Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 22:22:49 -0500 (EST) From: Spoon Collective <spoons-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU> Subject: M-G: Welfare state & capitals crisis (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 14 Feb 97 02:41:29 EST From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM> To: "Recip. Of Conf." <labr.party-AT-conf.igc.apc.org> Cc: CWO <106361.1743-AT-CompuServe.COM>, marx-gen <marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu>, mauro <batcom-AT-poboxes.com>, "A. Smeaton" <smeatoaj-AT-uwec.edu> Subject: Welfare state & capitals crisis dear friends, Huge cuts in social welfare programmes are being carried out in much of the industrialized world. To get some political/economic grip on why the welfare state were built up and now why the dismantling of them thru a growing consensus of both the left and right wings of capital. This is important for real militants and activists if we are to develop better anvanced politics , organization, strategy and tactics to deal with this crisis. What follows is a brief overview of the background to why the rulers are on the blitzkreig path so as to help clarify matters so as we are not resigned to outmoded politics- economics, and active work which will only , as in the past 15yr track record shows , the workers, is spite of spirted struggles and immense sacrifice from time to time, end up, for the most part, getting our asses handed back to us on a platter. The western welfare states were built up in the wake of the imperialist WW2 to fend off another post war revolutionary wave like the one following WW1. In the posts war world, mass strikes followed the war and the Russian led state-cap bloc became a serious contender for world power, and its (pseudo) militant ideology was winning over masses fed up with the old capitalist lies and labor skinning. Germany, Britalin , Italy , Belgium, Sweden, France, Holland, the USA etc. all adopted various social reform programs to maintain support of workers for the existing order.. This welfare statism was based and promoted by (false) bourgeois and reformist assumptions, 1) the keeping of near "full employment" (2%-3% unemployemnt rates) 2) big taxes would insure the payment of workers pensions, etc. For about 20 years this was not a huge problem.but by the late 60s the caps. rate of profits began to slow and the 'boom' subsided. The limits of Keynesian regular wage increases in tandem with high inflation policy to negate the increases began to show its limits/deception . But at that time, the workers could better strike back with economic mass actions a la France, '68 , Italy '69-70, etc. and still the bourgeois employed state-cap reforms to keep matters in check. But the limits for the rulers were reached by the mid-70s, e.g the peeling back the US " Great Society " & British Welfareism under Labor where state spending reached 48% of GDP (Rev. Perspectives-- New Series 3--#4 autumn 1996). Keynesian like hyperinflation led the bourgeois toward a new startegy even as Labor ruled Britian in 1976 as the British "Independent" of 8/9/96 admits. Thatcher a la Reagan only continued the austerity for workers that the Callaghan & Carter regimes initiated but at higher levels in the 80s. But the state could not continue expenditure for lasting relief as their growthrates fell and unemployment remaied at higher levels. European states reached regular 10%+ workers pushed off their jobs in the 80s. Contrary to Laborist/liberal myths, the drives of the advanced capitals to savage welfarism and the workers comes because of the real continuing crisies . The political states ecomomic leversge has changed Qualitatively since the 40s-50s. Then states had actually a Bigger mass of capital than which private capital could hope to deploy . However growing concentration and centralization of capital by monopolists capital over the last 4 decades let the monopolies gain the superior blocs of capital , esp. liquid than any cap states could hope to match.-- except for maybe the US . This is part of the "Globalization" processes - state capital became more fixed (economic inrastructure , etc) and could not keep up with the thrust of capital turnovers needed to overcome the tendency of the profit rates to fall. There was a decisive shift in the balance between the state -cap and Intl. finance capitals. Pol. states could no longer control independently even what went on in their own territories, and the needds for capital meant open up financial markets to direct investment of monopolies more eager to quicker repatraite capital to their national base of operations. So in this jungle of labor skinning, the US was the pace setter but then lost ground as Japan challenged , with huge investments in the US and winning a big slice the US auto markets. Similar trends took place in Europe. So more keenly , countries that want greater investments have to balance their budgets and lower levies on the rich and so hike the pain for workers. For workers, capital operations are a menace and workers are pushed down to sacrifice so the bourgeois state can rig up the most attractive regime and terrain for new capital penetration , So the social democrats /liberal s, like those neo-Keynesians >from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and other reformist mirage peddlers who think that the national state had to control their steel, electronics, and other infrastructure have been washed-up and hung out to dry bythe capitalist system they want to save and are superceded by day to day reality.. They have no coherent explanation for all the stepped up attacks on the workers, the privatizings, deregulating , and re-structurings in basic industry as capitals bi-partisan states are sorting out the problems in re-capitalization as world capital reaches the end of the 3rd cylcle of accumulation of the 20 th century. The rulers have not yet toatlly 'solved' this material basis in their crisis . Their solutions in the deepening breakdown is both more imperialist interventions and wars and further pauperization of the working class, whether under the Kennedy plan or the Gingrich plan which in 'negotiation" actually ends up being 90%---the basic plan of big business. Reformists have been preaching faith in the liberals --even as they bed down with the right . Social democrats and laborists keep up some militant rhetoric at times but in power they become mere shadows/apologists of the ruling reactionaries offensive. These confusions increase the low level of class opposition, organized on the political and industrial plane-- and all the defeats, make the rulers state smell blood and the sharks are moving in for the bigger kill. We workers need to show the class enemy in struggle that they will have to pay social consequences for their attacks and social muggings. We need unity in struggle , but with freedom of militants to polemicize. The workers of Europe are starting to stir and are skeptical more now of both the right and left parties of capital . We need to learn more about this growing class militancy in europe and make efforts to embrace some new opposition tactics here , out side the control of the liberals and union apparatuses. As the militant actions pick up, a new workers revolutionary movement ca n be constructed. For more on the Bankruptcy of social democracy and liberalism and their united front with the conservatives to maintain capitalist exploitation and what workers can do to stop it , write; Revolutionary Perspectives Box 338 Sheffield, S3 9YX UK Neil --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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