Why liberals havent delivered real change

This excellent article from socialist alternative the US part of the CWI teh Committe for workers international crossed my path earlier and deserves sharing here i thought.

By Brandon Madsen

In the era of austerity, many wish for a return to the golden age of American liberal capitalism. But it’s not coming back. Here’s why - and what we can do about it.

In the current age of unprecedented attacks on working people – tax cuts for the rich, budget cuts and layoffs for the rest of us – many long for a return to a different time.


There is nostalgia for the economic boom years following World War II, for instance, when soaring corporate profits were accompanied by a rise in real wages, at least for some workers. It is a longing for a time when it was theoretically possible to work hard and pay your way through college without being buried under a mountain of debt.


These major gains are usually considered – erroneously – to be a natural byproduct of ascendant American capitalism, handed down by good-natured liberal figures in government. In Europe, however, even further gains were able to be extracted by building mass trade-union-based social democratic parties, despite a less favorable economic situation.


Contrary to messages presented in the mass media, liberalism wasn’t actually the force responsible for this supposed golden age of progressive development in U.S. society; it was the reflection of a ruling class that was willing to compromise with working-class movements because it could afford to do so – to bend the capitalist system so it didn’t break.


Most of the reforms won in this era would not have been considered for a moment by the ruling class, much less implemented, without the massive labor struggles of the 1930s and ‘40s and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.


In a recent New York Times op-ed, Cornel West points out how today even the Democratic Party is unwilling to make these types of concessions: “The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy. Instead of articulating a radical democratic vision and fighting for homeowners, workers and poor people in the form of mortgage relief, jobs and investment in education, infrastructure and housing, the administration gave us bailouts for banks, record profits for Wall Street and giant budget cuts on the backs of the vulnerable,” (“Dr. King Weeps From His Grave,” 8/25/11).


This didn’t start with Obama, though; it has been a bipartisan process taking place over decades. Democratic President Carter cut from social programs to expand the military, foreshadowing the Republican Reagan. Then it was a Democrat, Clinton, who ended the federal welfare program and twice unleashed U.S. military force on the Balkans. Now, the veil of capitalist liberalism has been ripped away, leaving only the open class warfare which has always lain just beneath the surface.


In Cornel West’s words: “The recent budget deal is only the latest phase of a 30-year, top-down, one-sided war against the poor and working people in the name of a morally bankrupt policy of deregulating markets, lowering taxes and cutting spending for those already socially neglected and economically abandoned. Our two main political parties, each beholden to big money, offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule.”


The Death of Liberalism


Chris Hedges, in his recent book The Death of the Liberal Class, calls out this weakening and all-but-disappearance of liberalism as a key trend in ruling-class circles.


He argues: “In a traditional democracy, the liberal class functions as a safety valve. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hope for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredits radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.”


Hedges goes on to condemn the institutions that previously played this role – namely the Democratic Party, churches, union leaderships, the media, and academia – for purging radicals from their midst, backing the unbridled corporate assault on living standards, and thereby paving the way for a “permanent underclass” to be maintained in American society.


While all of this is true, the book fails to seek out or describe the profound shifts in global economics over the last three decades that are the underlying reasons for the shift toward an all-out corporate assault on society.


The truth is that the post-war liberalism of relatively stable long-term reforms is dead for good.


While tiny reforms may be won here and there through a traditional liberal approach, this method is extremely limited in its potential. Small, short-term gains today will either be reversed tomorrow or offset by much larger attacks in other areas – or both.


This does not mean that fighting for reforms is a waste of time. On the contrary, the point is that they must be fought for and won; they will not simply be given by the ruling class. Major reforms attempting to tackle the fundamental problems facing society will only occur as the byproduct of mass struggles that seriously challenge the wealth of the ruling elite or threaten the capitalist system.


Mass campaigning for reforms in the here and now can provide significant immediate improvements in the lives of oppressed and working people. Moreover, these struggles play an important role in building powerful movements and a growing base of activists that can challenge the system on a more fundamental level.


But for these reforms to be secured in a stable, long-lasting fashion requires breaking with the declining, crisis-ridden system of capitalism. Otherwise, capitalist logic will kick in and begin rolling back reforms in an attempt to boost corporate profitability.


The Origins of Liberalism


Because liberalism has many working definitions in the U.S., it’s important to take a moment to define what’s being discussed here. Liberalism, in its modern U.S. sense, is the idea that positive reforms for regular working people and the oppressed can be achieved gradually through the official channels of capitalist democracy. This idea received the greatest boost and most complete political expression during the postwar boom.


The aftermath of World War II had prepared the ground for American capitalism to ascend to unchallenged dominance for a whole historical period. The destruction of Europe and Japan’s industrial bases in the war left an economic vacuum that American corporations were eager and well-positioned to fill. The era that followed was one of unbridled American supremacy on the world economic stage, with the U.S. facing no meaningful competition outside of the Soviet Union.


At the same time, U.S. society was being rocked by huge labor and civil rights struggles from the mid 1930s to the late 1960s. These struggles grew to a scale that was seriously threatening to ruling-class interests, leading big business to seek ways of taking the wind out of the sails of the movement by strategic accommodation to a limited portion of the movements’ demands.


In this context, a section of the capitalist class concluded that reforms that would give at least a certain section of white male workers a halfway decent standard of living were not only permissible, but even necessary in maintaining a stable capitalist order. This was one way the ruling class tried to prevent workers from seeing the need for independent mass action or the ideas of socialism.


This was the historical and material underpinning that allowed liberalism to work its way into ruling-class institutions. Though the Democrats have never been a working-class party, in this era they were able to be pressured by their base into granting concessions to workers, and the necessity of doing so found ideological expression at all levels of the party.


Still, nothing was granted out of the goodness of the Democrats’ hearts. Social Security, the right to a union, unemployment insurance: all were won by massive, militant labor struggles in the 1930s. Civil rights were won by African Americans as a result of the tidal wave of protest and revolt in the 1950s and 1960s.


The role of the Democrats was not to support or lead these struggles, but to co-opt and absorb the force of the rising labor and civil rights movements, channeling them into a path relatively harmless to the capitalists.


They were able to do this skillfully enough that the movements in the U.S. – unlike in most of the industrialized world – never reached the stage of establishing an independent, mass working-class party. To accomplish this, a section of the ruling class agreed that, when pushed from below, it was necessary to grant enough concessions from above to keep the unions within the toils of the two-party system.


As Henry Ford II, speaking to his fellow capitalists, argued: “We must support the Democrats so we can continue to live like Republicans.”


The Failure of Liberalism


Today these kinds of concessions are no longer possible. Increased international competition has weakened U.S. capitalism’s relative position in the world economy. The U.S. has gone from being the world’s biggest creditor nation after the war to the world’s biggest debtor nation today.


With China and other economies able to out-produce, at a cheaper cost, many products the U.S. used to be able to make and sell on the world market, U.S. corporations are no longer achieving profitability primarily by investment in production and services – that is, in the real economy. Instead, U.S. corporations seek profitability by upward redistribution of wealth through financial speculation, cutting social spending, externalizing costs, downsizing their labor force, cutting wages, and reducing their tax burden. The ruling class has also used military interventions abroad to try to project geopolitical dominance, even as U.S. economic dominance continues to be undermined.


Together with the social promises left over from the previous postwar boom era, this is what has driven the massive expansion of the national debt. The U.S. ruling elite would have loved to reduce the working class to third-world conditions while maintaining a bloated military budget and low taxes on the rich, but they didn’t think they could pull it off without provoking a mass resistance that would revive the fighting traditions of the U.S. working class. This was something they were not willing to risk as long as they were still making a killing on the world market, so an incredible level of debt was their solution in the meantime.


However, this is not a state of affairs that can be sustained forever, and now there are sections of the ruling class that feel now is the time to settle accounts - especially given this recent era of unprecedentedly low class struggle in America, which makes them feel like they can get away with it.


The current economic crisis is the main fuel driving this process, putting pressure on the ruling class to act now, and it is also the main piece of cover the capitalist politicians use to justify themselves, with claims of the need for “shared sacrifice” and “fiscal discipline.”


This is the origin of the recent, seemingly out-of-nowhere bipartisan consensus on the need to make cuts to previously untouchable supports of the social safety net, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Disagreements mainly focus on the depth and pace of the cuts and on whether to provide political cover and the illusion of shared burden with nominal tax increases on the wealthy. The traditional liberal position is nowhere to be found.


In general, today the dividing line between “liberal” and “conservative” is blurred into obscurity, if it can still be considered to be present at all. Politicians like Obama who identify as liberal have a program of low taxes on the rich, budget cuts and austerity. In some cases, they will advocate for a more gradual acceleration of the attacks on workers’ living standards, but that’s the limit of their opposition.


On social issues such as abortion and LGBT rights, there still remains a distinction between the two parties. However, the domination of the Democratic Party by big business interests means that these issues tend to be addressed in the form of partial, ineffectual, top-down and temporary reforms that the ruling class can later point to as evidence that such social programs and reforms don’t work. This stands in sharp contrast to the empowering mass struggles that won civil rights in the first place.


The Socialist Alternative


Most liberal political theorists today rightly complain about deregulation, outsourcing, corporate tax loopholes and the rest, but they have a shallow analysis that leads them to a position of simply imploring the ruling class to change rather than understanding why they are incapable of doing so. They fail to recognize that capitalism was only able to provide the reforms it did in an era when U.S. economic dominance was completely assured.


Now, liberalism and the path of gradual reform are a dead end. Real gains for workers will require a fundamental break from the logic of the capitalists and their political system. As long as profit is king, workers will stay exploited. The only way capitalists will give meaningful concessions in this era is under the pressure of mass movements and revolts.


Working-class people need to organize independently for their own interests. This not only means building mass protests in the streets against the savage austerity measures and organizing democratically run unions in workplaces; it also means giving political expression to the needs and aspirations of workers through a party that represents working-class interests.


A new party of this sort could link up with and express the demands of labor and other social movements for immigrants’ rights, to protect the environment, for an end to war, and so on.


Though far and away the most important task in the U.S. right now is for working people to get organized and create a party that can be their own political voice, it will also be important to figure out what that party stands for.


Taxing the rich and corporations, single-payer health care, jobs programs, slashing the military budget, boosting education funding – many liberals share these demands. But they have the illusion that these are things which will be achieved within the framework of capitalism. This is an illusion that must be broken.


The only way to gather the money to implement and fully fund these types of social programs would be through massive taxes on the wealthy, and especially on the big corporations. But under capitalism, big business and the banks could simply threaten to take their capital investments and production to countries with lower tax burdens.


To prevent this it would be necessary to seize control of corporate and financial assets, to place them under democratic control and management by workers and the broader public.


In a word, it would require socialism. Democratic control and public ownership of the decisive sections of the economy would allow society to wield its immense resources, through planning, in the interests of human needs instead of corporate profitability. This may seem like a utopian dream, yet on a practical level it would be quite feasible to run society this way.


Corporations that are larger than entire nations manage to plan out their production, distribution, pricing and so on just fine. Supermarkets and other large stores use loyalty cards to track individuals’ purchases and plan for the future accordingly. Online shopping allows for automation and centralization in tracking purchase orders from around the world.


Basic economic functioning under capitalism already requires mass coordination according to a worked-out plan; it’s just that most have no say in that plan. Planning already takes place, but it’s fragmented, incomplete, undemocratic, and in the interests of increasing the wealth of a tiny, rich minority.


The resources exist to allow everyone to live a comfortable, fulfilling existence. Through a democratically planned economy it would be possible to massively increase the standard of living, provide food, housing, education, health care, transportation, child care, internet access, and a secure job to everyone, all while reducing the length of the working week to allow more time for participation in political and social life as well as personal development and leisure.


By retooling the economy around environmentally sound technology such as solar power, focusing on recycling and renewal of resources, and mobilizing the scientific community on tackling global warming, human needs could be met in a way that also protects the planet. A socialist world is not only possible; fundamentally, it is the only way forward out of the current capitalist crisis.


Of course, it will not be the capitalists or their politicians that will bring about this state of affairs, which would eliminate their privileged position on top of society. It will have to be achieved by the working class and the oppressed themselves, which is another reason it is crucial to have a mass party that genuinely represents the interests of workers and young people.


We have to begin to get organized right now, both to fight the immediate attacks and to build our forces so we can mount a serious challenge to the profit-driven capitalist system as a whole.

Lib Dems rooted in capitalism

This is a recent article posted in this weeks edition of the socialist if you wish to read more articles like this please do visit www.socialistparty.org.uk and subscribe to our paper.

Despite Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg's hopes, anger at his party and at Lib Dem cabinet ministers has grown massively since the 2010 general election. Workers and young people have not forgiven the Lib Dems for their betrayal in joining a coalition with the hated Tories.

This was shown absolutely with the May elections. The Lib Dems lost 747 councillors, including losing control of Clegg's home of Sheffield. By acting as a 'human shield' for the Tories the Lib Dems took most of the public's anger against the cuts. Moreover, the loss of the AV referendum further shows a vengeful electorate.

The Lib Dems have clearly not even moderated the worst of the Tory cuts. As their local government hammering shows, people blame the Lib Dems. Public sector cuts will increase homelessness, poverty and unemployment. The Lib Dem leadership are utterly complicit in these attacks, they agree with the neoliberal 'slash and burn' model of the public sector.

Only following their drubbing in the May elections are the Lib Dems trying to reinvent themselves as the 'social conscience' of the Coalition.

Progressive alternative?
Their accession to 'power' did, however, show some divisions in the party. The Lib Dems' leader until 2007, Charles Kennedy, was publicly against privatisation of services, he postured as anti-war (if only before troops were actually dispatched to Iraq), and the party spoke more about a 'fairer' voting system.

From the 1990s to Kennedy's removal, the Lib Dems had a public, although incorrect, image of being left wing on social and political questions. This built roots in many areas and among layers of the middle and working class, especially youth and students. Labour's rightward slide under Tony Blair, the removal of Labour's 'socialist clause', Clause 4, and Labour's adoption of Tory spending plans after 1997, further exaggerated the Lib Dems' 'progressive' image.

After Kennedy's removal in 2007 the Lib Dems' right-wing neoliberal wing, under Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, David Laws and Chris Huhne, gained power. They changed the party's direction, from one of outwardly progressive social democratic style politics to a more traditional economic liberalism, focused on 'freeing up' the economy, and with social aspects made secondary.

The party's policies changed but the Lib Dems' public image of being a 'nicer' option than New Labour and the Tories stuck. People remembered Kennedy speaking on the Stop the War rally platform after the two million-strong demonstration against the Iraq war in 2003. In the absence of any speakers on behalf of a socialist organisation he was able to appear on the left.

Lib Dems were seen as opposing New Labour's domestic infringement of human rights in the name of the 'war on terror' and refuting tuition fees while still calling for student maintenance grants. After May 2010, though, this public image was shattered and the reality of the new Lib Dem neoliberal policies struck home.

The party went through a similar, though far less extreme, process to that experienced by lefts in the Labour Party who were witch-hunted as Blairism and New Labour took hold.

Orange Book
The Lib-Dem 'left', around Charles Kennedy and Simon Hughes, were mostly involved in the Beveridge Group, named after wartime Liberal Lord Beveridge, associated with some of the ideas of the welfare state. They put forward socially liberal ideas and tried to show their 'leftist' credentials over issues like Trident nuclear weapons, tuition fees, privatisation of services and progressive taxation.

However, under Clegg, those around the capitalist polemic The Orange Book, (Cable, Laws, Clegg etc) started a purge of the 'left'. While the Lib Dem left poses no radical alternative to capitalism, they carry some weight in areas where traditionally a working class alternative has been lacking, for example south-west England.

The right, an out-and-out capitalist faction, dedicated to the market over the public sector, has spent the last year hand-in-hand with the Tory axe-wielders. The right's document, Setting Business Free, says party policy should always "start with a bias in favour of market solutions".

The Orange Book, produced in 2004, claimed the market was more efficient and desirable than the public sector and proposed privatising some key public services. The sovereign debt crisis was the perfect excuse for these Lib Dem cronies of capitalism to bring in their savage, anti-worker, anti-equality ideas. Even their 'economics guru', Vince Cable, has recently been revealed as a former arms dealer.

It is important to realise that there is a historical context to the adoption of the Orange Book. The Liberals, before the Social Democrats joined them in the late 1980s, had suffered nearly six decades of ignominy. Deserted by the working class in the early 1900s, they were left behind by the electorate after World War One.

Throughout the 19th century, the Liberals (and Whigs before them) were often in power as a party representing the ruling class, if a slightly more progressive one than the Tories. Liberal governments passed Reform Acts but saw reform as political expediency or an attempt to cut across revolutionary tensions.

Throughout the 19th century, the Liberals were anti-working class, anti-democratic and anti-reform, until that was, it was absolutely necessary for capitalism to act.

It is only later that their social programme extended to include social policies on women, religion, sexuality, social provision and universal health care.

Clegg's policies, shown in the Orange Book and in the Con-Dem coalition's programme, have tried to bring back classic liberalism in a context of modern globalised capitalism. Their shrinking of the state makes it a mere protection agency for capital. Moreover, their focus on cutting the deficit at the expense of jobs, homes and services shows a shift in Liberal thinking. Protecting capital is yet again more important than protecting people, families and communities.

Locally the Lib Dems have also shown, at best, their cowardice to stand up against the coalition, or, at worst, their support of the Tory view of austerity and cuts. In many areas Lib Dems voted for or proposed massive cuts. Nationally and locally the Lib Dems are tarnished with the same brush as the Conservatives, while their claims of holding back the Tories have been shown to be completely false.

But whether ministers tried and failed to negotiate successfully with Cameron or agreed with Tory policies is immaterial. The Lib Dems are complicit in making the fiercest attacks on services, communities and the NHS. Workers and youth are unlikely to forget this.

Not all ordinary Lib Dem members agree with the austerity cuts, neoliberalism, or even being in the coalition. Many feel betrayed by the Orange Book leadership. But the Lib Dems are no kind of alternative, however guilty some members may feel.

We should make it absolutely clear that anti-cuts organisations will not hold back in fighting any councillor or council who is making cuts, Lib Dem, Labour or otherwise.

Which direction?
So far Clegg has fudged support for the coalition through a process of patronage and quashing debate within the party. But a split cannot be ruled out now the elections are over.

Currently Clegg has the support of MPs; the initial opposition by Charles Kennedy et al has died down. But there is anger in the rank and file who see themselves as more left than the leadership. For example the leader of the Lib Dems in Nottingham, following defeat in the 5 May local elections, called for Clegg to resign.

However, without a nationally recognised figurehead, like Kennedy or Ashdown, or a clear anti-cuts programme, it looks unlikely that the activists could leave and build a united new formation.

Most likely the Lib Dems will haemorrhage activist members, some to Labour or the Greens. However, the pressures of the economic crisis and the reality of the cuts that the Lib Dems are complicit in, could create the conditions for a breakaway from the parliamentary group. It would be no great stretch of the imagination to see Clegg and the Orange Book leadership joining the Conservative party, as perhaps a liberal wing.

Hatred of the cuts and of Clegg unites opposition, but will this manifest itself into an internal power shift? Many Lib Dems find these cuts disgusting, but liberalism offers no solution except working to make nicer, slower, more humane cuts, stuck within the confines of capitalism. Real opposition can only come from forces centred on the trade union movement and the ideas of socialism.