Neoliberalism: Consequences and alternatives

Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism By Robert Kuttner (Image: Creative Commons)

Brutal neoliberal policies and austerity has created growing mass anger. The growth in Trump-style populism is one consequence of this, as is an increased interest in ‘New Deal’ style reforms. A recent book contrasts different capitalist eras, and advocates a return to the post-war policies of state regulation and investment, points echoed by Bernie Sanders amongst others. But the material conditions have shifted, limiting the capitalist classes room for maneuver, and making the case for socialism all the more urgent.

Robert Kuttner’s book is one of many produced by commentators and academics in recent years, giving a devastating balance sheet of the consequences of neoliberal policies. Yet, like many, he has not been able to draw a rounded analysis and alternative from the data he has published. He graphically contrasts two eras of global capitalism: the post-second world war boom up to the mid-1970s; and that which has followed since. In particular, he gives a stark account of what this modern day neoliberal era has meant worldwide; economically, socially and politically. He reveals the increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic features of modern day global monopoly capitalism. The book largely centres on developments in the US and the EU. He rightly regards the latter as a neoliberal, pro-capitalist institution.

He recognises the unprecedented economic growth that lasted 30 years in the post-war period – which he describes as “egalitarian capitalism”. The figures he gives illustrate the scale of what took place – in Europe and the USA, but not in the neo-colonial world which suffered brutally in this period. In one generation after 1945, real per capita income in Europe increased by as much as it had in the previous 150 years! Correctly, he argues that this era was a “brand of capitalism unlike anything the world had ever seen”.

In contrast, Kuttner produces figures to illustrate the social and class polarisation that has engulfed US society during the past few decades. The plummeting expectations and living standards has largely shattered any reality to the American dream. Young people who enjoyed a higher living standard than their parents declined from 92% during the post-war boom to less than 50% of those born in 1984. By 2017, almost fifty percent of young adults reported that their parents helped them with monthly rent, with subsidies averaging $250.

A collapse in trust and confidence in all parties and government institutions has been gathering pace for the last 50 years. In 1958, 73% of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”. That figure peaked in 1964, at 78%. It has been declining ever since. By 2015 it had crashed to just 19%. This erosion of the state’s social base is a potentially explosive situation, extremely dangerous for the ruling class. This process, together with the lack of an alternative, is a factor in allowing Donald Trump to step into the vacuum. As Kuttner points out, this was not necessarily a reflection of support for Trump’s policies. In one poll, only 29% said they like his policies; 50% wanted to “shake up the political establishment”.

Kuttner also exposes the role of the European Union in driving through neoliberal policies and enforcing privatisation on EU governments since the single market was created. In 1991, a directive was issued requiring all national governments to allow substantial private competition on national rail networks. Others followed: electricity and gas in 1996; post and telecom services in 1997, 2002 and 2008; and, subsequently, a requirement for all member states to devise deregulation timetables, to open up these networks to private operators.

The consequences for workers have been disastrous. Thirty-four thousand jobs have been lost in the postal sector in the Netherlands alone. Since privatisation, pay in the postal service has fallen on average by 40%, in Germany, by 30% since 2001, and in Austria by 25%. Kuttner graphically uses these and other facts – including the brutal austerity policies imposed on the Greek government – to expose the role of the EU. However, he wrongly implies that the European Economic Community, the EU’s predecessor, was better when it was created in 1957 – during an entirely different era of capitalism.
Kuttner strongly denounces political leaders like Tony Blair for embracing the ‘third way,’ and capitulating to neoliberalism. He emphasises the role that Bill Clinton played in this process, firstly by turning the Democrats – always a capitalist party – towards the right. Clinton, he comments, ended up “moving left on cultural and diversity issues, while he moved to the right on economic ones”. By 1996, Clinton had declared that “the era of big government is over”. Philip Gould – one of Blair’s top strategists – travelled to meet Clinton, while others worked on Clinton’s campaign. Gould later wrote that “the Clinton experience was seminal for the Labour Party”. Kuttner quotes Margaret Thatcher, boasting that her greatest achievement was New Labour; something we have highlighted many times before.

Falling living standards and growing mistrust of ‘the establishment’ are the social ingredients for massive class battles to challenge capitalism. Kuttner correctly points to this decline as flowing from the processes that began in the 1970s: the growing globalisation of the world economy, and a conscious policy by the ruling classes in the USA and Europe to end the post-war ‘social consensus’. The consequences of what has been stolen from the working class is driven home in hard-hitting fact after fact.

Enter populism

The opening chapter, A Song of Angry Men, dealing with events in the USA prior to, and during, the 2016 election campaign is highly revealing. In particular, Kuttner examines the conditions of the white working class. He argues that this section had declined from 83% of the total electorate in 1960, to 70% in 1980, and just 34% in 2016. Here, he is basing his definitions on the traditional sections of the working class, in manufacturing industries, excluding new layers employed in logistics and other sectors. He also does not address the increasing ‘proletarianisation’ of former sections of the middle class which, as a result of their declining conditions, are beginning to embrace the methods of struggle of the working class; something anticipated by Marx and featured in the analysis of the CWI. However, despite this he correctly makes the point that, while this is the national figure, in all the key Midwest states – Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin – the share of white working-class voters exceeded 60%!

The Democrats had nothing to offer those who had been devastated economically, were left feeling alienated, burning with hatred. Kuttner is right to argue against the ‘identity politics’ embraced by Hillary Clinton: “Try demanding ‘check your privilege!’ to white workers facing collapsed communities, declining earnings, and fading prospects in West Virginia or Michigan or Ohio. You can make a case that white men are privileged, on average, relative to blacks. But that misses the political point. Non-elite white men are getting economically clobbered. There is plenty of privilege in the economy, but it mainly resides in the top few percent – whose extreme privileges were not much part of the 2016 debate once Bernie Sanders was eliminated”.

Beginning in the 1990s, attacks on the white working class resulted in a declining life expectancy – the first time since the great depression of the 1930s. This collapse of living standards, and Clinton’s right-wing programme – accompanied by embracing “aggressive cultural liberalism” – resulted in a collapse in support among traditional ‘blue collar’ Democrat voters. Every one of the 493 wealthiest counties supported Clinton. The clear majority of the remaining 2,623 counties went mainly for Trump.
The pernicious role of identity politics and how it is used by the right is revealed in the book.

In an interview quoted by Kuttner, former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon spells this out: “The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ‘em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats”.

Socialists and workers need to combat racism, sexism and discrimination against women, LGBTQ+ people and all oppressed groupings in society. However, this must be done on a class basis, aimed at uniting all those oppressed and exploited by capitalism, rather than fostering division and separatism. The capitalist Democratic Party and others are incapable of doing this. Buckling to the sepratist pressures of identity politics is something that all socialists must combat.

Replace or reform capitalism?

What Kuttner fails to do is offer a viable alternative to neoliberalism and specifically to the capitalist system. He dismisses Karl Marx as a “pessimist” amongst other things. He argues that the ‘command economy’ – the term used by him for the bureaucratic Stalinist dictatorships, based on nationalised planned economies, in the former USSR and Eastern Europe – failed to offer an alternative to capitalism. The market was more efficient, he claims. Kuttner reflects the analysis propagated by the ideologues of capitalism, which fails to explain the dramatic growth and development that took place in the USSR, transforming it from a country with similar conditions to much of the neo-colonial world to a world superpower.

Despite the corruption, bureaucratic mismanagement and repression, the planned economy resulted –for a period – in a narrowing of the gap between the USSR and the major capitalist countries. Premier Nikita Khrushchev boasted in 1956, in remarks aimed at the western capitalist leaders: “We will bury you”. His threat was a reflection of the economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s. USSR national income rose by an estimated 160% between 1955 and 1960 – three times faster than in the US in the period 1950-55.

By the 1970s, however, this had changed. The Stalinist bureaucracy was a fetter. In particular, there was a failure to move from the traditional smokestack industries to apply new technology and computers, which the Stalinist bureaucracy feared would lead to them losing control. The dramatic slowdown which followed culminated with the collapse of the Stalinist block in the 1990s. Kuttner, like his contemporaries, brush aside the real developments that were achieved in their rush to discredit the whole concept of a planned economy.

Instead, Kuttner offers the reader the utopian idea of returning to some ‘golden age’ of post-war stability and economic growth, which “leaves space for national democracies to manage capitalism in a broad public interest”. He concludes: “Today’s capitalism is both undemocratic and anti­democratic. Post-capitalist democracy, with new forms of social economy, could survive and even thrive”. More regulation and state intervention, and a new, unspecified form of ‘social economy’ – distinct from the state ownership of the post-war era – are his solution. This should be achieved, he says, by national ‘democracies’ reasserting control over the modern, unfettered capitalism of the neoliberal era. ‘Democracy’ for him is an abstract concept, detatched from class interests or the struggle between the classes. He presents a set of utopian ideas based on the false precept that it possible to manage capitalism in a more humane and efficient manner.

He correctly lambasts the consequences of globalisation, which has integrated the world economy and concentrated power into a numerically-dwindling class of super-rich capitalists at the expense of mass of the population on the planet. Despite the extremely high degree of integration – in some respects unprecedented – of the capitalist economy, capitalism has not been able to fully overcome the limitations of the nation state. The process of globalisation is now being checked, and partially rolled back in some areas, as each national ruling class takes measures and steps to defend its own interests in the face of growing crises. This is illustrated by trade conflicts and wars, the crisis within the EU and eurozone, and other emerging international tensions. A new era of capitalist conflict and crisis has opened post 2007-08. Kuttner’s solution is to be teleported back to the golden age of capitalist development post-1945.

Policy option or system consequence?

What Kuttner does not understand is why capitalism has reverted back to a more brutal form of exploitation. He wrongly sees it as only a “policy option”. He refers to the post-war ‘system’ as though it were a fundamentally different social system to capitalism. He argues that different policy options were possible for the ruling class, to avoid the devastation of neoliberal policies. He dismisses Marx on the basis of a crude interpretation: that the sole cause of capitalist crisis is the fall in the rate of profit, including the causes of the end of the post-war boom. This is something neither Marx nor the CWI have argued. Kuttner argues that it is formalistic to root neoliberal reforms in the changed era of capitalism and its inability to maintain the post-war “social consensus”.

Kuttner, in essence, pleads for a return to the era of “managed capitalism”, regulation (especially of the finance sector) and state intervention. He draws upon the experience of the New Deal implemented by US president Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s, following the crash in 1929. Here, he justifiably compares what was done with the bank bailouts following the 2007-08 crash and what was undertaken as part of the New Deal. This is important, as Sanders is also drawing on this as an example of what ‘socialism’ means for him; state investment, regulation and more democratic control of capitalist institutions. These points are also echoed by Corbyn, Iglesias in Spain and others.

Following the bailout in 2007-08, billions were handed to the banks to avert a total financial collapse. However, this is not comparable to what was undertaken by Roosevelt, both to stimulate the economy to avert massive social upheavals and to intervene in the second world war. Public works programmes in electricity, dams, transport, housing and other programmes were introduced. New infrastructure was developed on a massive scale throughout the US. The publically-funded Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) injected $50 billion to re­capitalise industry. RFC representatives were appointed to company boards. As the US prepared for war, $9.2 billion was invested in 2,300 war production factories across 46 states. These were massive amounts at the time.

The Keynesian measures adopted were then followed in post-war Europe, boosted by the Marshall Plan US aid package. This played a crucial role in rebuilding the global capitalist economy, and opened the era of historic growth which followed the devastation of the war, and the destruction of productive forces. In this era of capitalist boom and expansion, the system could tolerate and afford previously unprecedented reforms in Europe, the US and other industrialised capitalist economies. However, these were conceded by capitalism, due to a combination of the strength of the workers movement and the capitalist classes fear of revolution following the end of the war. The fact that capitalism had been abolished in Russia and Eastern Europe, which offered a glimpse of the potential of a planned economy, further strengthened workers hand.

Kuttner recognises that the post-war era had ended by the 1970s; he pinpoints 1973 as a turning point. However, he imagines it is possible to simply return to it, with the re-adoption of Keynesian policies.
lt is true that the application of the austerity programmes following the 2007-08 crash have enormously aggravated the depth of the capitalist crisis. It is also possible that, faced with a renewed recession, the threat of social upheavals and revolution, the capitalist class, or sections of it, will revert to Keynsian policies. For a temporary period, such measures may avert an economic crash and give some limited concessions to the working class. Nonetheless, such measures would be applied in a different era to post-1945, when capitalism was entering a time of economic expansion and development. This is not the case today.

Capitalism needs an expanding market, and that does not exist on a global scale in this era. Kruttner does not address this contradiction. Any concessions will not be longlasting; what will be given with the left hand will be taken back by the right. Incredibly, he dismisses Marx for failing to recognise that capitalism is a very “flexible system”. Marx explained many times how capitalism adapts to face new demands and contradictions.

Two eras of the workers’ movement

Kuttner points out that, during the New Deal, a massive growth in trades union membership took place in the US. For example, the United Auto Workers’ rose from 165,000 members in 1939 to over one million by 1944. At its peak, unionisation in the US reached about a third of the workforce. In most European countries there was also a massive strengthening of the trades unions. The percentage of union organised workers reached record levels – over 50% in many countries, and up to 90% in Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Kuttner rightly features the assault on unionisation, outsourcing, the effects of globalisation, and precarious working, which have all had a devastating effect on wages and conditions. The figures he gives on the decline in wages are very revealing. He points out the correlation between the percentage of workers covered by collective contracts, and those receiving a low wage – defined as less than two thirds of the median wage. In Denmark and France, over 80% of workers have collective contracts, with low-wage levels at 8% and 11% respectively. In Germany, where 60% of workers are covered by labour agreements, low wages rise to 22%. In the US, collective agreements cover 12% of workers, and over 25% are in low-wage work.

The numerical weakening of the trade unions is a crucial question for the working class and revolutionary socialists. This, and the absence of a strong, combative layer within the movement, has been used by some on the left – including former CWI members – to justify turning away from these still-crucial mass organisations. In Germany, the percentage of workers organised in trade unions has fallen by approximately 50%, to just 18% of the workforce. In Britain, it stands at around 23% of the overall workforce and about 12% in the private sector.

This represents a big decline. However, the post-war situation was the exception under capitalist society. In most countries, the current levels of unionisation are not very different to what they were in the pre-war period. Even so, workers in potentially key sections of the economy remain highly unionised, despite the overall decline in manufacturing industry. At the same time, new layers – in logistics, airlines, call centres, food distribution and others – are taking the first tentative steps to organise and build trade unions. Other, formerly middle-class layers like the junior doctors in the UK, have embraced the traditional methods of working-class struggle. Big obstacles need to be overcome to build trade unions amongst these new layers.

However, the strikes at McDonald’s, Deliveroo, Uber, Google, Amazon and others is an important pointer to building the unions within these sections. The small but significant growth of trade union membership in the US is an extremely important first step. In 1932, only 7% of the workforce was organised in trade unions. Just over a decade later this had increased to almost 33%!

Kuttner makes an important point in relation to US society that has been mirrored in some European countries: that it is not only the trade unions that have declined. All civic organisations and political parties have suffered the same fate, especially in the era of neoliberalism. Spanning a variety of social, self-help and semi-political organisations, 59 national federations of local groups with at least a million dues-paying members, existed at their peak. By the mid-1980s most of these had either petered out, or converted into Washington-based advocacy groups. The two exceptions are the National Rifle Association and the networks around the Evangelical church groups, which gave impetus to the right-wing Tea Party movement around the Republicans.

This issue has emerged internationally as a layer of a new generation initially shunned organisation and the idea of political parties. This was partly a reflection of the hostility that developed towards the traditional parties of the left, once they had embraced capitalism and betrayed workers and young people. Combined with this was a hostility to bureaucratic, top-down methods. Following the experience of the need for political parties and organisation, layers of workers and young people began to overcome this, and new parties emerged, like Podemos in Spain or Syriza in Greece. However, these new parties also failed the movement and adopted top-down bureaucratic methods, under the guise of ‘horizontalism’.

Both these parties have now suffered a collapse, or dramatic fall, in support. This poses the need to build genuine parties of the working class and young people, that are democratic and armed with a prograrnme to break with capitalism. These crucial developments are not addressed by Kuttner.
The emergence of the myriad of groupings and networks that developed around Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016, and other movements, illustrates how the opposition to organisation and political parties is beginning to change. Within this, the seeds are being laid for the formation of a new, radical left-wing party in the US, from which a party of the working class can develop. Sanders unfortunately missed an opportunity to break from the Democrats and form a new party in 2016 – a mistake compounded by his participation in the present presidential primaries.

The ideas and analysis in Kuttner’s book are important for Marxists to address. He articulates an alternative programme to the right-wing capitalist politicians, one which some like Bernie Sanders are advocating. They challenge the right-wing agenda of the likes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson and are, in outline, the ideas of an emerging reformist programme. However, whilst incorporating many issues and ideas that socialists and Marxists would support, they are inadequate to break with capitalism. To do this, a real socialist alternative is necessary, as a matter of urgency.

Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism
By Robert Kuttner
Published by W. W. Norton & Company
£12.99

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