Re: "The World We're In" by Will Hutton

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 16/05/02 08:19 -0400, you wrote:
> Chris Burford:
> >However the Marshall Aid programme after the war shifted capital back to
> >western Europe and produced an increase in the use values available for the
> >local population. Capitalism can continue even with a redistribution of
> >capitalism and of the circulation of commodities. (Consider Marx's argument
> >in "Wages, Price, and Profit against Citizen Weston")

Although we come from very different standpoints I think we are arguing
seriously over central questions of the global economy. I do not want to
disrespect Louis Proyect's argument below by cutting it into lots of
pieces, but certain of the connections which Louis states are somehow in my
opinion the wrong way round. I am therefore going to explain the
differences I have with them.


> The Marshall Plan was necessary to jump start capitalist expansion in
> devastated post-WWII Europe.


I would not however put it that way.

Capitalism would have prevailed in post WWII Europe whereever there was not
a socialist revolution. That is because the main means of exchange was that
of commodities, and although barter existed for a time, money soon returned
everywhere. The majority of the working people had nothing to sell but
their labour power. The dominant mode of production was already capitalist.

What the Marshall Aid plan was necessary to do was *political*: to protect
western Europe from going "Communist".

If we apply a counterfactual argument to this - what would have happened in
western Europe had there been no Marshall Aid plan? - the work force would
have been as impoverished as say in Indonesia today. The only future for
people trying to better themselves in Europe would have been to try to
migrate to the USA or being one of a narrow body of exploiters within their
own country, vulnerable to revolution. What the Marshall Aid plan did was
to kick start the recovery of western European imperialism, as a
substantial centre of capital, capable of owning its own means of
production. It also made limited concessions to create a workforce
relatively privileged on a world scale able and to provide a mass market
for new consumer products. This political compromise successfully
stabilised capitalism in western Europe.

> However, capitalism is flourishing throughout
> the third world, so what is the point of a Marshall Plan?

Capitalism was flourishing in impoverished western Europe post WWII anyway.
An impoverished skilled workforce was fine for this purpose.  The
difference which makes it questionable whether a Marshall Plan is needed
now for the third world is a political one. The urgency of a Marshall Aid
plan is  much less strong because there is no threat from the Soviet Bloc
as a rival pole of attraction.

Ten years ago the global sado neo-liberals we saying that Africa might as
well have dropped off the map. Nowadays under pressure of concern about
AIDS, there is some feeling in capitalist circles that there has to be a
policy for Africa. But basically what they are talking about is patronising
charity. Bush in Monterrey was therefore updating the hard nosed
neo-liberal plans by suggesting a minuscule "Marshall Aid " plan for the
rest of the world, and entirely tied to whether their means of production
were neatly tied up, packaged and labelled for expropriation by global
finance capital.

> Perhaps you are
> recommending something entirely different, like direct grants from G-7
> countries to allow places like Jamaica and the Congo to build up health
> care, education, public transportation, etc., since that's really what's
> needed, after all.

Basically I am not coming from an initial stance of recommending something.

I want to see what is going on in front of our eyes, and look for what
openings there are for change. But if we could articulate a global vision I
certainly would not limit my view of what is "really " needed to health
care, education, public transportation. What is needed is that the
resources of the world should be owned by the people of the world!  I would
rather see the global anti-capitalist movement cohere around agitational
slogans for peace and justice, so long as they are used to illustrate this
perspective.

[And I have been very clear that even this would not be global socialism.
It would arguably be a sort of new democratic global campaign, which might
make it easier to proceed to socialism in some individual countries without
them being held to ransom by international finance capital. But my
assumption is that part of the transition to socialism over the coming next
decades is going to have to take place at the global level.

In seeking a broad united front for these goals please note that does not
necessarily imply going for the lowest common denominator. In some senses
it means raising our sights. 'We only want the earth', with scientific
consciousness, is a profoundly revolutionary in its implications.

> To expect something like this would be utter folly in
> light of the tendencies in world capitalism since the early 1970s. There is
> a drive to cut back on social spending throughout the world because of
> intense competition between the USA and exactly those countries that
> benefited from the Marshall Plan.



Aha this is a very important point of agreement then. There are a number of
crucial contradictions in the world today. Although it is not the *most*
important, one of the important contradictions is that between the
imperialist countries. Japan has lost momentum. But the contradiction
between the USA and Europe has been sharpening. For a long time it has
consisted both of contention and collusion. This is a dialectical
contradiction. But with the disappearance of the Soviet Enemy there is
little to unite against. The international axis of evil is too
unsophisticated for the Europeans.

True, Western Europe finds itself in a world in which the armed forces of
its hegemon, the USA, are more powerful than the next *fifteen* strongest
armed forces in the world. In the short term Europe therefore has to
pretend to itself that it is Athens to imperial Rome. But the material
needs of its own imperialism to accumulate will dictate a sharpening
contradiction.

So to return to what is relevant in the earlier point above, it is true
that the competition between the USA and Europe leads to cut backs in
social spending. And they are going to get far worse in Europe.

But the contradiction *also* dictates that for imperialist reasons Europe
will look for tactical alliances not only with Japn and Russia on some
questions, but even with China.

And no state power can sensibly afford to ignore the trappings of its moral
authority. Including an emerging global state. If Europe can demonstrate
that it is more interesting in building the peace (however you define
peace) as compared to the USA which is so capable at fighting the war, then
it will do so. It is absolutely clear it regards Eastern Europe as its
territory and is extending the centralising scope of its capital to cover
that. It is willing to collaborate with Russia. It is far more ready to
make overtures to the billion who live in islamic countries, than is the
USA. Not because Europe has not been in religious conflict with Islam for
1,400 years, but because there are opportunities for accumulating capital.
Therefore the interimperialist competition that will lead to further cuts
in social spending in Europe will *also* lead to support moral gestures as
saviours on high to the impoverished economically irrelevant masses of
Africa. If they can seize control of world finances through a Marshall Aid
plan for the children of Africa they will do it, and cry and beam
throughout the exercise.



> So, to put it dialectically, the Marshall
> Plan generated the conditions for its ultimate obsolescence as a policy
> measure.

Yes, interpreted the way I wish to clarify it, the Marshall Aid plan
revived western European imperialism on a new basis. Now the USA has no
political or economic interest in pumping capital into western Europe.
Indeed it has much to fear that if western Europe can only get itself
sorted out, Europe will stop pumping capital into the USA. And then what
will happen...?


> Post-WWII prosperity leads to intensified competition,


Yes there is both intensified competition between western imperialisms
which can no longer be concealed under the anti-communist banner. There is
also an ultra-imperialism that prevents the contradictions sharpening to
the point of direct military war between the blocs. Wars between
surrogates, however, are not impossible within even the next ten years, if
contradictions continue to sharpen at this rate.

> which leads
> to neoliberalism,

no, the causal link is too simplistic here. Intensified competition is not
what leads to neoliberalism.

This is an enormous subject with scope for many arguments, but in a
nutshell, I would argue that neo liberalism was an ideological fiction
quite out of character with the historical monopolistic tendencies of
finance capital. It has prememinence for a couple of decades because it was
used by politicans around Reagan and Thatcher with their economic
ideologues, to launch attacks on the social wage in their imperialist
countries to strengthen their imperialisms against the threat from Japanese
imperialism, and rising capitalism in the far East. The project succeeded,
and Japan is stalled, and the little tigers had their coats clipped.

The USA and the UK now have flexible low cost labour markets with high
employment. The same medicine is just about to be applied within Euroland.
The other reason why the antiquated and false ideology of neo-liberalism
prevailed for some time was to prepare the world for the free run of the
giant transnational corporations, which wanted as smooth a playing field as
possible to accumulate capital by exploiting labour forces and controlling
markets on a world scale with minimal government interference.

> which leads to unemployment,


Fro these short term historical reasons neo-liberalism leads to
unemployment in the imperialist countries. It would also be more correct to
say that neo-liberalism leads to *increased* unemployment on a world scale.
But this is just a specific feature of the general tendency of capital
always to produce a reserve army of labour. What Marx called the absolute
general law of capitalist accumulation has to be seen to be working on a
global, and not merely a state level:

the greater the functioning capital, the greater is the industrial reserve
army. That is true in terms of the billions who are either unemployed
outright or underemployed on means of production that are hopelessly
morally depreciated.


> hunger and war.


It is not mainly unemployment that leads to war. Also imperialism, with or
without neoliberalism has fostered numerous wars since the end of WWII.
Much as we should hit neo-liberalism for its politics and its (false)
ideology, we should not mistake it for the fundamental cause of many of the
antagonistic contradictions in the world: global finance capital.


For Global Peace and Justice! (If you sincerely want socialism, you will
work now for global peace and justice.)

Louis Proyect is more than entitled to point out that his comment was
concise and brief and not attempting to be a long theoretical statement.
Nevertheless I have illustrated in my opinion, how some of the formulations
are too hasty and do not indicate correctly what is really happening. I
think these points are more than mere quibbles, and illustrate the
important differences in our perspectives.

Others of course may think thay can express key aspects of this better than
either Louis Proyect or myself have done.

Chris Burford

London