Political Economy for Radical Lawyers

The latest issue of the London Review of International Law features an interesting review essay by Robert Howse, in which he makes the case for progressive international lawyers attending to the discipline of economics and the insights that can be gained from it, in particular from what he sees as more progressive economists. Howse’s essay focuses on three prominent neo-Keynesians (Thomas Piketty, Dani Rodrik and Joseph Stiglitz) who have been critical of the worst excesses of neoliberal globalisation. For Howse it is crucially important for progressive international lawyers to engage with the work of economists such as these, to counter the supposedly cast-iron arguments against regulation, re-distribution and so on.

Towards the end of the the essay Howse makes an interesting point, when he argues that for

progressive international economic law scholars, it could … seem tempting simply to reject or debunk economic orthodoxy as the thinly disguised ideology behind the global capitalist class. This might liberate us to make whatever arguments we like about the demands of justice, and to judge and confront the law and institutions on that basis. My own approach has been to learn whatever I can from economics (while at the same time maintaining a certain critical distance from the kinds of economics that morphs into orthodox policy prescriptions). Partly, this is from a sense of humility. While straightforward rejectionism might seem easy, understanding the world seems crucial for putting law and justice into practice and I admit I don’t have the intellectual tools to provide a comprehensive alternative to the methods and constructs of contemporary academic economics (which, of course, encompass game theory and cognitive psychology) in understanding the phenomena in question. And if there is some structural bias or fundamental orientation in contemporary economics that is intrinsically skewed towards neoliberalism or against a progressive agenda, I haven’t found it. The work of the three economists reviewed here suggests that, in fact, it may not exist.

This is a telling quote. Along with many other scholars, Howse is positing here an apparently hard-nosed realism. It’s easy, the argument goes, to dismiss and reject established ideas and practices, but if we want to change things in some meaningful way, we have to learn to understand and harness these established tools to serve our ends.

There are two key points to be made in response to this rendering: (i) there is nothing realistic or pragmatic about this argument and (ii) if the concern for lawyers, or anyone else, is with fundamentally altering the unjust structures of the world around us, then we need to go beyond mainstream economics, into the realm of political economy. This is an important distinction, for economics (in both it’s mainstream and slightly heterodox variations) takes capitalism and the capitalist system as its perennial and unalterable premise. In contrast political economy (done right) brings to the fore the transitory nature of the extant social and economic order, the power relations which constitute and sustain it, and, crucially, the possibilities for change inherent within it.

We can, and indeed should, start any inquiry in this field with Karl Marx. In his famous Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx observed that from his studies he was

led … to the conclusion that legal relations as well as forms of state could neither be understood by themselves, nor explained by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but that they are rooted in the material conditions of life, which are summed up by Hegel after the fashion of the English and French of the eighteenth century under the name “civil society”; that the anatomy of that civil society is to be sought in political economy.

Thus, for Marx and later political economists, all of the relations of society (including legal) can not be comprehended on their own, but only in relation to one another and in this complex interrelation, the economic plays a pre-eminent role.

It is important to stress again that the political economy of Marx and others, is quite distinct from the economics of Stiglitz et al. and its scientific pretensions. The fundamental problem with this form of economics is, as Michael Perelman notes, that by taking the extant social and economic order as given, it devolves, ultimately, into a complex set of justifications and rationalisations of the status quo, and thereby obscures more than it reveals about the real economy.

If, as Howse argues, ‘understanding the world is crucial’ then mainstream economics only provides us with a distorted and partial understanding. The French radical Saint-Just once observed that those who make revolutions half way were digging their own graves. Less dramatically, we can say that those who follow their critical analysis only part way are digging the graves of whatever progressive projects they support. Hence Piketty follows his method of mainstream economics to the precipice (the realisation that capitalism necessarily and structurally produces inequality) but then shies away into naive and utopian policy proposals.

The ‘realism’ of mainstream economic thinking and scholarship does not open the way for practical, progressive solutions to the problems around us, but more times than not leads to intellectual dead ends and political quietism. In contrast, political economy can provide the basis for understanding and challenging the existing order in ways which are tangibly progressive and radical.

As such, anyone interested in understanding the nature of the contemporary capitalist order, and the possibilities for changing it, would do well to look up some of the following texts:

• Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1 – there’s no getting away from it, Marx’s work remains the most profound analysis and critique of the capitalist system. It can be a struggle when first encountered, so you may wish to start with his Wages, Price and Profit, or the many useful primers on Capital by David Harvey, Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho and others.
• Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick, Contending Economic Theories provides an excellent overview of the key themes and debates within economic theory, grounded within the framework of Marxist political economy.
• On the contemporary capitalist order : David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital; John Smith, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century; Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, A Theory of Imperialism; Lucia Pradella, Globalisation and the Critique of Political Economy; Costas Lapavitsas, Profiting Without Producing; and Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism.
• Finally, on the current crisis of the capitalist system: Michael Roberts, The Long Depression; and Richard Wolff, Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens.

This list is, of course, partial and non-exhaustive. But for anyone concerned with radical change (in the sense of getting to the root of the problem), these studies and the broader discipline of political economy provide a far more valuable resource than the thin gruel of re-heated Keynesianism.

 

Miller and The Politics of the Judiciary

One of the most striking things in immediate reactions to the High Court judgment in Miller is that so many commentators are willing to acquiesce in the crucially important assertion made in the judgment that the case was simply concerned with ‘a purely legal matter’. In their recent intervention, Mark Elliott and Hayley Hooper, while disagreeing with and critiquing aspects of the judgment, accept unwaveringly that the ‘question for the court was solely a legal question about the extent of executive authority’. They further argue that to criticise the decision in Miller as undemocratic ‘is not only wrong, it is dangerous’.

In a similar vein, Nick Barber and Jeff King argue that the judgment in Miller was entirely agnostic regarding the greater political issues at play and was simply concerned with ‘which institution possessed the power’ to trigger the Brexit process. In light of the scandalous response to the judgment from certain media outlets (those with a long track record of vilifying migrants, welfare claimants and trade unionists) Barber and King argue that ‘the reaction to Miller presents a grave threat to our constitutional order, a threat both to the rule of law and to the very structure of democracy in the United Kingdom’.

What is noteworthy about this line of response is that legal scholars have responded to one of the most significant constitutional judgements of the last thirty years, by arguing that the judgment is entirely legal, divorced from the surrounding political context and immune from criticisms that question the democratic propriety of judges deciding on such matters.

In this brief intervention we aim to make two points: (i) the first is a reflection on what it means to adopt a critical stance vis-à-vis constitutional developments and judgements; and (ii) the second, building on the first point, is to demonstrate that there are valid, and longstanding, critiques of the sort of judicial decision making in the Miller case, and that we should not foreclose such avenues of critique.

The Pitfalls of Legalism

With respect to the first point, one need not stray into the arcane arts of continental deconstruction to find a basis for contesting the idea that the Miller judgment concerned ‘a pure legal matter’. There is a venerable tradition in UK public law scholarship—from Harold Laski to John Griffith—of seeking ‘a conscious and realistic jurisprudence’ which recognises the agency of judges, and the necessarily political nature of judicial decision making. As Laski argued, the vagueness in core legal doctrines often ‘tempts the judge to believe that he is simply finding the law when in fact he is really testing and rejecting other men’s views by the light of his own’.

Evidence of this temptation is seen in the assertion by both the court in Miller and numerous commentators that the case was a purely legal matter. That, to borrow Griffith’s phrase, portrays the judges as devoid of ‘political, economic and social’ concerns with ‘no interest in the world outside the court’ when it comes to making a decision. This stance, as Griffith long ago demonstrated, is unsustainable: given the very nature of their role judges ‘cannot avoid the making of political decisions’ when confronted with controversial cases’.

It may be unsurprising that given the massive backlash against the High Court’s Miller judgment, legal scholars would echo the judges in their insistence on the separation between law and politics. In the popular discourse — the judgment has nothing to do with law. In the legalist discourse — the ruling is merely a question of legal technicality and as such is not political. It is a simple operation of applying legal materials, via legal reasoning, on a legal question to determine ‘what the law says’. Thus, the legalist approach views disagreements with the court’s reasoning as ones of doctrine and hence as internal to law.

In our view, both the popular and legalist positions are untenable given the intertwinement of law and politics. The popular response denies the relevance of law and rights discourse to political struggles and to shaping people’s consciousness. In particular, the focus on constitutional questions and landmark cases leaves out the myriad ways in which the background legal conditions shape people’s choices, determines their life conditions, and sanction unjust distributive outcomes.

The legalist discourse merely obfuscates the essentially normative and political questions at the basis of the legal debate. While it may be understandable that the judges seek to deny their agency by claiming that “the law” dictates their position, there is no reason for critical scholars to accept this denial of agency. As one of us has written, the availability of competing and reasonable legal answers to the question before the Court showcases that it is far from being a ‘pure question of law’, as the Court asserted. Therefore, legal scholars should be more forthcoming about the normative and political commitments that shape how one view such cases and thinks such controversies should be resolved.

Democracy and the Courts

Clearly much of the popular discourse responding to the High Court judgment contained outrageous personal attacks on the judges, which we should all condemn. We find it, however, bewildering that legal scholars would deny the reasonableness of the anti-democratic charge against the judicial intervention. Elliot and Hooper, for instance, assert that this charge is both ‘wrong’ and ‘dangerous’. This assertion stands in the face of decades of elaborate discussions about the ‘counter-majoritarian difficulty’ and between political and legal constitutionalists. As has been argued elsewhere, the persistence and irresolvability of these debates illustrates that institutional debates about who gets the final decision-making power when people disagree (judges or majorities) are inseparable from political and normative commitments. They certainly cannot be resolved by the mere assertion that one conception of democracy is correct and the other is wrong. Scholars are free to agree with the conclusion or the effect of the ruling, but they should not cloak this normative endorsement with contestable conceptual definitions. By doing so, they simply reproduce the same questions but at a higher level of generality and abstraction.

Debates about prerogative, parliamentary sovereignty and justiciability are difficult questions precisely because they are not purely legal. Essentially, these are questions about delineating the boundary between law and politics. There is no objective and consensual criterion to delineate this boundary and police it that is external to politics. To assert, as Barber and King do, that the justiciability question is clear given the ‘legal character’ of the question is to engage in a circular reasoning in which the conclusion is already presupposed. The distinction between law and politics in which politics is a space for private interests and arbitrary will, whereas law is a space for rights that are devoid of politics does not withstand critical scrutiny. This specific question is motivated by a political disagreement and has political consequences of which the judges are well aware. The litigation is motivated by the disagreement of opponents of Brexit with the majoritarian choice and seeks to overturn it, or at least to hinder its implementation. This context cannot be dismissed, as Barber and King do, as simply an institutional question about who is empowered to trigger Article 50, rather than the ‘desirability’ of triggering it. To make this assertion is to seek to separate the political question from the institutional arrangements to resolve it.

Thus, we maintain that even supporters of the ruling (and opponents of Brexit) have to admit that the resolution of this political debate at the hands of few judges indeed raises democratic concerns about the exclusion of majorities. They are free to proceed to prefer judges over majorities but it is futile to conceal this choice by claiming that their conception of democracy is superior on compelling rational grounds. They need to make a choice and acknowledge the choice as such.

Beyond Legalism

The legalist posture misses the popular grievances at the base of Brexit. Regardless of its merits, the Brexit referendum expressed a disenchantment with the political establishment and a growing alienation from processes of representation. Surely, this is understandable in an electoral system of first-past-the-post system that eschews proportional representation. Surely, this is understandable, when scholars have demonstrated that western constitutional democracies are not really an indirect form of government by the people, but rather a detailed system of governance that avoids government by the people (see Bernard Manin’s The Principles of Representative Government). Surely, this is understandable when scholars have repeatedly shown that the political system in western democracies is gravely unjust because it privileges the wealthy few over the many and sanctions obscene levels of inequality. Surely, this is understandable when 72 per cent of the voters who voted in a referendum are told that it was merely “consultative” and has no binding ramifications.

The forgoing does not suggest that majoritarian decision-making is inherently substantively correct. But the same can be said about judicial decision-making. Thus, the point is to acknowledge that these are two different processes of arriving at decision-making and only one is participatory. Admittedly, referenda are a limited participatory instrument but it is more representative than the current electoral system and more representative than the judiciary. The referenda’s shortcomings should lead to thinking of ways how to increase participatory forms and make them more sustainable, rather than to abandon them.

Therefore, those who agree with the current ruling’s conclusion should simply argue that they subscribe to it on substantive grounds, rather than deny the non-participatory nature of the judiciary and the ruling. To claim that those who privilege the judicial perspective are also democrats, based on a definitional fiat, is to obscure the consequences of this choice. It seems legal scholars are seeking to have it both: to overturn majoritarian decisions-making and to claim that they are the true democrats.

Co-authored with Nimer Sultany and Originally Published on the UKCLA Blog.

Trump, Mair and The Gods That Failed

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, much like the Brexit vote in the UK earlier this year, has been greeted by mainstream commentators with a mixture of vapid incomprehension and shrill, moralistic denouncement. The emptiness of these responses reflect a central problem for liberals, centrists, so-called ‘leftists’ and others in advanced capitalist countries, namely that their gods have failed them. Capitalist development and competition, wedded to (and notionally tempered by) limited, representative democracy and consensus politics have all proven inadequate to the historical tasks before them.

The capitalist system is in profound crisis, dating from at least the 1970s, and as a consequence traditional models of acceptable politics are collapsing. This tendency has been well documented by Peter Mair in his book Ruling the Void. In this book Mair, through careful statistical analysis, shows that democracy in the West is being hollowed out by a twofold movement: wherein political elites withdraw from the people, and the people in turn withdraw from political elites.

This, in certain respects, is the necessary development of democracy under capitalism. It should not be forgotten that capitalism was only belatedly democratised, and that in the almost 600 year existence of the capitalist system, there has only been a brief period (of roughly 30 years) when broadly democratic politics existed alongside increased material well-being for a majority of people. Even then, this ‘golden age’ was confined to the advanced capitalist countries in the global North.

With the deepening crisis of the capitalist system, the reversion to form and gradual shift towards undemocratic and unresponsive political regimes advanced apace. In this context, Mair argued that

in terms of politics on the ground, the widening gap between rulers and ruled has facilitated the often strident populist challenge that is now a feature of many advanced European democracies … Each of these particular versions of the challenge to the political mainstream has its own nationally specific set of ideas, policies and interests, often revolving around shared expressions of xenophobia, racism and cultural defence, and usually emerging on the right wing of the political spectrum … But each is also marked by a common and often very explicit hostility to what is seen in the different countries as the national political class.

Mair goes on to argue that ‘because of the growing enfeeblement of party democracy, and the indifference towards party democracy that is being expressed on both sides of the political divide, we now find ourselves being offered as alternative scenarios either the populist or the ostensibly non-political expert’.

This last line from Mair is crucial. Because it captures in a nutshell the essence of the choice presented to the US people in this presidential election: a demagogue and charlatan, mobilising racism and xenophobia while claiming to speak for ‘ordinary’ people and stand with them against ‘the system’. Or Clinton, who while not being a non-political expert, amounted to much the same thing: the hand-picked, trusted agent of the status quo.

So while the mainstream media, political commentators and so on recognised Clinton as one of their own, and lauded her campaign every step of the way, they simply could not conceptualise Trump. They could not understand the appeal of Trump, because, in various ways, they inhabit, in a tangible way, a political, economic and cultural world in which Hilary Clinton as president and business as usual makes sense. They cannot understand the world of people so marginalised, alienated, and (in many cases) impoverished by a system, that they’d place their hopes in a charlatan like Trump.

Much like the Brexit victory (and the prominence it afforded Farage, his fellow travellers and their reactionary views), the Trump election shows, to borrow from Marx and Berman, how quickly all that seems solid can melt into air. The contemporary, structural crisis of capitalism is deep and profound, and the existing models of democratic politics, and liberal frames of reference (which presume that all crises can be resolved within the system) are, plainly, insufficient to the tasks of understanding the current moment, or pointing a way beyond it.

What is needed now, instead, is a serious re-foundation of, broadly, socialist ideas and political practices. Only political movements, married to innovative ideas, that offer a genuine alternative to the extant social order will stand a chance or resisting the rising tide of reaction evident across the world. As Samir Amin once put it, in the ‘absence of positive utopias the peoples of the world invariably react to their desperate circumstances by reviving other types of utopia’. Trump and others are able to present their racist, reactionary false safe-haven as the only genuine alternative to people alienated from a system in crisis, because the left (in all its forms) has so spectacularly failed to offer any meaningful alternative.

It is, therefore, no small tragedy that so many on the broad left have become, unwittingly, the true heirs of Margaret Thatcher. In myriad ways, they have internalised the mantra that there is no alternative to the existing system, and the most they can offer people is Clinton instead of Trump; an admittedly imperfect EU instead of Brexit; falling instead of landing. Rather than accept that this is the best we can hope for, it would appear that enough people are so alienated and marginalised from the status quo, that they have been seduced by con-men and cast their lot in with the only alternative on offer to them.

This mass apostasy has left mainstream commentators scratching their heads: rather than engage in any meaningful critical reflection, the rush to apportion blame takes over. It’s the fault of people who voted for Jill Stein, it’s the fault of Comey and the FBI, it’s angry, reactionary white people, who cannot be reasoned with. It’s everything and anything but the system itself, because the system just is. But this, of course, is the very crux of the matter: the system is coming apart at the seams, Trump offers a false alternative while the left seeks to patch it up, and then reacts with outrage and incomprehension when people are not grateful for their efforts at keeping things as they are.

The lesson that has to be drawn from the Trump victory, and from the rise in reaction right across the world, is that the old formulae are no longer sufficient. One of the key lessons in the rise of Fascism in the 1930s is that the left was insufficiently robust and radical in opposing the right, and offering people an alternative to the existing social order. As Florian Wilde put it

The task of socialists … has to go beyond simply defending the status quo against fascist encroachment. The repeated crises of capitalism are what drive people to such desperation that they will even listen to racists and fascists in the first place; thus socialists have the responsibility to develop and present a realistic alternative: namely a socialist alternative. This alternative must be positive and appear convincing; it must be grounded in solidarity, cooperation and class struggle and emphasise a democratic, socialist response to capitalist crisis … We should take the experience of the SPD before 1933 as a warning: a workers’ party that allows itself to become an administrator of the capitalist system by joining or supporting bourgeois governments—and thereby providing left wing cover to austerity—runs the danger of becoming identified with the system itself. It risks discrediting any claim to be an alternative to the status quo. In times of economic crisis like 1929 in Germany or today … millions begin to turn their backs on a status quo that no longer offers them a future. It is precisely then that a credible socialist alternative is needed to channel the anger of the masses in an emancipatory direction. The building of such an alternative is a task the importance of which must not be understated, particularly in the midst of the deepest economic crisis since 1929.

In The Junius Pamphlet, published one hundred years ago, Rosa Luxemburg argued that the choice for us was quite simple: socialism or barbarism. The intervening years have simply served to validate this stark contention. If the election of Trump appals you, if the rise of the right across Europe and elsewhere terrifies you, then you have to now realise that there is no salvation with the old gods of liberalism. Either you commit yourself to challenging the capitalist system root and branch, or you resign yourself to Trump, barbarism and whatever comes after.

Law and Politics

Contrary to Peter Pan, wishing hard enough does not make a thing true – and no matter how much some may wish it were so, law and politics cannot be separated. The recent High Court judgement (in the Miller case) provides a clear example of this. In the case the High Court held that for Brexit (UK withdrawal from the EU )to proceed, the Government would require the authorisation of Parliament, and could not trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) through the exercise of prerogative power.

Reaction to the judgement has been striking in two respects. On the one hand, right-wing media outlets have responded by condemning the individual judges involved in the case, in one instance going so far as to brand them ‘enemies of the people’. Such rhetoric is, of course, dangerous and reprehensible. But, it should be said, no less and no more so than when the same right wing outlets demonise migrants, welfare claimants, or trade unionists (as they routinely do).

Another line of responses to the judgement, mainly, but not exclusively, from people who oppose Brexit in principle, and have never  accepted the outcome of the referendum on the issue, has been to celebrate the decision as a triumph of law (good) over politics (bad). This is crystallised in an image (below) tweeted by the Financial Times, in which one of their readers celebrates the triumph of law over politics:

The sentiment expressed in this tweet, and elsewhere, echoes a central point that the judges in the case were at pains to make, namely that the case was a matter of law not politics.

As the judgement states, the judges considered it important to ’emphasise at the outset that the court in these proceedings is only dealing with a pure question of law’. The specific legal question being whether the ‘government can use the Crown’s prerogative powers to give notice of withdrawal’ from the EU without Parliamentary approval. The judges go on then to provide a rousing defence of an absolutist conception of the sovereignty of Parliament (the idea that, under the UK Constitution, only Parliament can make, change or unmake law), and in light of this conclude that the government must receive authorisation from Parliament before triggering Article 50 TEU.

The effect of this judgment is to disrupt the Government’s stated plan to proceed to trigger Article 50 by March next year- although a successful appeal to the Supreme Court will, in principle, allow the Government to see this through. In terms of the central constitutional issues decided in the case, responses have ranged from glowing endorsement (particularly from people opposed to Brexit), to a more nuanced take, which notes that the self-confident conclusions reached by the court are ‘highly contestable’.

Rather than entering into those debates here (safe to say that the observation that the court’s reasoning is contestable is putting it mildly), I want to focus on the central claim made by the judges in the case, and many who have lauded the judgment, that the case concerned a ‘pure question of law’ and was, therefore, not political.

In  a simple way, this is nonsense. The case was taken by individuals who oppose the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in the hope that a sufficient number of similarly disposed parliamentarians will, if the matter is put to them, reject the Brexit vote. In effect, the case, from the perspective of the applicants, is not about the abstract vindication of the dignity of Parliament, but is about trying to win the Brexit debate by other means. This much can be gleaned from the effusive reaction of Polly Toynbee and others, urging Parliament to now do its duty and scupper Brexit.

With respect to the judgment itself, we need to be very clear that a ‘pure question of law’ is a lot like a unicorn: everyone knows what it should look like, but nobody has every actually seen one. In deciding any case, judges must, whether they will it or not, engage in political/moral/normative assessments of the facts and legal material before them. Of course it is a central principle of legal formalism, and of liberal legalism, that law and politics can be separated one from the other, but the reality is quite different.

As Lawrence Friedman once put it, the ‘problem with “law” is that it cannot be unambiguously defined; it cannot be specifically marked off from the rest of the social world’. Likewise, judicial decisions can never be purely legal, but are always, in some broad sense political and ideological. The problem, of course, is that judges must make political and ideological judgements and choices in a discourse and practice which denies them any such freedom (for extensive exposition on this tension see Duncan Kennedy and others).

The central tenet of legal formalism and liberal legalism is that ‘the law is the law’ – rational, objective, clear; unlike the messy, subjective terrain of political debate. The law protects us (and our democracy) from ‘bad’ political judgements, but at the same time the law and legal decision-making remains agnostic as to the substance of decisions properly taken in the political realm.

The idea that the judges in the Miller case wanted to convey is that the outcome of the case is determined by the law, and not by their subjective preference as to how it should be decided. As a collection of short responses to the judgment show, this is false necessity in its purest form, as the case could just as easily have been decided the other way, and that, too, would be entirely consistent with UK constitutional law.

Looking at the judgment, what is striking is the absolute terms in which the court assert the sovereignty of Parliament, and make this the basis for their judgment. It is noteworthy, in this respect, that two of the three judges (Sales and Etherton) have in recent years written, extra-judicially, in support of the new human rights regime in the UK. A regime, which both acknowledge in these extra-judicial writings, re-frames the nature of parliamentary sovereignty and, in certain respects, limits it.

Now, it may be that limiting parliamentary sovereignty is good, and that increased protection of human rights and legalisation of the UK constitution (with an expanded role for the courts) is also desirable, but these are separate matters. The point here is that two of the judges that decided a case on the basis of a near absolute conception of parliamentary sovereignty, have also, in the recent past, expressed views that are at variance with such a strong defence of parliamentary sovereignty.

All of which is to say that in the Miller case, they could have, consistent with both UK constitutional law and practice, and their own previously expressed opinions, adopted a view of parliamentary sovereignty which was less exacting, and, in turn, could have decided the case in a different way. Instead, the judges made a choice, and opted for the stronger characterisation of parliamentary sovereignty, which has had the concrete political effect of disrupting the Brexit process, and may, if the hopes of anti-Brexit campaigners bear fruit, lead to Parliament scuppering (or at least fundamentally undermining) Brexit, as such.

What’s important to bear in mind here is that opposing Brexit is a legitimate political stance; and thinking that Parliament ought, as a matter of good democratic practice, have a say in triggering Article 50, or approving any final Brexit deal, is likewise a perfectly defensible position. What is unhelpful is to cast these political and ideological positions, as objective, ‘purely legal’ requirements.

There are, in the end, no purely legal matters. There are political and ideological matters resolved through legalistic discourse, but this shifting terrain does not alter the fundamentally political nature of such questions.

After the Referendum: What’s Left?

There is nothing to celebrate today. The vote by a small (but significant) majority of people in the UK to leave the EU is not a victory for working people, for migrants, for socialists or left activists of any stripe. It could have been: if Labour and the main trade unions had seized the moment and set out a strong, principled, anti-racist and anti-capitalist case for leaving the EU. They didn’t, and the moribund radical left was so fragmented and disorganised, that it’s interventions had little or no bearing on the debate. As a result charlatans such as Nigel Farage are able to portray themselves as champions of “ordinary people” standing up to the “elites and fat cats”.

Race and immigration were certainly important issues in this campaign, and the mainstream narratives (whether for Leave or Remain) were racist and xenophobic. But race wasn’t the only issue, and if we fail to recognise this from the outset then we will be unable to respond meaningfully to the altered political landscape. The distribution of votes indicates that the Leave position was strongest amongst working class communities, in particular white working class communities. It is an indictment of the British left, and a reflection of their historical failure, that such communities now look to UKIP and other such racists for solutions to the marginalisation, exclusion and powerlessness they feel.

In response to the outcome many people will, understandably, be angry and unsure about what steps to take next. In this context it’s crucial that we do not allow anger or fear cloud our judgement or assessment of the situation. It is not the case that in this referendum good was defeated by evil, love conquered by hate, or the white British working class revealed as inherently reactionary or racist. Millions of people who have, for decades now, suffered under the yoke of neoliberalism and feel (inconsistently) that the political establishment (including the EU) does not represent their interests, have rejected the status quo. And they were right to do so. In the context of the ongoing crises of capitalism, the EU has developed to become a substantial driver of suffering, whether of workers, migrants or refugees, and a structural barrier to meaningful political reform. Notwithstanding these fairly well established facts, the British left balked in the face of what they saw (rightly) as a campaign launched by racists, and that would be fought (by them) along racist and xenophobic lines.

As a consequence the British left split along four broad lines: (i) enthusiastic remainers (the Labour Party, TUC and others); (ii) “tactical” remainers (not fans of the EU, but convinced that a vote to leave now could only benefit the right and far right) (iii) leavers and (iv) abstainers. The embrace by the centre left of the remain position shows that they are fundamentally divorced from the lived experience of the working class communities that they were previously immersed in and served. In doing this the Labour party has likely further alienated marginalised working class communities who know full well that the EU is not on their side, and were subjected to the spectacle of a Corbyn-led Labour defending the indefensible, thereby identifying themselves as part of the “establishment” that Farage and others purport to oppose.

The tactical remainers argued that while the EU was, of course, undemocratic, racist, pro-business and anti-worker, voting to leave in the context of a Tory/UKIP led referendum campaign would, given the (often blithely assumed) “balance of forces” lead to a “lurch to the right” and a rise in racist and xenophobic attitudes and fascist politics. This position is understandable and defensible in certain respects, but it also reveals two crucial problems with the radical left in Britain. First, it demonstrates a clear divorce from the life and struggles of working class communities, and a consequent willingness to expect the worst (in terms of reactionary attitudes) from white working class communities.

Secondly, it is premised on a very partial take on the balance of forces. For while UKIP has certainly been on the rise in recent years, and anti-immigrant sentiment has been stoked by politicians and the media, the last few years have also seen increasing work place activism and militancy from doctors, teachers, train drivers, university lecturers and many more. Recent years have also seen the “Corbyn phenomenon” which, whatever it’s shortcomings, shows that there is an appetite amongst many British people for an alternative to Tory-driven austerity, and indeed in recent months a poll conducted by The Independent showed that a majority of British people have a stated preference for socialism over capitalism. All of which is to say that the political landscape, pre-referendum, was not entirely bleak. Add to this the fact that the reactionary, racist right is already firmly ensconced in the British mainstream, and the tactical assessment seems less persuasive. A similar set of criticisms could be levelled at the abstainers, with the added note that their idea that we should sit out fights which are not to our liking is a dangerously demobilising notion.

The key lesson that should be drawn from this referendum is that if we purport to be committed to the radical and fundamental transformation of our world, then we cannot achieve that by half measures. Furthermore, we should not imagine that there are neat divisions between arguments and positions of principle, and tactical considerations. It was the wrong tactical choice for the British left to subordinate principle to mistaken assessments of the objective conditions; the correct approach would have been to enter the debate with a clear, principled vision of an alternative to the racism and inequality of the EU and the capitalist system and seek to win working people over to this argument. If that challenge had been taken up, then today could have been the first important step towards fundamentally transforming politics in the UK and throughout Europe. We failed, and as a result handed the day to Farage and his ilk.

Going forward, it is crucial that the broad forces of the left come together and leave behind the acrimony of the referendum debate. It’s unfortunate that during the debate (and the medium of social media is part of the problem in this context) fear and empty moralism came to be seen as legitimate substitutes for engaged political debate. Our friends, family and co-workers who are migrants or people of colour had very good reason to be afraid during this campaign, given the rhetoric deployed (by both mainstream Leave and Remain camps and by the media), but even with that we still had to think about the correct tactical and strategic choices to combat the rise of the right, ceding ground to them was not the right choice.

In the days, weeks and months ahead we have to take the genuine, legitimate fear people felt and transform it into productive anger. We must stand resolutely with migrants, refugees and people of colour against racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia; but the left in Britain also has to look very hard at itself and find ways of reconnecting with and mobilising the working classes that have been left behind by the era of neoliberal capitalism. If we on the left fail to offer a progressive, transformative vision for the emancipation of the working class (and that is a working class as varied as the lived experiences of the millions of people that make it up) in the twenty-first century, then all of the darkest fears of reluctant and sincere remainers alike may well come to pass. If we don’t learn the right lessons from this referendum, and instead retreat into a frantic moralism, then we will be the authors of our own undoing.

Originally Published on Critical Legal Thinking.

Public Talk on TTIP, Rights and Democracy

Talk, and debate, given in Liverpool in 2016. In this talk I try to situate the emergence of TTIP (TPP, CETA and other such agreements) in the context of the long-term, structural crisis of capitalism.

 

Whose Europe, Theirs or Ours?

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. – Antonio Machado

I. Introduction

The referendum on whether or not Britain should remain within the European Union (EU) is now fully underway. This debate confronts socialists with a series of pressing tactical and strategic challenges, the two key questions being: (i) should socialists intervene in this debate and (ii) if so, what position(s) should we advance. The position defended here is that, in all the circumstances, individuals and groups committed to the fundamental transformation of society have to come out strongly against Britain’s continued membership of the EU. We should do this on the basis of our commitments to democracy, genuine egalitarianism, solidarity and anti-racist internationalism. The Brexit debate provides an entry point for the bigger contest between defenders of a Europe in the service of capital, and the protagonists of a radically different Europe for the Twenty-First Century.

II. Dirtying Our Hands

It is undeniably true that issues of immigration have, so far, dominated the referendum debate in the UK, and that the dominant narratives are, for all intents and purposes, slight variations on shared xenophobic and racist themes. In this sense, then, the choice between voting to stay in with Cameron or leave with Johnson/Farage is an empty choice between competing strands of racism that many people are not willing to engage in any substantial way. There is, of course, a section of the left (centred around the Labour Party/Green Party and certain trade unions) that are also making the case to stay in the EU, on the basis that voting to leave would jeopardise various legal rights guaranteed to workers and migrants by the EU.

Given the constrained character of the debate so far, many socialists in Britain have adopted one, or a combination, of the following positions: this is a fight between different factions of the Tory party, and not something that socialists should expend energy and resources on; the debate is unmistakably and irredeemably framed in racist terms, therefore socialists should not get involved in arguing for one or other side of the racist coin; whatever its limitations, the EU has provided important legal protections for the rights of workers and migrants and we should not campaign or argue for a position that would lead to a loss of such rights; and in the event that Britain does leave the EU, we will be confronted by a triumphant and fundamentally unconstrained Tory government, which will accelerate its attacks on workers’ rights and on migrants and refugees.

Each of these arguments or reservations reflects legitimate concerns about the current political conjuncture in Britain, and Europe more broadly, but they are not sufficient arguments against socialist intervention in the debate. A concern for many on the left is that the Brexit campaign has been launched to appease the more reactionary wing of the Tory party; consequently, the dominant discourses on either side of the In/Out-Stay/Leave debate are irredeemably racist. As a result the entire debate on the issue has become toxic, and it is impossible for socialists to make a meaningful, principled, anti-racist and pro-migrant intervention into the debate, because the populist howling of the reactionaries on both sides will drown it out. The problem with this argument is that ultimately it is a counsel of despair, and invites a level of resignation that socialists simply cannot afford.

Reframed slightly, the argument runs as follows: the narrative is controlled by the reactionary forces of the establishment, and whatever the outcome it will be interpreted by them (and spun by their media) in a way which reinforces their narrative. This of course is true, but if we accept this as an invitation to sit out this particular fight, then we may as well hang up our gloves entirely. The simple reality is that in modern capitalist democracies, with the various complex means of producing and reproducing consent and control, establishment forces will invariably set the terms of almost every debate. The onus, then, is on us to intervene in spite of their rhetoric, their mystifications and their lies, and to set out principled, revolutionary arguments as to why, in the instant case, we should stay in or leave the EU.

Choosing, instead, to concede the terrain of battle before the fight has even begun is an abdication of our responsibility as individuals and organisations committed to the radical and fundamental transformation of society. In the midst of the biggest crisis in world capitalism since the 1930s, we cannot abandon working people to the demagoguery of the right. As recent election results in France, Germany and Slovakia (and the large numbers of people voting for UKIP in the last UK general elections) show, reactionary and racist right wing movements are benefiting from the dislocation and frustration that many people feel as a result of the crises of capitalism. If we take the high ground and refuse to engage in the Brexit debate because we see it as an inter-racist turf war, we also abandon working people at a time at which the intervention of socialists is most sorely needed. And if we fail to engage, this, in turn, does not weaken the right, but rather gives them a free run to spread their noxious easy answers. Daniel Singer offers an instructive and timely warning on this point in Their Millennium or Ours (94): ‘if frustrated people see no progressive solution and have no rational explanations for their fate, they opt for irrationality and the search for scapegoats’.

Refusing to engage in this debate because it has, so far, been dominated by reactionary and racist positions does not, in any way, undermine the reactionaries and racists; rather it allows them to operate freely, at a time at which they should be fought for every inch of ground on the ideological and political terrain. The plight of refugees in Calais and elsewhere in Europe, or migrants facing racism in the UK is not in anyway improved by socialists sitting this fight out; if anything, it will likely make their position worse. As Singer (276) warned, ‘politics abhors a void. If the left fails to provide rational, progressive solutions to the growing economic and social traumas, the extreme right will come up with reactionary and irrational ones, playing on the fears aroused by globalization and on prejudices reinforced by apprehension’. All we have is the conjuncture before us, and we have to enter the fray. We do not have the luxury of waiting for more propitious circumstances of our own choosing before acting to make our own history.

III. Politics Without Illusions

Whatever the arguments of the various segments of the right in the Brexit debate, what is crucial is that socialists advance their own principled arguments about the EU. The argument here is quite simple: the prospects for the radical, necessary changes to combat the crises of capitalism within Britain and Europe more broadly are dramatically inhibited by the existence of the EU. Therefore, we should seek a fundamental rupture with the institutions of the EU, so as to free up the potential to develop more radical politics grounded in genuine internationalism, not the truncated solidarity that the project of European capital offers. To make this intervention, we have to address three key arguments from those on the left who argue we should stay within the EU: (i) the EU guarantees numerous rights for workers, migrants and others that we should defend; (ii) whatever the shortcomings of the EU, Britain should remain a member state and socialists should fight within the existing structures to pursue ‘another Europe’; and (iii) even if we accept that leaving the EU might be necessary in the long run, now is not the right time because the right in Britain (and across Europe) is on the rise, while working people and the political left seem ill-prepared to resist them.

(i) Rights and Struggle

One of the central arguments for remaining within the EU is that membership of the EU has led to the development of substantial protection of workers rights, as well as the rights of consumers and the environment. This argument has been advanced in the current debate by, among others, the TUC and Jeremy Corbyn. A further element to this argument is that, as Corbyn says, ‘the Tories would use a vote to leave as the chance for a bonfire of rights in its aftermath’. There are three key responses to this line of argument. The first is that the rights protected by EU law are not the result of a gift from Jacques Delors and the benevolent institutions of ‘Social Europe’. Rather, the most important workers’ rights protected by the EU were won through the struggles of working people across Europe throughout the early- and mid-twentieth century. The legal structures of the EU, like all legal structures, reflect the crystallisation of particular struggles and conflicts, and the key workers, migrant and consumer rights protected by the EU were wrested from European capital by the collective action of working people.

This leads to a second, crucial point, which is that these formal legal guarantees were conceded at a point in time when European capitalism could afford to commit to such rights, and European workers were strong enough to demand such rights. The current conjuncture in Europe, in contrast, is one in which capital is on the offensive, and is necessarily seeking to break down all barriers to the pursuit of profit. In line with this, it is a period where the logic of neoliberalism has, since at least the mid-1980s, been encoded into the DNA of the EUs constitutional architecture. The last eight years of austerity have seen a dramatic acceleration in the undermining of workers’ rights and the living standards of working people. As Asbjørn Wahl notes:

In several EU countries—the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Hungary—wages, working conditions, and pensions have been severely weakened. Pensions have been cut 15–20 percent in many countries, while wages in the public sector have been reduced from 5 percent in Spain to over 40 percent in the Baltic. In Greece, the number of public employees has already been reduced by more than 20 percent. And still more is demanded: in Spain only one in every ten vacant positions in the public sector is filled, one in every five in Italy, and one in every two in France. In Germany 10,000 public-sector jobs have already been cut, and in the United Kingdom it has been decided to cut close to half a million jobs, which in effect will involve about the same number of jobs in the private sector.

Such has been the assault on workers rights and living standards, that both the Council of Europe (separate from the EU, but with responsibility for monitoring human rights protection across Europe), and the European Parliament have published reports documenting how the policies of the EU have led to the dramatic erosion of the entire corpus of rights.

Coupled with these developments, the highest court in the EU, the European Court of Justice (even before the onset of the economic crisis) has issued a series of judgments, starting with the Viking and Laval cases, which dramatically undermine the right to strike, so as to protect the rights of companies. That these judgments pre-date the economic crisis is important. The accelerated assault on workers rights in the era of austerity is not an aberration, or a break with some mythical ‘social Europe’; rather it is the opportunistic intensification of tendencies inherent in the era of neoliberal capitalism. Neoliberalism is a response to the crises of capitalism. It is, first and foremost, a political project to reassert the interests of capital and capitalists worldwide. For this reason, the rights of workers were being systematically hollowed out prior to the US housing bubble bursting in 2008 and the assault on these rights has been facilitated, not restrained, by the institutions of the EU. This tendency can be seen further in the ongoing negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and US, which will further weaken workers‘ rights in the interests of capital. In short: given the trajectory of global capitalism, the EU is more likely to facilitate the undermining of fundamental rights, than act as a bulwark against their erosion.

This leads to a final point on this issue. The concern that leaving the EU would lead to an unrestrained Tory party engaging in a bonfire of rights is based on two flawed premises: the first is that formal legal guarantees effectively protect people from the vicissitudes of capitalism and the second is that the working class in Britain is unable or at least unlikely to mobilise to defend their rights. As to the first point, reference by proponents of the ‘remain’ side in the debate to the much-vaunted Working Time Directive (which is by no means unimportant) conveniently ignore the fact that British employees are allowed to negotiate with (read “pressure”) their workers to opt out of the protections provided by this law, and thousands of workers do so annually. Furthermore, many British workers are faced, in the current crisis, not with being forced to work too many hours, but with having too few hours. A recent report shows that more than 800,000 British workers are on zero-hour contracts, with all the insecurity, working poverty and precarity that that brings. The existing legal regime is virtually silent on this matter. 

It is interesting to note that in New Zealand, such contracts have recently been outlawed, not as a result of some benevolent regional integration regime, but because of the sustained struggle of working class people there. In recent years in the UK, teachers, nurses, transport workers, junior doctors, migrants, refugees and their communities and supporters have come out in their tens thousands to assert and defend their rights. The loss of faith by some on the left in the capacity of the working class in Britain to fight to defend their rights, and the rights of migrants and refugees, ignores the history of struggle here, and the potential of ongoing struggles. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the Tories and their ilk will continue to wage war on working people and migrants; the challenge is to be part of these struggles, and to trust in the capacity of people to fight to defend their interests, as the only real guarantee of the rights we have.

(ii) Reform or Revolution

It may well be that the rigid binaries of the early-twentieth century do not quite hold at the dawn of a new millennium, but there is, on the left, a sharp distinction between those who argue that we can and should remain within the EU to fight to make ‘another Europe possible’, and those who argue that commitment to socialist principles require us to break with the EU. The former position is represented well by the foundation of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25), which leads with the tagline that the ‘European Union will be democratise or it will disintegrate!’. Led by Yanis Varoufakis and others, DiEM25 argues, correctly, that the EU as constituted is fundamentally undemocratic, and that it needs a ‘surge of democracy’ to save it from a steady slide into disintegration. In the same way, many on the left in Britain argue that while the EU has its faults, we should nonetheless stay and fight to reform it from within. Another Europe, they argue, is possible, and the EU’s democratic shortcomings can be overcome piecemeal.

It is interesting, given events in Europe over the last five years that a former Greek Finance Minister should be to the fore in a movement that claims the EU can be salvaged through democratisation. If anything, the treatment of the Greek people at the hands of the Troika provides a signal lesson, if one were needed, of the inherent antagonism between democracy and the functioning of the EU. In 2015, having suffered under some of the worst (EU-sponsored) austerity policies of the last decade, it appeared as if the Greek people would vote in a Syriza government to reject the economic and social policy prescriptions of the Troika. In response to this, the President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned the Greek people that

To suggest that everything is going to change because there’s a new government in Athens is to mistake dreams for reality … There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties.

The fact that Juncker invoked the treaties on which the EU is founded in his contemptuous dismissal of democracy is instructive. Since at least the Maastricht Treaty, the EU’s constitutional arrangements have been revised to do two crucial things: (i) lock in the economic logic of neoliberalism and (ii) insulate the real decision making bodies with the EU from democratic control and accountability.

The most powerful actors within the EU, the European Commission and European Central Bank, are also the least accountable. This is not accidental, but the product of intentional choices to constitutionally lock-in the logic of neoliberalism to advance the interests of capital, and make it virtually impossible for the public at large to meaningfully impact on the decision-making processes at the heart of the EU. It is for this reason that mainstream law and political science journals are now replete with articles that characterise the EU project as an example of authoritarian statism or authoritarian liberalism. The contemptuous treatment of the Greek people in 2015 is just the most brutal, recent example of tendencies latent within the EU, and manifested in the discarding of the initial decisions of the Irish people on the Nice and Lisbon Treaties and of the French and Dutch people after they rejected the proposed constitution for Europe.

The EU is constitutionally undemocratic, and intentionally so. The calls to democratise the EU, though laudable, fundamentally misunderstand the character of the project. It is not the case that the dream of social Europe has been captured and derailed by evil technocrats in Brussels. Rather, the crises of capitalism necessitate a break for the ruling class with the post-War consensus in terms of social policy, and a rupture with the inhibiting limitations of democracy. These imperatives have been encoded into the constitutional architecture of the EU over the last twenty years. These constitutional arrangements constrain national governments that might wish to pursue some modest social democratic reforms (let alone institute radical social change); they make the functioning and operation of the leading EU institutions opaque and unaccountable; and, through the principle of unanimity enshrined in Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union, make it virtually impossible to revise (or democratise) these arrangements. The upshot of this is, as Wahl notes, is that ‘the possibility of changing any of the EU treaties in a progressive direction through ordinary political processes is virtually nonexistent. One right-wing government in one member state can prevent this’.

The recognition by DiEM25 and others that the EU is fundamentally undemocratic is correct, but the belief that it can be democratised, in any meaningful sense, is fundamentally mistaken. You cannot use a flame thrower to put out a fire: the EU has been transformed over the last 20 years to lock-in the victories of capital over workers, and to constitutionalise Margaret Thatcher’s idea that There Is No Alternative. On this point, Samir Amin cuts through all of the sophistry when he writes that ‘the European Union can be nothing else than what it is, and as such is unviable’. Another Europe may well be possible, but another EU is not. A Europe committed to democracy, solidarity, egalitarianism and genuine internationalism will only be brought about in spite of, not through, the EU.

(iii) Bringing the War Home

The final objection to deal with here is the idea that even if we accept that the EU is flawed, perhaps fundamentally so, voting to leave now would be a retreat into narrow nationalism at a time at which the right in Britain, and across Europe, is ascendant and there is little prospect of a coherent, left alternative to it. This whole argument turns on matters of faith: on the one hand it reflects a misplaced faith in the possibility and potential of transformative, transnational politics and on the other it represents a loss of faith in the capacity of working people, and of the political left, to genuinely transform the political and social landscape. The first sort of faith is reflected, again, in the DiEM25 initiative, which wants to build a ‘Europe of Peoples’ beyond the nation state, and has as one of its medium-term aims the convening of a Constitutional Assembly to develop ideas and institutions to govern the peoples of Europe. Such transnationalism, a form of liberal cosmopolitanism, counter-poses its own progressive character with the spectre of retreating into ‘the cocoons’ of narrow nationalism.

There are a number of problems with this argument. The first is that (notwithstanding the rhetoric of popular participation) it seeks, unwittingly perhaps, to substitute the top-down rule of one set of technocrats for another. The premise behind this line of argument is that the EU, as such, was positive and progressive to start with, until the bad, neoliberal technocrats captured it. It can be salvaged by the good, social democratic technocrats leading the peoples of Europe, from above, into the light of a more enlightened set of social and economic policies. This is ironic, yes, but also fundamentally problematic. It seeks to put the cart before the horse, and develop a Europe of peoples through the agency of a few prominent personages. Charismatic, top-down leadership geared towards salvaging the EU is not a break or rupture with the logic of neoliberalism capitalism, but a variation on it – and as such, will be riddled with the same shortcomings and contradictions.

The only alternative to the EU, with its neoliberal and fundamentally undemocratic character, is the self-organisation and mobilisation of working people in Europe (in all of their variety). Such a movement cannot be conjured up at the transnational level, but must begin at the local level. As Singer (210) succinctly put it, ‘the nation-state is still the ground on which the movement begins, power is seized, and the radical transformation of society is initiated’. Notwithstanding the delusions of post-nationalists (whether of the neoliberal or social democratic variety), movements for fundamental social change have to be built at the local level, and the nation state remains the basic unit of political action in this regard. In this respect, the EU, again, acts more as a restraint than an aid. As Wahl puts it, ‘the European Union itself creates a number of impediments, not only for economic and social development in Europe, but also for the social struggle’. Faith in the institutions of the EU and the possibilities of transnational politics to bring about the changes that are needed is misplaced. At present, the‘working class, the trade unions, and other popular forces are now facing a brutal power struggle, which was started from above’. This assault has been facilitated by the institutions of the EU. The fight back against it will, of necessity, be mounted at the domestic level (while also building and relying on internationalist solidarity) and in this context the need to rupture with the institutions of the EU will become increasingly apparent.

Finally, then, is the loss of faith in the capacity of the working class in Britain and of the political left to develop the sort of politics necessary to confront the rise of the right and the crises of capitalism. There is not space enough here to deal with every aspect of this issue, but it can be one of the positive up-shots of the Brexit debate if it forces socialists in Britain to face up to the organisational and political malaise which they now find themselves in. It is patently true that in Britain, and elsewhere around Europe, the working class and the political left are in bad shape, and the biggest crisis in capitalism since the 1930s has not, yet, produced a dramatic change in fortunes in this regard. It is understandable that such a vista could induce a degree of melancholy, resignation and defeatism amongst socialists, even while they continue to espouse the slogans they inherited from the Twentieth century. But the Brexit debate is an invitation to break with this malaise. In much the same way as the referendum about Scottish independence in 2014 became a thoroughgoing debate about what sort of Scotland, and what sort of future people wanted, the Brexit debate can provide a space in which socialists advance principled, revolutionary arguments about the nature of capitalism and the EU and invite working people to become the active protagonists in the construction of a different future. 

We can turn away in dismay at the number of votes that went to UKIP in the last general election, or we can focus on the fact that a recent study shows that a majority of people in Britain have recently said they prefer socialism to capitalism. Focus on the fact that crises in capitalism can open up space for political developments that seemed impossible not long before. The choice confronting us now is between two distinct approaches to politics. We can, as Samir Amin argues, approach the current conjuncture as opportunists, who understand politics as ‘the art of benefiting from the balance of power, such as it is’, or we approach it as principled socialists, for whom politics is ‘the art of transforming the balance of power’. In a similar vein, Marta Harnecker argues that ‘for revolutionaries politics is the art of making the impossible possible, not from some voluntarist urge to change things but because our efforts should be realistically focused on changing the current balance of power so that what appears to be impossible today becomes possible tomorrow’. Entering the fray and arguing, on principled, anti-racist lines, for Britain to exit the EU and seeking to clarify the real issues facing working people is the crucial role of socialists in this conjuncture. 

IV. Conclusions

If we could choose our own battles—or to paraphrase, choose the conditions in which we are called upon to make our own history—then many socialists would not put a debate about Britain’s continued membership of the EU top of their list. But that is the fight before us now. It may well be that this debate has its origins in Tory civil war politics, and that the mainstream debate will be dominated by racist, economistic and other misplaced narratives, but none of that absolves us of the responsibility to set out a principled socialist position on the debate. We can and must engage people and make clear that: (i) the EU now does as much to undermine peoples rights and living conditions as it does to protect them; (ii) the entire edifice is constitutionally and irredeemably undemocratic and neoliberal; and (iii) the thousands of dead men, women and children at the bottom of the Aegean and the despicable deal recently struck between the EU and Turkey are not an aberration, not a breach with mythical European values – instead they reflect Europe and the EU as it is. As such, we can and should break with the EU. If we do so there are no guarantees of what will come next: we do not get guarantees. But there are opportunities to imagine and fight for an entirely different Europe; that’s our challenge and we must prove ourselves worthy of it.

Originally Published on Critical Legal Thinking.

Human Rights: Contesting The Displacement Thesis

As a general rule, the precise significance of historical shifts, developments or movements can take a long time to reveal themselves. This is no doubt also true for human rights. For good or ill, and in many ways that remains to be seen, the language of human rights has become ubiquitous in moral, philosophical and political discourse over at least the last thirty years. Over this period we can point to instances where the language of human rights has been used to mobilise support for political prisoners, to prevent evictions of shack dwellers and to advance the cause of same sex marriage. By the same token, there are numerous episodes where the language of rights has been used to consolidate corporate power or legitimate imperialist interventions around the globe.

The grand question, then, of the value or otherwise of this rise in the language of rights remains open. On the terrain of this open question there are many sites of support and critique for the idea and language of rights, here I want to focus on one of the key critiques of rights and rights talk, what I will refer to as the “displacement thesis”. In a well-known essay on rights, Wendy Brown provides a sharp and useful articulation of the displacement thesis. She notes that human rights have come to be viewed, or presented, as ‘the progressive international justice project’, and then goes on to note that:

Human rights activism is a moral-political project and if it displaces, competes with, refuses, or rejects other political projects, including those also aimed at producing justice, then it is not merely a tactic but a particular form of political power carrying a particular image of justice, and it will behove us to inspect, evaluate and judge it as such.

Brown then goes on to argue that in light of the renewed vigour of American imperialism, perhaps instead of human rights support for indigenous movements in post-colonial societies, or other narratives, would be more efficacious in resisting the depredations of the global imperial order. She further argues that if one approach is to be favoured over the other, then we must recognise that it is difficult to engage in simultaneous emancipatory projects at once. Finally, Brown concludes by arguing that the language of human rights ‘is a politics and it organizes political space, often with the aim of monopolizing it’.

While Brown’s contention that the language of human rights is one among a number of different forms of political power is useful and incontrovertible, the displacement thesis she advances is problematic. It should be said that Brown is not the only one to advance this argument, and numerous critics of rights, from Morton Horowitz in the 1980s to Robin West in a recent intervention, have marshalled it in one way or another. However, Brown’s clear articulation of it provides a useful starting point to engage with an important issue in the debate about the role of rights, and of law more broadly, in movements for radical social change.

If we boil the displacement thesis down, what it amounts to is the assertion that in any given society or historical period, movements for radical emancipatory change can only make use of a singular discourse. That is to say that any individual or movement who is dissatisfied with the extant social and political environment they inhabit, can only respond to and critique it in one dialect. A further implication of this argument is that in the contemporary global dispensation the language of rights tends to crowd out, or indeed preclude, the use of other emancipatory discourses; such as claims for distributive justice, substantive equality or meaningful democracy.

Certainly the intense legalisation of rights over the last thirty years, and the concomitant formalisation and professionalisation of rights practice, lend some support to this argument and make it intuitively appealing. But the shortcomings of a particular strand of liberal legalism hardly provide the basis for the jettisoning of rights, as such, which this line of argument would entail. Notwithstanding its intuitive appeal, the displacement thesis is fundamentally flawed. It is flawed because the emancipatory monolingualism it presumes is not born out, either by historical experience or contemporary struggles for fundamental social change. If, indeed, insurgent movements were limited to a singular choice among contending discourses, then the rhetoric of the French Revolution would have pursued Liberty, Equality or Fraternity and not all three. The American Declaration of Independence would have limited itself to a self-evident truth, rather than a collection of them.

Similarly, if the displacement thesis held, contemporary movements such as Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa, the Movement of the Landless in Brazil or the World Social Forum, would have to eschew the language of rights in favor of a discourse of distributive justice, or enhanced democracy, or anti-imperialism. Instead, all of these movements manage to mobilise numerous, complimentary (and contradictory) discourses in pursuit of their strategic objectives. While certainly at any given time, depending on the prevailing conditions and the specific aims of the movement, one discourse or other might take precedence, these movements, as with many historical antecedents, nonetheless engage in an emancipatory multilingualism, which gives the lie to the displacement thesis.

All of this is not to say that the language of rights, particularly in its dominant rendering, is unproblematic. But to follow the displacement thesis to its conclusion would be to accept the abandonment or jettisoning of rights by movements for radical social change, in favor of another, presumably less problematic, emancipatory discourse. But this sort of strained maximalism is fundamentally problematic. Within a context of globalised capitalism, where neoliberalism is the hegemonic ideology, there is no discourse – be it democracy, justice, equality – that exists beyond or outside the system, and cannot be co-opted and manipulated to justify the extant order.

The problem with the displacement thesis is that it implies there is some silver bullet argument, a singular one that is superior to the language of rights. But, in struggling against the injustices we see around us and seeking to build a better future, we have no choice other than to work with the tools at our disposal, including rights. As Terry Eagleton puts it ‘A different future has to be the future of this particular present. And most of the present is made up of the past. We have nothing with which to fashion a future other than the few, inadequate tools we have inherited from history’. This, of course, includes rights.

None of this is meant as an apologia for rights, particularly for the dominant discourse and practice of human rights, but more modestly to point out that we should be slow to jettison rights on the basis that by utilising them we somehow prevent ourselves from engaging other languages of resistance and change. In a way this point is well caught by Audre Lorde, who once wrote that she could not ‘afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only’; not only does any emancipatory movement necessarily have to challenge different forms of substantive oppression and injustice, it has to do so by drawing on a wide array of tactics and emancipatory discourses, and embracing one does not preclude the adoption of another.

Originally Published on Critical Legal Thinking.

Talk on TTIP and the Dictatorship of No Alternatives

A public talk given in Dublin in 2014, discussing the threats that the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) poses to workers rights, public services and democracy. The talk also situates TTIP in the broader context of neoliberalism, new constitutionalism and the crisis of capitalism.

No Easy Victories

The campaign for the Right2Water in Ireland is rapidly growing in strength and confidence. Working class communities have been staging determined and inspiring protests to prevent the installation of water meters in their areas, the best of the trade union movement has mobilised to help support and coordinate these efforts at the national level and the Irish political left has rallied to the cause. In response to the growth of the movement, the Irish State has let loose its dogs of war. As a result of which recent days have witnessed heavy handed and provocative policing from An Garda Síochána, concentrated mainly in Edenmore, Donaghmede and Coolock.

Footage of Gardai man handling women and minors, and generally trying to intimidate and bully peaceful protestors has emerged. Many protestors have reacted to this with dismay, and believe that the Gardai are in breach of their “oath” because of the way in which they are trying to force through the installation of unwanted meters. This idea that the Gardai are acting abnormally ties into other quasi-legal arguments within the movement about the need for “consent” to be liable to pay the water charges and related matters.

As the movement grows in strength, it is important, also, that its energies be focused, so with that in mind it seems right to dispel some of the misconceptions about the role of the law, and the police, in the struggle for the right to water. The movement and campaign for the Right2Water is the most electrifying and significant development in Irish politics for some years, but in order for it to reach its full potential we should heed Amilcar Cabral’s advice that we ‘tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures [and] Claim no easy victories’. By dispelling some of the appealing, but ultimately unhelpful, arguments swirling around the movement, it will be possible to move forward in a more determined, focused and effective manner.

One of the important points to dispel is the idea that Irish Water requires a residents consent in order for them to be liable for the water charges. This is not the case. It is true that in the ordinary course of things, when, for example, you want to subscribe to a particular TV or broadband provider, you would need to enter into a voluntary contract with them for it to be valid. However, Irish Water is not an ordinary company. It is a semi-state entity created specifically to install water meters and impose charges for water use on Irish citizens. The Irish government, imagining itself to be cute and mimicking practices elsewhere in the world, has opted to package a tax as a service charge, on the understanding that it would be less politically controversial.

What the Irish Water Service Act 2013 does, among other things, is transfer the ownership of the national water infrastructure to Irish Water, and grant them both a statutory right and duty to levy and collect charges from “consumers”. This means that, legally, you do not have to consent to the charges; they are being imposed upon you. In real terms this means that returning the Irish Water application packs with “no consent, no contract” or burning them, does not alter the legal position; you are still liable for the charges. With that said the symbolic and political importance of returning the packs, or burning them is immensely important. These charges will be defeated by a mass campaign of resistance and non-compliance, so rejecting the Irish Water packs is crucially important, but for political, not legal, reasons.

With respect to the role the Gardai are now playing in aggressively intimidating peaceful protestors, a few key points should be noted. First, under Section 16 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, newly appointed members of An Garda Síochána make a solemn declaration that, among other things, they will ‘faithfully discharge the duties of a member of the Garda Síochána with fairness, integrity, regard for human rights, diligence and impartiality, upholding the Constitution and the laws and according equal respect to all people’. For some protestors this declaration, or oath, implies that the Gardai should respect and protect their right to protest, and not intimidate and bully peaceful protestors. In turn, this idea ties into a broader common sense that the role of the Gardai as guardians of the peace is to protect and serve ordinary citizens.

This is simply not the case. Even on a formal, legal basis, the Gardai could, and no doubt will, argue that they uphold their “oath” by upholding the will of the Oireachtas, and facilitating the implementation of the Water Act. They can also argue that they are protecting the right of the Irish Water contractors to go about their lawful business. But more importantly, it has to be understood that the Gardai, like the police in every country, are not there to serve and protect working people, but to contain and control them. If you want to see the real face of An Garda Síochána, look to the West of Ireland were they have been involved in a protracted campaign of intimidation and low-level terror against local residents opposed to the Corrib gas line. Invariably in Ireland, when push comes to shove and citizens seek to oppose government policy, they will be met with the Public Order Act and all of the other tools of low-level repression.

Irrespective, then, of any “oath”, the Gardai are performing the very role they are designed and accustomed to play. As a force they are are structurally unaccountable, as a result of this unaccountability they are quite comfortable and confident in their ability to make a mockery of citizens right to protest. Going forward, then, the movement for the Right2Water has to be absolutely clear that the Gardai are not neutral arbiters between competing sides to an argument, instead they are the bared teeth of a threatened Irish establishment. The very aggression and violence of the Garda operations in recent weeks are not evidence of their confidence and power, but of their fear and weakness. The Gardai know what their role in Irish society is, and will perform that role dutifully. As the movement grows in strength and confidence, the repressive response of the Gardai will grow proportionately and the movement has to be prepared to meet this with the same determination and dignity it has mustered so far.

When the people of Cochabamba, Bolivia succeeded – in spite of massive State violence and repression – in reversing the privatisation of their water supply, it wasn’t through appeals to specific legal rules, but through the determined and steadfast action of a movement mobilised around the idea that irrespective of what the law said, water was a right that they would not allow be treated as a commodity. In a similar vein, the people of Detroit in the US have recently had their hopes of a legal victory to protect the right to water dashed. However, this has not deterred them and they are moving forward with their movement for a human right to water on the basis of The Detroit Water Pledge of Resistance. This pledge commits the movement, and all its individual members, to ‘if necessary, to join others in my community, and engage in acts of dignified, peaceful civil disobedience that could result in my arrest in order to protect and uphold the human right to water in Detroit’.

The growing movement in Ireland should, at this juncture, take guidance from James Connolly, who correctly observed that

It should be remembered … that every movement for the improvement of the condition of the human race, every step forward in civilisation, has of necessity had to face the opposition of Law, and disturbed the stability of Order. The pioneer of progress has ever been an enemy of Law, and directed all his efforts to the destruction of Order.

Advancing the struggle for the Right2Water in Ireland and against the water charges cannot and should not rely on appeals to the law as it is, or to the conscience of individual Gardai. Appeals will not work, but demands can. When the campaign for the Right2Water succeeds, it will do so in spite of the law, not as a result of it. This movement will not only overturn the policy of commodifying the water service, but can genuinely precipitate a fundamental transformation of the Irish political landscape. For this reason it will be resisted and fought by the Irish establishment. The law will not provide the movement with a silver bullet, there will be no easy victory, but a determined and united movement, rallying around the central claim that water is a right and a public good, can prevail.

Originally Published on Irish Left Review.