Bigger than Brexit

The Times we live in.

On the 25th of January 'The Times', Britain's main 'newspaper of record' (called that because the government uses it for legal or public notices and conventional historians quote its journalism) printed two articles - aimed directly and indirectly at Labour's leader, Corbyn. Directly, on page 27 a full-page lead comment article by Phillip Collins used the Venezuelan crisis as a lesson against the British left, a movement which is travelling, according to Phillips, onto 'a road to hell.' Page 28 is a piece by Ed Conway titled 'Two cheers for Davos's carnival of capitalism' with a sub-title which reads 'Global elite's get-together has plenty of flaws but still exposes what makes our economy tick.' It does not mention Corbyn. Instead it celebrates current capitalism.

Collins, on page 27, is full of pity for the socialist Brits. He writes;
'The important point here is not, as the witless Tory attack has it, that the British left is staffed by dreadful people who are all motivated by envy of the elite. The truth is much deeper, more sophisticated and insidious than that.' If only the British socialists would pay attention to the full-of-wit Collins, who has read his Karl Popper, which told him, according to Collins, that 'utopian fantasy always ends in violence.'

Conway, on page 28 doesn't mention socialists. Instead he ops for Voltaire.
'With apologies to Voltaire, if Davos did not exist, we'd have to invent it: the bankers would still find somewhere to meet, do deals and carry on being the elite. Politicians would still be lobbied behind closed doors. Billionaire tech giants would still throw shockingly lavish parties.' Davos's 'influence is on the rise.' And 'in the end, Davos is a kind of in-between place at the heart of capitalism, and it is hard to see that changes any time soon ... it is a neutral ground where moguls, ministers, spies and most of all, elites can meet and make deals.' 'Deals' and 'the elite'; according to Conway, those are what make the good-old, apparently endless, mix of capitalism.

A permanent problem.

Every struggle in known history, from Spartacus to the 'yellow vests' that are taken up by different sections of humanity to win a society that benefits those who gain little from the existing arrangements, have always been described as dangerous and doomed to fail by those with the equivalent of access to the 'newspapers of record'. At the same time the vast majority of violence in human life is a daily experience and a direct result of the oppression of ruling classes' social systems. Taking just one historical example - of the wars and destruction in warlike conditions that directly or indirectly stem from colonialism immediately reveals the planet's source of violence. It seems that most of the violence in the world, regardless of Collin's version of Popper's thesis, belong to the system we have all been living in. It has little to do with the results of 'utopian fantasies.' But the pesky, rebellious behaviour against the status quo still keeps coming up. And the status quo always takes the position that the here-and-now maybe imperfect - but it's as good as they are going to let it get! It endlessly denies its own, built in, violence of suppression, which becomes the opposite in the 'newspapers of record', and described by the would-be journalist philosophers as the violence of a utopian fantasy.

Since the French Revolution, millions of people across the world have begun to battle consciously, with defined purposes, not religiously, nor mythologically, to change their system of society for the better. Part of that upheaval is the desire to put the end to war, be that the state violence which underpins their oppression or the capitalist hunger for international seizure that provokes lethal competition. And that remains the main question that faces the whole of humanity. It's simply the major fact of world history since 1789. And the elites, for very obvious reasons and despite our journalist's versions of Voltaire and Popper, are in permanent denial - as with Conway's patient and pleasurable acceptance of Davos as a cheery carnival that rules a rotten and violent world.

Where are we now?

Over the centuries vast efforts and sacrifices have been made to challenge and overthrow the world's the most current and dominant system of society, capitalism. Many of those battles and struggles have failed. But there have also been enormous, albeit uneven, successes. The Soviet Union had been crushed and had failed by the end of the 1920s. China's state capitalism is now throwing up the beginnings of a new class war in its corruption and political centralisation and dictatorship. Nevertheless, Fascist Europe, built as a means to destroy the potential German revolution and the remains of the USSR, was itself destroyed. Vast inroads were won by millions of post-war WW2 workers and their organisations against European capitalism in the form of its concessions in education, welfare, health, pensions etc. Later, China's 1948 revolution, and its relentless resistance to Western colonialism, turned into a barrier to the Western powers and the booster for an albeit cock-sided development, under Chinese state-controlled capitalism, to lift hundreds of millions out of deep poverty (which has changed the poverty indices of the whole world.)

Returning to Collins philosophical analysis of Venezuela and its obvious parallel to Britain under the deadly Corbyn, it turns out that despite the effects of colonial domination and a neighbour which is the most powerful capitalist power in the world, Latin American people have also constantly battled for a century and a half against their poverty and in rejection of US violence and control. In the case of Cuba - the Latin American revolt has maintained a platform for continental resistance over nearly 60 years.

And Venezuela?

As yet another anti-imperialist, socialist oriented wave rolled over Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s, new political experiments started up across a range of countries, the most radical in Venezuela. There are many serious and independent analyses available of Chavez's and now Maduro's regime in Venezuela (but not, it seems, in Britain's main paper of record). In this short summary three elements stand out. The super-dependence on oil, led by the already nationalised company with its deep connections to international oil. The use of its profits as the main instrument for the regime to re-distribute wealth (and the cutting off of technical investment by the US conglomerates needed to break open new types of reserves). The continued resources that remained with a spectacularly rich and previously powerful ruling class - constantly attached to the US. Finally, the partial and underdeveloped reorganisation of the state which has failed to organise the people.  An example of which is the current dominant role of the military.

The mistakes of the regime are one thing but the bottom line is the immense power of the US, which is wallowing in the roll-back of social democracy in Brazil etc, and which is now reorganising its sub-continental hegemony. The Venezuelan peoples' hostility to US management, despite its vast power, and a root and branch reform of the regime, are the now only real means to defend and re-start Venezuela's revolution.

It is difficult to match Venezuela's plight to the tasks facing Britain (despite Collin's fearful warnings). But one lesson regarding violence is clear enough. And whatever Collin's favourite philosopher, it is Corbyn not Collins that has understood it. Corbyn's support for the Chavez regime was a support for the independence of the Venezuelan people and for the resistance to US domination in Latin America. For US armed force is what always comes with the biggest and most ferocious violence of all.

And British socialists?

The demand for radical reform in Britain does not come from Corbyn. Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party comes from the radicalisation of large parts of the British population, especially the youth. Deep studies in social attitudes over the last two years show large majorities in favour of a major nationalisation programme, free education, and end to outsourcing and private attachments to state services. Most people in Britain are angry about the endless inequality. They have lived with 12 years of (failed) austerity. (The main failed policy, incidentally, of the EU.)

Britain's anger has little to do with 'utopian fancies'. But it is the fuel for yet another movement across the world pushing against a system that not only does not fit most peoples' needs and wants but also pushes them back. What is guaranteed is that the defenders and the benefiters of the status quo will tell the rest 'there is no alternative', 'there is only one way not to have a no deal', 'utopian fantasies end in violence', 'we have to face the global reality' and it will all duly be repeated in the traditional media. But the truth is that Britain is in a cruel mess and there needs to be fresh changes in every area of Britain's failing institutions, its over-blown economy and its increasing inequality.  And Corbyn is offering some initial steps to challenge those major failures. Collins and Conway are happy with (their) status quo - and scared to death of Corbyn. And 'The Times' has made its record.