“Most powerful challenge to neo-liberalism” in North America
Brandon Madsen, Socialist Alternative (CWI supporters in the US)
Last week, 400 socialists from across Europe and all around the world met in Belgium at the CWI Summer School. Below, Brandon Madsen reports on the commission which dealt with Quebec and the inspiring student movement taking place there.
Socialistworld.net
In response to rising tuition fees, Quebec society has been shaken to the core by four months of student strikes, which have garnered support from trade unions and been linked to far-reaching anti-austerity demands.
Though student involvement varies – with some striking indefinitely, some for a specific time, and others remaining more passive – student support for the movement has been nearly overwhelming. At the movement’s peak, the demonstrations turned out an estimated 310,000 students: that is, three out of every four students in Quebec.
The Guardian journalist Martin Lukacs describes the mass movement in Quebec as “the most powerful challenge to neoliberalism on the continent”. The symbol of the “red square”, originally used by unemployed workers in 2003 and then by students during the strike of 2005, is a ubiquitous sign of solidarity in what is being called the “Quebecois spring”.
It all started in the spring of 2011, when Education Minister Fine Beauchamps cynically attempted to sell a 75% increase in tuition fees over the next five years as a ‘cultural revolution’, ostensibly justified because it would bring Quebec tuition fees closer to those charged in other Canadian provinces.
The young people of Quebec have responded by showing Beauchamp and the rest of the neoliberal regime what a real cultural revolution looks like. Under the pressure of the determined mass demonstrations, Beauchamp resigned in May, and the movement has continued.
Amid all the excitement and inspiration, important questions remain: what is the balance of forces in this struggle, and what can bring it forward to victory?
‘Largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history’
CLASSE (the main radical student union) put out the call last autumn for strikes starting on 13 February of this year. The first major actions took place 16 February, when students joined together with workers and activists to blockade the streets surrounding stock market buildings.
From the beginning, the demonstrations were linked to a rejection of all austerity measures being carried out by the government. The 16 February demonstrations included three main demands: no increase in tuition fees, no increase in electricity charges, and no to all fees for health services.
The government’s complete intransigence and outright rejection of all student demands only poured fuel on the fire of the movement, which reached its first peak between 13 and 22 March. All supposed offers for negotiations have been non-starters designed merely to stall for time. Many of the offers in these “negotiations” are actually worse than the Education Minister’s initial proposals (for example, adding in cuts to education programmes on top of fee increases).
The Liberal Party in Quebec, concerned about the upcoming provincial elections which will take place this coming fall, have since tried to use “chaos in the streets” hysteria to distract voters from the numerous corruption allegations against them. It is estimated that as much as three quarters of the financing for the main traditional parties of Quebec is obtained illegally. By taking a hard line against demonstrators, they hoped to apply pressure that would divide and potentially break up the movement while simultaneously courting the “law and order” vote.
In line with this strategy, the new education minister Michelle Courchesne immediately proposed and proceeded to ram through a repressive new anti-protest law known as Bill 78, which went into effect on 18 May, mere days after Courchesne took over from Beauchamp. As a “special law” which specifically targets the political rights of the demonstrators, Bill 78 not only restricts education employees’ right to strike but more generally inhibits the freedom to protest on or near university grounds. It requires that all demonstrations receive approval from the police before taking place.
Far from curtailing protests or breaking up the movement, however, the law has stirred up even more outrage in broader layers of society; the protests in defiance of the law were the largest yet, with up to 500,000 marching in Montreal in ‘the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history’.
Historical roots of the student strike
Bruno-Pierre Guillette from Alternative Socialiste (CWI in Quebec), who introduced the CWI School commission on Quebec, began his remarks by comparing the student strike movement today to the ‘Quiet Revolution’ that transformed Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s.
Like the current ‘Quebecois spring’, the Quiet Revolution was an expression of a profound social crisis in Quebecois society. Despite never reaching the numerical size that today’s student strikes have at their height, these earlier movements had strong revolutionary currents within them. They were able to transform the political landscape and win reforms which improved the lives of millions. The Quiet Revolution marked the beginning of a powerful student movement, and between 1968 and 1977 there were major strike actions, most notably in 1972, which was one of the largest working class rebellions in North American history.
The development of a more secular society and the welfare state was accompanied by the rise of a stronger Quebecois national identity. The industries of health care and education, which had previously been in the hands of the Catholic Church, were taken over by the provincial government; corresponding Ministries of Education and Health were created. The civil service was unionized and electricity production and distribution were nationalized. There was massive public investment in infrastructure and education.
The years 1988-89 marked the decline of the student movement in Quebec as a call for a general student strike was unsuccessful. The Quebec Federation of College Students (FECQ), created after the experience of the failed strike, quickly took a turn towards collaboration with the university bureaucracies and bourgeois politicians and away from independent struggle. Today this organization continues to pursue a collaborationist policy and maintains ties with the centre-left nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ).
Still, there was another student strike in 1996 which resulted in a 10-year tuition freeze. Since then, both the PQ and the Liberal Party have been actively complicit in carrying out austerity measures. In 2005, the Minister of Education decided to change scholarships into student loans (which, unlike scholarships, would have to be repaid). This resulted in a massive student strike, which was successful in stopping this measure despite the heavily co-opted main student federations being used as a tool of the government against the radical wing of the movement.
It is only because of these earlier movements that Quebec’s tuition fees are so much lower than the rest of Canada’s to begin with and now the government is attempting to eliminate the hard-won gains of the past all in one fell swoop.
The tuition freeze expired in 2006 and fees have been on the rise ever since. The average Quebec university student now graduates with C$14,000 in personal student debt. This reality has served as the backdrop to the current struggle and provided the combustible material that allowed for the explosive movement of today.
The role of police repression and Bill 78
Bill 78 was the attempt of the Quebec ruling class to contain that explosion. This attempt has so far profoundly backfired on them; turning up the heat and pressure has only made the explosion more powerful.
Since the passage of Bill 78, support for the student movement in broader society has only increased. Layers of workers and activists who took part in the demonstrations previously are now coming out in defiance of the law because they are enraged by its assault on basic political rights of individuals to organize and protest.
Nonetheless, because of Bill 78’s highly repressive and undemocratic nature, it is a danger to all future movements. As such, it is urgently necessary to fight to overturn it.
Due to this law, it is now legally forbidden to have spontaneous demonstrations; everything must be reported to the police eight hours in advance or the protest is deemed illegal. Police now have the power to order changes in the timing, location, itinerary, and march routes of demonstrations. Protests or pickets within 50 metres of a university building are now illegal.
As for the right to free association: if a student society decides to support the strike, it can not only face steep fines (up to C$125,000 per day), but be legally dissolved and forced out of existence. Individual participants can be fined up to C$5000 per day and leading organizers up to C$35,000 per day.
In the last four months, the police have arrested 3000 people in what have been termed “preventative arrests”, meaning that those arrested have not actually committed any unlawful acts (implied: yet). One tactic used by the police has been to simply block off a section of street filled with demonstrators and arrest everyone indiscriminately.
These arrests have been widely condemned both within Quebec and internationally. Ten people have been seriously injured by the police in these arrests, and according to activists in the movement it is only a matter of good luck that no protestors have been killed yet.
Students need to build concrete links with workers and unions
Although there is a “truce” for now over the summer, the students have elected a strike committee that will vote on whether to take further strike action in August, which seems likely. In order to fully defeat the neoliberal austerity policies of the government, however, it will require spreading the struggle to the organized working class of Quebec.
The basis for the working class to play a leading role is there. The current attacks have not been limited to targeting students: there are plans for a new “health tax”, and healthcare subscription costs have already gone up by a factor of eight since 2010. Workers across the province are fighting against layoffs and workplace closures. Rent and utility prices are rising while wages stagnate. In Canada, more broadly, Canadian Pacific Railway workers are planning a 72-hour strike for their pensions, while the Canadian federal government tries to pass its own “special law” like Bill 78 to make that strike illegal.
The situation is ripe for the anger of the working class to be channeled into active participation in this ongoing movement. Though workers have individually taken part in the demonstrations out of the strength of their own anger and convictions, organized support from workers’ unions has been limited mostly to lip service, so far.
Connected to this are union officials’ ties to the PQ. While it is the Liberal Party who has been leading the charge for austerity and against the demonstrators, the PQ does not have any principled disagreement with them. The main difference from the Liberals is they might bring in a few superficial reforms in attempt to take the wind out of the movement instead of a one-sided cracking down. To oppose neoliberal policies effectively, the workers and their unions but be able to act politically independently from all pro-capitalist parties, including the PQ.
For the moment, the student movement’s main call to workers has been for them to use sick days to come out to demonstrations rather than take actual strike action. At the same time, they have raised the general idea of a “social strike” of all who oppose austerity. The ability to organize this type of strike action, societal in scope and political in character, is precisely what will determine the success or failure of the movement to achieve fundamental change in the long run.
If the students remain alone at the end of August, when the government intends to force them all back to the universities, this will not bode well for the movement’s success.
Will unions join student struggle?
So the key question hanging over the movement in the period ahead is: when classes start again in the fall, will the unions rise up and join the movement and full partners, or will they stand aside and allow the strikes to be crushed?
The decisive factor in this situation is the degree of rank-and-file organization, activism, and political consciousness within the unions. The only way that the unions will be mobilized to enter the struggle in full force is by a relentless push from below. This type of development can be encouraged by bold calls to the unions from the student movement. Socialists, in particular, have an important role to play in popularising the idea of a united anti-austerity fight back amongst all sections of the movement.
This is the work that Alternative Socialiste (CWI in Quebec) is doing right now, concretely by calling for a 24-hour general strike as the next step to bring together workers and students against austerity, for free education at all levels, and for decent jobs for all to combat youth unemployment.
Regardless of what happens in the fall, the raising of consciousness this movement has brought about cannot be erased. Together with the Wisconsin uprising and the advent of the Occupy movement last year, the picture is becoming increasingly clear for all to see: class struggle is back on the agenda in North America.
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Showing posts with label neo-liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neo-liberalism. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Ireland, reject the treaty reject austerity !
The “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union” is a treaty to institutionalise synchronised austerity across Europe at the expense of basic democratic rights. If implemented, it will mean a further assault on the living standards of working people and will further deepen the economic crisis.
The central reason why this is an Austerity Treaty is the enforcement of the “balanced budget” rule contained in Article 3. This rule imposes a maximum structural deficit of 0.5% for a country with a debt to GDP ratio of greater than 60%, and 1% for other countries. Exceeding that amount will trigger an automatic “correction mechanism” - which means cutbacks and extra taxes.
What is a structural deficit? Essentially, it is a measurement of the deficit in an economy when cyclical movements in the economy and one-off expenditures are taken out of the equation. However, how to determine it is a matter of a lot of debate between economists with the result that different institutions can come up with very different figures. For example the IMF estimates that Ireland ran a structural deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2006, while the EU Commission estimated a surplus of 2.2%! It also is really something that can only be measured with the benefit of hindsight, with the result that structural deficit estimates differ radically over time.
Countries that are in bailout programmes are shielded from these targets until they exit. Ireland is currently due to exit in 2014. The Department of Finance estimates that in 2015, Ireland will have a strucutral deficit of 3.7%. Bringing that down to 0.5% would mean at least €5.7 billion worth of extra cuts and taxes. It is more likely that the Commission would give Ireland a few years to meet the target. A target of 2017 would simply mean extending that austerity over three years, with around €2 billion of extra austerity per year. Those cuts would further reduce GDP, therefore necessitating yet more cuts!
If it is passed and implemented across Europe, this Treaty will not bring stability and growth, it threatens an absolute disaster. Austerity is already destroying lives and economies across Europe – with the Greek economy in freefall as a direct result, the Portuguese economy continuing to shrink and the Irish economy set to become the first in the EU to have six consecutive years of declining domestic demand.
According to the European Commission, in 2013, 18 countries out of 25 will have a structural deficit greater than their target, with an average deficit of 2.6 per cent. Reducing these deficits to the target levels in 2013 would mean at least €166 billion worth of cuts and extra taxes. That would have a devastating impact on the European economy. If a longer timeframe is given by the Commission, this will simply mean the same savage austerity drawn out over years.
A bondholders' Treaty
Article 4 requires countries with a debt to GDP ratio of over 60% to reduce it by one twentieth of the excess per year. In theory, there are two ways in which this ratio could be reduced. GDP could be increased or the debt itself could be reduced through paying back the principal. In practice, because of the austerity policies already being pursued and the implications of Article 3, the option of significant GDP growth is effectively ruled out.
Therefore, this Article in effect calls for a massive pay back of debt to the bondholders! In the Eurozone as a whole, the debt to GDP ratio is at 85%. Reducing that to 60% without GDP growth would require a reduction of €2.3 trillion of debt. This is a recipe for yet more austerity that will provoke a further contraction across Europe.
Ireland's debt to GDP ratio is likely to be around 120% in 2015. Reducing the debt to GDP ratio by one twentieth of the excess per year will therefore mean paying back €4.5 billion per year in principal to the bondholders on top of the €9 billion a year we will be paying in interest rates. This debt will only be paid back on the basis of yet more savage austerity imposed on working people.
Restrictions of major public investment
Articles three and four together demonstrate how this is an austerity Treaty in the interests of the bondholders and speculators. This is not simply one off austerity, but an attempt to enshrine it “through provisions of binding force and permanent character”. They mean that engaging in expansionary fiscal policy will be effectively made illegal.
While it is the case that often achieving a structural balance would be a worthwhile aim, it also often makes sense for a state to engage in borrowing and deficit spending in order to create employment and develop the economy. The need for massive public investment is particularly evident right now in Ireland. 450,000 people are on the live register and private sector investment has collapsed. Despite an increase in profits for the private sector (the gross operating surplus of non-financial corporations increasing by €2.6 billion in 2010) investment continues to decline (by €30 billion since 2007). On the basis of relying on the private sector, it is simply wishful thinking to suggest that the financial resources will be put together with the available skills and talents of labour to create jobs and wealth in our economy.
That is why massive public sector programmes are needed to get people back to work, as well as improving our infrastructure and developing our economy. If big business is not willing to invest, the key sections of the economy should be taken out of private ownership and into democratic public ownership and a democratic plan developed based on massive public sector investment to redevelop the economy.
Attack on democracy
The Fiscal Treaty is part of a process, with the economic crisis, that has seen significant attacks on democratic rights within the EU. For example, the unelected and unaccountable European Central Bank has become increasingly powerful – sending detailed prescriptions of austerity measures to the Italian governments for them to carry out. The unelected European Commission has played a central role in the removal of elected governments in Italy and Greece and their replacement by bankers' governments. This treaty is a significant attack on the basic democratic right to elect a government to decide on budgetary and economic strategy. It does this in two key ways.
Firstly, with the balanced budget rule it effectively ties future governments to the same economic policies as this one – neo-liberalism and austerity. It rules out governments running structural deficits – which could be used for investment in vital public works, to engage in necessary public spending and so on. It is surely one of the most basic requirements of a democracy that people are free to vote for different economic policies.
This has not come out of the blue – it is part of a process whereby economic policy has been technocratised. There has been a conscious attempt to use the crisis (a crisis of capitalism caused by speculators, bankers, neo-liberalism and deregulation, let us remember) to move economic policy out of the sphere of democratic discussion and to turn it into a purely technical question. So neo-liberalism is not posed as a policy choice, it is simply “responsible” behaviour.
The second key proposal diminishing democracy is the mechanism for countries to be effectively placed in administration. This is contained in Article 5 of the treaty, which says that countries in an “excessive deficit procedure” have to put in place a “budgetary and economic partnership programme including a detailed description of the structural reforms which must be put in place and implemented to ensure an effective and durable correction of their excessive deficits.” These programmes will be endorsed and monitored by the European Commission and Council. In this way there is a surrender of budgetary powers to the Commission and Council; consequently it will not only be countries in receipt of bailout funds like Ireland, Greece and Portugal that will have their budgets effectively written by these powers.
A neo-liberal Europe
With the economic crisis, the illusions that so-called social democrats promoted about a supposedly social Europe have been smashed by the reality of a neo-liberal Europe. This Treaty goes further along that road of diminishing democratic checks and accountability of the leading bodies in Europe, in order to create a Europe where the interests of the bankers and billionaires come first. This Treaty writes economic policy into law in their interests, at the expense of the vast majority who will suffer under austerity. It must be met with a vigorous No campaign in the referendum but also with struggle in the streets and workplaces by workers across Europe against their agenda.
With thanks to Paul Murphy MEP of the socialist party ULA in Ireland for this e xcellent article on the bits I don’t fully understand.
The central reason why this is an Austerity Treaty is the enforcement of the “balanced budget” rule contained in Article 3. This rule imposes a maximum structural deficit of 0.5% for a country with a debt to GDP ratio of greater than 60%, and 1% for other countries. Exceeding that amount will trigger an automatic “correction mechanism” - which means cutbacks and extra taxes.
What is a structural deficit? Essentially, it is a measurement of the deficit in an economy when cyclical movements in the economy and one-off expenditures are taken out of the equation. However, how to determine it is a matter of a lot of debate between economists with the result that different institutions can come up with very different figures. For example the IMF estimates that Ireland ran a structural deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2006, while the EU Commission estimated a surplus of 2.2%! It also is really something that can only be measured with the benefit of hindsight, with the result that structural deficit estimates differ radically over time.
Countries that are in bailout programmes are shielded from these targets until they exit. Ireland is currently due to exit in 2014. The Department of Finance estimates that in 2015, Ireland will have a strucutral deficit of 3.7%. Bringing that down to 0.5% would mean at least €5.7 billion worth of extra cuts and taxes. It is more likely that the Commission would give Ireland a few years to meet the target. A target of 2017 would simply mean extending that austerity over three years, with around €2 billion of extra austerity per year. Those cuts would further reduce GDP, therefore necessitating yet more cuts!
If it is passed and implemented across Europe, this Treaty will not bring stability and growth, it threatens an absolute disaster. Austerity is already destroying lives and economies across Europe – with the Greek economy in freefall as a direct result, the Portuguese economy continuing to shrink and the Irish economy set to become the first in the EU to have six consecutive years of declining domestic demand.
According to the European Commission, in 2013, 18 countries out of 25 will have a structural deficit greater than their target, with an average deficit of 2.6 per cent. Reducing these deficits to the target levels in 2013 would mean at least €166 billion worth of cuts and extra taxes. That would have a devastating impact on the European economy. If a longer timeframe is given by the Commission, this will simply mean the same savage austerity drawn out over years.
A bondholders' Treaty
Article 4 requires countries with a debt to GDP ratio of over 60% to reduce it by one twentieth of the excess per year. In theory, there are two ways in which this ratio could be reduced. GDP could be increased or the debt itself could be reduced through paying back the principal. In practice, because of the austerity policies already being pursued and the implications of Article 3, the option of significant GDP growth is effectively ruled out.
Therefore, this Article in effect calls for a massive pay back of debt to the bondholders! In the Eurozone as a whole, the debt to GDP ratio is at 85%. Reducing that to 60% without GDP growth would require a reduction of €2.3 trillion of debt. This is a recipe for yet more austerity that will provoke a further contraction across Europe.
Ireland's debt to GDP ratio is likely to be around 120% in 2015. Reducing the debt to GDP ratio by one twentieth of the excess per year will therefore mean paying back €4.5 billion per year in principal to the bondholders on top of the €9 billion a year we will be paying in interest rates. This debt will only be paid back on the basis of yet more savage austerity imposed on working people.
Restrictions of major public investment
Articles three and four together demonstrate how this is an austerity Treaty in the interests of the bondholders and speculators. This is not simply one off austerity, but an attempt to enshrine it “through provisions of binding force and permanent character”. They mean that engaging in expansionary fiscal policy will be effectively made illegal.
While it is the case that often achieving a structural balance would be a worthwhile aim, it also often makes sense for a state to engage in borrowing and deficit spending in order to create employment and develop the economy. The need for massive public investment is particularly evident right now in Ireland. 450,000 people are on the live register and private sector investment has collapsed. Despite an increase in profits for the private sector (the gross operating surplus of non-financial corporations increasing by €2.6 billion in 2010) investment continues to decline (by €30 billion since 2007). On the basis of relying on the private sector, it is simply wishful thinking to suggest that the financial resources will be put together with the available skills and talents of labour to create jobs and wealth in our economy.
That is why massive public sector programmes are needed to get people back to work, as well as improving our infrastructure and developing our economy. If big business is not willing to invest, the key sections of the economy should be taken out of private ownership and into democratic public ownership and a democratic plan developed based on massive public sector investment to redevelop the economy.
Attack on democracy
The Fiscal Treaty is part of a process, with the economic crisis, that has seen significant attacks on democratic rights within the EU. For example, the unelected and unaccountable European Central Bank has become increasingly powerful – sending detailed prescriptions of austerity measures to the Italian governments for them to carry out. The unelected European Commission has played a central role in the removal of elected governments in Italy and Greece and their replacement by bankers' governments. This treaty is a significant attack on the basic democratic right to elect a government to decide on budgetary and economic strategy. It does this in two key ways.
Firstly, with the balanced budget rule it effectively ties future governments to the same economic policies as this one – neo-liberalism and austerity. It rules out governments running structural deficits – which could be used for investment in vital public works, to engage in necessary public spending and so on. It is surely one of the most basic requirements of a democracy that people are free to vote for different economic policies.
This has not come out of the blue – it is part of a process whereby economic policy has been technocratised. There has been a conscious attempt to use the crisis (a crisis of capitalism caused by speculators, bankers, neo-liberalism and deregulation, let us remember) to move economic policy out of the sphere of democratic discussion and to turn it into a purely technical question. So neo-liberalism is not posed as a policy choice, it is simply “responsible” behaviour.
The second key proposal diminishing democracy is the mechanism for countries to be effectively placed in administration. This is contained in Article 5 of the treaty, which says that countries in an “excessive deficit procedure” have to put in place a “budgetary and economic partnership programme including a detailed description of the structural reforms which must be put in place and implemented to ensure an effective and durable correction of their excessive deficits.” These programmes will be endorsed and monitored by the European Commission and Council. In this way there is a surrender of budgetary powers to the Commission and Council; consequently it will not only be countries in receipt of bailout funds like Ireland, Greece and Portugal that will have their budgets effectively written by these powers.
A neo-liberal Europe
With the economic crisis, the illusions that so-called social democrats promoted about a supposedly social Europe have been smashed by the reality of a neo-liberal Europe. This Treaty goes further along that road of diminishing democratic checks and accountability of the leading bodies in Europe, in order to create a Europe where the interests of the bankers and billionaires come first. This Treaty writes economic policy into law in their interests, at the expense of the vast majority who will suffer under austerity. It must be met with a vigorous No campaign in the referendum but also with struggle in the streets and workplaces by workers across Europe against their agenda.
With thanks to Paul Murphy MEP of the socialist party ULA in Ireland for this e xcellent article on the bits I don’t fully understand.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
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.
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.
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