Should we demand the abolition of the USA?

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Annoyed at being fined for failing to comply with EU regulations, Elon Musk has demanded that: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries”. Perhaps the EU should respond with the counter-demand that: “The US should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual states”. Actually, Musk might even agree with that in principle, if he had any principles – but it looks as though his real beef is about any state, or co-ordinated alliance of states, being big enough and strong enough to stand up to what he regards as the natural order of things: rule by billionaire. The difference, though, is that the US federal government has already been captured by the billionaires, and doesn’t need to be broken up to facilitate their rule.

There are, and always have been, questions over how much sovereignty (and in what fields) the EU’s member states should exercise individually and how much they should share; but acting jointly on some issues and agreeing rules which all members must follow is undoubtedly advantageous in a world where some corporations and individuals wield excessive power. It’s easy to understand why monopolists would prefer to deal with a host of weaker individual states on which they can impose their power. The real issue, though, and it’s not one which the EU seems minded even to consider, let alone tackle, is about how we collectively free ourselves from the increasingly oppressive rule of kleptocrats and billionaires. There is nothing natural or inevitable about the accumulation of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands; it happens because the laws and rules under which the economy operates have been written to allow and facilitate it. But those laws and rules are made by humans, and humans acting collectively could change them. If enough of us wanted to do so.

Concentrating power

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The newspapers and their Tory friends have been milking the planned series of strikes over the next week for all they’re worth.  “Ruining Christmas” seems to be the more-or-less ‘official’ tabloid description; although I’m sure they’d have found a similarly pertinent title at any other time of the year.

I don’t doubt that the strikes will inconvenience many, and I’m equally sure that if I were depending on Southern Rail to get to work, or on BA to fly away for some Christmas sun, I’d be pretty unhappy about it too.  Unhappiness, and playing on people’s anger, sells newspapers.  To make the issue more complex, I’m not sure that I have a huge amount of sympathy with the grievances of the staff taking strike action in every case either; the issue of driver-only train operation, for instance, seems to have been resolved elsewhere, and I’m finding it hard to understand why what’s acceptable sometimes isn’t more generally acceptable.

But there’s an underlying issue here which isn’t really about the validity or otherwise of a particular grievance, it’s about where power lies and what rights working people have to pursue a dispute with their employer.  To listen to some of the Tories talking, they ‘accept’ the right of people to withdraw their labour, just so long as it causes no inconvenience to the employers or customers; the moment it does, it becomes a case of trade unions abusing their power.  And that in turn leads to demands to ban ever-increasing sections of the working population from ever going on strike.  But a right to withdraw labour only so long as it inconveniences no one doesn’t look like a particularly useful right to me – the whole point of any industrial action is to put pressure on the employer.  Striking, or threatening to strike, is effectively the only power that workers have.

What concerns me even more is the way in which people are being swept along with this attitude.  Finding angry commuters to interview is easy enough, but it’s no substitute for a consideration of the power politics underlying the question.  Ultimately, the Tories and their media friends are seeking to make the power balance between workers and employers even more one-sided than it is at present, and the presentation of the issue is effectively aligning workers in other industries and sectors with the employers.  Every time those workers who depend on the trains to get to work criticise the strikers, and demand that they don’t strike, they are effectively telling them that they must accept whatever the employers say and forgo any right to oppose it.

In an increasingly interconnected economy, the failure of services on which so many depend – whether because of a strike or for any other reason – is something which we would all prefer to avoid, naturally.  But the jump from there to handing all power to employers and telling employees that they must accept whatever is imposed on them is far too simplistic a response.  In recent decades, under Tory and Labour governments alike, the balance of power has swung very much away from employees, and those who wield the power are seeking to continue that process. 

I understand the argument that strikes should be a last resort, and that not all strikes will appear to have merit to everyone, but who should decide on the merits or otherwise of a particular dispute?  It’s a question which we can debate ad infinitum, and one on which our opinions will tend to depend in large measure on the impact any particular dispute has on us as individuals.  But the solution is surely a bit more complex than simply taking away employee rights and giving all power to employers.  I hope that ACAS will be able to help resolve the current disputes – that’s the best outcome for all concerned.  The alternative (and apparently popular) suggestion of further eroding the position of working people, and further accumulating power in the hands of the employers, doesn’t look to me to be in the long term interest of all those angry people being so willingly interviewed by the media, however much it might appear to be in their short term interest at a point in time.

Being put in their place

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Yesterday’s meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee seems to have lived down to expectations, with the leaders of the devolved governments coming out with no more information than they took in.  They have, though, been put in their place, having been told very clearly that they must not seek to promote the interests of their respective nations undermine Brexit.

A picture tells a story, as they say, and I thought that the picture of them all meeting in the Cabinet Room which is contained in this report said a great deal.  It shows that around half of those at the meeting represented the UK/England Government whilst the other half represented all three of the devolved governments.  A 50:50 split probably seems about right from ‘their’ perspective.  But they were also sitting on opposite sides of the table, in a way which immediately conveys either confrontation or a clear power relationship.  Or maybe both.

I suspect that it’s accidental, in the sense that probably no-one really gave it much thought in advance.  This is, after all, THE Cabinet Table; it’s where, from ‘their’ perspective it all happens.  And also, from ‘their’ perspective, they are very much in charge.  But the fact that it’s obviously so natural that it didn’t need a great deal of thought is precisely the point which is so revealing.  It’s what they mean when they talk about a grown-up relationship.

Exploiting the gullible electors

Tweet In a lengthy piece in Saturday’s Western Mail, Labour’s shadow Secretary of State for Wales gave us the benefit of his views on the economy.

(As an aside, the Western Mail’s change in the use of language between the printed version and the online version is interesting.  The online “shafted” became “not getting a fair crack of the whip” and “exploited” in the print version, both versions being shown as direct quotes from Owen Smith.  I wonder which version he actually used – and what it says about the accuracy of reported speech in the Western Mail.)

One of his pearls was this: “Who is our economy meant to serve?  What’s it there for?  It’s not there to serve governments.  It’s not there to serve corporations.  It’s there to serve people”.  It is, of course, complete nonsense.  Our economy is there to serve those who control it; a capitalist economy serves the capitalists, not the people.  It wasn’t developed to serve the people, and no-one should be in the least surprised if it doesn’t do so.  And that’s a point which those who founded the Labour Party understood very well, even if, sadly, their modern-day successors do not.

If he’d presented the idea that the economy should serve the people as a proposal, with a plan to get there – or even as an aspiration – I’d have had rather more sympathy with his argument.  But trying to suggest that changing the party and people in government and passing a few laws giving workers a few more rights is somehow going to change the nature of the economy and make it work for ordinary people is utterly disingenuous – and made more so by the fact his party contributed to the weakening of workers’ rights and the strengthening of the power of the capitalists when it was in power.

I actually agree with one of his key statements in the interview, when he says “But the reality is that is exactly the base of our economy: people’s work.  What they do day after day is what drives corporations, is what drives an economy.”  Followed to its logical conclusion, it’s an argument for a fundamental change in the nature of our economy, a change precisely of the nature which he and his party are not proposing.

All in all, the whole interview succeeds only in exposing the basic fallacy which underpins the concept of social democracy, which is that there is no alternative to a capitalist economy, and that the best we can hope for is a few minor legislative changes to mitigate some of the worst aspects.  There is little in what he said which could not have been said by members of any of the four social democratic parties with members representing Wales, of course, so perhaps it’s unfair to pick on him – it’s simply that he’s the one who’s been interviewed on this occasion.

But what we need is an alternative paradigm, not just a few bits of stick on veneer.  Economic relationships in society are based on power, and power is in the hands of those who own and control capital.  Without changing that, those who sell their labour will continued to be shafted (or exploited, for Western Mail readers of a more delicate constitution).  And the Labour Party is clearly planning to continue to aid and abet that shafting.

Power to the people

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There are huge differences between Wales and Northern Ireland, and I can’t believe that anyone in Wales would really wish it otherwise, given the tragedies of the past.  The negotiations over the contentious issues are still in progress as I write this, with the deadline set coming increasingly close.  But the suggestion made in a news bulletin last night that the failure of the talks could lead back to direct rule underlines one key similarity, which is inherent in the devolution process.

Power devolved is power retained.  No matter how often Westminster politicians and others talk about – in the Scottish context – making the devolved institutions inviolable without their consent, the reality of the English constitution is that there is no recognition of any source of power other than the centre.

The National Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, and the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly all exist by the grace of HM, as expressed through decisions of her parliament.  And what is granted through grace can be withdrawn in the same way.

Sadly, the idea that power is a top-down concept has taken hold in all of the parties in the Assembly as well; their attitude towards local government in Wales seems little different in effect from the underlying attitude of the English establishment to the devolved bodies - power belongs to those who hold it.

There is an alternative view, not often heard these days, which is that power actually belongs to all of us, and it is for us to decide where it is pooled and exercised.  That involves recognising the democratic mandate of all elected bodies at all levels, and the right of people in any area to choose a different set of policies if they wish.  It’s a concept which all the politicians seem to struggle with, but it’s the key to the meaningful involvement and participation that many of them say that they want.  A republic would be a good starting point.

The roots of permanence

Tweet One of the recommendations of the Smith Commission in Scotland was that the existence of the Scottish Parliament should be enshrined in law in such a way that it can never be abolished by Westminster.  Similar suggestions have been made in the past in respect of the Assembly.  It’s a suggestion with which it’s easy to agree, but rather more difficult to implement.

Whilst there is nothing to prevent Westminster passing laws which apply “henceforth and for ever” – they have, after all, had a few centuries of practice at it – making even such a sweeping phrase stick is another matter entirely, given the constitutional convention that no parliament can ever bind its successor.  Whatever can be done by a parliament which believes itself to have absolute sovereignty can always be undone on the same basis.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that, in legal terms, the UK Parliament has the theoretical power to revoke Australian independence (although such a move might be rejected on the minor issue of being utterly impossible to enforce).

Would it be different if the UK had a formal written constitution?  At one level, maybe not; a constitution brought into existence by a parliament which believes that it has absolute sovereignty can be abolished or changed by the same route, although it might be a little harder politically.  They key element which needs to be changed is that core belief, that underlying principle, that the UK Parliament has absolute sovereignty.  Changing that element demands that we get rid of the constitutional fiction that power is something which comes from the top – in the case of the UK, from God via the monarch to parliament.

For most practical political purposes in terms of the sort of legislation passed by political parties which have chosen to limit their ambition largely to what is achievable by minor incremental change, the question of the fundamental underpinnings of the power structures in the UK is irrelevant.  A constitutional monarch does as (s)he is told, and there are more important priorities than abolition.  But when it comes to some constitutional issues, challenging the basis on which that power exists is an essential pre-requisite.  And the ‘permanence’ of the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly is such an issue.

Only in a state where power is formally recognised as belonging to the people, on a bottom-up rather than top-down basis, can the rights of parliament to legislate be properly and fully limited.  It’s hard to see how that can really be done without abolishing the rights of kings – something which the establishment parties are unlikely to tackle.  And that, I suspect, is at the heart of the reason why the UK doesn’t have, and is unlikely to have any time soon, a written constitution.  It raises too many difficult questions which they’d have to answer.

Back to Smith, and I expect that the parties will find some convenient form of words to pretend that they’re making it impossible to abolish the parliament.  But the only real guarantee that the Scots (or the Welsh) can have is by making it impossible in practical terms rather than in legal terms.  And I’m fairly certain that we’ve already reached that point, even if Westminster hasn’t yet fully realised that fact.