The New Dark Age

28 July 2019 — theplanningmotivedotcom

USA first quarter 2019 report pdf (report)

GRAPHS rate of exploitation & surplus value (spreadsheet)

[I thought the following postscript to the USA first quarter report worth reproducing here. WB]

A short note on the UK. “Levelling up” or an unguarded level crossing with a train approaching.

As expected Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister. He really is the mushroom growing on the rot of empire. He promises great things, declaring all it takes is for the British people to be positive and to cosy up to the USA. It seems his enthusiasm has caught on leading to a bounce in the polls. It is interesting to see, now that he has been elected, how the press and TV have closed ranks to shine the best light on him.

Mr Johnson is a classical scholar who idolises Pericles, a slave owning provocative diplomat from ancient Athens. One wonders how much emphasis was put on the slave owning bit as Mr Johnson wended his way through Eaton then Oxford. However, if Mr Johnson ever contemplated becoming Prime Minister during his formative years, he would have been well advised to study economic history instead. Had he done so he would have realised just how treacherous and ruthless the USA was and is. He would have learned how the USA bankrupted its arch-rival Britain during the war via Lend Lease. How this propelled the dollar into pole position as the world’s dominant currency. How this was later consolidated through Bretton Woods. How his more recent idol, Churchill, came to describe Britain’s entrapment by Bretton Woods as the biggest defeat suffered by the British Empire outside of war. Or how Keynes, who died a broken man, went cap in hand to beg for a grant to rebuild the UK after the war, only to be shown the door in Washington unless he agreed to a loan. It seems the relationship between the USA and Britain since WW2 has been more a sadomasochist relationship rather than a special relationship.

If Trump seeks to seduce the UK, he does so for only one reason, to use Britain to batter the EU which he sees, together with China, as the US’s main rivals. Thus, he favours Britain leaving with no deal. In this way he kills two birds with one stone, the EU is damaged and Britain is made ripe for the picking.

Or perhaps Johnson is harking back to and trying to replicate t]he love affair between Reagan and Thatcher, the political architects and schemers at the dawn of the neo-liberal era. Now that we are at the sunset of the neo-liberal era, which incidentally has helped wreck the world economy, he seeks to stoke a fire that is flickering out by blowing optimism over it and providing hyperbole as kindling. Tragedy followed by farce.

And like a kid who is given his first credit card, all Johnson can talk about is spend, spend, spend, mainly on projects stolen from Labour. But the fact is that Britain is in recession where the so-called “sound government finances” are rapidly unravelling. However, Mr Johnson has one ace up his sleeve. He is more likely to get a variant of May’s Exit deal through parliament. Unlike May, right-wing Tories will not rebel against him, and of course, he can count on at least 17 treacherous Labour MPs who support Leave. So, with a tinkering here and a fudge there Britain may soon exit the EU on time.

It is unlikely that Britain will leave with a no deal. Under those circumstances, the more sober Tories, despite the shadow of Farage hanging over them, will force a general election.

And while we wait for this to happen he will be levelling up Britain. This is the new mantra being sprouted by cabinet creatures that have no empathy for the poor. Clearly this slogan was coined by Dominic Cummings, he, famous for the slogan “taking back control”. No more trickle down. Now it is level up. So, the rich are not to be touched, and maybe even given a tax cut. Instead it will be the lower layers of society that will be elevated.

What a slogan, it even defies the gravity of economic logic. The rich only exist because there are the poor and the super-rich only exist because the poor have been made super-poor. No, it seems Mr Johnson is about to bake a bigger cake, so it will be bigger slices all round chaps. Except that this is not chocolate but a turd. This slogan has but one purpose, to disarm and hoodwink workers. It serves the same purpose as “taking back control”, behind which a section of British Capital hid their intention of turning this little island into a low waged, low taxed and deregulated sweatshop off the coast of Europe.

As the finances of the British economy deteriorate and as it is stripped bare by the tax dodgers, austerity will endure until workers decide no more. Austerity is not the new normal it is the ugly normal. There will be no levelling up, instead workers are being invited to blindly cross an unguarded level crossing by Mr Johnson who is sitting safely on the other side with his mates enjoying a sterling silver banquet.

History is moving more quickly, and this is what demagogues represent. In the end Boris Trump, like all demagogues, can be compared to a sparkler which burns furiously and brightly, but burns out quickly. Unless Boris Trump can force a departure from Europe, he may turn out to be one of the most short-lived Prime Ministers in history joining the likes of The Duke of Devonshire or Bonar Law or George Canning whose tenure in office was measured in months.

How did an incapable politician like Boris Trump ever become Prime Minister? Simple, he personifies and symbolises the decay and despair of a capitalist system that barely survived 2008. He like Trump are the political night watchman. The end of a political era which their bluster cannot disguise. What follows them has to be crafted by the working class or all will be lost.

Brian Green, July 2019