By James Clark
Despite the hysteric ramblings of the established British press, Jeremy Corbyn is no revolutionary socialist. It takes little consideration to realise that the policies which Corbyn’s Labour propose do not intend to threaten the existence of the capitalist system. The state, money and the wage system still have a role in Corbyn and his follower’s vision for British society. Indeed, Labour’s objective appears to be to manage capitalism in a way that suits the interests of business, but also the majority of individual’s dependant on a wage or small income.
A variety of the policies espoused by Corbyn’s Labour have been and continue to be prevalent and untroubled in many western capitalist countries. The state control of natural monopolies, 20% plus corporation tax rates and percentile taxes on financial instruments are policies that have been implemented in absence of any impending economic disaster.
Where a reaction to such proposals is one of vehement opposition, it must be assumed that they threaten a portion of corporate and financial profits which have been uncontested for decades. As such, Corbyn’s success must be in dispelling the Conservative myth that what is good for capitalist profits is inherently good for the individual. What must be stressed is that your future is no less dependent on the concessions of capitalist business than their prosperity is upon what you yourself are willing to concede!
Indeed, if the allegations of economic ruin posited by the political and economic establishment are correct, it really does appear to be as simple as this: The profitability of Britain’s corporate and financial sector are of the utmost dependence upon the concession of an individual’s access to social and welfare provisions, to workplace protections, to a minimum wage of ten pounds an hour and so on.
Where an individual is dependent on a wage or a small business income, unable to rely on the ownership of high yielding financial assets, property rights or productive means. Is it truly in an individual’s interest to place their faith in the vested Conservative belief that your future is dependent on the exorbitant prosperity of capitalist business? Must one not dare to elect a government which may threaten ability of the corporate and financial sector to make an unregulated profit? As such, an appeal is made here to look beyond the politicised accusations of an establishment clearly offended by the slightest challenge to its political and rhetorical monopoly.
We must however be under no illusion. The capitalist economic system is inherently convoluted and crisis ridden. There can be no policy agenda capable of permanently arresting capitalism’s contradictions. But despite this, a debate over the relative suitability of economic policy should be allowed to take place in a way that is unfettered by a barrage of vicious and biased normative statements.
Despite what one may assume based on the grave warnings of a return to the 1970’s banded about by right wing media outlets; many of the economic policies proposed by Labour find a resting place in basic economic textbooks and in the works of many leading economists. The reason that interventionist policies have been unsustainable in the past is not because they were economically naïve or politically left wing, capitalism itself is a system of inherent cyclical failure. Not only this, it is quite evident that the same accusations of unsustainability can be levied at the neoliberal approach to economic policy which proceeded and followed the financial collapse of 2007. Indeed, where record low interest rates and rounds of quantitative easing have failed to restore capitalist profitability to pre-crisis levels, conventional non-fiscal economic policy sits at the extremity of its limits with a recurrence of financial collapse remaining as likely as ever.
As such, the political decision must be posed as follows:
Do we hand the levers of power to the political and economic elite? Do we allow the wealth produced by society to be appropriated in the hands of a miniscule minority as they told us it was in our interests to do so?
My answer would be no. It may be the last time we have any say in such questions, Vote Corbyn on June 8th, it’s the only choice we’ve got.
Read “Think Jeremy Corbyn is a loser? Oh dear, you’ve been brainwashed…” Click Here
Read “Why am I supporting Corbyn? It’s my dad running the Labour Party” Click Here