Review of world economy.

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Thursday November 16, 2006 18:15 by john throne - labors militant voice loughfinn at aol dot com

Capitalism Unleashed

Lynn Walsh of the CWI reviews Capitalism Unleashed by Andrew Glynn. John Throne comments.

I was amused recently to read the review by Lynn Walsh one of the leading members of the Committee for a Workers International, (CWI) the international to which the Socialist Party is affiliated. The review was on the world economy, specificaly taking up former CWI member Andrew Glynn's book "Capitalism Unleashed."

The reason I was amused is that when I was a member of the leading body of the CWI in the early 1990's Walsh was given the task of drawing up a draft economic perspectives document for the organization that we could discuss and around which we could clarify our ideas. Year after year went by, Walsh would go away and discuss with Andrew Glynn and come back with piles of paper and some jumble of ideas which came out of these discussions. However no clarification of economic perspectives for the 1990's came out of them. As a result, we, it was "we" then before I was expelled, as an organization completely underestimated the economic growth of the 1990's and the past five to six years. With Walsh at the helm the organization was disarmed in the face of the tide of growth. Walsh as an economic theoretician as a catastrophe for the CWI but now he reviews Glyn's book as if he knew all.

I took up with Walsh on the leading body of the CWI that it was the task of the leading body to discuss economic perspectives and then have these discussed throughout the international. It was not his task to get ideas from Andrew Glynn, bring these ideas back and present them to the international. I explained that his way was a totally undemocratic process. That the international was being by-passed. Walsh's reply was shocking. He said: "I do not have time to give seminars to the International secretariat." Such incredible arrogance. If he thought this about the democratically elected leading body of the CWI imagine what he thought of the membership.

Andrew Glynn is no longer a member of the CWI. He has always written books that have been of interest and useful. In this review by Walsh of his most recent book "Capitalism Unleashed" the tone Walsh adopts is one of bootlicking of Glynn from beginning to end. This is not an accident or incidental. It reflects Walsh's dependence on bourgeois academics ideas and aid to present himself as a leading member of the CWI and their leading voice on economics.

But Walsh's concessions to the pressure of the past period do not end there. He talks throughout the review about "neo-liberalism." This is the term that the bourgeois have coined to cover up what is in fact the brutal capitalist offensive that they have unleashed over the past couple of decades. This term is meant to disarm the working class movement ideoligically and Walsh goes along. Not only goes along, he uses it throughout his review.

Walsh correctly talks about the role of technological change, he talks about the rise of China, he talks about the shift of production to the former colonial countries. However having learnt nothing from the debacle of the collapse of the CWI over the past ten years Walsh does not mention that the CWI as a whole did not see these developments coming and when they did come because of the CWI's rigid top down structure, what Walsh himself when his position was threatened in the CWI called the bureaucratic centralist internal life, the CWI was not able in a democratic and open way discuss these developments and adjust. We were wrong on these issues but Walsh ignores this. A cover up.

Walsh's review underestimates the enormous pressures that the rise of China will mean. It would have been good to hear his and the CWI's views on the issue of the permanent revolution and its relevance or otherwise to the present period. But this is not mentioned. This is a reflection of Walsh's empiricist method and his dependence on bourgeois academics and their approach.

Combined and uneven development is a feature of the world situation as never before. But how does the theory of the permanent revolution apply today. Stalinism wiped out the feudal structures in Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and China. So what stands in the way of these societies developing into modern capitalist economies? China with its gigantic working class and labor power in the country side, with its $1trillion in reserves and its staggering industrial development. What is standing in the way of China developing a home market which can open up a new phase in the world economy of decades of growth.

Walsh answers with the inevitable crises to come. He talks about the "catalytic elements of future crises." All this is true. But then capitalism has always been a system of crises and yet there have been times when it has had sustained periods of growth. Such as the post war upswing. Can it have another now? It certainly had stronger growth in the past 15 years than either Walsh or the CWI or myself ever expected. This is not mentioned or dealt with by Walsh.

Walsh just ends with the old CWI mantra. This approach is rooted in the drive to recruit and build. A new crises is coming. Do not worry. There is no room for reforms he says. But this is not true. Tens of millions of Chinese, some statistics show hundreds of millions, have already had small increases in living standards and faced with explosive events capitalism in China and internationally can make concessions from its huge profits.

The main reason I personally think that Chinese capitalism cannot develop into a modern capitalist country with a developed home market is because of the crisis of global warming and the rise of the Chinese working class. Hoverever that it cannot achieve this does not mean the tendency towards this is not the main or one of the main features in the world situation today. As it rises in power Chinese capitalism will challenge US Imperialism for world domination. It will change the relations in all of South east Asia and world wide. US Imperialism, Japanese Imperialism will have to react.

British Imperialism lost world dominance to US Imperialism from the end of the first world war to the beginning of the second. This period was marked with wars, revolutions, economic booms and slumps. The rise of Chinese capitalism will usher in a similar period. But this does not mean that the world will neatly fit into the CWI and Walsh's perspective of immediate coming crises which is always developed in order to convince young people to join up and build the revolutionary party.

Walsh, who has never built a branch of the CWI in his life, approaches this review from the needs of the subjective factor to build and grow rather than from an objective analysis. His time could have been better spent.

A detail on another subject. Regular readers on Irish indymedia will have heard me sound off regularly against left sectarianism and how damaging it is to the struggle of the working class. Well I had another example of it recently.

I have written a book recently. It is called "The Donegal Woman," the biography of my grandmother who was hired out to a farmer in the hiring out system, raped, made pregnant, sold off to my grandfather, had six children over the next six years and died in the big flu of 1919/1920. At the launch in Dublin which was held in Liberty Hall there were union and political activists from many different traditions and from many different political parties and groups. It was very good to see everybody getting together.

Jack O'Connor head of Siptu spoke and helped launch the book. As did Pat Smyth the foreign editor of the Irish Times and others. I asked Joe Higgins SP TD to speak and help launch it. He was contacted twice. I never got an answer. No answer. This is the man I recruited to socialist politics, stood aside from my position on the administrative council of the Labor Party for, and he would not even answer an invite to speak at the launch of my book. Not only that but while the launch brought together activists from many different traditions and groups the SP as a whole was not one of them. It boycotted the launch.

Such petty childishness, such left sectarianism, such a damaging approach to the working class and its struggles. This approach of the SP is very damaging to the interests of the working class.

John Throne.