Posted by John, December 14th, 2011 - under Uncategorised.

Tags: Capitalism, Democracy

An erosion of democracy is a normal feature of capitalism in difficulties, argues Tom O’Lincoln in Socialist Alternative.

In November, millions of Europeans started to think their debt crisis was looking permanent. Austerity measures were pushing down asset values, worsening the debt crisis itself. This resulted from idiotic economic policy – something all too common under capitalism.

Equally shocking was the sudden arrival of technocrats at the top of governments. Amid complaints of a “bankers’ cabal”, ex-European Central Bank vice president Lucas Papademos became prime minister of Greece, while ex-European commissioner Mario Monti became prime minister of Italy. No one had voted for either of them.

Alarmist journalists had a field day, with Larry Elliot in the Guardian suggesting that a tiny network now “calls the shots in Europe” and that “the clock has been turned back to the days when France was ruled by the Bourbons”.

This took place after long year in which decision making processes had drifted more and more into the hand of Brussels-based bureaucrats, widening the so-called “democratic deficit”. It followed George Papandreou’s attempts to hold a referendum, which caused panic in European ruling circles. Didn’t George remember that democracy was only for settling issues that don’t really matter?

The rise of Papademos and Monti led to a firestorm of complaint, most amusingly from the politicians who would otherwise have taken power. Opposition leader Antonis Samaras complained that he would rather have elections, which he would have won. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi continued to remind everyone he had a big bloc of seats in parliament. But in practice they care little for democracy unless it elects them.

The fact that both Greece and Italy now have un-elected technocrats in charge is supposed to bring confidence back to the financial markets. But it was in large measure the same sort of technocrats who presided over the Global Financial Crisis and “solved” it by handing money to mega-rich parasites. And who are the markets accountable to? To shareholders theoretically; in practice to big capital, which is accountable to no one.

It’s no wonder that Europeans are worried about an erosion of democracy. The worries are well placed, but this shouldn’t be a surprise. An erosion of democracy is a normal feature of capitalism in difficulties. At its most trivial, we have the experience of Bill Clinton, who after a briefing by advisers about financial realities, burst out: “You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” At its most chilling, there is the rise of Hitler in the crisis years of the 1930s.

It shocks us mainly because conventional history plays down the systematic patterns. Consider Australia. In 1975 a financial crisis gripped the Labor government. Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser used his numbers in the senate – the same upper house that Paul Keating called “unrepresentative swill” – to block the supply of funds to the Whitlam government. Sir John Kerr, the un-elected governor-general representing the un-elected Queen, “resolved” the issue by sacking Whitlam.

Years of protests followed. In Queensland, they had a different focus than the southern states, because of the ghastly right wing premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Petersen made it virtually illegal to march in the streets. And for a while he had the political sway to do it because the Queensland electoral system was gerrymandered in his favour.

In 1983, the voters returned Labor to power. The new prime minister, Bob Hawke, instituted a new decision making process, summoning a special summit meeting for movers and shakers. This unelected assembly, which excluded the majority of just-elected MPs, set the tone for bureaucratic decision making over the Hawke-Keating years. The most important single measure taken in this style was a formal deal between the ALP and the ACTU. This “Accord” made sure that decision making processes largely moved upwards and most union decisions were soon made by a handful of senior bureaucrats like ACTU secretary Bill Kelty.

Kelty was a key figure in the government, despite never being elected. There are figures like that in most governments.

These were outrages, but we weren’t powerless to fight them. Workers met the Whitlam sacking with strikes and rallies. Then they fought the Fraser government year after year. Amidst a general strike in defence of the Medibank health care system, which Fraser was trying to wreck, Melbourne Age journalist Claude Forell declared:

“Something startling and significant happened this week in Australian politics…The trade union movement has become the effective opposition whose authority and arrogance had seemed invincible.”

In Queensland Bjelke-Petersen was forced to abandon his ban on marches, only because thousands defiantly took to the streets, time after time. Respectable opinion, from newspaper editorials to liberal politicians, never tired of criticising such resistance. They lectured us protestors on the importance of “proper channels”. Had we no respect for democracy? In reality, we only get the democracy we fight for.

If we look outside Australia the examples pile up fast. In the 1960 US elections, John F Kennedy won the key state of Illinois because of vote-fixing in Chicago. His Democratic Party ran “peace candidate” Lyndon Johnson for years later on a platform of peace in Vietnam. Once re-elected he sent in the marines. If this ancient history seems curiously familiar, it’s probably because in 2000 George W Bush won Florida with similarly dirty tricks, then went on to fight dishonest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A few years ago such stories from the US met condescending comments about the backwardness of Americans. But now we are confronted with Monti and Papademos, and there will be more. Something fundamental to the dynamics of capitalism is involved. Karl Marx called it “Bonapartism”, reflecting the fact that Napoleon and Louis Bonaparte had each abolished democracy and ruled seemingly independently of any social base.

Actually “Bonapartist” leaders do base themselves on social phenomena. They typically rise to power when the capitalists are divided.

The capitalists form the core of the ruling class, but ironically they don’t do much hands-on ruling. They would rather spend their time making money, and so they tend to delegate power to specialists like John Howard and Julia Gillard. This general pattern opens the door to Bonapartism a crack. But it mostly pushes through the door when the capitalists are shattered by crisis, as is happening in Greece today. Being unable to agree on what to do, they panic about the danger of resistance from below and challenges to capitalism itself.

In order to preserve their economic and social system, they are willing to hand power to a Bonapartist figure. Karl Marx, who wrote the original brilliant analysis of Louis Bonaparte, put it this way:

“[T]he bourgeoisie confesses that its own interests dictate that it should be delivered from the danger of its own rule…in order to preserve its power intact, its political power must be broken.”

With the capitalists yearning for stable government, some factions – particularly financiers – will be attracted to the “man on horseback”. Greeks facing today’s financial imbroglio will find it familiar when Marx quotes the Economist magazine: “The president is the Guardian of Order, and is now recognised as such on every stock exchange in Europe.”

By balancing different factions, a Bonapartist figure can rule for years.

Of course we have to keep the current events in perspective. Marx was writing about a dictator. Monti and Papademos are far from that, and there is no reason to panic. We must remember this is part of the normal operations of capitalism, and that such rulers can be defeated precisely because they don’t have a base of their own. But to defeat them, we have to fight. Alarmist journalism won’t do the job.