Jack Layton: the Tim Hortons of the left

If I remember correctly, David Orchard, in his book The Fight For Canada, says that in NAFTA, the US would not rule out military intervention, if Mexico tried to nationalize its oil. I think its a real possibility that Can would be pressured rather overtly if we came anywhere close to this position.

On the otherhand, the mere suggestion of nationalizing the insurance industry or the pharmaceutical industry might get something closer to sympathy here and abroad.

I use DO as a reference on NAFTA. I don't know if his claims are true or not. The basic scenario is true enough.

Remeber what happened the last time Canada tried to nationalize oil. I think that's where the Trudeau salute came from.

Elixir:

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I have always acknowledged that the Layton "phenomenon" is a contradictory one, and that many of the people I view as "comrades" in the grand scheme of things (ie. many of the people I worked with in the defunct NPI) are now strong Layton supporters . . . I guess I just disagree with the choice many have made to bury themselves virtually uncritically in the NDP.

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I was an NPI supporter, too. From outside the party structure. I only joined for the leadership campaign . . . and I stayed because I think that there is room opening up under Layton for a far more diverse level of political discourse.

I think you are unfair to suggest that support for Layton from your old comerades is 'uncritical'. We are working to build upon the progress made, and trying to deepen the democratic level of this party and this country. Cynicism about the NDP is all well and good (even a tradition), but it isn't going to get us anywhere constructive without either alternatives or commitment to work within the party, or both.

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M. Hister criticized Jack Layton, said he was a doughnut, because he did not include the "central" aspect of socialism, ie. "expropriating the expropriators" in his programme.

I responded, up near the top, that this expropriation could not be done democratically. The power of capital makes that impossible. To do so would immediately plunge us into a depression, which would certainly last until the following election.

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Thanks for this post. It clarifies some things.

Two points:

1. An election platform and a party's program/strategy are two different things. I don't know if Hister wants the Layton NDP to include "expropriate the expropriators" in the 2004 election platform, but I doubt it. But it would be possible to include elements in the platform that suggest clear inroads into capitalist wealth and power. Off the top of my head, I can think of a ban on layoffs in profitable companies -- with the threat of nationalization for companies that defy the ban. Or how about a reduction of the work week with no reduction in pay, overseen by workplace and community committees -- to reduce unemployment among other things. Or how about (re)nationalizing under workers/consumer/citizen control specific sectors that are particularly repugnant to the population (the big pharmaceutical trusts and auto-insurance companies, etc.) or have been abject failures as private entities (Air Canada).

2. You make it sound as if the Layton NDP is poised to form the government in this country. It isn't. I understand that there are many in the party who see the Left's salvation in offering minority support to a Martin minority government (or even joining such a government). But fundamentally this is a debate about how the NDP can be an effective party of opposition for a number of years to come while fashioning a strategy and program -- and a mass movement -- for winning power as an end to making radical and durable change in this country. Once you frame the debate in this way, this changes entirely the parameters of what is "disastrous" or "realistic".

Indeed, in response to both JH and Coyote, I would say that I am not at all cynical or "romantic" (although some romance and idealism isn't such a bad thing). I think I'm being quite realistic and lucid about the nature of the challenge the Left is up against, and about where Layton and the NDP fit in.

[Edited by Michelle to replace Coyote's real name (which he used to use on babble) with his alias.]

[ 16 September 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Jack has been rather quiet on environmental issues. I wouldn't be surprised if he was being pressured by unions to tow the line in fear of job lossess

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That's crap! Have never heard Jack speak? In all his speeches he always talks about environmental issues. Kyoto has been a major issue for the NDP even before Jack became leader (as well as a bunch of other environmental issues). Last Spring, Jack had a press conference with Buzz Hardgrove (CAW) and Peter Tabuns (Greenpeace) about a green transportation strategy for Canada.

And just last week, the NDP released the first part of their election platform. The topic? The environment! The old jobs vs. the environment is corporate retoric to try to divide workers and environmentalists. A major part of the NDP's campaign will be to show how we can build "a green and prosperous economy where no one is left behind".

[url=http://action.web.ca/home/ndpnpd/en_alerts.shtml?sh_itm=bd761b0d935026aa... Release[/url]
[url=http://action.web.ca/home/ndpnpd/attach/NDP%20Enviro%20Policy%202004_eng... Platform[/url]

Sure if your only news about the NDP is through the major media, you won't find much about the NDP's major focus on environmental issues, but that's because of the media's lack of interest in environmental issues, not the NDP's.

[ 04 April 2004: Message edited by: Sara Mayo ]

I stand corrected. I'm going to look into it.
The dynamic of jobs vs. environment is definetly a real issue. When push comes to shove Buzz will take members over environment every time.

Jeff House accuses me of being a “romantic” as opposed to the “realist” Layton. Despite his repeated claims about my supposed silence, I addressed this issue at some length on a previous post. We’re back to the political stereotype of pragmatist vs. ideologue. House is himself silent about the points I made earlier. Presumably he sees this as just one more example of my ‘deking’ around the real issues, as he defines them. Let’s see if that’s so.

In my remarks, I cited the example of the Abolitionists and the fight against slavery. It’s useful here because we can apply Mr. House’s ‘realist’ approach to politics and see where this leads us. If we go back to that history, particularly to the decade before the Civil War, i.e. the 1850s, we’ll find exactly the same sort of objections to the abolition of slavery that House is raising now with regard to socialism.

‘You can’t abolish slavery because this will provoke a tremendous crisis, the slave-owners will break the country apart and that will wreck the economy.’ So went the political line of the ‘realists’. In fact the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 were precisely over this issue. Douglas was the standard-bearer of ‘realism’, i.e. of “doing the doable,” as House puts it. And he castigated Lincoln for being a romantic and idealist because Lincoln insisted that human freedom was a fundamental principle over which there could be no compromise.

But history has vindicated the ‘romantic’, not the ‘realist’. It was those who insisted on DOING THE RIGHT THING, not ‘doing the doable’, who brought about “a new birth of freedom.”

I also talked about child poverty. I made a prediction, that if we leave the issue in the hands of the ‘realists’, including Layton, that there will be millions more children living in poverty in years to come. House’s only riposte was, “How certain you are!” Well, I think any reasonable person looking at the record of the last 16 years could only come to the same conclusion. Record prosperity (i.e. for the rich), a bunch of ‘realists’ in power in Ottawa to say nothing of a whole raft of NDP provincial governments in this period – and the upshot is a million kids still in poverty.

But House isn’t buying it. He dismisses my prediction but he himself is very certain about one thing – nationalization would be a disaster, it would wreck the economy, millions more people would be in poverty, etc. Again there’s an uncanny echo with the debates on slavery. The ‘realists’ were constantly arguing that freeing the slaves would be a disaster because it would ruin the economy and the slaves themselves would be worse off than before. It’s the reductio ad absurdum that this sort of ‘realism’ inevitably leads to: the slaves are better off as slaves. Or in House’s version, the wage slaves are better off as wage slaves.

House accuses me of a “strategic silence” when it comes to how to bring about socialism, his point being that I’m trying to hide something: either my ideas – read socialism – aren’t realizable or else I’m some sort of totalitarian in disguise.

This is nonsense. I’ve written an article and added a number of lengthy posts to clarify a vitally important issue for the left: What are we fighting for? Where is our alternative to capitalism? But I wasn’t writing a book or proffering a political platform.

Nonetheless, it’s evident enough from what I’ve said that I’m a Marxist. I’m not a believer in parliamentary roads to socialism for the simple reason that this road never gets to where it’s supposed to go. But I’m also not a believer in socialism-by-conspiracy, i.e. as the outcome of a small group of elite revolutionaries seizing power.

Socialism is only going to come about by building a mass movement of workers, young people and intellectuals committed to fighting for it. And the main point I’ve been making is that one of the things we have to have if such a movement is ever to emerge is a coherent vision of socialism.

Building such a movement is democracy at its finest. Because it would mean that millions of people have decided to take control of their own lives, of the fundamental conditions of their existence. That the exploited would be actively resisting their exploitation, that they would no longer be playthings of the marketplace economically or of the corporate media ideologically.

But House smells a rat. He’s convinced there’s no way you can bring about socialism through democratic means. He writes that a program of nationalization “could not be done democratically. The power of capital makes it impossible. To do so would immediately plunge us into depression, which would certainly last until the following election.” Elsewhere he states that, “Such nationalizations could never be contemplated unless elections were abandoned, since capital has sufficient power to cause massive economic consequences.”

So you can’t nationalize because big business will sabotage you if you do, and that will provoke a depression which will make the government unpopular. What I find almost bizarre is that House is presenting this as a DEFENSE of democracy. Because the bottom line here is that it doesn’t matter a damn what the majority of people think, you could have tens of millions of people backing a socialist program and it still wouldn’t be possible to implement, it still wouldn’t be “doable”, because “the power of capital makes it impossible.” So what kind of democracy is that?

I argued in my article that in a capitalist society – especially one as polarized between rich and poor as ours is now – democracy is largely a sham, a facade to legitimize the power of the wealthy. House claims it isn’t a sham, but his own statements refute him. In his ‘democracy’ you can have all the elections you want – so long as you don’t do anything that upsets the corporate elite. We are really here in the land of doublespeak.

(But not to worry. House assures us that even with this sort of democracy you can achieve a redistribution of wealth – haven’t they done it in Scandinavia? That old social democratic chestnut is getting a little gray around the edges. Stockholm now has a homeless population, there are big holes in the social safety net and anti-immigrant xenophobia is on the rise and – all the telltale signs of capitalist globalization.)

There’s another implication here that deserves to be addressed. House assumes that the moment there is any hardship the mass of people will abandon the socialist cause. I don’t think history bears this out. People are capable of tremendous sacrifices – if they believe in the cause they are fighting for. Nobody imposed greater hardship on a population than Lincoln, and yet he was reelected in 1864, and his margin of victory came from those bearing the greatest burden – rank and file soldiers.

I believe real democracy is far more about what happens in the factories and offices, in the schools and on the streets, than about elections and parliaments. The fact that this week the former NDP premier of British Columbia comes out as a star candidate for Paul Martin’s Liberals only underscores how interchangeable all the mainstream parties are. Yes, there are some differences between them, but in the final analysis those differences are of a very secondary nature. When it comes to fundamentals – i.e. the wealth and power of the corporate elite – they are really the same party with different brand names.

So I don’t see why a mass movement for socialism should limit itself to playing only by the rules of the sort of democracy House espouses – i.e. one where you can only do whatever the corporate elite allows you to. Such a movement may well contest elections, but far more of its focus will be on taking democracy to the streets. I conceive of socialism as a great social revolution, as the greatest freedom struggle in history – the final eradication of classes.

For ‘realists’ this is neither ‘doable’ nor – and this is the crucial point – desirable. So ultimately we’re back to the basic question I raised at the very outset – what are we fighting for? I think millions of people aspire to “a new birth of freedom” and I think a vision of socialism that can articulate those aspirations can win their support.

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Originally posted by Stan Hister:
[b]I also talked about child poverty. I made a prediction, that if we leave the issue in the hands of the realists, including Layton, that there will be millions more children living in poverty in years to come. House's only riposte was, How certain you are! Well, I think any reasonable person looking at the record of the last 16 years could only come to the same conclusion. Record prosperity (i.e. for the rich), a bunch of realists in power in Ottawa to say nothing of a whole raft of NDP provincial governments in this period and the upshot is a million kids still in poverty.[/b]

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And the NDP is to blame for this? The fourth largest party in the house of commons since 1993, without party status for four of those years is to blame for government actions which it opposed (and which Jack Layton personally opposed)? Why don't you look at the real hole in the middle: the Mulroney/Chretien/Martin governments that deliberately took actions that increased poverty (for both adults and children)?

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Originally posted by Stan Hister:
[b]either my ideas – read socialism – aren’t realizable or else I’m some sort of totalitarian in disguise.

This is nonsense. I’ve written an article and added a number of lengthy posts to clarify a vitally important issue for the left: What are we fighting for? Where is our alternative to capitalism? But I wasn’t writing a book or proffering a political platform.

Nonetheless, it’s evident enough from what I’ve said that I’m a Marxist. I’m not a believer in parliamentary roads to socialism for the simple reason that this road never gets to where it’s supposed to go. But I’m also not a believer in socialism-by-conspiracy, i.e. as the outcome of a small group of elite revolutionaries seizing power.

Socialism is only going to come about by building a mass movement of workers, young people and intellectuals committed to fighting for it. And the main point I’ve been making is that one of the things we have to have if such a movement is ever to emerge is a coherent vision of socialism.

Building such a movement is democracy at its finest. Because it would mean that millions of people have decided to take control of their own lives, of the fundamental conditions of their existence. That the exploited would be actively resisting their exploitation, that they would no longer be playthings of the marketplace economically or of the corporate media ideologically. [/b]

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I have had this stuggle with others before. You want a mass movement? Keep it simple for the average high school drop out, try not to completely alienate the middle classes and present a clear material objective for the low wage working class. It must be presented as possible in the democratic process because they are not ready to kill and/or die for it. Do you think you can do that? I have such an idea.

Mr. Hister,

Okay, let's say what we're ultimately for (and I agree, it cannot be a professed intention to manage the capitalist system more humanely).

But we both have to be realistic.
The NDP won't be able to achieve genuine "reforms" without accounting for the realities of power in the capitalist democracies.

but 'revolutionary socialists' haven't seemed to accomplish much either. And I agree with those who say that the NDP won't get elected calling for a platform of wholesale nationalization of industry.

How can both teams work together? Can they? Should they?

PinkApe, besides decades of history of NDP fiscal responsibility, there also exists volumes of real-world studies showing that greater worker autonomy produces greater productivity, to say nothing of better workplace.

Are you saying that the "bossy workplace" is the road to paradise? (If the "bossless workplace is the road to nowhere"?)

I sympathize with your frustrations (if'n their genuine) but all arguments against worker autonomy are akin to the old elitist arguments that democracy will never work.

Mr. Hister (again)

I'm for democracy in the workplace. Human rights for workers. I don't see that this requires expropriation, because enforcing expropriation requires creating something big, powerful, and scary enough to do the job, and that could spin out of control.

I'm for selected nationalizations, because I don't think the state should or could be responsible for the bulk of the economy. If workplaces are democratic, then there's no need to nationalize them to democratically control them.

I sympathize with your frustrations (if'n their genuine) but all arguments against worker autonomy are akin to the old elitist arguments that democracy will never work.

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Reminds me of that classsic Simpson episode where the newsman says, Democracy doesn't work. Hilariously funny and shocking.

For the record, my position is to work for better justice and equality within constitutional democracy and capitalism. I wouldn't care so much about romantic M/L students if they weren't so damaging to real progressive movements. It occurs to me that an M/L ideologue is like a religous fundamentalist. They always have a veto over logic whenever an emotional sensitivity is triggered.

The myth of the worker-run workplace where everyone is sympathetic and democratic and progressive is achived through loving cooperation... blah blah blah. It's just not going to happen and its not useful to hold that illusion.

The NDP and the union movement have some serious reparations to make to the people of Can. The cliche of the lazy, dull, uncooperative civil servant is very compeling. Most everyone has personal experiences that support this idea. The sense of privilege (worker's rights) got so far out of wack with general population that the people have turned against them en mass.