RELATIVE AUTONOMY: MEDIA, FILM & POLITICS
  • blog
  • about
  • Writing

Communism or Corbynism? That Is The Question

19/11/2019

 
​The British General Election draws near, the party propaganda machines are in full swing and the tranquillity of my winter evenings is increasingly punctured by the rapping and ringing of the clipboard-clutching ghouls who have wound their way to my front door. My favourite canvasser so far has been the wiry, wild-eyed Liberal Democrat who opened his spiel with a personalised greeting, raced through some questionable statistics and finished off with a desperate appeal for a tactical vote. If I mention to any these guys that I’m a socialist, their assumption is that I’ll be voting Labour. But in fact none of the capitalist gangs will be getting my vote.
 
Most decent folks are aware that the Conservatives are a party of entitled crooks and chancers that shamelessly defends the economic interests of the ruling class - a party for "selfish, grasping simpletons, who were born with some essential part of their soul missing", as the writer Charlie Brooker has put it. Unfortunately, however, many well-meaning working-class people are taken in by the promises of other political parties to represent a socialist, communist or human alternative. They don’t. And that is as true of Labour as it is of any other party. In fact, the Labour Party, supposedly under newly ‘radical’ leadership, is a capitalist party – one that itself is not above deceiving the electorate. Just look at this Labour Party video about 'the economy', with its villainous billionaire who refuses to invest his wealth (as if capitalism could continue if this happened) and salt-of-the-earth proles cheerfully circulating their own means of exchange by paying for goods and services in their local communities (for a full critique of the misunderstandings and myths in this video, see here). This is not just bogus economics, but facile moralism and it beggars belief that nobody taking part in this production stopped to call some of its assumptions into question. Perhaps some did; but I have seen Labourites happily sharing this video on social media.
 
​As argued by this text contributed to a left communist web site by a group of recovering Corbyholics, Corbyn and Labour do not represent a 'progressive' electoral option (I disagree with the article’s tout court rejection of voting and democracy, but that is not its main point). As the authors of the piece indicate, the Labour Party throughout its history has more than proven its dedication to the profit system, which requires the exploitation and often violent repression of the working class, as well as endless wars; in fact, Labour’s foreign policy has tended to be more brutal than that of the Conservatives. And as Adam Buick of my own party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, points out, Labour cannot possibly bring about a society “for the many, not the few” (a phrase coined by well-known socialist firebrand Tony Blair), since capitalism, the system which Labour seeks to manage and continue, depends precisely on the exploitation of the “many” (workers) by the ‘few” (capitalist owners and controllers).
 
Along with his sidekick John McDonnell, Corbyn has widely been called ‘Marxist’ or a socialist by his supporters, as well by as his conservative opponents. What an insult to Marx and the socialist tradition of which he was part! For Marx, a socialist society would not be one organised 'for the many, not the few'. It would be a society that has entirely abolished such class division. Communism or socialism (the same thing, whatever the Leninists say) requires getting rid of the buying and selling system and creating a society of free access to goods and services. With the productive capabilities that exist today, there is enough for everybody to enjoy a life of abundance without undertaking any wage labour. Once a historically progressive force (for all its horrors), capitalism today is a system that generates totally unnecessary suffering for the majority of people and it is long overdue for abolition. It continues in large part because we, the working class, continue to give it legitimacy and because, whatever we might say to the contrary, we don’t really believe that there is an alternative to the market system.

BJ or JC for PM? Labour, Liberal, Tory, Green or Nationalist? Leave or Remain? These are the questions that will be debated ad nauseam around dinner tables and in media studios over the next few weeks. But the really important questions for working-class people are of quite a different order. Here are some of them. Do you really want to go on working almost every day of your life, just to generate profits for a tiny group of capitalists? Do you know that eight individuals now possess as much wealth as half of the world’s population? Do you appreciate how crazy that is? Do you want to live in a society more and more characterised by poverty, addiction and despair? In which children are constantly dying of hunger or being killed in wars - all completely unnecessarily? Do you want to see the natural environment trashed in the pursuit of profit?
 
It’s no good voting for a new set of leaders to manage the present planetary chaos in a slightly friendlier fashion. Even if they really wanted to, Labour could do nothing to solve the problems identified above, which are generated by the profit system itself and which in any case will have to be addressed on a global, not a national scale. Nor will a Labour government even make things just a little more tolerable, whatever the party may be promising. The last 'New' Labour government was arguably worse for ordinary people than the Conservative one it replaced, increasing wealth disparities at home and wreaking death and destruction overseas. Indeed, not only was the invasion of Iraq arguably the greatest crime against humanity of the twenty-first century, but Labour politicians continue to play their part in overseas wars. And let's not forget that the Labour government before that one, the 'Old' Labour of the 1970s, oversaw horrendous cuts in workers' pay and public spending. In its entire history, in fact, the Labour Party has attacked the working class and has never moved society one step closer to socialism.

As always, capitalism’s left-wingers are telling us that this election is different and that this time there is a chance to make a ‘real change’ and forge ‘a new type of politics’ by voting for Corbyn and company. But we've heard all this before. What is actually needed is for workers to come together to bring an end to the madness of the profit system. We should reject the Conservatives, the fake socialists of Labour and every other capitalist party – and use our strength in numbers to abolish capitalism once and for all. No leader required. But we don’t have forever to get the job done...

    Archives

    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010

    Categories

    All
    5G
    9/11
    Adam Curtis
    Advertising
    Afghanistan
    Alastair Campbell
    Angelina Jolie
    Anti-fascism
    Ashley Madison (hack)
    Aung San Suu Kyi
    Barack Obama
    Bbc
    Black Lives Matter
    Bnp
    Bosnia
    Brexit
    Burma
    Cancel Culture
    Censorship
    Channel 4
    Charlie Hebdo
    China
    Christopher Hitchens
    Christopher Nolan
    Class
    CNN
    Conspiracies
    Cornelius Cardew
    Covid-19
    Czech Republic
    Daily Mail
    Dalai Lama
    David Berman
    Donald Trump
    Economics
    Egypt
    Environment
    European Union
    Extinction Rebellion
    Facebook
    Falklands
    Fascism
    Feminism
    Film
    Free Speech
    Gaza
    Google
    Greece
    Greta Thunberg
    Guy Hibbert
    Hillary Clinton
    Hong Kong
    Immigration
    Internet
    Iran
    Iraq
    Isis
    Israel
    Itn
    Japan
    Jeremy Clarkson
    Jeremy Corbyn
    Jia Zhangke
    Johann Hari
    John Molyneux
    Jordan Peterson
    Katie Hopkins
    Ken Loach
    Kony 2012
    Labour Party
    Lawrence Hayward
    Libya
    Malala Yousafzai
    Marcuse
    Margaret Thatcher
    Marxism
    Mental Illness
    Music
    Myanmar
    Neoliberalism
    News International
    New Statesman
    New Zealand
    Niall Ferguson
    Noam Chomsky
    Norway
    Ofcom
    Osama Bin Laden
    Owen Jones
    Pakistan
    Palestine
    Paul Mattick Jnr
    Peter Bowker
    Peter Kosminsky
    Populism
    Press Tv
    Quentin Tarantino
    Racism
    Reality Tv
    Red Poppy
    Reith Lectures
    Rihanna
    Riots
    Robin Williams
    Russell Brand
    Russell T. Davies
    Scotland
    Silver Jews
    Single Mothers
    Sky Tv
    Slavoj Zizek
    Stephen Fry
    Stephen Poliakoff
    Stereotypes
    Strikes
    Suicide
    Syria
    Television
    Terrorism
    Terry Eagleton
    The Express
    The Guardian
    The Mirror
    The Sun
    Thomas Piketty
    Tony Grounds
    Tunisia
    Vaclav Havel
    War
    Washington Post
    Winston Churchill
    Wire
    Yugoslavia

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.