On capitalist hegemony

How much can a Labour government achieve within the confines of a capitalist society? I ask because of a recent tweet by Paul Mason:

taking power is not enough; behind the state, the elite have line after line of trenches with which to their defend privilege and enforced poverty and ignorance for the rest.

We don't need to invoke “deep state” conspiracy theories here*. Elites really do have considerable ability to restrain a Labour government.

We can, roughly speaking, distinguish two types of power here.

One is brute economics. Although talk of capital flight is overdone (if investors want to dump sterling assets to whom will they sell them?) the fact is that capitalists control the bulk of capital spending. And as Michal Kalecki pointed out:

This gives the capitalists a powerful indirect control over government policy: everything which may shake the state of confidence must be carefully avoided because it would cause an economic crisis. 

On top of this, there’s their lobbying power. Capitalists have money; politicians have political influence. And guess what – that means there’ll be a trade. As Pablo Torija Jimenez has shown, “politicians in OECD countries maximize the happiness of the economic elite” rather than that of the median voter.

There’s also the fact that the rich can dodge taxes, by shifting cash offshore or simply by passing on corporate tax rises to workers or customers. They might not therefore be the big source of revenue that social democrats imagine.

And this is not to mention the power of finance to act, in J.W.Mason’s words “as the enforcement arm of the capitalist class as a whole.” High corporate and personal debt, for example, not only serves as a form of debt bondage but also strengthen’s Kalecki’s point: it means that “confidence” must be maintained to avoid a credit crunch.

There is, though, a second dimension of capitalist power which means Paul is bank right to invoke Gramsci**.

It was he, more than most Marxists, who emphasized that power is exercised not just through force but through ideology; the ruled come to accept the beliefs of the rulers. This is true today. To give three examples:

 - Managerialism. The question: to what extent are bosses parasites rather than value-adders (because of abilities to organize production)? has for years been off the agenda - though maybe Carillion will change this. Instead, they have been portrayed (even by social democrats) as heroic risk-takers to whom we must defer. This, and leadershipitis generally, generates a bias towards hierarchy and against worker control.

 - Accepting inequality. Inequality tends to perpetuate (pdf) itself, for example because perceptions of what’s fair are shaped by actual inequality, and in part because people just resign themselves to it.

 - Anti-politics. Naïve cynicism about politicians (“they’re all the same”, “in it for themselves”) sustains a hostility to collective action and thus to the maintenance of the status quo.

And this is not to mention the media!

It’s in this context that the Labour left is right to want to build a mass party. This might act as a form of countervailing power to capitalist elites; millions of everyday conversations between party members and their friends and colleagues might help undermine capitalist hegemony and act as a counterweight to capitalists' influence over a Labour government.

That might be too optimistic. What is clear to me, though, is that winning an election is nothing like sufficient to achieve lasting change. In the face of capitalist hegemony, the idea that being in government gives you all the “levers of power” you need is hopelessly romantic. As I’ve said, it is centrists who are the dreamy utopians.

* Sentence rewritten thanks to a tweet by @SpinningHugo.

* There’s a small but notable stylistic difference between Paul and I. He tweeted that “it begins with Gramsci.” I wouldn’t say that. I’d say that it begins with the scientific evidence on cognitive biases, which show that Gramsci was right.

Comments

[spinninghugo]

I don't think it is accurate to say

"Centrist dads inferred that Paul was invoking “deep state” conspiracy theories"

No inference was required. See

https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/953575830466318336

[FergusD]

We already have a mass Labour Party, 600,000 or so. What we don't have is mass involvement. The mass of Labour members don't attend meetings or involve themselves in political discussion and making policy. That is the problem. Tweets and Facebook are not enough. Many in the LP are happy with this situation, we only need members for electoral work, not for discussing politics and making policy. We need to change that.

[Anthony]

Given we are invoking scientific evidence to back up Gramsci, what scientific evidence do we have that any overthrow of capitalism will lead to better outcomes or that it even can be overthrown without coming to blows with the evolutionary psychology of humans? (and subsequent oppression that comes with that).

I’m aware this makes me a centrist Dad.

[e]

This hegemony issue can't be about the fact of hierarchy, humans bend towards their formation. The point has to be the nature of a hierarchy. So: please centrist mums and dads get your finger out. Support the lefts effort to build internal party democracy/cultural inclusiveness because what you prop up is damaging. I know... I know how much poverty was reduced, and how much more the NHS received under New Labour. The damage isn't visible within aggregate demand charts. Its found in the scapegoating, the othering, the not hand-picked, and therefore not useful statistics. Its in the ends not the means – a status quo which allows life to be Conditional on DWP whims and a dysfunctional housing market.

[Daniel]

@Antony

In what way are the Labour party going to raplace capatalism? I know there is lots of talk about how Bolshevik Corbyn and McDonnel are but the 2017 manifesto fits well within the centre left social democratic tradition.

My answer to your question would be reformist. Slowly attempt to evolve a socialist economy. Learn from the disastor of the October Revolution and refuse grand utopian plans. Had the Menshiviks been in control the factory commitees and Soviet systetms of democracy would have had a better chance of developing and we could have seen where they took us.

[reason]

I'm missing here a reference to "Debt and the Devil". You mention the importance of debt, but don't seem to see what could be done to reduce it. Looser fiscal policy financed by money printing and tighter monetary policy. That really does cut down the power of capital.

[tom]

I think you've misrepresented Kalecki. He did not believe capitalists had the power described in the quotation. His point was that once the "trick" of using fiscal policy to generate full employment is widely understood, they will *lose* the power to blackmail society by threatening to withhold spending. Subtle. Perhaps Kalecki underestimated the power of ideology to keep the "trick" secret?

[Effem]

All the focus is on government and not central banks. Central Banks (via inflation targeting and balance sheet expansion) are building the war chest of the elite every day. Wealth is concentrating like never before. That's the true con played the the elite.

[Bill Posters]

As someone who has low expectations its worth pointing out that a Labour government can easily make a big difference to millions of people.

In essense all it has to do is reverse austerity spend some more money and don't worry as the deficit rises.

ToDo List

Start funding Sure Start again
Public sector pay incresase.
Build some council houses
Organise the benefits system so food banks are not necessary.
Fund NHS and social care.

Anything more than this and we have to hope the Labour public school Oxbridge types are alot better than the Tory public school Oxbridge types. Possible but unlikely.

We are probably only a couple of years away from Gordon Brown being rehabilitated. I expect to start reading stuff about what an excellent job he did in the good old days any time now.

If we can't have lasting change temporary change will do.

[shoreview]

Answer, Labour can achieve a hell of a lot less outside the European Single Market than it can inside it. WTO rules privilege outsourcers of goods.....they're of little use for services and they're harmful for the public sector. EU rules level the playing field. WTO rules would set up a firestorm for the British economy in general and the public sector in particular.