The Telegraph has found a 2013 video of John McDonnell saying he is a Marxist, that the capitalist system that failed in 2008 does not work and that systemic reform is needed.
Let's be clear here, I believe John on all three points. He is a Marxist. The capitalist system that failed in 2008 does not work. It does need systemic reform.
I have made the last two points time and again. But in case you think that's just another ageing lefty view both Martin Wolf and Philip Stephens of the FT have made the same point (the latter only yesterday, and rather well) and neither of them are lefties even if the ageing tag may fit. The reality is that it takes a fool, wilful self delusion or wealth (and usually but not always, all three) to believe that the current market system does in any way approximate to capitalism as it should work. All we have at present is a recipe for abuse, which has been delivered by the bucket load. Of course John is right to call for its reform.
It's what John wants by way of reform that worries me. As I have said, often, what we need are courageous politicians who realise that a strong economy is built on the basis of correctly defining the appropriate boundaries between a self confident state and a vibrant private sector where each knows the role it has to play and sticks to the rules when doing so. This is not Marxism. Marxism inevitably involves the ownership and control of the means of production by those who work for a living and there are occasions when this is not just not possible, but is in my opinion not even desirable. The definition is too materialistic to be desirable and assumes an immobility of labour that would oppress many.
But it is not at all clear that this is even what John wants. He's not shown courage when it comes to demanding reform. In fact, I'd suggest he's been timid when considerably greater boldness was demanded. From the moment he initially embraced George Osborne's Fiscal Charter (even if he changed his mind soon afterwards) onwards he has dithered. His three reviews have not gone to the heart of the issues needing to be addressed; the tax one is surprisingly weak in many of its demands.
John McDonnell has a crisis as a result: saying he's a Marxist does not help him when he's not clear what that means. And it seems he does not know what it does mean. None of this breeds confidence. He had years to work all this out. Apparently he didn't. And it shows.
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Last night he insisted on Question Time that he wasn’t a Marxist. He also said that Labour were ahead in the polls before the ‘coup’. Perhaps his problem is more fundamental: he’s a liar.
I believe he is a Marxist – he has said so to me
The poll argument is not lying, it is fantasy
It’s not strictly Fantasy – just being very selective – i.e. using just the Yougov polls:
Below is the Tory lead over Labour within those Yougov polls: ( http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2 )
18-Sep-15 8
30-Sep-15 6
24-Nov-15 9
01-Dec-15 11
18-Dec-15 10
28-Jan-16 9
04-Feb-16 10
23-Feb-16 7
17-Mar-16 -1
12-Apr-16 -3
26-Apr-16 -3
18-Jul-16 11
26-Jul-16 12
02-Aug-16 14
09-Aug-16 7
17-Aug-16 8
23-Aug-16 11
14-Sep-16 7
This is the “lead” which the Corbyn people have been referring to, although it actually happened before the Mayoral and local elections (there were no Yougov polls in May or June – Brexit polls tended to dominate).
All polling companies showed a similar distribution of a shrinking difference between the two major parties (Although none of them gave Labour a lead).
Martin, that those few leads happened a full month before the sacking of Hilary Benn and the subsequent ‘coup’.
Yes John, they did happen two full months before the sacking of Hilary Benn and the subsequent ‘coup’ – in fact they occurred during the run up to the local elections, and the early days of the Brexit campaigns when the media focus had moved away from Corbyn onto the Blue on Blue conflicts which were happening – which suggests that to keep Labour this low needs constant maintenance from the media.
The other interesting thing is that Yougov went a full two and a half months without a “National Party” poll after that last poll with Labour three points in the lead.
I’ve put that down to Brexit polls being the reason – although other polling companies continued with “National Party” polls – other may see conspiracies!!
Conspiracy
Or no one was paying for them?
The conspiracy line was rather tongue in cheek, as I expect the focus for most polling companies were the upcoming Brexit vote, although since the commissioning papers for Yougov tend to be the Sun and Times, neither exactly cheerleaders for the Corbyn project, those inclined to paranoid tendencies would no doubt draw their own conclusions.
With respect Martin, this really sums up Corbyn’s Core Group Devoted followers. If there’s evidence of Corbyn being a disastrous leader, it’s either someone else’s fault or it’s an establishment conspiracy. It’s a great shame that the other party of government can be overtaken by a group of people so out of touch with majority opinion.
You have hit the nail on the head. The problem McDonnell and Corbyn have is that they are, as you say, Marxists, and want to overthrow the system in some vague unspecified way. They resist saying this publicly. However it means they have great difficulty formulating proposals to reform the system that go beyond slogans. They don’t really believe reform is possible, and so have never had any interest in policymaking.
The “incompetence” of the current Labour leadership is, therefore, not because they are stupid or inept – it is because fundamentally they feel unable to state their real beliefs, but those same beliefs make them unable to function as a normal opposition.
Deeply frustrating for those of us who believe reform is possible – indeed there is a hunger for it, if only politicians thought clearly and realistically about how to deliver it.
Agreed
Ed note: Comment deleted because it was misogynistic
You are now blocked on this site
Clutching at non-existent straws there; seems you were itching for a pretense to ban my voice – banning is easier than arguing.
A blatant attack on female MPs is not clutching at straws
Oh dear! Oh dear! Even after 133 years have elapsed since Marx’s death, the mere mention of his name is enough to strike fear into his critics sending them to seek shelter under the bed clothes, or to hide behind the sofa – that is the mark of a truly great philosopher.
I don’t know why anybody calling themselves a Marxist should provoke any outburst of hysteria. The hysteria is in exact proportion to the ignorance that it accompanies. Marx’s only crime was to study and write about how capitalism actually worked as opposed to some idealised version of how it should work. Marxism is a theory of anti-capitalism. Marx’s view was that the wealth of a community should be in the ownership of that community. It should not be siphoned off by a self-perpetuating elite. Many people do not share that perspective, some think that capitalism is the greatest invention since sliced bread, others that despite its defects it is capable of reform and should be maintained. The former view is held by the neoclassical school, the later by Keynesians. Marx rejected the notion that Capitalism is capable of reform and dismissed as fantasy any realisation of its idealised version. Marx came to the conclusion that Capitalism is incapable of reform. The conflictual relationship between the property claims of Labour and the diametrically opposed property claims of Capital were, according to Marx incapable of resolution.
If Marx was right wanting to persevere with an economic system that delivers unspeakable levels of inequality throughout the world; a system where our children and grandchildren are priced out of the housing market, where millions have to rely on food banks and working tax credits, and where millions will be born into and die in debt doesn’t compute. You just have to admire those neoclassical and Keynesian for their devotion. Suffering that level of abuse voluntary takes some guts. I thought only dogs were that faithful.
The unfortunate fact is that the capitalism Marx criticised no more exists now than does the idealised form of the current economics profession
Marx represents a polarity
So does the libertarian right
If being Keynesian is to live in the grey of reality, compromise and things that can and do actually work I am happy to stand accused
Although it’s much more complex than that, as only someone who rejects to simplicity of extremes can appreciate
I don’t understand why you accuse O’Donnell of absolutist marxist dogma and then of not being absolutist in practice. I can understand casting about trying to find the way through to minds tailored to swallow the austerity theory hook line & sinker. I can understand the principle of marxist thought, essentially giving the power over capital to the workers to direct, but also its nasty side if applied without moderation, not least because heavy male dominated industry no longer exists. I don’t quite believe your accusation that this solution is more than shorthand for a change in approach to the economy.
I can understand how there has been a huge change in the way people are employed, and the implications of that isn’t yet entirely obvious. The Tories have finessed the system to make employment stats appear good, but underemployment & poverty incomes must be rife.
To expect one man to find his way through the fast changing situation, find how to express this to a public warped by MSM propaganda, and simultaneously deal with the hostility of the Blair rump, is to ask for superhuman powers.
Noted
And I did not post this because I had other more imprtant things to do
Call it work if you like
Sorry to seem to winge, didnt find mine up when came back to read new postings so re-sent as thought I’d done it wrong & was explaining, that was all.
OK, but I do this blog when I can
The day job comes first
What did you think of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at Bloomberg yesterday?
Dom what I have read it lacked cohesion
If you’re challenging the status quo you don’t say you’ll tinker with it
You say what it is you are trying to achieve
“lacked cohesion”
That applies to very many politicians. For example, Owen Smith’s proposals about the EU and Brexit certainly lack cohesion.
Our whole foreign policy for the last fifteen years has lacked cohesion.
The same applies to welfare, health, education and economic policy, including politicians’ speeches (lacking coherence/cohesion/knowledge/understanding) in all those areas.
Almost any speech/essay on any subject will lack cohesion because, for something to be fully cohesive (cover all bases), you would have to deliver a full-blown thesis/book.
So the real question is: ‘Is Corbyn significantly more lacking in cohesion/coherence/knowledge/understanding than most politicians?’
(The answer is ‘no’; in fact, on the whole, if anything, he’s ahead of the pack in that respect. For example, he and McDonnell lead the way in objecting to ownership and control of crucial infrastructure by foreign states.)
If cohesion is saying no they do it well
If cohesion is having an alternative they fail
The last para applies to very many (perhaps all) politicians.
For example:
* Owen Smith has not thought through his policy on the EU; he thinks his policy and rhetoric about rehashing the whole business is sensible. That doesn’t breed confidence either, so much so that even many of his own Labour MP supporters, e.g. John Mann, judge that that makes him a loser at the next GE (as they already judge the McDonnell-Corbyn team).
* Theresa May does not understand ‘equality of opportunity’ and has not thought through her policy on grammar schools. The same applies to the Tories regarding nuclear power. For example, they don’t understand ‘state ownership’; they think they’re against it but actually they’re very happy with it as long as the state is not the UK (e.g. France, China, America).
* Cameron did not understand Libya nor think-through his policy of bombing it, just like Blair on Iraq.
These are just a few examples off the top of my head. Proper politics watchers, e.g. Peter Hitchens, Peter Oborne, could drown us in examples that illustrate politicians’ widespread ignorance, stupidity and mendacity.
The worst that it said about McDonnell here is that he’s a bit naive about the meaning of ‘Marxism’, which does not “breed confidence”.
That, then, is a piffling criticism when set against other politicians’ failings, which don’t just fail to “breed confidence”, but actually breed disaster for us.
(Where foreigners are concerned, e.g. Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, the disaster is on holocaust scale.)
I suggest that before anyone uses the term ‘Marxist’ they spend an appropriate amount of time understanding what Marx actually wrote and said. The word is an excellent example of political/economic ‘framing’ in a pejorative sense, without any academic foundation.
It cab be that
Some people get it right
Agreed John D.
For myself I intend to read Adam Smith. I fear his reputation has been tarnished by some by association with some modern era undesirables. I need to actually read what the man said.
Also there is a difference between valuing Marx’s analysis of capitalism and going on to conclude that becoming a revolutionary socialist is the only rational response.
Certainly, as an earlier poster commented, timid would be a more useful description. Dropping R. Murphy’s proposed alternative to QE was a major mistake in my view.
Indeed, and someone very much on the economic right (as Richard probably knows by now!), Marx had FAR more to say than just an outline of Marxism.
Having studied him a lot back at university, I reckon only about 15% of his important output was to do with finding a new economic system. Most of his work was using broad, structural techniques to analyse economic power. It’s that analysis of power which, in my view, was his most important contribution to politics, and sits far higher in my estimation than his description of a rival to capitalism which seemed more of a post-script.
Another skeleton in the cupboard. Another light hearted McDonnell moment when he was only joking. Or probably not.
His analysis wasn’t wrong; clearly the entire economic structure is dangerously unstable and in need of reform.
However, Labour is not a Marxist party and having one – as I think he probably is – as its shadow chancellor does present just a bit of a problem.
The file at Tory central office must be bulging by now with all the Corbyn/McDonnell back history.
Richard, it’s illogical to say both that you believe McDonnell is a Marxist and also that McDonnell does not properly understand the meaning of ‘Marxist’.
If someone doesn’t understand something, you can’t be sure that s/he *is* that thing.
Not true
It is possible to believe that yourself something you are not
Watch the X Factor
But I’m talking about what *you* believe about McDonnell, not what he believes about himself. You said you believe he is a Marxist.
Using your analogy, my point is that it would be illogical for Simon Cowell (you) to believe that a contestant (McDonnell) has the X-Factor (Marxism) just because the contestant believes that about himself (‘I am a Marxist’), especially when Cowell also believes that the contestant doesn’t even understand what star-quality entails.
I do believe he thinks he is a Marxist
I made it clear why
You are making anything else up
“It is possible to believe that yourself something you are not
Watch the X Factor”
Hahaha
This is brilliant and so, so, tragically true
Ouch! Cruel, so cruel………………!
McDonnell is big diappointment to me. Whoever is advising him needs to go and study economics properly. In fact don’t bother……….just go.
I still believe that the Marxist analysis of capitalisms’ problems has much to commend it. The answers it came up with fell short however, lacking the real political need for compromise – the real tool for sharing wealth and power in society.
McDonnell’s half baked and half-hearted attitudes confirm to me once again that Labour has decided tacitly that the electorate are just a bunch of self interested morons who will help you win elections if you pander to self interest enough (swing voters please note).
Yet out here in the real world I feel that people are crying out for ideas that unite us and end the divisions that Dodgy Dave and his mates used to manipulate our country. If Labour wants to save the NHS etc., they need to reinforce the benefits of that. Yet they don’t seem to at all.
Very few people combine any experience of the real world and thinking
That is bizarre but also true
Today I blogged about McDonnell, Memory and Money. I have this vision of him being woken by a kiss from Gordon Brown in 2008. If otherwise, it is remarkable how much he has forgotten.
A good blog
Do you not think that some of the problems that people have who have never believed in neoliberalism, but have watched the overton window move further and further to the right, are that they cannot express what they really believe for fear of being both abused and ridiculed? When Corbyn suggested your PQE last year, Yvette Cooper was almost shouting at him on television, telling him that it would cause inflation.
To start with, when radical politicians want to change a massive consensus, they creep slowly because much of it is unacceptable to start with. Thatcher never believed in the NHS, or any other nationalised body. But it was politically impossible to privatise it to start with, that has taken generations of politicians, and a lot of deceit. Millions do not know still the extent that it is happening now.
Inspite of all this however, John McDonell has proposed 500bn of investment, via a national investment bank, and Corbyn has promised full employment – something that neoliberal politicians have not promised for forty years at least, because snake oil economists have persuaded them that this would also cause inflation. I remember at one of the conferences somebody mentioning the MMT and post Keynsian advice that Government was a sovereign issuer of currency within John’s earshot, and an economist admitting that this was true. I feel in my bones that he has got some idea…..
Hang on….people are fed up with politics as it has been
Why are they playing politics as it has been?
People won’t trust politics creeping up on them surreptitiously again
If they believe they have to say so
And they aren’t
Sandra – John does not talk openly about what could be because he does not believe that people believe him – even if they did?
He has become rather faithless in my view – as with too many progressives.
His capitulation to austerity etc., (and by others) will simply not do.
Richard, as a professor have you come across this new book and lecture series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB1uqxcCESK6B1juh_wnKoxftZCcqA1go) by Professor Anwar Shaikh (of the New School, New York) called ‘Capitalism’? From a newbie’s point of view, it seems like an absolutely amazing base to build a new economics grounded in what ACTUALLY happens in reality rather than in theory.
Also, I think its high time, people started thinking of better economic systems than capitalism. A system that is by design biased against the vast majority of the population and keeps concentrating wealth automatically unless intervened with can only go so far.
I had a brief look and it is something I may pursue
Thanks
On your point regarding marxism, what exactly are the occasions when worker ownership is undesirable or impossible? Surely the worker co-operative for example is the most desirable form of enterprise. Have you heard of the American economist Richard D Wolff’s application of Marxism (‘democracy at work’) to the present day in the form of worker self-directed enterprises, and if so what are your thoughts regarding them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifad2pMZDgg
There are clearly occasions when a person works for a short period for an employer when this is undesirable
And candidly I think there are occasions when a business is high risk and the employees should not bear the potential cost of that
And whilst they can be overcome, problems of scale do exist at present. I am not saying they need be insurmountable but no one is saying how in the UK right now
Co-ops are very important but as yet I am not sure we have an appropriate model to expand them as many might wish
And I may be wrong. I am happy to be corrected – but I know the movement a bit and have not heard it as yet
You don’t hear much about The Scott Bader Commonwealth which competes successfully in the competitive global chemical industry (speciality polymers, adhesives and composites)- http://www.scottbader.com/about-us/45/our-governance-structure. Several years ago I spent a day there and was hugely impressed with their products, structure and culture. Whilst wandering around the grounds I had a brief chat with an outside construction worker who said it was by far the best & friendliest company he’d ever worked with.
A Quaker company
And it is much ignored, but you have to remember it did not grow in the form it now has, and that is crucial. It grew as a conventional private company.
I think that the idea of worker ownership is somewhat overdone. Again we are talking about one or the other. Why? It’s such old hat.
What we need is BOTH!
Owner and worker working empathetically with each other – like old family ran firms could do.
To realise this there are going to have to be other changes made such as taking up Steve Keens idea of a mandatory 5 year investment lock in to give firms stability to plan and sustain business longer term.
The current system we have now that is led by investor needs just seems to destroy employer/employee relations to the detriment of all.
A wider approach to this problem will be needed.
And we need banking reform too: if a National Investment Bank could behave like a semi-equity investor that would be a big gain
High time that the lack of logic in Neo-Liberal and Libertarian ideology is given more prominence in the same way that the “agency problem” in a state capitalist version of Marxism has been. Here is Raymond Plant exposing the former:-
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5235/204033211796290290
Interestingly Plant’s critique revolves around the “agency problem” but in a different and practical way that could be said to encompass the core relevance of Marx’s analysis of market capitalism’s weaknesses. Going beyond Plant it is fairly obvious that money’s creation and distribution is at root an “agency problem.
Agree with you Schofield.
I have downloaded the pdf of the lecture. I hope I will find time to finish reading it later.
As a curiosity: I understand you spoke at Corbyn rallies about a year ago.
Love them or hate them, he and McDonnell have been pretty much what they say on the tin. I’m not sure there have been any great surprises.
Why have you gone completely off them so much in such a short space of time?
I have explained that at length
No need to repeat again
When this first came up I commented to friends that if John McDonnell is a Marxist then I am Marie of Rumania; he may sincerely believe he’s a Marxist but it’s a fantasy. I’m puzzled as to why people have difficulties in grasping what seems to me to be a straightforward point…
I refer you to my comment on the X Factor
If John McDonell really thinks he’s a Marxist, then whilst nobody could deny that Marx offers ideas on society’s economic and social workings when someone says they are Marxist it suggests the faith, the prophesy and the sacred book of a religion. A religion implies that reason will play second fiddle and that is not a politician likely to inspire a general respect.
Mind you I’ve also just heard it reported that he thinks that Jeremy Corbyn should, if reelected, go on a Leadership course. It is obviously too late to enquire why that enrolement was not suggested some time ago…