Full Corbynism: Constructing a new left Political Economy beyond Neoliberalism

19 June 2017 — New Socialist

by Joe Guinan and Thomas M. Hanna

[I’m working on a followup to my previous outings on Corbyn, the Labour Party and the left, to be published shortly. I am still not convinced that Corbyn can so transform the Labour Party as to effectively make a new political formation out of it, that will, in turn lead us out of this nightmare toward real socialism but we’ll see. In the mean time, check this hymn to Corbyn out: ‘Full Corbynism: Constructing a new left Political Economy beyond Neoliberalism’. WB]

‘There are three stages’, Sidney Webb wrote in a Fabian Society pamphlet in 1890, ‘through which every new notion in England has to pass: ‘It is impossible: It is against the Bible: We knew it before’.’^[1] This month’s sensational election result means that Corbynism is now rocketing toward the latter stage, consolidating its position as the new common sense on the left of British politics. Granted, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour didn’t win. Outright victory on 8 June was never likely given the party’s weak prior standing, and would have required a seismic shift far greater than could reasonably be expected in a landscape fractured and divided by Brexit. Nevertheless, what Corbyn and his team pulled off – against all odds, and in the teeth of an overwhelmingly hostile media and continual sabotage from within – is truly remarkable. The Labour Party is now a government-in-waiting, poised for the next General Election, which could come at any time and could easily carry Corbyn into Downing Street as Prime Minister.

Continue Reading Here…

Grenfell Tower: This is what Austerity looks like By William Bowles

17 June 2017 — investigating Imperialism

‘The Prime Minister, Theresa May, had to [flee] the site of Grenfell Tower yesterday under police guard, BBC News, 17 June 2017

The Abandonment of a Community

Initially, I wasn’t going to write anything on this tragedy, I figured there would be plenty of analysis as to the whys and the wherefores of a building turned into a funeral pyre but I’ve yet to see the word Austerity used once, just once, in connection with this tragedy, which as usual in this world always impacts the most on working class communities, especially the poor, wherever it occurs.

Labouring under an illusion By William Bowles

30 September 2011

Note: This is in the way of a continuation of my last essay ‘In the belly of the beast‘.

Nothing could illustrate the paradox better than the Labour Party, ‘the party of labour’, financially supported largely by Britain’s biggest trade unions (representing around five million public employees) bankrolling the party which has led the way in attacking what’s left of the gains made since 1945. In a word, a traitorous political party that once again, faces the task of reinventing itself.

Let us speculate By William Bowles

28 October 2008

There’s an awful lot of speculation going on right now, from both the left and right about where the latest crisis of capital is headed, chief amongst them is the notion that this signals the end of the US Empire, that the so-called uni-polar world is over, that a new multi-polar world, headed by China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging.

The theory is based upon the fact that the US is no longer the world’s numero uno economic power and it’s true that even an overwhelming military force is dependent on the economics that fuels it. But how true is this idea and even if it is true, over what timescale are we talking about here?

It’s all-out war on the planet. Chaos (capitalism) rules okay!

7 January, 2008

“The dominant trend shaping the present situation – is the advent of ‘neoliberalism’ – a concerted capitalist offensive aimed at sweeping away the gains made by working people during the last century and at deepening the subjugation of Third World countries.” — Cuban Communist Makes the Case for International Revolution

I have to admit to a feeling of being totally overwhelmed by the state of our planet even though I know the chaos that threatens to drown us all is the direct result of an economic system, capitalism, being nothing more than the anarchic addiction of capital accumulation now run riot (the profits that are being made are obscene and the pain of the victims, numbering in the millions, indescribable). That since the 1970s and the advent of so-called neoliberalism, it’s been a no holds barred, free-for-all on the people and the planet.

Who are these guys anyway (and other ‘neo-con’ nonsense)? By William Bowles

18 February 2005

For the past couple of years a goodly section of the ‘left’ has obsessed over the ‘neo-con’ guys as if they suddenly crawled out from under a rock but as I have observed in many past essays, these guys, far from crawling out from under a rock are the long-time managers of imperialism. Their ‘pedigree’, if that’s what we can call it, extends back at least one hundred years, to at least the age of the ‘Robber Barons’ as innumerable studies illustrate all too clearly. From generation to generation, via a network of relationships borne out of financial, political, education and family ties, they are the public face of an imperial dynasty every much as entrenched as any network of European monarchs (mostly famous for bonking close relatives with the resultant genetic abnormalities and living free off the state).

Book Review: Friends, Washingtonians and Countrymen… By William Bowles

31 March 2004

“The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic” by Chalmers Johnson, Verso Books, 2004.

What an irony. For decades the left has been talking of the US as an empire, identifying the ring of military bases that surrounded the former Soviet Union and China, its destabilisation and overthrow of countries that defied US power; the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, also instigated by the US; its control of trade and energy; the rise of the military-industrial complex; its cultural imperialism.

Whose culture is it anyhow? By William Bowles

26 March 2004

Despite a background and involvement in the arts for most of my life, I rarely, if ever write about such things here on I’n’I (although for another side of me, check out the now defunct MusicSA). Well that’s about to change not only because the arts and especially music, are a part of my life but because as the American empire extends its reach, it gobbles up everything in its path (what I call gobbleisation), transforms it into a pale reflection of its origins, spews it out, dumps it and moves on, picking its way through the cultures of our planet like some automaton searching through our lives and leaving behind a vast garbage heap.

Upping the anté & wishy-washy liberalism By William Bowles

2 January 2004

Upping the anté
Richard Perle’s latest book “An end to evil: What’s next in the war on terrorism?” might well be described as the handbook for the imperium’s agenda for 2004 with its call for an invasion of Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style blockade of North Korea. The question to be asked of this quasi-fascist’s quest for power is; will he be listened to or is it merely the last gasp of the ‘neo-con’ agenda following the miserable failure of the ‘war on terror’ 2003? I would like to have brought you more ‘Perle’s of wisdom’ but the book isn’t available in the UK yet so I’m relying on reports from those who have had the ‘benefit’ of reading the latest rants from the current ‘prince of darkness’.

Buddy can you spare $87 billion? By William Bowles

10 September 2003

“…I hypothesize that President Bush intends to topple Saddam in 2003 in a pre-emptive attempt to initiate massive Iraqi oil production in far excess of OPEC quotas, to reduce global oil prices, and thereby dismantle OPEC’s price controls. The end-goal of the neo-conservatives is incredibly bold yet simple in purpose, to use the `war on terror’ as the premise to finally dissolve OPEC’s decision-making process, thus ultimately preventing the cartel’s inevitable switch to pricing oil in euros.