From: Dogan Goecmen (Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM)
Date: Thu Jan 04 2007 - 04:10:21 EST
_wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK_ (mailto:wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK) : I was talking in earlier emails about the history of political economy as it affected the then existing labour movement. Since the 1990s the labour movement has had no clear political economy of its own, having ceded ground to the Hayekians over the role of the market and the need to restrict the role of the state in the economy. This creates an intellectual vacuum that is both a danger and an opportunity. The danger is that there will be no more than a revival in Keynesianism, the opportunity is that we can establish a radical alternative vision of 21st century socialism that goes well beyond the reforms of 20th century social democracy and also avoids the ultimately fatal weaknesses of the Soviet model. ================== Paul, I agree with you that as socialists we have to do everything in our power to avoid that there occurs any intellectual vacuum on our part. I totally sypathise with what you say about the danger of a revival of Keynesianism. And I am very well aware that our vision of the 21st century has to avoid fatal weaknesses of the Soviet model, though we have to work out what these fatal weaknesses were. Lastly, I am entirely on your side when you say that our reform projects have to be much more radical than those championed by social democracy in the 20th century, though we must not take this as an absolute criteria because there might be situations which might require to refer back to these reform projects. In any case our reform proposals must always be accompanied by our long turm project or vision of the 21st century. ================= In this context I think that whilst demands for a steeply progressive income tax and for a shorter working week are certainly in the interests of the working class, they suffer from the limitation of being much the same as what European Social Democracy has done in the past. British and Swedish social democracy both introduced steeply progressive income taxes. Chancellor Healey talked of squeezing the rich until the pips squeaked with his high rates of income tax. These income taxes even distinguished between ‘earned’ and ‘unearned’ income, taxing property income more steeply than earned income. French social democracy since the 30s made the restriction of the working week a key plank of its program. The enactment of the 35 hour week in France was certainly a progressive step and we could argue for its extension across the continent. However unless it is combined with stringent controls on capital movement, there is no guarantee that it would reduce unemployment. ================== Progressive income tax is originally a Marxist demand. Equally, the demand for shorter working day is as old as the labour movement. European Social Democracy adopted, though emptied in many senses (see New Deal policy in the States), these demands under the enormous pressure of the Soviet Union and labour and socialist movements. Hayek was one of the first to recognise the danger of these demands for capitalist classes and for capitalist system as such. But I think that we have to take his observation that progressive taxtation leads to the rise of a middle class. What Hayek does not say explicitly but accepts imlicitly is that progressive taxation leads to the rise and strenthening of the middle class because of the way they have been implemented by social democracy who are as capitalist patriots as liberals and conservatives. Socialists and labour movement in future have not only formulate demands but also fight for the best way of implementation that accords to their interests.This has been neglected in the past. In short, I do not think that these demands are social democratic demands in essence. We do not need to distance ourselves from them. But we need to reformulate them under the new condistions in the 21st century. =================== Instead of these sorts of measures we have to go back to Owen and focus on the basic wage/money relationship and attack the institutions of money and wage labour with the policies that we advance. Owen had the right idea in proposing labour vouchers since so long as workers are paid less than the value they produce all the other evils of capitalist society follow. This I believe has to be central focus of our popularization of Marxist political economy. We have to bring home to people how much they would benefit by were the full value they added by their labour to paid back to them. To give an idea of what it would mean, consider the fact that one hour of average labour in Germany currently creates a value of 32 Euro. This means that the purchasing power of a one hour labour token would be the same as 32 Euro, and that the average pay (before tax) would thus rise to the equivalent of 32 Euro per hour. How many people get paid that well today? ===================== I do not accept this dichitomy you seem to draw here. We can put forward these demands and still go to Owen, Saint Simon, Fourier and Marx, and attack the institution of wage labour as such. We have to remain dialecticians and think in terms of the dialectic of reform and revolution in Rosa Luxemburgian sense. I do not agree with what you say about the demand that labourers should get the full value they add. I think this is illusionary just because it seems to rest on a concept of justice. This was the idea of neo-Ricardians and Proudhonists. From Marx's point of view this is wrong just becuase it does not take into account that means of production must always be improved and replaced. And it does not take into account that there will always be many other expenditures for infrastructure, transformation, communication leisure opportunities and so on to improve the public life. All these may amount to the reduction from the full value workers add. ===================== It is a great pleasure to have these debates because they help us a lot to clarify our minds before the next final historical sturm. Regards, Dogan ____________________________________ From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Dogan Goecmen Sent: 01 January 2007 21:28 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Keynes and Marx (German) Paul, I have difficulties to follow this logic. The way you make the point seems to put us before an alternative between Hayek and Keynes, between neoliberal parties and social democrats. But are these two positions (parties) real alternatives we have to accept? Or do we need to establish a third front that of real socialist movement based on Marx's critique of political economy. Think of Owen. He criticised Malthus and laissez faire policies. though he also developed ideas about how to reform capitalism in favour of working classes. Particularly, in his later writings he always referred to the concept of socialism to highlight the fact that there is a needs for essential change in the property relations of the means of production. The socialist and working class movement lost this last mentioned project just becase they thought capitalism was reforming itself and there was no need for revolutionary changes. Cheers Dogan In einer eMail vom 01.01.2007 22:10:14 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK: I would agree with the point that you make below about co-option, but in the process the interests of finance capital and the colonial bourgeoisie had to take second place. But you should not deal with the state in the abstract, abstracting from real political parties, their class basis and their programatic aims. Keynes ideas provided to social democracy a form of political economy that enabled them to at least carry out some progressive measures. If you contrast the political economy of Macdonald to that of Atlee you can see the significance of the change brought about by Keynes. Paul Cockshott www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Dogan Goecmen Sent: Mon 1/1/2007 8:30 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Keynes and Marx (German) It is also necessary to take into account the circumstances of the class struggle at the international level. Doing so, it is possible to argue that the alliance you suggest was not directed against finance capital but against the (revolutionary) socialist movement worldwide, at a time when the USSR had defeated nazism and the communists in the countries occupied by the Nazi army had been among the main forces that fought the invadors. Communism all over the world and the Communist parties in many Western European countries increased very significantly their political influence. Thus, it was highly necessary for the capitalist class to coopt their workers. Claus, I find your remarks above extreemly interesting. This is exacly the point that explains the success of Keynesianism. This is also the point I was trying to make in the passage below. >> >> Der Keynesianismus, der ein englisches Produkt ist, ist auch in >> diese Tradition einzuordnen und sein Verhältnis zum Marxismus ist >> im Lichte dieser Entwicklung zu sehen. Seinerzeit musste schon der >> zynische liberale John Stuart Mill, der zuerst die in England >> geboren Idee des Sozialismus, zum Fremdkörper erklärte, musste >> unter dem Druck der Straße, ohne seinen eklektisch liberalen Geist >> aufzugeben, an Marxismus Zugeständnisse machen. Doch nach der >> Oktoberrevolution half all das nicht mehr. Da musste eine >> konservative Theorie mit einem linken 'Anschein' erfunden werden. >> In der Wirtschaftstheorie entspricht der Keynesianismus diesem >> Bedürfnis. Cheers Dogan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 31 2007 - 00:00:05 EST