Thread: Capitalism lies in shambles, and the left has gone awol

Capitalism lies in shambles, and the left has gone awol

It should be the moment for progressives to proffer remedies, and yet a year into the credit crunch they remain largely silent

Aditya Chakrabortty
The Guardian,
Thursday August 7 2008

Just one thing is missing from the financial drama that has captivated us for the past year. Yes, the meltdown of the markets has been thrilling, the run on Northern Rock was spectacular, and the scalp count of chief executives is rising nicely. But where in this bonfire of capitalist certainties is the left?

Lefties, progressives, social democrats: however wide you want to spread the net, you still won't catch any. In this debate, they've gone awol. Gordon Brown is mesmerised by his plunging poll ratings and hidebound by the orthodoxy of light-touch regulation. Labour backbenchers haven't fizzed with ideas, either. The most radical policies have instead come from a former Shell economist turned Lib Dem MP: Vince Cable. There's been barely a squeak from progressive thinktanks.

Capitalist crisis usually spells opportunity for progressives - their moment to point out errors and suggest remedies. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal is the famous example, but more recent is the Asian crisis of the late 90s, when the left teamed up with local activists to attack the International Monetary Fund for mishandling an entire continent. Ten years on, the IMF still hasn't recovered its authority.

Who is diagnosing the credit crunch? Well, try whoever wrote this: "One way of looking at the present situation would be to see it as the ultimate breakdown of that phase of western economic development known as 'financial capitalism'." Did it come from a venerable Marxist academic on New Left Review? No, the author is Stephen Lewis, an economist at a City firm trading derivatives. He's not the only financier doing some hard thinking. Josef Ackermann, the boss of Deutsche Bank, confesses: "I no longer believe in the market's self-healing power." The former head of the US central bank, Paul Volcker, is blunter still: "The bright new financial system, with all its talented participants, with all its rich rewards, has failed the test of the marketplace."

So it's the bankers who say finance is bust. It's the capitalists who think modern capitalism is broken. All the while, progressives have been on the scent of that reddest of ideological red herrings, Britishness - or doodling "I â

I don't know about the UK---but what, exactly, do you call a US Congressional bailout of mortgage fraudsters and imcompetents?? Sounds pretty "progressive" to me. Why waste time sounding off when they can just get the US Congress ----and President Bush---to take concrete, monetary action. Plus we have a whole slew of public works projects on the horizon---spurred by the 'poster child" I-35 bridge collapse---that will be a powerful stimulus benefiting the Progressive's favorite groups. All paid for by the US taxpayer, deficit spending and future generations of the country that used to be called "the USA."

Why would you even need socialism?