Leaflet with friendly critique of "Corbynomics"

Submitted by AWL on 4 July, 2016 - 11:44

Leaflet to download and copy - click attachment below.

Attachment Size
Corbynomics.pdf(76.2 KB) 76.2 KB

Comments

Submitted by Jason Schulman on Mon, 04/07/2016 - 21:59

I like the pamphlet. I admit I read it rather quickly. But -- some questions.

Despite inevitable capital flight, a Corbyn-led Labour government might be able to renationalize the railways and nationalize the energy sector, fully fund the National Health Service and end its creeping privatization, remove anti-trade union laws and make the UK taxation rates more progressive. But those expecting more radical policies—say, expropriation and public ownership of the banking system and high finance—will surely be disappointed. I don't think the AWL or Momentum will be able to change Corbyn/McDonnell on this.

Further, even though the UK is not in the Eurozone and therefore is able to control its own currency (unlike Greece), Corbyn himself is a “deficit hawk,” and his desire to “rebalance” Britain away from financial services (even as the UK remains a special tax haven) involves continuing to greatly subsidize its productive industries. As the head of a capitalist nation-state committed to a fundamentally national project of reform, Corbyn would have no choice; much like French and American agriculture, British industry is unable to compete “fairly” with the cheap labor and favorable conditions of business available to global capital “at the periphery.” The result, at best, is to export British unemployment and poverty elsewhere, an outcome at variance with Corbyn’s own avowed commitment to socialist internationalism.

And given the absence of a genuine socialist International in the world right now, with no mass revolutionary parties anywhere, even if a workers' government were to be elected in Britain, given the reality of the world market, what could it hope to achieve, minus workers' governments in numerous European states all at the same time?

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