The politics of the left in the UK

[amateur51]

<thumbs up smiley>

I especially like the plastic bag caught in a tree image!

That had me chortling in delight and recognition too

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this chap Picketty is becoming the indispensable argument of the Left, much as Friedman was for the Right in Regan/Thatcher days of darkness

my but the Graun is on song this morning here is Nick Cohen on our moral decline:

It ought to have been possible to endure the great recession without the food banks, and the piling of unequal burdens on the poor, the under-educated and those young people who made the terrible mistake of being born into families without inherited wealth. We should have coped. We might still cope, if – and I accept these are two huge ifs – Labour can win the next election and commit itself to a significant redistribution of wealth and power rather than the tricks and gimmicks that characterised its last period in office.

[aeolium]

this chap Picketty is becoming the indispensable argument of the Left, much as Friedman was for the Right in Regan/Thatcher days of darkness

Here is a somewhat critical review of Piketty from a (left-wing) economist, James K Galbraith:

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/04/03/das-kapital-for-the-twenty-first-century-a-review-of-t-pikettys-new-book-by-james-k-galbraith/#more-5341

[Serial_Apologist]

Here is a somewhat critical review of Piketty from a (left-wing) economist, James K Galbraith:

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/04/03...ith/#more-5341

A further link, from the (for me incomprehensible) Galbraith review:

http://www.mltoday.com/professor-piketty-fights-orthodoxy-and-attacks-inequality

[jean]

Here's yesterday's Observer:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/12/capitalism-isnt-working-thomas-piketty

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/13/occupy-right-capitalism-failed-world-french-economist-thomas-piketty

Haven't read any of it yet

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i like the Galbraith review; in my understanding he argues that P is right for the wrongreasons on inequality as he confuses wealth with capital and ignores/gets wrong much economic analysis that deals with capital as a theoretical construct [and is not wealth] ... G then argues that P is right on inequality but wrong or lame on policies to change the economy to a more just and productive one ... G argues for a robust New Deal to lower profit and an effective inheritance tax [and in the UK we couold add a land tax - time to finish off the Dukes and those bloody London fields eh?]

Galbraith is worth persevering with beyond his acerbic and competitive views on P - G has a good policy line imho ... and he is making the point that P is waking up the left and economics but without quite saying so ...

a crux:

Bill Gates' $50 billion or so of "wealth has incidentally continued to grow just as rapidly since he stopped working." (p. 440) Still, it would be a disaster in Piketty's view to adopt policies so egalitarian that "there would be no more entrepreneurs."

another:

For the rest of us, Capital 21 provides solid data about the very rich. Piketty's work is a demonstration of the adage, follow the money. Good advice. But when you need deep understanding of society, follow the labor.

Andrews review

Andrews attempt to restate/defend a Marxist interpretation will appeal to his fellow cadres of that tribe ... it matters little to paraphrase a tad, which economic theory is right ... it matters a lot which radical policies are adopted to improve our circumstances ... yes the USSR was attacked, isolated &c but every example of Big State Control [N Korea anyone?] is oppressive and inefficient, not to mention the nomenklatura phenomena [class in the soviet state] but also the early years and of the 20c and since 1980 up to now have shown the deep perils of unregulated capitalism to the well being of the people and their social fabric ...

both in the USA and UK it would appear the Clem and Ike and their immediate successors did us all a service in rebuilding post war society ... then Mrs T and Mr B decided we didn't need such expenses and armies and tanks were more fun

i doubt i shall fully read P's book, but it is stimulating a proper debate amongst the powerful and the elite and his arguments about wealth are hard to shake even if his approach to capital estranges both more classical academic and Marxist economists....

i continue with reading Gellner; our crisis is not mere economics it is social, political, ideological and moral - disgust at the obscenity of wealth nowadys while fully merited is insufficent grounds for action ... as Lenin put it "What must be done?"

Atlee is a good example but we need a deeper justification now; no post war burn drives us towards justice in our polity and economic life and growth ... and fulfilment in our culture and community .... whatever that means and wherever that takes us ....

[Serial_Apologist]

By and large I'm in agreement. My problem is understanding capital and wealth other than in objective as opposed to theoretical terms. Marx saw capital as comprising different proportions of value according to class relations in specific periods, however "buried" (or congealed, as I think his unfortunate term was) within the product of labour. But as you (and they) imply, the demographic reduction or, ahem, sub-proletarianisation of the proletariat bequeathes those of us who still see change is dependent on ownership and control with a problem of agency, and anyone else with an apparent absence of alternative practicable thinking to compare with Roosevelt's and Keynes's, as David Harvey said on last night's "Thinking Allowed" on R4 - including some timely discussion of Piketty's work - (and a repeat of last Wednesday's programme):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04001kg

[Serial_Apologist]

Here's yesterday's Observer:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/12/capitalism-isnt-working-thomas-piketty

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/13/occupy-right-capitalism-failed-world-french-economist-thomas-piketty

Haven't read any of it yet

Thanks for these links, jean.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thanks for the R4 link S_A ... an excellent discussion between David Harvey and Colin Crouch well conducted by Laurie Taylor ... what a shame they had to cut the discussion into two presumed digestible bites with the nominative determinacy trivia ... not just R3 succumbs to the Pepsi daemon
i do like David Harvey ... but again he is calling for something new [not unreasonably] but not attempting to specify what that might be ...and no one is talking about environmental change surely a major issue in what must be done but taking the transacti9on/exchanger value out of universities was very popular with all three talking heads ... the idea of use value being a paramount virtue is deeply attractive though .. and taxing wealth not so much income as well [a point P makes]

[aeolium]

Thanks for the link to the Harvey programme, S_A.

I think any critic of capitalism as it currently operates (and it's not difficult to be critical of it) ought to try and formulate a clear idea of a better alternative and how we get to there from here. Marx had a clear idea of a better alternative - and one he believed was also inevitable - but did not imo have a good programme for providing a bridge from capitalism as he understood it to his alternative of the classless society.

Also, advocates of more planned economies and greater state powers need to define ways in which necessary constraints on the liberties of individuals (and corporations) can be combined with high levels of accountability and human rights, as well as the independent rule of law.

Not asking much, really...:-/

[vinteuil]

Not asking much, really...:-/

... thank you for your #115, aeolie - it encapsulates (but articulates better than I have been able to do heretofore... ) my thinking. Sadly, until such a - believable - programme for "how we get to there from here" is available I shall be an unwilling supporter of some sort of "capitalism tempered to the shorn lamb". Still ca'n't summon up any enthusiam to vote for any party at any forthcoming elections... :sadface:

[Serial_Apologist]

i do like David Harvey ... but again he is calling for something new [not unreasonably] but not attempting to specify what that might be ...and no one is talking about environmental change surely a major issue in what must be done

Well the Greens are, of course, and they (to answer Vint's points too) are probably or possibly the best answer as to whom to vote for at the next GE. (Millipede and his party are going to have to come up with something else quick if they are to present themselves as an alternative)

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the link to the Harvey programme, S_A.

I think any critic of capitalism as it currently operates (and it's not difficult to be critical of it) ought to try and formulate a clear idea of a better alternative and how we get to there from here. Marx had a clear idea of a better alternative - and one he believed was also inevitable - but did not imo have a good programme for providing a bridge from capitalism as he understood it to his alternative of the classless society.

This is what I meant by the shorthand term of agency. It's indeed a tragedy that its was the Lenininsts who, er, monopolised that argument, post-Marx and Engels; but I still find myself wondering who, which class or whatever, will provide the agency for change - apart that is from the working class, those who are the position to turn on, turn off, or redirect production and its fruits. Watching, as I was just now, the pro-Russian occupiers of various state institutions in E Ukraine, my thoughts in response to the young agitator declaring that the police had come over to their side were that, yes, this will always be possible when the class power of capital still remains unchallenged, because that's what the state and in the final analysis of its testing its armed wing is there to support. What, other than inter-ethnic conflict, do the demonstrators want, if at the end of the day their power is merely to be handed back to the rich?

Also, advocates of more planned economies and greater state powers need to define ways in which necessary constraints on the liberties of individuals (and corporations) can be combined with high levels of accountability and human rights, as well as the independent rule of law.

Not asking much, really...:-/

What you're saying (as I see it) is that the payoff for constraints on liberties (which would have to be defined) is the accountability of those put in power (and what grounds not to mention democratic rights there would be for removing them). The independence of rule of law is another question that is also up for grabs, because it relates to the legitimacy of existing institutions, whether these could survive a transfer of power from big capital, and who in those bracketed corporations would be controlling operations and decision-making.

[jean]

Well the Greens are, of course, and they (to answer Vint's points too) are probably or possibly the best answer as to whom to vote for at the next GE.

Even more vital to vote for us (I mean them) in the Euro elections, especially if you live in the North West.

We (I mean they) only needed another 5000 votes to have kept Nick Griffin from taking a seat.

It still hurts when I think about it.

[aeolium]

this will always be possible when the class power of capital still remains unchallenged, because that's what the state and in the final analysis of its testing its armed wing is there to support. What, other than inter-ethnic conflict, do the demonstrators want, if at the end of the day their power is merely to be handed back to the rich?

But I don't think those demonstrators would have a clear idea about what to do with the power even if they had it. They want a condition that is Not A, where A is the status quo, but between them probably have a hundred different ideas about what that condition is.

And that is why I would like a coherent thesis from some up-and-coming intellectual (or even aged intellectual) which would present, in three clearly argued sections, (i) an analysis of where we are now (ii) a proposal for an improved arrangement of society, practicable not utopian (for we are dealing with the crooked timber of humanity) and (iii) a series of achievable steps by which our society could move from (i) to (ii), with the possibility of monitoring after each step whether what had been achieved was still consistent with the set of principles underlying the proposal in (ii).

What you're saying (as I see it) is that the payoff for constraints on liberties (which would have to be defined) is the accountability of those put in power (and what grounds not to mention democratic rights there would be for removing them). The independence of rule of law is another question that is also up for grabs, because it relates to the legitimacy of existing institutions, whether these could survive a transfer of power from big capital, and who in those bracketed corporations would be controlling operations and decision-making.

For me the independence of the rule of law - or rather, the principle that no-one and no organization is above the law - is an absolutely fundamental requirement without which nothing else is achievable. If the law is simply another organ of the state and it is not possible to challenge any state official or institution through the law then that is to all intents and purposes a tyranny. Whatever inequality the law reflects is at least theoretically modifiable through the legislators, but if the ruling power can effectively decide to ignore the law then no citizen is really safe from arbitrary power.