Signal Left, Turn Right

Dennis R Redmond dredmond at oregon.uoregon.edu
Tue Jul 18 04:40:26 PDT 2000


On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:


> Note how the Christian Democrats positioned themselves as the
> defender of smaller business, and the Social Dems were the servants
> of big capital.

While the Greens positioned themselves as the defender of, well, capital-in-general. The Taz ran an debate between Margareta Wolf, economics expert for the Greens, and Oliver Moldenhauer (http://www.taz.de/tpl/2000/07/18.fr/ibox). Here's a little excerpt (my translation):

--------------------- OM: ...the politics of the Greens is slowly going neoliberal. Just think of the recent tax cuts, which'll free firms like Allianz from paying taxes when they sell associated companies.

MW: I find the tax reduction for capital gains to be perfectly consistent with the debate the Left has been having in recent years. In the former Federal Republic a network of firms, insurance companies and banks existed -- Germany, Inc. The high participation by risk-averse banks hindered innovation in the economy. That's why the tax cut is to me the only real structural-political strategy to make Germany economically competitive. I'd also like to know why the Left today is defending this Germany Inc.

-------------------

*Shudder*. My response would be, because the old system created five decades of remarkable growth, social equity, rising real wages and codetermination in management. Germany uncompetitive? With those monster trade surpluses, kickbutt machine-tools industry and one of the most educated and productive workforces on the planet? This isn't to trash Wolf, who's remarkably decent in many ways, but it just goes to show how the lack of a coherent theory of multinational capital can sabotage even well-meaning attempts to change things.

-- Dennis



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