[lbo-talk] Two Cheers for Brexit

James Creegan turbulo at aol.com
Fri Jun 24 11:21:08 PDT 2016


I will remain agnostic on Marv's first "cent". I haven't thought about the possible economic effects enough to comment, although the markets are clearly not cheered.

I think the second "cent" gives a wrong and misleading scent. True, the Ukip and the little England Tories will be the most immediate political beneficiaries of the referendum. But this doesn't negate the working class's own very compelling reasons for being against what has shown itself to be mainly an instrument of finance capital for removing economic decisions from the realm of parliamentary democracy and promoting neoliberalism and austerity. Have we already forgotten what the EU did to Greece? If the economic consequences of a Brexit are short of catastrophic, as Marv seems to think, couldn't this help convince the people of countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal, and maybe even Britain and France, that getting out in opposition to austerity pressures isn't a fate worse than death? Because a majority of Britons may have voted to leave for the wrong reasons doesn't mean the left shouldn't have voted the same way for the right ones. .

Jim Creegan

My two cents worth on Brexit:

1. Despite all the noise from the markets and the economic commentatariat, Brexit won’t have any appreciable effect on the conditions of the British and European working classes one way or another, nor on trade and investment relations between British and European capitalists.

2. Early Marxists and social democrats, notably August Bebel, referred to the mix of racism and anti-establishment sentiment driving the protest of the least class conscious and politically aware workers as “the socialism of fools”. Rather than an encouraging sign for the left, Brexit has to be seen within the context of the return of mass right-wing movements to to the US, England, and Europe.

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