Brown Calls for us all to be "Evangelists for Globalisation."
Anyone who had any illusions left that a transition from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown would signal a shift to any semblance of more progressive policies should read the text of the Chancellor's speech to the CBI conference yesterday.
The Chancellor is promoting both nationally and internationally the standard neo con agenda of flexible labour, pay controls, privatisation and forcing developing world countries to open up their markets to the savagery of international competition.
Let me give you some direct quotes from the Chancellor's speech:
On Globalisation
"My theme today is that it is for us to be evangelists for globalisation, taking on the anti-globalisation and protectionist forces who fail to recognise today's economic truth that free trade, open markets and flexibility are pre-conditions of modern economic success across our global economy."
On Public Sector Pay
"We will entrench our stability, keep public sector pay under control, maintain discipline in public finances.....On pay we must do more to encourage local and regional pay flexibility."
We have witnessed the first round of this approach in the Chancellor's recent announcements of public secor pay cuts and the massive scale of job cuts in the civil service leading to the first compulsory redundancies and the pressure for local pay in some areas of the public sector.
Trade unionists at every level should take careful heed of the Chancellor's message for the future. It's simple - public sector job and pay cuts and privatisation on an international scale.
Does the phrase "Turkeys voting for Christmas" come to mind for any trade union supporting Gordon Brown for leader now?
The Chancellor is promoting both nationally and internationally the standard neo con agenda of flexible labour, pay controls, privatisation and forcing developing world countries to open up their markets to the savagery of international competition.
Let me give you some direct quotes from the Chancellor's speech:
On Globalisation
"My theme today is that it is for us to be evangelists for globalisation, taking on the anti-globalisation and protectionist forces who fail to recognise today's economic truth that free trade, open markets and flexibility are pre-conditions of modern economic success across our global economy."
On Public Sector Pay
"We will entrench our stability, keep public sector pay under control, maintain discipline in public finances.....On pay we must do more to encourage local and regional pay flexibility."
We have witnessed the first round of this approach in the Chancellor's recent announcements of public secor pay cuts and the massive scale of job cuts in the civil service leading to the first compulsory redundancies and the pressure for local pay in some areas of the public sector.
Trade unionists at every level should take careful heed of the Chancellor's message for the future. It's simple - public sector job and pay cuts and privatisation on an international scale.
Does the phrase "Turkeys voting for Christmas" come to mind for any trade union supporting Gordon Brown for leader now?
posted by John at 4:05 PM
23 Comments:
At least no-one can accuse Brown of duplicity.He's setting out his stall quite openly and the choice is ours.
I just hope the trade unions and MPs read this speech, John. Most of them appear to be behaving like lemmings, or maybe ostriches is more accurate.
Brown's speech is a disgrace. It has nothing to do with the labour movement at all. I'm frankly appalled.
But I agree - the choice is stark and straightforward.
Brown's thesis is also economic nonsense. "free trade, open markets and flexibility are pre-conditions of modern economic success across our global economy".
The truth is somewhat more complex - high levels of public investment especially in education and training, and in transport infrastructure, seem to have more importance.
Open markets and free trade are also the kiss of death for many developing nation economies which is why so many have suffered and been further impoverished by the exact same IMF dogma that Brown is spouting.
Labour market "flexibility" of course means the ability for employers to hire and fire at will, and keep wages low - this does not bring economic success for workers, only company profits.
Well done John for highlighting this guff.
And to think I once thought Brown was a true labour politician at heart.
Globalisation is bad for developing nations and bad for this (declining) nation. We are not a global player and he should stop fooling himself.
Welcome to the Tory party Mark II :-(
OK can you please explain what is so right-wing and conservative about globalisation?
For starters
Globalisation means :-
Shippping goods around the planet at an extensive environmental cost.
Reducing consumer choice.
Increase of inequality between small and large companies
Tendency to increase monopolies and inherent price rises
Opportunity for corruption when big companies want to buy in.
Destruction of national cultures
....that's just off the top of my head.
Scottish fish company Youngs is sacking 100 workers and shipping langoustines to Thailand where they will be processed by workers earning 60pence an hour - then shipped back Gordo will be thrilled. Exactly the kind of stuff he's advocating. Yeah, I thought he was OK, too.
Seeing as Gordon Brown dosent campaign negatively against you, i find it somewhat strange you do it to him.
npm, Globalisation does not reduce consumer choice, it increases it, and far away from increasing prices, they lower them!!!! The nature of business is that there will be different sized companies, I really dont understand your point. Globalisation brings companies to Britain, far from onopolies they bring competition. Your last two points werent even wirth responding to.
Can I just ask people, if you arw against globalisation, and people on low wages, would you really rather they werent doing anything at all? WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES IF GLOBALISATION IS BAD? This forum is becoming a joke.
It's not about Gordon, Arjun.It's just the policies. They are not remoote;y "Labour" . Not even New labour.
Globalisation exploits workers, lowers prices, yes, at the expense of the working-class (ie workers in Thailand on 60 pence an hour) people suffer, the flexible, free market is a Tory concept.The labour Party was founded to protect the intersts of labour aganst the interests of capital ,It's that simple. But you still won't get it.
It might surprise you Little Englanders to learn that the 1918 Labour Manifesto stated "Labour is firm against tariffs and for Free Trade. The way to deal with unfair competition of imports made under sweated conditions is not by tariffs, but by international labour legislation, which will make sweating impossible."
Basically the McDonnell Plan is for trade unions in the affluent countries to use their influence to erect barriers to the goods of the poorer countries, allowing us to live in a fool's paradise, gradually becoming poorer ourselves, and cutting off the export markets for the developing world.
That's a classic Tory position: British goods for British consumers; British work for British hands.
And it'll cut no weight with the proper Labour Party.
Now that B4L has gone commercial, and given that most internet advertisers are global players, I think it will be difficult for anyone to attach any credence to your arguments on the topic of globalisation.
I think you need to remind Margaret Thatcher about the tory position. She didn't adhere to that when she dismantled the British manufacturing sector.
B4L is spot on. The Tory Party was founded in its modern incarnation to lobby for, amongst other things, imperial preference and against free trade. During the massive process of globalisation in the late nineteenth century, there was huge income convergence between developed economies (i.e. UK, Western Europe and the North East of the US) and developing economies (US Mid-West, China, Eastern Europe etc).
The worldwide shift to income divergence came with the onset of autarky in the period leading up to, and extending after, the First World War).
The argument that it is globalisation that causes inequality and poverty is simply false. One of the best ways we can support developing economies now is to dismantle the CAP and our other protectionist measures that prevent these countries from exporting to us.
I fully believe in workers' rights. However, these can only be achieved by regulating how goods and services are produced in our own country rather than distorting trade.
That is why Brown is a genuine, intelligent progressive and why John's simplistic anti-globalisation diatribe is completely pie-in-the-sky.
Isn't that blogers for neo-liberalism? New labour is full of crap about 'choice' reducing everybody to a consumer. Hence their breaking up of the NHS into competing trusts.
Have you people ever heard of collective, socdial provision? The idea that international cut-throat competition provides 'choice'is nosense.
Did you notice in the speech that Brown what local and regional pay. That adds up to driving wages down.
To challenge globalisation of course, requires developing solidarity between workers across national boundaries, not sinking back into nationalism.
Isn't it ironic that Blair/Brown think themselves 'internationalists'! What we need is not unhindered competition (trades unions are a hindrance of course) but social provision, dirving the profit motive out of the NHS, the railways, public services. Privatisation has been a disaster.
I think that the problem we have here is the definition of the term. Globalisation is the monopolisation of certain markets by global companies. Some years ago you could walk along any high street and see a varied set of retailers. Nowadays it is the same massive stores - not just in every town in the UK but in the world - changing the national culture.
Do you think that, in the example quoted above, that Youngs are shipping their goods around the world to save some cash for you? No, it is for their shareholders. The smaller companies that don't have the economies of scale won't be able to survive against the competition and will fold thus removing our choice. Once all the competition has gone - prices will rise. (Note this is happening with the Tescos at the moment - ask your mums)
Having worked for various global companies I know exactly how they work. The holding company, say "Global Jeans Inc" hold the manufacturing company and then sell on the items to the British subsidiaries at a value added price - thus moving the bulk of the profit back to the country in which the corporation is registered. NOT to the country that actually makes the goods, and NOT to our tax revenue.
Being anti this situation has nothing to do with harming the exports of these countries - it is ensuring that other players also trade with these countries directly, rather than the global entities who squeeze the producer for every penny because there are no other buyers left.
Have you people ever heard of collective, socdial provision? The idea that international cut-throat competition provides 'choice'is nosense.
Martin, I don't feel it would be fair to probe you too deeply on that, but let me put it this way: humanity developed a way by which competing interests, desires, capabilities, and skills could be brought together and satisfied. It's called a market, and the study of the same is called economics. Some people used to think the State (or the Dictator) could know better; they're pretty thin on the ground nowadays.
Basically what you're talking about is not democratic, or individualistic (in the sense that individuals have power, and have their own views), but bureaucratic and statist. I put it to you that you put your faith in *centralised* structures in the belief that they alone Know What's Best, and that this is Soviet-style serfdom. As John McD is a Labour MP, I think you can safely say that this forum is about Labour issues, not communist ones.
To challenge globalisation of course, requires developing solidarity between workers across national boundaries, not sinking back into nationalism.
Maybe so, but what the anti-globalists - as representatives of the West - really want is to protect their own living standards. They hold the reins, and they alone have the ability to put up barriers that really hurt the developing countries.
Give up the tariffs and the restrictions, let the developing countries compete with us, and *then* you can have your negotiations and solidarity on a level playing field. Then, once they have the safety legislation and the free trade unions, will we finally allow them to beat us (sell things to our population) on price?
Some excellent points already made about the dangers of globalisation. However, the infrastructure for doing business globally was set up by the US Dept of Commerce, in liaison with the top banks.
It won't be a global economy, but an International dictatorship controlled by the richest people on earth, who clearly have Blair and Brown as mouthpieces.
Imagine something a bit like Mussolini's 1930s corporate vision, but on a global scale. Is that what ordinary people want?
Excellent post Anonymous !
Arjunh is quite right not to be silenced as he dosen't understand why Gordon Brown has privatised everything and yet is still in the Labour Party.
We don't understand it either Arjun and we want our party back.
We've modernised our ideas and are not old Labour before you ask.
We need real Labour that's all, you remember the party that really did consider the many b4 the few to use that clumsy slogan they dreamt up as a mantra and the only way we're going to get it is under John McDonnell.
Apart from Blair's personal fan club and real Labour supporters all the other activists have left anyway as you could see from the delegates at this year's conference. So the majority is in fact us, normal Labour supporters, not those who have to engage in political double think to convince themselves that Blair and Brown are still Labour.
As it said in the program about the Granita moment, you know the Blair-Brown documentary some time ago they dramatised the pair of them deciding which of them would stand as leader, of Blair "but he's a Tory".
I rest my case.
But opposition is healthy I presume so should not be silenced!
Won over of course that's a differnt matter!
Now all go and have a nice sit down and watch some old repeats of Fawlty Towers or similar to take your mind off politics for the rest of the evening!
Not sure about the analysis given by NPM - I think you need to check your facts, and your logic (so, everything, then). B4L seems to sum it up quite nicely.
For better or for worse though - what exactly is John McD going to DO about globalization if he (God forbid) becomes Labour Leader and PM? Ban the internet? End immigration and movement of capital out of the country? Erect huge trade barriers and tarrifs? It seems to me that there isn't a "left" alternative worthy of the name.
the left would not try to regress technology such as the internet but there are always chioces about how it is used
Arjun - Brown doesn't campaign against McDonnell because by completely ignoring him he slashes the potential publicity for McDonnell and simultaneously creates a sense of inevitability in his own rise to power. Look at how Cameron is making himself appear the natural choice for Prime Minister by swanning off abroad and trying to behave as if he already was PM. Same principle. He's also highlighting what Brown stands for, which otherwise isn't clear.
Curlew - Old Maggie was not popular with all Tories - ask Edward Heath. She's often described as a neo-liberal of some sort. In fairness, the Tory party post-Thatcher has shown a lot of signs of having been largely converted to her economic principles.
Martin Wicks - Choice is good sometimes, not so good other times. And it seems Blair has realised that choice in hospitals is not really what people want, and is trying to centralize them more. (not a plug for Blair's NHS policy, there are many issues with what he's doing now besides what he was done, but that's another subject).
I'm not sure privatising the railways has been a disaster. My own experience is that there have been a lot of improvements. The problem is government reluctance to impose franchise conditions - not stopping worstgroup from hiking its fares up, for example.
By what we "need", what do you mean? Lots of social provision, attacking business, etc, will just drive businesses from the UK and cost jobs.
I sympathise with NPM on globalisation, but as eddie says, what is McDonnell going to do about it? What *can* he do?
Arjun - Brown doesn't campaign against McDonnell because by completely ignoring him he slashes the potential publicity for McDonnell and simultaneously creates a sense of inevitability in his own rise to power. Look at how Cameron is making himself appear the natural choice for Prime Minister by swanning off abroad and trying to behave as if he already was PM. Same principle. He's also highlighting what Brown stands for, which otherwise isn't clear.
Curlew - Old Maggie was not popular with all Tories - ask Edward Heath. She's often described as a neo-liberal of some sort. In fairness, the Tory party post-Thatcher has shown a lot of signs of having been largely converted to her economic principles.
Martin Wicks - Choice is good sometimes, not so good other times. And it seems Blair has realised that choice in hospitals is not really what people want, and is trying to centralize them more. (not a plug for Blair's NHS policy, there are many issues with what he's doing now besides what he was done, but that's another subject).
I'm not sure privatising the railways has been a disaster. My own experience is that there have been a lot of improvements. The problem is government reluctance to impose franchise conditions - not stopping worstgroup from hiking its fares up, for example.
By what we "need", what do you mean? Lots of social provision, attacking business, etc, will just drive businesses from the UK and cost jobs.
I sympathise with NPM on globalisation, but as eddie says, what is McDonnell going to do about it? What *can* he do?
Post a Comment
<< Home