On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:44:12 -0400 Marvin Gandall
<marvgandall at videotron.ca> writes:
> Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> > Big capital thus still needs parties like the Democrats
> > in the US or New Labour in Great Britain to get portions
> > of their neoliberal program enacted, precisely because
> > the right cannot, on its own, mobilize popular support
> > for such a program. Big capital needs the Democrats
> > in the US or Labour in the UK to convince the general
> > public that it's necessary to save the welfare state
> > by destroying it.
> -----------------------------------
> By this logic, shouldn't the capitalists have turned to Democratic
> and
> Labour politicians like Mondale, Dukakis, and Michael Foot as
> instruments of
> their post-70s offensive to privatize and deregulate the welfare
> state
> rather than to Republicans and Conservatives like Reagan and
> Thatcher?
No, because both the Democrats and Labour were at the time still dominated by forces well to the left of where big capital wanted to go. However, it should be noted that President Carter in the US and Prime Minister Callahan in the UK did attempt to lead their parties in the directions that big capital wanted to go. When their efforts proved to be insufficient, big capital turned the Republicans and the Tories to do the job for them. Meanwhile, big capital went out of its way to support efforts at transforming the Democrats and Labour into organs that would be would reliable guardians of their interests. So we got the DLC in the US, leading to Bill Clinton, and in Britain we got the efforts that started under Neil Kinnock which eventually gave birth to Tony Blair's New Labour.
> Shouldn't Wall Street have supported Kerry over Bush as the better
> bet to
> privatize social security and defend the tax cuts for the rich, as
> well as
> to push other items on the corporate legislative and regulatory
> agenda?
Much of Wall Street did support Kerry. The Economist magazine endorsed Kerry. But as Chip points out Bush's Republicans have got the religious right's vote sewn up, and that gives them a mass base that can trump that of the tepid Democrats. Kerry would probably have been better as far as the long term interests of big capital is concerned.
>
>
>
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