minister, rather than acting as a responsible caretaker, has spent the summer alternating between sulking, holidaying and squeezing the last drop out of the perks of his office. Any chance Boris Johnson had of a final period of dignity to set against the depraved conduct that led to his ejection has been squandered. Most Prime Ministers end up being judged less harshly by history than they are at the time of their departure; I strongly suspect that Johnson will be assessed even more critically in the future than he is now.
Post-Brexit political instability set to continue
When this strange summer ends, it will not herald the end of the period of political instability any more than the events and crises of the summer are peculiar to the season. This isn’t a holiday that has gone horribly wrong, it’s the latest instalment of a reality there is no taking a break from. That political instability began with the 2016 referendum. Having a new Prime Minister is not going to finish, but is a part of, this post-2016 story. I don’t mean that there were no political problems before, but that since then there has been a particular sort of instability and for particular reasons.
It’s not a coincidence that the new Prime Minister will be the fourth in the six years since the referendum, the same number as held office in the thirty-one years between 1979 and 2010. Nor is it a coincidence that within those six years there have also been two general elections, massive churn in the holding of ministerial posts, an illegal prorogation of parliament, a unique judgment that the government was in contempt of parliament, numerous highly unusual constitutional events, a government openly threatening to break international law, massive stresses in the relationship between Westminster and the devolved administrations, significant pressures on the Good Friday Belfast Agreement, and perhaps the most significant rifts between ministers and the civil service in modern history. All these things reflect the way that Brexit has all but overwhelmed the capacity and norms of the UK state and political institutions.
I was a bit confused by the post title, as against its contents. On the former, I think its clear that the UK is not becoming a failed state, which is hyperbola. Despite the unfolding disaster that is Brexit the UK still has a functioning economy and political system. large parts of its infrastructure are in a state of disrepair, but that has been the case for decades, and much the same can be said for Germany, whose broadband backbone is more primitive than that in Britain. Britain's ruling class is comprised of what Marx and Engels called "coupon clippers" - rentier capitalists - but as that indicates, that is nothing new. The whole global ruling class is comprised, now, of such "coupon clippers". It doesn't change the fact that the dominant form of property, which drives the wealth of nations is large-scale socialised industrial capital, and its that fact that characterises the main contradiction of modern capitalism.
ReplyDeleteThe dominant form of property upon which the fortune of the state depends is this large-scale socialised capital which is the collective property of the workers, whereas control over that capital is exercised by the ruling class and its representatives who are owners of fictitious capital (shares, bonds and their derivatives) which produce interest/dividends, and are a deduction from profit. As Marx describes this means that this form of property fictitious capital and its owners stand in an antagonistic relation to the dominant form of property, large-scale socialised industrial capital. The ruling class have not only become socially redundant in the same way that the landlords were in the wake of the rise of the capitalist farmer, but are now a direct impediment to the development even of capital itself.
But, that is not peculiar to Britain, it is true of global capitalism as a whole.
On the actual content, in relation to Scotland, nationalism is a diversion, and reactionary. It posits not capitalism as the problem, but national oppression. Scotland has never been nationally oppressed by Britain, but has been an equal partner in the ventures of British imperialism. Separating Scotland, means separating Scottish from English and Welsh workers, and so undermines their common struggle and interests. From a selfish English perspective it undermines the potential to remove Tory governments or to bring about an early re-joining of the EU.
As I have set out in the past, it could be argued that Scottish workers separating from English workers can be justified on the basis of rejoining with EU workers, as a much larger whole. However, the link to EU workers is not as close as it is to that with other British workers, given both the nature of the state, and of historical, social, family and other ties. Moreover, Scottish workers would face a land border with other British workers, whose effect would be pernicious. Scotland might attempt to draw in English capital, by offering various incentives, for example, and that could set up conflicts with workers across the border, who see their jobs being taken away along with the movement of this capital. It sets up all kinds of opportunities for particular small capitalists to encourage a race to the bottom across this border, and the renewed attempt to introduce free ports/enterprise zones and Charter Cities, gives a taste of that.
Better for Scottish workers to commit to a combined struggle with other British workers against the real enemy capital, and to oppose nationalism whether it is English or Scottish, and to seek an early return to the EU, so as to join with EU workers in a struggle for a Workers Europe, and a Socialist United States of Europe.