Uneasy about the growth of the Occupy movement, and uncertain about its motives, people nearly of my advanced age, ask me why the current uprising has chosen to make itself heard through occupation and protest rather than through the ballot box. But the form that the uprising takes is also its message: electoral representation has been denied, so the people have taken to the streets (and parks). In slogans heard not only now but over the last two decades, “Wall Street has two parties” or “The bosses have two parties.” No one represents the 99% at election time. The record shows that Obama’s leading corporate contributor was Goldman Sachs; both parties are controlled by the corporations, and the government functions as a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie. A sub-committee (the “Supercommittee”) appointed from the two ruling class parties will soon impose the American version of the austerity programs that Europe has resisted over the last year. To be sure, a mass party of the working-class needs to be created, and I hope that it will be, but the billions of dollars needed for campaigns in the country are not available to ordinary people (the 99%), and even ballot access for third party candidates faces obstacles that are insurmountable in some states, and meant to be. Campaigns limited in duration, with free television time for all parties, and with limits on campaign contributions, might help provide a playing field that is more nearly level; but fair play along those lines would hardly appeal to Democrats or Republicans.
In Europe, there are still remnants of the old working-class parties and emergent--but small--new ones, and they have been active over the past year. The austerity measures are only now being put into place in Greece and presumably in Italy. As in the USA, democratic decision-making would now threaten the rescue of the banks. Suggestions that a referendum be held in Greece dealt the stock markets of the world a serious blow, but the markets calmed when an economist with MIT credentials was put in charge of the Greek economy--another such economist is proposed as Italian prime minister, and one now runs the European Central Bank. Elections will not threaten these arrangements for some years; indeed the bureaucracy of the European Union will directly intervene in the day-to-day management of both Greek and Italian financial affairs. The people and their parties have for now been excluded, leaving them only the streets.
When the kids fight the cops for democracy in the USA, the Europeans will be doing the same in several countries. With the austerity measures imposed, the fights will, I fear, become more determined. This age of austerity arrives at a time when unemployment is extremely high, when social services face elimination, and people’s homes are being taken away from them. Mrs. Patrick Campbell famously said that she didn’t care what people did, so long as they didn’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses. I’m afraid that the tranquil lives of both horses and citizens will suffer some disruption.
The battle for civil rights in the USA was fought in streets as was the effort to end the Viet Nam War. Mass protests led by the Militant Tendency (now the Socialist Party of England and Wales) in the UK defeated the Poll Tax and led to the downfall of Thatcher, but they featured the decisive tactic of Non-Payment. In Oakland the Occupiers have made an initial step toward organizing a General Strike, wielding thereby the traditional weapon of the working-class. What strategy and tactics will now emerge, I cannot presume to say. I hope that they will be decided upon democratically. I hope that they will help secure democratic participation in the affairs of this nation for the 99%
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The Dialectic Ripens
The processes whose working-out your humble blogger has tried to study seem at times to move at a glacial pace. It was important to identify the responses of the working-class to the proposed austerity measures early on and tie them to an awakening of long dormant class consciousness. Otherwise this admittedly vision-impaired old head might have been whacked with the usual crack that hindsight is always 20-20. Similarly, it was important to refute early on the silly argument that austerity measures (“cuts”) would create jobs and prosperity--although, even now, capitalist economists seem bewildered at falling GDP in, for example, the UK. Protests have continued across Europe, with one of the largest in the UK, involving 700,000 people. But, overall, social processes gather force slowly, and especially in this case, when most austerity measures await implementation.
Perhaps, then, your blogger’s long bout with congestive heart failure was well-timed, pulling him away from the blogspot for a good three months and more with a considerable part of that time in the Massachusetts General Hospital. This blogless interval saw revolts across Northern Africa and the Middle East, the outcome of which will depend on whether working-class-based forces can find ideas and structures after decades of repression and with them take power. Europe still has the advantage of remembered struggles and some organization. This blog had located the austerity programs in the USA at the state- and municipal-level because programs like the Ryan budget had not yet been unveiled. And, for now, resistance to austerity measures in the USA--austerity measures which were to be accomplished in part by an attack on union rights--is most felt at the state level and produced the massive fight back in Wisconsin.
In their effort to enforce the cuts, the capitalist class is dropping its pretense of support for democracy. In Michigan, the new Republican governor has asserted the right of his party-in-power to take over towns not able to balance their budgets, pushing out the elected officials. It is a process also being seen in the EU, where fines and other punishments will be imposed on member states not in compliance with austerity measures. EU officials now regret that some member states have the right to vote on bailouts.
Next week, Finland will be under enormous pressure to support the latest bailout, this one for Portugal. They have no doubt been offered financial incentives to vote as required, but the threat represented by a new party in Finland that opposes bailouts has already been dealt with through a deal between the conservative coalition in Finland and the social democrats. The new political party that forced this so-called "left-right" alliance is the Perussuomalaiset, whose name is awkwardly translated as the “True Finns.” The True Finns, who have reached 19.1% in the latest Parliamentary election, are a centre-left formation, supporting the welfare state and sharply progressive taxation, and opposed to EU bailouts of banks and governments. (Unfortunately, they are also anti-immigration, and some of their representatives sound racist.) In class terms, the True Finns come largely from former rural and peasant parties, and as owners of farms are petite-bourgeois.
But, if EU plans to solve the economic crisis were threatened in Brussels, at least until the social democrats in Finland showed the limits to their "socialist" principles by getting in bed with the conservatives, they are again more seriously threatened in the streets. Greece is today closed by a general strike. That really is why I decided to resume the blog today. The latest news is that electrical power will soon be cut off by the utility workers. The airports are again closed. Will general strikes, in time, be coordinated to occur simultaneously across Europe? Why have the French been relatively silent of late? The British are already in the streets in record numbers, and not just to watch the Royal Wedding.
And so the Dialectic ripens. Broad-based working-class formations--parties-- are lacking. But it is class struggle that we are seeing. And all history is the history of class struggle.
Perhaps, then, your blogger’s long bout with congestive heart failure was well-timed, pulling him away from the blogspot for a good three months and more with a considerable part of that time in the Massachusetts General Hospital. This blogless interval saw revolts across Northern Africa and the Middle East, the outcome of which will depend on whether working-class-based forces can find ideas and structures after decades of repression and with them take power. Europe still has the advantage of remembered struggles and some organization. This blog had located the austerity programs in the USA at the state- and municipal-level because programs like the Ryan budget had not yet been unveiled. And, for now, resistance to austerity measures in the USA--austerity measures which were to be accomplished in part by an attack on union rights--is most felt at the state level and produced the massive fight back in Wisconsin.
In their effort to enforce the cuts, the capitalist class is dropping its pretense of support for democracy. In Michigan, the new Republican governor has asserted the right of his party-in-power to take over towns not able to balance their budgets, pushing out the elected officials. It is a process also being seen in the EU, where fines and other punishments will be imposed on member states not in compliance with austerity measures. EU officials now regret that some member states have the right to vote on bailouts.
Next week, Finland will be under enormous pressure to support the latest bailout, this one for Portugal. They have no doubt been offered financial incentives to vote as required, but the threat represented by a new party in Finland that opposes bailouts has already been dealt with through a deal between the conservative coalition in Finland and the social democrats. The new political party that forced this so-called "left-right" alliance is the Perussuomalaiset, whose name is awkwardly translated as the “True Finns.” The True Finns, who have reached 19.1% in the latest Parliamentary election, are a centre-left formation, supporting the welfare state and sharply progressive taxation, and opposed to EU bailouts of banks and governments. (Unfortunately, they are also anti-immigration, and some of their representatives sound racist.) In class terms, the True Finns come largely from former rural and peasant parties, and as owners of farms are petite-bourgeois.
But, if EU plans to solve the economic crisis were threatened in Brussels, at least until the social democrats in Finland showed the limits to their "socialist" principles by getting in bed with the conservatives, they are again more seriously threatened in the streets. Greece is today closed by a general strike. That really is why I decided to resume the blog today. The latest news is that electrical power will soon be cut off by the utility workers. The airports are again closed. Will general strikes, in time, be coordinated to occur simultaneously across Europe? Why have the French been relatively silent of late? The British are already in the streets in record numbers, and not just to watch the Royal Wedding.
And so the Dialectic ripens. Broad-based working-class formations--parties-- are lacking. But it is class struggle that we are seeing. And all history is the history of class struggle.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Engineering a Recovery
I must apologize to my faithful reader for the lengthy hiatus in the production of my blog entries. The most valid of the excuses that I might offer is that I have had a bout of what was apparently pneumonia, and that did cost me some weeks of normal functioning. I have, however, also ceased reporting “routine” European protests in these blogs: there are many of them, and they will increase when this harsh winter eases. What caught me by surprise were the outbreaks of food and employment protests in Algeria, Jordan, and Tunisia, events that had no less an outcome than the ousting of the Tunisian dictator. Increases in food and gasoline (petrol) prices will also make the European austerity measures even more painful to endure, and this pain will also be felt in the USA where there are no federal austerity measures but sharp cuts at the state and municipal levels.
On my recent European wanderings, I saw little in the way of physical evidence of the austerity measures. Those measures are only now being implemented. The recession has itself left its mark in empty storefronts, and a taxi driver in Dublin told us that two large, formerly thriving pubs in Parnell Square, the Parnell Mooney and the Parnell Conway had closed because “nobody has any money to go out.”
Europe has, at any rate, seemed to me, over the last decade and more, more affluent than the USA. No doubt this appearance of general affluence stemmed in part from there not being the huge gap between rich and poor that the USA tolerates. In addition Europe has seemed far ahead technologically, whether in high speed rail transportation or broadband access. It has had , moreover, a social safety net in place to deal with unemployment and health problems. Rankings of nations by “quality of life” have supported my impressions, placing a country like Belgium, for instance, well ahead of the USA.
The cuts that are now in the works in Europe will be an assault on such “quality of life.” The social safety net will, in many instances, be cut away.During my recent illness, a few weeks ago, I saw and heard both George Osborne, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for perhaps ten years before he became Prime Minister, admit in separate Fareed Zakaria interviews, that the coming cuts would not only be painful but would make recovery from the recession difficult. Both saw “growth” as the way to recovery and looked to “innovation” as the way to get the economy moving. Both praised the American record of innovation and looked forward to its next successes, especially in technology.
I was surprised by their candor: they were in effect admitting that the recovery in employment will not occur until the slow processes of product development have time to work. But I wondered whether they were right that we can trust American innovation to lead the way. We produce far fewer engineers than nations like China and India, so we have fewer minds to apply to product development. The products that we do “innovate” are not produced in this country but usually in Asia, so the products produce profits for some American-based corporations but few American jobs. Our manufacturing base is, in fact, in poor shape because we have shipped the literal means of production--by which I here mean only machinery--overseas.
I recently asked a retired engineer, who had had a long career with one of the USA’s industrial giants, about our manufacturing capabilities. He said that the machines are not here, the parts are produced overseas, and we frankly can’t depend on domestic production any longer. He and I speculated what would happen if the USA had to re-tool for wartime production as we did so successfully in World War II.
Our production of engineers for American industry may not, furthermore, be quite at the level that we assume it to be. Perhaps the situation has changed, but, over thirty years ago, as an assistant dean of a graduate school, I produced a report on foreign student enrollments in graduate programs in some Midwestern universities. I had not expected to find, as I did, that most of the graduate students in engineering were from other countries. Many remained here, of course, to work in American industry or teach in American universities after receiving their degrees, but I know that complaints from industry are heard even today about how difficult it is to secure permission for these trained engineers to become residents. And, with industry and university opportunities well developed in their home countries, these advanced degree recipients may today well prefer to return home. Indeed, they may choose to do their advanced degree work in their home countries.
We have, moreover, to face the fact that the USA ranks very low in the provision of the math and science education that produces engineers and thereby innovation. Singapore is likely to educate future engineers; East Boston, MA, is not. George Osborne and Gordon Brown may have to look elsewhere than to American innovation to engineer a recovery from the recession..
On my recent European wanderings, I saw little in the way of physical evidence of the austerity measures. Those measures are only now being implemented. The recession has itself left its mark in empty storefronts, and a taxi driver in Dublin told us that two large, formerly thriving pubs in Parnell Square, the Parnell Mooney and the Parnell Conway had closed because “nobody has any money to go out.”
Europe has, at any rate, seemed to me, over the last decade and more, more affluent than the USA. No doubt this appearance of general affluence stemmed in part from there not being the huge gap between rich and poor that the USA tolerates. In addition Europe has seemed far ahead technologically, whether in high speed rail transportation or broadband access. It has had , moreover, a social safety net in place to deal with unemployment and health problems. Rankings of nations by “quality of life” have supported my impressions, placing a country like Belgium, for instance, well ahead of the USA.
The cuts that are now in the works in Europe will be an assault on such “quality of life.” The social safety net will, in many instances, be cut away.During my recent illness, a few weeks ago, I saw and heard both George Osborne, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for perhaps ten years before he became Prime Minister, admit in separate Fareed Zakaria interviews, that the coming cuts would not only be painful but would make recovery from the recession difficult. Both saw “growth” as the way to recovery and looked to “innovation” as the way to get the economy moving. Both praised the American record of innovation and looked forward to its next successes, especially in technology.
I was surprised by their candor: they were in effect admitting that the recovery in employment will not occur until the slow processes of product development have time to work. But I wondered whether they were right that we can trust American innovation to lead the way. We produce far fewer engineers than nations like China and India, so we have fewer minds to apply to product development. The products that we do “innovate” are not produced in this country but usually in Asia, so the products produce profits for some American-based corporations but few American jobs. Our manufacturing base is, in fact, in poor shape because we have shipped the literal means of production--by which I here mean only machinery--overseas.
I recently asked a retired engineer, who had had a long career with one of the USA’s industrial giants, about our manufacturing capabilities. He said that the machines are not here, the parts are produced overseas, and we frankly can’t depend on domestic production any longer. He and I speculated what would happen if the USA had to re-tool for wartime production as we did so successfully in World War II.
Our production of engineers for American industry may not, furthermore, be quite at the level that we assume it to be. Perhaps the situation has changed, but, over thirty years ago, as an assistant dean of a graduate school, I produced a report on foreign student enrollments in graduate programs in some Midwestern universities. I had not expected to find, as I did, that most of the graduate students in engineering were from other countries. Many remained here, of course, to work in American industry or teach in American universities after receiving their degrees, but I know that complaints from industry are heard even today about how difficult it is to secure permission for these trained engineers to become residents. And, with industry and university opportunities well developed in their home countries, these advanced degree recipients may today well prefer to return home. Indeed, they may choose to do their advanced degree work in their home countries.
We have, moreover, to face the fact that the USA ranks very low in the provision of the math and science education that produces engineers and thereby innovation. Singapore is likely to educate future engineers; East Boston, MA, is not. George Osborne and Gordon Brown may have to look elsewhere than to American innovation to engineer a recovery from the recession..
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