"Marxism Today"

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have recently caught up with a video of Blair's interview with Sabine
Christiansen on his visit to Germany earlier this month.

This illuminated for me my conviction that the New Labour Project, hatched
in the 80's during the long days of Thatcherism, was powerfully influenced
by "Marxism Today", the free thinking Eurocommunist theoretical journal of
the then Communist Party.

There are no direct phrases or formulations that I can point to to give
evidence of a shared discourse. However in terms of the evolution of
political ideas, any member of the Labour Party at that stage who was not
hard line left would have looked periodically at an article in Marxism
Today, which featured re-examining Thatcherism from the radical premise
that it would not simply go away.

Further, Blair's approach, shown up in the nuances of addressing a German
audience diplomatically during a visit, carefully not commenting directly
on a whole number of controversial issues, but making general points about
the common approach of leaders of European states, while being sensitive to
the subjective and objective conditions of individual peoples lives, is
fully compatible with the approach promoted by Marxism Today at that time.

The only main difference was that at that time MT concentrated on the hard
lessons of why Labour was unlikely to win an election again without
addressing individual subjective and material conditions of people without
categorising them into working class and middle class.

From one point of view New Labour is most easily understood as opportunism
made an absolute matter of principle, so it becomes scientific.  Of course
all (bourgeois) politicians are opportunist. New Labour is just
particularly scientific about how it does it. From that point of view it is
an effect rather than an independent cause of new modern methods of
production, information, and communication.

From a more general theoretical point of view New Labour took and takes
all the reality of a complex late capitalist society dominated by finance
capital and a pluralistic consumer society and applies a social and
economic overview to this. This is more than just being influenced by
sociological thinking. It assumes that economics is a foundation of society.

Psychologically, New Labour will always reframe every question to avoid
confronting what cannot immediately be confronted with a hope of winning,
in order to prepare the ground to approach the question from a different
angle at a later date. This skill was particularly evident in Blair's
interview with the gently but effectively probing Sabine Christiansen.

Eg there is no doubt that Blair sees a process of European convergence in
many ways. It is in this context that he will finesse every problem.

In Marxist terms the bad news is that New Labour takes capitalism as an
absolute given. The good news is that, like Marxism Today, it will always
try to construe what is happening in an overarching social and economic
context.

It is not impossible therefore that New Labour will produce formulations
that can be compatible with Marx's remark at the First International about
social production guided by social foresight. (quote unchecked)

Marxism Today took the Gramscian concept of civil society without Marx's
negative associations, and pushed it as far as possible. There is
undoubtedly a danger, as has been pointed out, that some followers of this
trend end up in circles of global "civil society" in which no clear lines
of demarcation are drawn with capitalist bed-fellows.

The evasion of some questions and the deliberate obscuring of others under
an over-arching reframing of the problem, is irritating and baffling. I
certainly recall such feelings towards Marxism Today in the 80's, which I
never found attractive. Those coming to politics from a consciously
left-wing point of view or still more a consciously marxist point of view
will be repeatedly irritated and suspicious of this approach. They should
certainly be wary.

Blair is responsible for his own crimes and misdemeanours, and Marxism
Today, before it stopped production in the early 90's, for its own. But the
general trend of approach is one that is deeply contradictory, and has
moved out to have a wider application and relevance.

Even if Schroeder loses the next election and Blair is left as the only
nominally left wing leader in Europe, Blair could give a similar interview
on German television. To many that is simply because he is now undoubtedly
one of the right wing, a traitor and an opportunist.


Chris Burford

London