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Finances WW2
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Message 1.Â
Posted by vesturiiis (U13688567) on Saturday, 9th July 2011
The Allies suffered financially in WW2 (some much more than others)
and were they able to recoup some of their depleted financial reserves in post war years? -
Message 2
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Sunday, 10th July 2011
It depends on which Allies you are looking at. For the countries that had been invaded by Nazi-Germany and Italy there were reparations but there was also a need to built a new Eurpoe. The UK was bankrupt by about 1943 and had it not been for the USA and Canada offering interest-only (for 50 years) loans at the end of the war then the country would have been in a really bad (if not totally ruined) economic state. Some countries like The Netherlandsalthough part of the Allied cause did not suffer as much as their governments worked with or were taken over by the Nazis but had governments-in-exile in the UK until freedom was achieved. There were the discoveries of Nazi gold but not all of the Allies initiallly reported the discovery (as in the case of the Merkur gold). It should also be remembered that the monies held under the Trading With The Enemy legislation got their money and goods back despite the severe (understandable) reluctance of ministers to give it back to them.
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Message 3
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 10th July 2011
Belgium (despite being occupied) had a relatively easy time of it during the Second World War and its finances were pretty much intact by 1945.
This was largely down to the director of the investment company the Société Générale de Belgique (SGB), Alexandre Galopin who, mindful of the economic destruction of the First World War, was keen that history should not repeat itself.
To this end Galopin, as director of the SGB company (which itself controlled more than a third of the Belgian economy) organised the 'Comité Galopin' which would act as an economic shadow government during the occupation. Through the Galopin Committee, the SGB along with other holding companies determined that Belgian finance and industry would co-operate with the German occupiers in business beneficial to the Belgian economy with the exception of the production of war matériel. -
Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 11th July 2011
But when the OP says that the Allies suffered financially- this was not true of the USA, and that was crucial.. Though there was great talk about Roosevelt's New Deal policies etc, the US economy was still in deep trouble by the outbreak of war.. What people tend to forget is that it was possible to write by the mid-thirties that mankind had solved the challenge of feeding itself. After the First World War the mood of peace, disarmament etc went along with something of a back to the country, simple life movement- taken to an extreme in Nazi Germany with its elevation of old-German village life, and flaxen-haired maidens featuring in harvest festivals etc.
The USA of course had been paid for much of its aid during the First World War- Lloyd George and J.M.Keynes joining together to insist that the war was the "rainy day" for which Britain had gold reserves, and that the USA should be paid in gold. By early 1917 Keynes could write to his friends from the Treasury that the war would be over in two weeks because there would be no money left. Fortunately German actions forced the USA into the war. But one of the many sources of Keynes anger at Versailles was the realisation that the Americans- not being Old Etonians like himself- had no concept of "noblesse oblige"- or in modern parlance the obligation to the global economic system that London and the Bank of England had been able to keep relatively stable because of the "ballast" of all of the gold in its vaults, and its power to buy and sell it.
So between the war there was a situation of fragmentation as in pre-existing countries and all the new ones being created and/or emerging from the destruction of war, there was a huge push to get back to the land in order to produce food and commodities. One might suggest that at the moment we are seeing the exact opposite. In place of the flight to the land and production of primary products, we now have a flight to the cities and a focus on the production of industrial goods. The result is much the same. Whatever the "developing world" produces in an effort to develop will be cheap, driving down prices, which is good for consumers. But it means that those producing- the small farmer in the USA, in the UK, in Germany, in India, in South Africa etc- finds it almost impossible to earn more than a subsistence, and therefore to pay for the services and goods that those who enjoy the cheap goods wish to sell them. [The problem now is the low purchasing power of the workers in India, China etc who produce the goods that Western Consumers have come to depend upon]
Small producers struggled harder and harder to produce enough from their lands, while lacking the means to invest in land improvement. In places like the mid-West of the USA and the Veldt in South Africa the soil was worked to death and just blew away in Dust Bowls.
These factors seem to have been vital to the success of the Nazi Party in Germany, for the first rural area that it targetted was Schelswig-Holstein on the border with Denmark where a largely peasant population of small-farmers, many-like small farmers around the world, in trouble with the bank and the threat of foreclosure were very susceptible to the Nazi's message that it was all because of the Jewish bankers and financiers who cut across the world's financial system. And once the Nazis were in power, while promoting the "folk" aspect like everywhere else, they also put a premium on a return to the importance of the City, as in Greece and Rome, as well as re-armament and the pursuit of massive power., made possible by full-employment and the maximun use of science and technology.
It was the Second World War that imposed this change of direction on those who fought Germany. Even occupied France was required to work hard not only to survive itself, but even more to meet the obligations that it undertook under the Armistice terms to provide materials and goods annually to Germany. More obviously Great Britain during the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Front was a period of a huge increase in National Product, with work becoming compulsory for most classes, and with government taking over much of the responsibility for organising and coordinating production. By 1945 much of Britain's industrial plant and economic infrastructure was almost as badly damaged as those dust-bowl soils, for in a very real sense the UK has struggle hard to maintain and renew the infrastructure of its Victorian past, notably its railway lines most of which never recovered from the intensive over-use during two world wars.. The Beeching Axe "cut our losses".
But the Second World War was the making of the USA economically. Only as the "workshop of the free world" could the USA approach anything like what economist call "Pareto Efficiency"- that is that condition when all of Land, Labour and Capital are being fully employed. In fact what people forget is that war time can actually be quite a good time both for businessmen and for working families. War always produces new markets, and the expanded production means more work- and therefore more overall family income. The industrial Labour Force in the USA expanded dramatically as the USA adapted to its role as the principle manufacturer for much of what was needed by the "Free World".
And before the war was over the USA had realised that the mistakes of the end of the First World War would not be repeated. At Bretton Woods arrangements were made to provide for a global Financial System after the war, with the USA now accepting its role in maintaining the dollar as THE base-currency for the rest of the World. Provisions were also made for the IMF and the World Bank, now facing the test of a period of potential World Chaos reminiscent of the early Thirties.
Moreover, just when Americans were beginning to think of returning back to the farm etc, and mothballing much of the existing military hardware, Winston Churchill's Fulton Speech spelled out the ongoing need for the USA to still fight against the threat to Christian Civilzation- as he saw it. The Truman and Marshall Doctrines committed the USA to an ongoing process of investing in the Future- a future that would create jobs for American workers and US industry, because the US arms industry was now even more important than ever as the science and technology of war became ever more important, while the "Good Life" to which people were encouraged to aspire was very much to be the American model with the "common man" having access to the family car, the fridge, the Hoover, the TV etc.
Of course from a US perspective- and Churchill was half-American at least by birth- the danger of Communism was not only behind that Iron Curtain. There were countries like Italy and France which had thriving Communist Parties, the French one [finally] having earned great prestige by its role in the resistance, and Socialism had been a powerful political force in Germany from at least the early 1890's, with one leading German socialist after 1919 quite prepared to argue that Marx, that German revolutionary, was quite prepared to accept that the "revolution" could be achieved through the democratic process in a country that was sufficiently advanced..
And closer to home, a Labour Minister of Labour by 1950 could tell a visiting American "We have had our revolution, only we did not cut off their heads. We cut off their wealth.".. This idea of the State and the political process taking over the goods of individuals for the benefit of the Nation was popular from the 1880's and underpinned much of the thinking of the Labour Party,the formation of which was encouraged by the spectacular success of the German Socialists in the Reichstag elections c1892.
But the whole idea of the nationalisation of wealth is naive. For once wealth has been nationalised it is no longer wealth- which by definition means a superabundance or reserve pile. So you can "cut off the wealth) but like other harvests, in the act of harvesting you kill it by cutting it off from those forces that keep it alive. A fundamental aspect of wealth is that the individual or group "owning" it is free to dispose of it at will. But that which "belongs to the Nation" will never be disposed of except in a real crisis moment, when its true nature as a Liability and not as an Asset has become very obvious. [Hence the Beeching Axe]
So after 1945 Britain had its revolution based upon late nineteenth century ideas of the "working class" finally getting to reap the harvest of the industrial revolution, through subsidised goods and services provided by the government, that released more money for the consumerism- that very quickly adapted itself to household goods from the USA, and soon enough Germany, and then cheap "high-value" goods from Hong Kong and Japan.
Meanwhile this further diminution of the "wealth"- held by British people privately- weakened the British banking system and the Finance industry, that had grown in the Eighteenth Century on the basis of such private wealth. And this situation was aggravated by the fact that the government acted on an old 1890's ambition and nationalised the Bank of England. This placed the running of the Bank of England directly under the control of British politicians, mostly answerable to the British electorate as a public British servive, rather than the World Bank that it had been.
With all of these measures that weakend Britain's Financial position in the global economy, it was necessary to carry out a 30%+ devaluation of the pound against the dollar. A side effect of this was to diminish the value of all of those countries within the British Empire (including most of British Africa) who had used the Bank of England as a safe place to keep their country's financial assets, just when so much of what they needed for their own redevelopment had to be paid for in dollars.
It was perhaps not only the "Windrush generation" of West Indian immigrants who could feel that the "Mother country" was only prepared to look after some of "its own".
Cass -
Message 5
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Monday, 11th July 2011
So after 1945 Britain had its revolution based upon late nineteenth century ideas of the "working class"Â
What 'revolution'? The measures taken in 1945 were a continuation of changes that had started under the National Government in the 1930s, in response to global economic crisis. Such changes were necessarily accelerated under conditions of 'total war' but were significantly reversed under Harold Wilson's 'bonfire of controls'. It is hard to argue the case that Britain was more 'statist' or more 'welfarist' than most through the 50s, 60s and 70s. -
Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 11th July 2011
stuart
I was quoting a Labour Minister in calling it a "revolution"-- and current calls for people to come out on the streets to defend it seem to be based on the idea that it was a revolution.. that must now be defended.
Certainly, for example, Paul Smith's study "Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform" (1967) was very much in keeping with much thinking at the time that what Disraeli did was merely one step in line with the Fabian idea of a gradual revolution in an particularly English/British tradition of measured change by evolution rather than revolution.
I have also quoted elsewhere the essay by a Professor of Politics at Harvard who argued c1961 that really Britain could now become a one-party state, because all significant change had taken place, and all that was now needed was good management of minor issues.
As for Britain being no more statist than other countries, I have argue on the Nazism in Britain thread that the logic of the revolution that Julian Huxley urged Britain to embrace during the war was very much in line with the Statism that had made Germany so powerful before 1914- that almagam of managed economic self-interest, realpolitik, and massive encouragement of science and industry were in fact "the way ahead".. As Captain Kirk reflected some time in the Future in Star Treck- the idea was that struggle and war are forcing houses that speed up evolution, and so the two world wars accelerated change.. To those of us who were the Children of the Ashes war did not seem anything like a benevolent force for the better, but a terrible and hateful "market distortion"..
But the new World Order was based upon this necessary evil of a United Nations- made up ideally of nation states.
Cass -
Message 7
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Monday, 11th July 2011
I was quoting a Labour Minister in calling it a "revolution"--Â
Well I'm sure that would suit the minister to say that. I find that most mainstream historians do not regard it so. An interesting read is Tony Crosland's 'Future of Socialism', written in 1956, wherein he gets very excited about the revolution in which big business is controlled in such a way as to act responsibly for the benefit of all. By 1974 in his 'Socialism Now' he was back tracking significantly before going on to bemoan IMF intervention a little later as surrendering to capitalism, despite all his previous proclamations of how things had permanently changed etc. and that such capitalist measures would never again be necessary. -
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 11th July 2011
stuart
Yes. Of course the whole Scientific and technological revolution had really lost its credibility by the late Sixties, hence "my generation" were not prepared to be bossed around by "talking heads" and "experts", who really were essentially just modern Utopianists. Bertrand Russell described how atomic energy, robotics and automation would do away with work altogether leaving the Common people free to cultivate themselves with uplifting and therapeutic activities like basket-weaving.
But because of the apparent successes elsewhere Harold Wilson was briefly able to get enough support for an "everyone's a winner" new industrial revolution in his "White Heat of Technology" speech.. I suppose it was in this mood that I chose to look at Soviet Economic Plannning in the Five Year Plans as my final year specialism at uni in 1965-6.
But it was very obvious by then that essentially economic planning was only really of any use in copycat re-enactments of past-history, including essential post-war and post-revolution reconstruction. And the Wilson Era really showed that the confidence that academic dons and bureaucrats had in their ability to "run things better" than the Amateurs and Gentlemen Players was seriously misplaced. Our economics lecturer was on NEDDIE and full of academic reservations. My tutor on the Soviet Economy was "Max" Cole, son of G.D.H. Cole- great advocate of the Gospel of British Socialism between the wars.. I am not sure that he was a "true believer", and I seem to remember that his mother was the crime writer Margaret Postgate.. "Max" did his bit, and seemed to have worked as an aide to good old George Brown.. One wonders what the modern press would do about him now!
A couple of years ago I finally got around to reading R.H. Tawney's "The Radical Tradition", which was a collection of pieces that Tawney had written over about forty years.. One of the earliest was an advocacy written in 1919 of continued State-control of the coal mining industry with very ambitious ideas- on paper- of just how much more efficiently and profitable the mines would be when run to make profit for the whole nation and not just profits for the owners and wages for the workers..!!!
By 1973-4 the mood of youth revolt and "things can only get better " of the late Sixties had been blown away. I have a copy of Gordon Rattray's "Re-Think" published that year. By this time the whole idea of a managed economic system was shown as being merely pretension on the dominant Anglo-Saxon Allies during the Second World War. As "progressivists" they had lost the active support young people, and in many cases of the more powerful trade union interests, and, in any case, the OPEC Oil Crisis of 1973 showed that in a post-Imperial world "The West" would not be allowed to monopolise the agenda.
Any real sense therefore of a true sweep of History in line with that of the Great German historians- and I suppose we have to include Marx with his "inevitability of history"- was therefore "blown away". All that science and technology could actually do in these circumstances was to carry out "post-mortem analyses" that could suggest short-term solutions to current problems.
It was some time before Norman Lamont summed it all up, but essentially current affairs became all a matter of "short-termism and crisis management", as if the crisis was/is the problem.
The problem in fact is that historians no longer try to understand the history of the Present and thus produce any kind of positive Future Project. Ideas like "ending child poverty" and "doing away with all wars" being entirely negative ones.. People do not need to be told to stop doing things. Life is doing and being. They need to know what positive things they can do to achieve something that will make their life more than a meaningless jumble of random and casual events, lurching from crisis to crisis.
And this goes to the heart of the question of Finance. I believe that when people come up with a real Future Project which offers everyone something worth striving for to their utmost, then the question of finance becomes secondary. Hence one might link this with Dr. E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Really Mattered" (1973) in which, on the basis of work that he had done in the economic development of post-Independent India- postulated "Buddhist Economics". In some communities economic depression and hard-times had truly been countered by building a new temple. The temple was a public good their for the benefit of everyone, and its building required work from all members of society from the most simple unskilled labourer to the most gifted artists and craftsmen.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 11th July 2011
Stuart
As for "mainstream historians" and "English revolutions":
Most of them are actually- by being mainstream- fundamentally a part of that Middle Class establishment that became so important during the Age of Revolution through its ownership of intellectual Capital- as opposed to the Middle Class that owned Material Capital.This created the most important part of the late Victorian establishment.
It also helped to create that important element in the British Left which discourages "grass-roots" militancy and Physical Force, for there has been a political consensus between Left and Right to play down the revolutionary nature of the Middle Class transformations of England and Britain.
T.B. Macaulay looking back c1852 at the blood running in the streets of European Capitals in the Year of Revolution 1848 noted that England had been largely immune, because the English constitutional tradition provided for redress of grievances without violence out on the streets.
But no-one was more aware than Macaulay of the "Glorious Bloodless Revolution" of 1688-9. The fact that England manages revolutions better than other countries does not mean the England has no revolutions.
Cass -
Message 10
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Monday, 11th July 2011
T.B. Macaulay looking back c1852 at the blood running in the streets of European Capitals in the Year of Revolution 1848 noted that England had been largely immune Â
John Saville's '1848' is good in this regard. As for Macaulay, he said 'universal suffrage would be fatal for all purposes for which government exists...utterly incompatible with the existence of civilisation'.
Bertrand Russell described how atomic energy, robotics and automation would do away with work altogether Â
I think here you have hit on the philosophy of 'positivism' and the gradulalism of Fabianism of the Webbs- the arguments at the turn of the century in the German SPD are crucial here- the positivism or gradualism (revisionism) of Bernstein or Kautsky versus the revolutionary socialism of Luxemburg. -
Message 11
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 11th July 2011
stuart
Well perhaps Macaulay might have a point.. I do not know of any country that has Universal suffrage-- Most limit the suffrage to their own frontiers and to adults, excluding those children and minors who in some places amount to 50% of the population..
In fact you are probably quoting from Macaulay's speech on the great Charter which featured a very strong attack on a Chartist leaflet that promised that with universal suffrage the common people would renounce the National Debt, with all that would mean about the collapse of the financial system and the banks- at the time when more and more people were entering the cash economy.
He also highlighted what he considered to be ignorant and dangerous ideas- very relevant to the points I have been making on this thread- like that a n almost inexhaustible stock of wealth exists which could be better distributed to the benefit of the common people.
Macaulay said that it was obvious that a Government exists through the support of the people, not the people through the support of the Government.
And these views I would suggest need to be considered along with his speech in support of an English educational revolution. In this he pointed out that at the end of the Seventeenth Century the Scotsman was the most despised person in Europe, and that Fletcher of Saltoun wrote a pamphelt suggesting that wide-scale enslavement of the 25% of the population that was roaming around in gangs of sturdy beggars was the only answer. Instead the Scottish Parliament set up elementary schooling through the system of Kirk Schools, so that by the 1850's the Scots everywhere in Britain and its Empire were either the top man or the next to the top.. He did not need to tell his audience that he himself was living proof as Lord Macaulay, son of Zacahary Macaulay who had gone in his late teens from Scotland to take up a post as a slave-driver on a plantation in the West Indies.
Cass -
Message 12
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 12th July 2011
stuart
Re Revolutions and Civilization
There was a widespread sense that the First World War was part of the turbulence of the end of one Civilization leaving what T.S. Eliot- looking at Britain in 1921- called a "Wasteland". In the late twenties Julian Huxley and H.G.Wells produced a book called "The Science of Life" that fitted such times into the story of biological evolution. One must wonder whether that directly influenced the Walt Disney portrayal of the end of the dinosaurs in "Fantasia". Huxley and Wells argued that such moments favoured those species that were best suited to adapt to the new conditions and what was very obvious to them was that the march of progress in this inter-war period was in Science and Technology.
Eric Hobsbawm in his short history of the Twentieth Century calls the period 1914-45 "The Age of Catastrophe", and I have suggested that the mood post-1945 was very much one of imposing order and stability, as President Kennedy put it being willing to "pay any price".
This involved- I have suggested- creating a massive Financial system building on the whole idea of National Debt that had proved vital to the success of England and Great Britain, allowing the State to spend more than the National Income- and thus cushion the people from the consequences of war and struggle, including the Cold War. That Financial system had been based upon private ownership- including the private ownership of one's Labour- and while Communism and Socialism offered a credible challenge to that Private Capitalist (as opposed to State Capitalist) System the whole question of National Debt was not important when the very survival of the champions of Liberty and individual Human Rights were concerned- notably the USA.
Maintaining state and individual wealth in cash and kind within the "West" was necessary in order to combat revolutionary chaos and catastrophe, and prove that "the common man" was materially better off than in countries decicated to material values and materialist philosophy. And the strategy worked to undermine Communism and Socialism, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall became the great symbol of the desire of those "excluded from the Good Life" to become part of it.
But the "West" no longer had to be a fortress nurturing some kind of ideal of commonweal between all layers of Society- like the Blitz Spirit. And Western Finance now found whole new "virgin fields" for investment as former "no go areas"- (the ex-Soviet Union, China, India etc) became the places of high returns for venture Capital- as the USA especially had been in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century.
But is all this a Western Civilization?
I often think how ironical it is that Beatrice Webb, with "The Other One" one of the main architects of Britain's Welfare State, wrote in her account of "My Apprenticeship" that her grandfather used to say that getting thrown out of the Garden of Eden was the best thing that ever happened to humanity, otherwise we would all have ended up just like pigs wallowing in an orchard.
While everyone is up in arms in moral indignation about the News of the World, its seems appropriate to look at just what is being offered these days in terms of "the opium of the masses" in order to beep people resigned to - even perhaps content with- their lot, while accepting that the real "pursuit of happiness" is beyond them.
Was it Peggy Lee who had a hit song "Is this all there is?"
Cass -
Message 13
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Tuesday, 12th July 2011
In fact you are probably quoting from Macaulay's speech on the great Charter Â
Taken from Hansard, scroll down to 46 (1842, same year as the Lancashire general strike)
In November 1852, reflecting upon 1848, Macaulay said Englishmen stood by their government because..
'it had never inflexibly opposed just demands, that we had obtained concessions of inestimable value, not by beating the drum....not by running to the gunsmiths' shops to search for arms, but by mere force of reason and public opinion' taken from R. Miliband 'Capitalist Democracy in Britain'.
Never inflexibly opposed just demands? As E.P. Thompson says in the light of the Peterloo massacre....
'if the government was unprepared for the news of Peterloo, no authorities have ever acted so vigorously to make themselves accomplices after the fact....demands for a paliamentary enquiry were resolutely rejected...the Lord Chancellor was of the 'clear opinion' that the meeting 'was an overt act of treason'; he saw ahead 'a shocking choice between between military government and anarchy'. State prosecutions were commenced , not against the perpetrators, but against the victims of the day....if the Manchester magistrates initiated a policy of repression, the government endorsed it with every resource at its disposal' taken from 'The Making of the English working Class'
And the Great Reform Act, when it finally arrived merely increased the male voting population from 200,000 to one million, still no more than a fifth of adult males.
Such was the anger and disappointment, expressed most clearly in 1839 and 1842, by 1848 the govt. was in fact forced into a considerable state of mobilisation....
'Wellington further insisted that as it was unlikely the regular army would be increased in numbers a militia force of about 150,000 men should be organised; and he concluded with the hope 'that the almighty may protect me from being the witness of the tragedy which I cannot persaude my contempories to take measures to avert''. J.Saville '1848- the British State and he Chartist Movement'. -
Message 14
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 12th July 2011
stuart
Yes I have that Macaulay Speech. It was made in 1842 on the occasion of the second great Chartist Petition..
And I am familiar with E.P. Thompson and his thesis about "The Making of the Working Class"- very much in line with much of mainstream writing that held that King Cotton and Lancashire was the face of the Modern World.. And in so far as it inspired both Communism and Capitalism ideologies and hence the revolutions of the first half of the twentieth century and the Cold War and sub-wars of its second half those claims about "Future History" were to some extent justified.
But the Peterloo Massacre highlighted very much the particular character of Lancashire as a "Wild West".. The historian C.R.Fay- a proud Lancastrian- brings out very clearly one of the key reasons for the industrial and commercial development of the county in the Eighteenth Century, namely that it was almost totally lacking the kind of tradition, regulations and structures that had underpinned the economy especially of the South of England, with age-old protections for industry and for the whole "Commonweal"- that tradition that had underpinned stability since late Anglo-Saxon times.
Farr points out that Liverpool was able to challenge and over-take Bristol as the chief slave port in the West because quite early on it manned the slave ships with pauper apprentices, and Lancashire became particularly associated with the use of factory apprentices later on, not least because the whole structures of "civilized" life- and in the Eigteenth Century that was all based around the parish and the vestry- was inadequately provided for. The parishes that existed right into the Nineteenth Century were based upon the earlier rural Lancashire and could not possibly cope with the new industrial population, especially not with an large Irish immigrant community quite capable of exporting and disseminating the kind of civil disorders with which British Ireland had been associated.
Samuel Bamford described how his Preston weavers marched to St. Peter's Fields to hear Orator Hunt, and there is no reason to believe that this "marching" had not been associated with the kind of military drilling subsequently banned- as being a deliberate preparation for insurrection. It was clearly a situation that could develop into something that the inadequate local yeomanry would be totally inadequate to deal with once and if it got out of hand, and we have had plenty of evidence over recent years of people going to stage peaceful demonstrations having their demonstration taken over by those intent upon something more violent. This seems to have happened once again in Athens a couple of weeks ago.
Before the second Charter was presented in 1842 there had been a great General Assembly in which a clear divide emerged between those who followed Feargus O'Connor and his call for General Strike and physical forces, and those associated with William Lovett and his London Working Men's Association who believed in the Spiritual Force that had always worked for the Souther Economy and those involved in it of all classes. Lovett threw his energies into working class education for the rest of his life.
Cass -
Message 15
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Tuesday, 12th July 2011
This involved- I have suggested- creating a massive Financial system building on the whole idea of National Debt that had proved vital to the success of England and Great Britain, allowing the State to spend more than the National Income- and thus cushion the people from the consequences of war and struggle, including the Cold War Â
But the economic boom that followed WW2, say from 1950-1973, meant that governments on the whole did not run budget deficits until the 1970s.
And Western Finance now found whole new "virgin fields" for investment as former "no go areas"- (the ex-Soviet Union, China, India etc) became the places of high returns for venture Capital Â
But really the flow of capital is mainly in the other direction as far as US-China is concerned. The pattern of trade is such that the US runs up a massive debt that China funds through its 'savings'. The overall impact is an erosion of US economic power that results in, it can be argued, a resort to greater reliance on US military superiority to dominate parts of the globe such as the Middle East and Central Asia. With not, as it turns out, great success. -
Message 16
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Tuesday, 12th July 2011
very much in line with much of mainstream writing that held that King Cotton and Lancashire was the face of the Modern World.. And in so far as it inspired both Communism and Capitalism ideologiesÂ
The working class agitaion and organisation witnessed at the time certainly impacted upon Marx and Engels. -
Message 17
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
stuart
To some extent the conditions just after the war were as favourable to economic planning as they were in the USSR when Stalin went for "Socialism in one country".. The wealth of the rich that might have been loaned as National Debt was used to provide one-off tax-revenues. The twin gospels of Keynesianiasm and British Socialism argued for policies of full-employment, and there was no lack of work to be done- not least in rebuilding parts of the world more completely devastated than the UK.. Marsall Aid allowed them the finance needed to buy what they needed for reconstruction from the USA and from the UK, while it was some time before they could challenge British producers within the UK economy.
Where credit was important was in exploiting the new credit-worthiness of the British working class who were now looked after by the Welfare State and had "jobs for life". By the Fifties Hire Purchase was making it possible to spend beyond current earnings, and by the mid-to late Fifties the newly affluent "teenage" class- young workers, who were not expected to give all their earnings to keep the family viable, were particularly attracted to a new "free-wheeling" lifestyle.. The USA was the mecca of teenage culture, but Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield vied with Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren and Gina Lolobrigida: and British teenagers could find aspects of the reviving Mediterranean culture actually brought a version of this "good life" within reach. Bubble cars, scooters, bikinis and summer holidays. By the Sixties and Harold Wilson's "Buy British" campaigns Balance of Trade and Balance of Payments were a constant worry, and the wars of 1966 by impacting on the price of oil produced the crisis that led to another Labour Government devaluation.
However the UK ND figures that I found are:
1914 £650m
1919 £ 7,000m
1945 £ 21,000m
1983 £126,000 m
which suggest that once the global economy had begun to really recover from the 2WW the UK was obliged to increase its ND in 38 years to almost six times what it had taken to amass in the 250 years to 1945. And of course the most recent Labour Government is alleged to have doubled it within Gordon Brown's premiereship.
Cass -
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
As you say "witnessed"-- Engels was a foreigner within a very special and exceptional context in which working people had learned the arts of manipulation that were very common in that age of Gothic Horror, especially since William Wilberforce had used them to try to defend Yorkshire, Hull and woollens against Lancashire, Liverpool and cotton that were destroying Yorkshire and Hull's economic position and prosperity.
It was a natural extension of the means that English people had used to protect the prosperity of their regions in the spirit of local "Commonweal" for centuries. But Engels like most foreigners tended to believe in just what he saw around him, and was told by both sides of industry that Lancashire- though perhaps not typical of England- was the face of the Future, a place of Adam Smith's market economics which were by then being interpreted like laws of Nature- the law of the jungle which followed an inhuman "Invisible Hand".
I think of Marx and Engels rather in the same light as the Americans who "bought" the stories of Cuban and Iraqi exiles and decided that the status quo within those countries demanded a revolution.
Cass -
Message 19
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
The twin gospels of Keynesianiasm and British Socialism argued for policies of full-employment,Â
I think we are at cross-purposes here. When you said 'allowing the State to spend more than the National Income- and thus cushion the people from the consequences of war and struggle' it sounded very much as if you were suggesting that 'over generous' public spending was for ever increasing government debt. This is a common misconception and a mistaken argument often advanced by right wing economists, blaming publc spending for economic problems.
As I said, pretty much consistently through until around 1974, govt spending was covered by tax revenues year on year. There was no resort to 'deficit financing', a key component of Keynes (even though the period is decribed as the Keynesian period). It was only when the first major recession kicked in that a necessary resort to public sector deficit was made.
But as you rightly show, govt debt did increase but NOT due to over spending on a 'bloated' public sector. Most certainly the relative inefficiency of the British economy meant regular balance of payment crises, attacks on sterling, resort to IMF loans and as a result CUTS to public spending from time to time.
Your reference to hire purchase is interesting. Whilst there was consumer borrowing, the relative wage levels at the time meant a fairly low wages/debt ratio. This ratio of wages to consumer borrowing rose enormously from the 1980s onwards (the 'neo-liberal' period). In other words the relative wage levels were not sufficient to keep up consumption levels and to maintain economic growth rates that were being achieved in 1950-73. And so through to the Gordon Brown period that you cite, more and more reliance was placed upon consumer borrowing, what we might call 'privatised Keynesianism' was the central means of driving economic growth.
And as I pointed out, a similar situation arose in the US, ever greater reliance upon borrowing (and imports) a build up of debt to achieve 'normal' rates of economic growth (actually rates of growth still lower than that enjoyed in the post-war boom).
I think of Marx and Engels rather in the same light as the Americans who "bought" the stories of Cuban and Iraqi exiles and decided that the status quo within those countries demanded a revolution.Â
They were surely a great deal more sophisticated than you imply. They were raised in the Rhineland area, an industrialising region within a 'feudal' political set-up, hence they could witness the contradictions that drove their philosophical outlook- in fact they were active during the 1848-49 German revolution/counter-revolution.
They would find themselves building upon and challenging the important German philosophical advances, building upon the economic insights of Smith and Ricardo, challenging the limitations of 'utopian socialism' of Owen, Fourier, Saint-Simon in terms of how change can occur, and grasping the implications of capitalist advance, of 'alienation' etc...
. -
Message 20
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
stuart
As for the sophistication of thinkers- this rarely seems to have gone as far as believing "the working classes" capable of at least equal or greater sophistication..
There seems to have been something of a naive belief in many quarters of the equally naive honesty of "the labouring man". Charles Dickens often uses this in line perhaps with that Victorian idea of hard work making people honest and virtuous. And history books since the early days of the Webbs and the LSE with its Economic History project have tended to swallow much of the propaganda of the "Age of Gothic Horror" as literal truth..
In fact as I have said William Wilberforce and the anti-slave trade campaign showed how to appeal to the sense of moral outrage within the "respectable public" amidst those unsure time outrage usually allied with a great deal of ignorance and presumptions of evil.
Of course the situation in the "Wild West" of Lancashire- a place of mushroom growth and good earnings during the war-time boom associated with the French Wars 1793-1815 - became pretty desperate when the very advantages of "Virgin territory" for rapid industrialisation in regions without the long history of regulation and protection for age-old and valuable crafts and trades meant that during the depressions both after 1815 and after 1834 the plight of those, who had been content with a situation in which there were jobs for "hands for hire", now left them devoid of the kind of protections and stabilities that were expected elsewhere.
Of course after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 the migrant Irish could no longer apply to the Poor Law system for it to pay their passage home, once they had reduced themselves to poverty by either sending money home or spending it. It probably helped to create the stereotype of the Irish drunkard who could have drunk all his wages, and would only be a pest if he had to over-winter in England. And this migrant worker status-very familiar to me in my Brixton teaching days- would have impacted on the worst living conditions observed in Lancashire by Engels and many other observers.
When the factory system started creeping over the Pennines into Yorkshire the result was Richard Oastler's article on "Yorkshire Slavery", and the Sadler Enquiry, which, like the Wilberforce Campaigns was a very cleverly conducted and stage-managed attack on the threatening factory cotton factory system as it spread into woollens through mixed fibres cloth.
In fact the Sadler Enquiry, dismissed by contempories as flawed and suspect, became, like much similarly dubious material, a favourite source of lurid quotes for historians. But any impartial historian reading the Sadler Report should recognise that it is really just one long presentation of a case for the Prosecution, with witnesses being obviously led along by the questionning, and such a historian should frame those questions that should have been put for the defence.
It is certainly true that for many people this seemed a war, a matter of life and death, and the propaganda was that of wartime- with a similar respect for "the whole truth".
As we consider the hacking scandal and the unhealthy proximity between politicians and others and the Press, it is only sensible to accept that "the working class" were just as adept as anyone else at presenting their case in the way that they thought best suited their self-interest and not the truth.
Henry Hobhouse in his Section on the Potato in "Seeds of Change" comments that the Irish "hewer of wood and drawer of water" in the Eighteenth Century was forced by circumstances in Ireland to become a bit of a "chancer", and he was probably not alone in seeing no reason why he should be honest and truthful in a situation in which community and social spirit was so singularly lacking..
An old Irish man in his nineties that I sometimes see on his a daily constitutional has mentioned occasions when, rather than tell the truth, he used a "bit of the old blarney".
Certainly the authorities decided that the common people were quite capable of lying when it suited them.. This was the conclusion of Leonard Horner, the first professional factory inspector, whose reports seem to have helped to persuade the Government to set up the Registry of Births and Deaths.. Parents lied that their children were old enough to work, and it was certainly suspected that women turning up with dead babies to claim burial fees from the Poor Law were actually passing dead babies around. n order to make multiple claims.
Cass -
Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 14th July 2011
stuart
re your other points:
(a) As we agree National Debt is and usually must (like all loans) merely cover temporary and exceptional difficulties, for repayment assumes that the borrower will be better off in the Future.. In the early years of the English/British National Debt it is very noticeable that the close connections between the "investing interests" and the political establishment (often a family connecion) led very quickly in the frequent wars in discussions that identified very early on what benefit might be gained from victory. Such war aims often included the acquisition of assets like Gibraltar and the right of Assiento gained by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
Harold Nicholson's "War Diaries" show how Winston Churchill set him the task in the summer of 1940 to draft war aims of a similar nature- beyond the purely negative one of defeating Hitler and Nazism, since he and others were worried that the working class in particular might take the view that the war was a "Capitalist" or bosses war. By this time Nicholson- like some others- was an Independent Labour MP, those others including Steven King Hall who in his popular book " Our Own Times" had noted (as you have commented) that in the late thirties all British politicians had become socialist with a small 's'. Nicholson immediately started drawing up plans for a much more socialist Britain that might hea the "Two Nations" rift: a rift reflected by a comment by Attlee in the War Cabinet when the German bombing strayed from the London Docks, and the homes of the East Enders, and had hit the West End, even Buckingham Palace. Attlee said that had been a grave blunder, since had the bombing remained focussed on the working classes the Germans might have produced an working class uprising.
It always surprises me the extent to which Middle Class Socialists regard the actual working class.. But then that is why someone like Beatrice Webb, a rich capitalists daughter, who was haunted by Goethe's Dr. Faust, could see herself going down into Hell to rescue poor working people from the conditions that reduced them to such depravity. She explains in "My Apprenticeship" how she stumbled upon the horror of working class incest so readily believing a Gothic Horror, Victorian melodrama reality. Working, she thought, undercover in a London sweatshop she found one of the girls very distressed and took her out to tea. The girl said that she was pregnant. At this Miss Potter (as she still was) demanded to know who was the father of the baby, and offered to go with the girl to her father and then with him to the young man to demand that he should marry the girl. One can only imagine what the girl felt at having her life taken over in this way, and admire the brilliance of saying "But we can't. My father is the father".
It would have been a concept particularly abhorrent to the spinsterly Miss Potter who had always had a particularly close relationship with her own father, especially at this time when he was wheel-chair bound. She does not explain what she subsequently did to help that particular girl. But her subsequent investigations into the whole area of working class incest is now regarded as of seminal importance.. More recently, however, the whole question of paying for stories of institutional sexual abuse has every sign of the operation of the law of Supply and Demand.
(b) Re the beginning of consumer credit to some extent the point that you make is in line with the basic principle that any addictive and compensatory consumption will usually require progressively larger and larger doses in order for it to achieve the same effect.
But credit must surely have had a negative impact upon the wage-rates and competiveness of the British economy.. A basic flaw in the Keynesian macro-economic model was that he assumed that it was really like the Farday Induction Ring in a magnetic field. Turn it and it produces electricity. Feed in electricity and it turns. Substitute the dynamism of money for electricity and you get a working economy generating money. And money being pumped into a static economy will make it work. But every fool knows that handing over money is no guarantee that the subsequent energy-release will go into productive work..My neighbour advanced his builder £10,000 that he said he needed to buy supplies, and the next week when he phoned him he was in the Canary Islands.
As economists have put it all those assets that improve the value of leisure time increase the costs of hours of work. Hire Purchase made it possible to enjoy evenings and week-ends enhanced by the value of the work that was not yet done. But this made that work hard to endure and apparently pointless. The British worker became famous as the clock-watcher in the afternoons and especially Friday afternoons. The Friday car became infamous.
But overall the impact that I found as a comprehensive teacher from 1967 was that most of the children really saw little need to actually do more than attain the level that allowed their parents to live as they now did, and the whole idea and culture of Self-Improvement that became so important in the mid-Victorian period was dead. For the most part when I pointed out that for those whose parents were illiterate and totally unskilled such jobs would not stay in Britain earning "British wages" and maintaining the "British way of life" linked already to the cheap foreign goods that they were buying they merely responded by saying that they would go "on the dole" if the government could not supply them with a job.
But in terms of the ratio between wages and credit over the last fifty years or so, one other important factor was involved in the process of persuading my girl pupils in the same region some of whom said that rather than bother with school work when they left school they would go "on the game", while others would "work in Woolworths" for a while before getting married and having a baby by the age of 21. Female emancipation and equality became one of the great movements of the Seventies. But I did point out to the pupils in the girls school that I taught in that some of the most vociferous voices in favour of wage-discrepancy between men and women were the women who wanted to continue a culture in which men tried to earn "bread-winner" wages, in a Britain in which Economic Man was balanced by Social Woman.
The subsequent mass entry of women into the Labour Market surely had an impact on the price of Labour in accordance with Supply and Demand, and moreover- given the fact that some jobs were seen as more suitable for women, who had an aptitude for picking things up quickly with only one or two days training, this produced cost-advantages for certain kinds of industry in which increasingly British workers were/are merely assembling components manufactured elsewhere with only limited potential, therefore, of really high earnings- or real career progress.
But this does mean that the relevant ratio is not between actual wages and credit, but between household income and credit.. This certainly applied to the most important credit that most ordinary people are involved in, especially with Mrs Thatcher's drive for a Britain of homeowners, - the mortgage. Given Britain's continuing dirth of housing and therefore inadequate Supply the increase in effective Demand as more and more couples had combined incomes drove up the price of house purchase and rent, in what became a real estate speculation not unlike that the preceded the Wall Street Crash in 1929.
Cass -
Message 22
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Friday, 15th July 2011
As for the sophistication of thinkers- this rarely seems to have gone as far as believing "the working classes" capable of at least equal or greater sophistication.. Â
In examining the period that you are alluding to I would suggest that, after the immense hostility towards the Chartist demands from the ruling elite, Britain saw a period, to some extent fostered by economic prosperity, of the ruling elite and their two political parties gradually accomodating to the extension of the franchise. No longer was it a threat, rather the two big parties felt they could 'domesticate' the working classes, sell the illusion that parliament really was the pinnacle of democracy- alongside this was the rise of the press barons who could promote a populist nationalism of us being all in it together. The working class was less of a threat, more of an opportunity to mould in the chase for votes (Conservative Unionism trading on hostilty to Irish being an example).
Things started to change in the upsurge of 'new unionism' in the late 1880s, the start of a slow process whereby a chunk of the working class vote was to shift from Liberal to Labour. But in this respect it is evident that it was 'defeat' of labour struggle that promoted the rise of the Labour Party; the formation of the ILP in 1893, the LRC in 1901, and the winning of the vote from the Liberals after the defeat of struggles between 1910-26. The defeats appear to have fostered the idea that labour is too weak to defeat the forces of capital through 'self-emancipation', hence a reliance on parliamentarians and the gradulaism, or social engineering, of Fabianism.
since he and others were worried that the working class in particular might take the view that the war was a "Capitalist" or bosses war. Â
Quentin Hogg famously said in parilament (1943), 'give them reform or they will give us revolution'.
But credit must surely have had a negative impact upon the wage-rates and competiveness of the British economyÂ
Well clearly the financial sector did very well. It is not difficult to discern a major shift in the growth of finance and at the same time the contraction, in terms of share of the overall GDP and most certainly in employment, of the manufacturing sector- a massive shedding of manufacturing jobs whilst the financial sector grew correspondingly. And what is more, when the inevitable happens, when the results of such reckless gambing become clear, when it becomes patently obvious that you can only rely on paper growth as an alternative to actual growth for so long, the banks are sacrosanct and receive massive bail-outs to save capitalism (something Keynes would have loved), whilst we are 'all in it together' and are told to 'tighten our belts' in the form of attacks on real wages, jobs, public services etc.
Essentially nothing has fundamentally changed since the 19th century, at least in terms of power and economic 'solutions'. -
Message 23
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 15th July 2011
stuart
Except that your whole analysis is based upon the change that came about c1870 when the world became very obviously a reality obsessed with the struggle for the survival of the fittest, led by the new emerging "superpower strength" of the USA and Germany.
One really showing how "carpet bagging" and unprinciple private Capitalism that swept down to grab windfall opportunities like the Unionists who went to the defeated South while the Confederates were under the weight of the consequences of defeat did, could produce incredible economic dynamism and power in a Big Bang. Everybody had the chance to be rich was the message, but it could only be sustained by making the USA the new "Workshop of the World". This "American Dream" was taken as sanctionned as a manifest destiny by God as a new project based upon a newly planted Christian Civilization in a New World.
The other- the German revolution- was heavily based upon the history and lessons of Ancient Rome and the Teutonic Dark Ages, passed through the crucible of the more recent Dark Age in Germany during the Thirty Years War- a folk memory revived by the French invasions of the Revolutionary and Napoloeonic era. Unlike the American experience the German one was one of embattlement and subjugation by invaders and conquerors. But it was similarly self-obsessed and based upon a "never again" premis that prioratised the need for a strong German nation that looked after and fought for its own interests.
For a long time the USA was content to follow the Munro Doctrine and just dominate the Americas, while exploiting the global economy. In Germany one of the ladies in the international women's movement was probably saying nothing really exceptional when she wrote in 1914 that a World War would probably be a good thing. Germany would win it and then run the world as it should be run i.e much as Germany was being run and managed.
Around 1870 this was a new reality that swept away the internationalist, small state, and sustainable community ideas of mid-Victorian Britain. It was an age of great windfall exploitation and appropriation of the natural resources of the world, as present individuals and nations claimed ownership of the Earth and the right to dispose of its assets at will, with no thought of the long-term viability of systems that were built upon finite resources. The ghost towns of the American and other "gold rush" regions were no warning, nor were the consequences of "potato patch economics" particularly in Ireland. Mono-culture in food production, and mono-industrial activity in line with Adam Smith's specialization had inherent implacations for instability and tragedy.
In his 1967 study of Cobden and Bright Donald Read ended with a tribute to the relevance of Cobden to the Sixties.
"He was an internationalist and a democrat who has stood out as an inspiration not only for his own time but for the future time, including our own. The era of high protection , extreme nationalism and rampant militarism, which began after his death, and which culimnated in two world wars, is now seen as a disastrous interlude. In an important sense the world of the 1960's is continuing from the point where Cobden hopefully left the world of the 1860's a century ago."
But the apparent stability of the Sixties which made people feel that it would be possible to head to a " Promised Land" (as M.L.King saw it) gave way to a turbulent and unstable world that saw yet another apparent world order collapsing into the kind of Dark Ages that became an ever present theme in disaster movies. How many people reacted to the collapse of the Twin Towers by commenting that it looked like something from the movies?
Cass -
Message 24
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 15th July 2011
Cass,
you wrote:
"The other- the German revolution- was heavily based upon the history and lessons of Ancient Rome and the Teutonic Dark Ages, passed through the crucible of the more recent Dark Age in Germany during the Thirty Years War- a folk memory revived by the French invasions of the Revolutionary and Napoloeonic era. Unlike the American experience the German one was one of embattlement and subjugation by invaders and conquerors. But it was similarly self-obsessed and based upon a "never again" premis that prioratised the need for a strong German nation that looked after and fought for its own interests."
I thought that the united Germany from 1880 on became an economic worldpower thanks to its good education system and its already from the past industrial areas...if Belgium had had the size of Germany it could have fulfilled the same premises (arguments?)...
Cass, your history writing seems many times so "exalted" to me. Not sure if I don't mix the concept of the French word "exalté" with that of the English word?
In the French dictionary it means among others "surexcité" (over excited).
The concept of words is difficult in any language. Had this evening already the same difficulty for another message with the Dutch word "verzuchting", which was translated in my Dutch-English dictionary with "lamentation", which is not the concept of "my" word "verzuchting". As I know that it is a dictionary mainly with North Dutch words, which many times differ from the South Dutch concepts of words I had a look in a big Dutch dictionary...and it said that the word "verzuchting" meant in South Dutch "longing" as I had in mind for the concept of that word...
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 25
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 15th July 2011
Paul
Thankyou for your post..
I have written in my latest "book" at some length on the impact of historians on the German revolution of the Nineteenth Century. For the German Scientific School of History seems to have been very important. Just picking out a couple of key elements:
(a) Niebuhr- was vitally important to the turn around in the fortunes of Prussia that made Blucher and his forces co-victors with Wellington and the British at Waterloo.
Bartholdt Niebuhr's father had been in the service of the Danish Royal Family. A great traveller and writer, who made sure that his son was well educated. In the late 1790's Bartholdt came to Britain and was struck by the way things were done here. He studied the history and evolution of English government. Then, as a Prussian patriot, he went back to Prussia and entered government service applying "English lessons".. It was enough to turn around the fortunes of Prussia: but not Germany.
(b) Von Ranke- The historical background for the story of Germany was really provided by the incredible work of Von Ranke particularly in two domains.
First, he rescued the Roman Empire from its "Decline and Fall" by detailed studies of Roman government in the provinces, that showed that- whatever was going on in Rome itself- the Teutonic regions were actually quite well governed and profitable under the Roman Imperial model. Teutons well-governed could thrive.
Secondly he turned his attention - as Niebuhr had done to England's successful historical development- to the great German Empire at the heart of Medieval Europe.. Of course to some extent Austria-Hungary was a hang-over version of the Holy Roman Empire. But it still bore the imprint of the Hapsburg families mulit-national empire building, and 19c Prussia destroyed the Austrian leadership of the German people.
Von Ranke described the greatness of a specifically German Empire, at a time when the scale of state building and economics seem to demand a world of Empires as the only way to create order and stability, as Rome had brought to the ancient world by its military strength, its governmental structure and its legal system.
Even in Britain the logic of the Roman model seemed inescapable as Western European states found themselves confronted with a global reality that far exceded what Europeans had had to cope with before.. There was the vastness of North America, Africa and Australia with huge expanses of underpopulated land. Russia too. Then there were the vast populations of India and China. Nothing in the small state tradition like the Greek City States, with Athenian democracy seen as the height of the democratic ideal, seemed to offer a sufficient model. Even Ancient Greece could not hide for ever from the might of the Persians of the borders of Asia.
As stuart has said the modern sources of strength were "power and economics" and these were pursued by a new German Empire- as Matthew Arnold might have said only Germans could.
Arnold admired the way that the German mind always carried things through to their logical conclusion, whereas the English mind always seemed to pull back from such lucidity, not wishing perhaps to shock, offend or appear to aspire to the kind of Superman status which some Nineteenth Century German thinkers thought were needed in these times.
Perhaps it is appropriate to comment- in view of your comments- therefore that French people often find me most "unEnglish" in my thinking and discussions, and there is probably some significance in my having created a half-french family.
As for whether history could have inspired such ambitions amongst the Belgians, perhaps we will have to wait for Poldertijgr to find time to work on his thread some more. For the important thing was that by the end of the Nineteenth Century German Historians were writing of the Natural History of civilisations, which of course necessitated an orginal birth. long period of development and a great flowering. It was possible for Germans like the Italians and perhaps the Jews to argue that in the new scale of operations new states could now emerge that could bring together people of one nation, language and culture. I am not sure that any of this applied or applies to Belgium.
Regards
Cass -
Message 26
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Saturday, 16th July 2011
Hi Cass,
Some interesting points. It led me to consider the body of work on 'imperialism' largely drawn from the Marxist school but including the Liberal, Hobson, in the earely part of the 20th century. In trying to make sense of the drive towards two world wars, the stand-out piece is N. Bukharn 'Imperialism and the World Economy ' (1916), , as unlike Hobson and Lenin, his work emphasises the important role of industrial, in addition to 'finance capital', interests.
But how useful are such tools of understanding in view of what we know of the post WW2 world,the impact of economic boom, decolonisation, the dynamics of the Cold War? Many, including the discredited Anthony Giddens, would regard 'globalisation' as serving to diminish the role of the state and hence the tendency towards military conflict. But surely, the challenge to US power (the 'victory' in the Cold War came at a high economic cost) is creating tensions that have led the US to seek military solutions and assertions of power consistently in recent times. -
Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 16th July 2011
stuart
My thesis is that - as I have explained I think on the Russia wild east thread today- that there was an rising expectation of some kind of climactic and decisive show-down in the build-up to 1914.. there was to be a struggle for the future between various ideologies that had been forged in the 60-70 years prior to 1914.. I maintain that "The Letters of the Lost Generation" show that Vera Brittain's young men who went off to war many with such ambitions to prove themselves and their civilization were already "lost" and doomed. In reality- for one reason or another- they were -as in the Louis Armstrong song "motherless children" or in fact "fatherless" as well for one reason or another..
I remember from my A levels over 50 years ago that the Turks in the Eighteenth Century were greatly feared because of the units that they had which were made up of children taken from subject peoples, and trained only to act as the military arm of the Ottoman Empire. So these young men were sent away from their parents from the age of 6-7 and educated in boarding schools in order to be a new elite.. The pure gold of Plato's Republic that they had no doubt all studied.
Very few of the beliefs of the period before 1914 survived intact.. Quite by coincidence I discovered the life of the Reverend Dick Sheppard, the great peace campaigner of the inter-war period, who so narrowly missed the military carreer that his brother followed with some distinction.. And Dick played a very important part in shaping the Way that the British people reacted very differently to war from the way that those Victorian generations had been taught to do.
Around 1924 the British Legion found itself struggling for funds to look after such large numbers of war wounded. They proposed the traditional solution. A charity ball would be thrown at the Albert Hall on Armistice Day as a fund-raiser. Dick Sheppard wrote to the press and raised a campaign against this proposal, coming up with his own alternative suggestion of an act of solemn remembrance. That is what was done. And what we are still doing, and Dick's biographer notes that the Remembrance event raised more money than would have been raised by the ball tickets.
This is true. But throwing a ball, like throwing a Medieval Feast had very important economic and social consequences. It is in fact a Keynesian type of injection into the economy, and it was a recognition by the leaders of society that life must go on, however little inclined they may have felt themselves to go out and party. The ball tickets are just the start. All the women would be likely to want new ball gowns, and other items of atire, possibly new jewellry- or their existing jewellry refurbished. There would be accommodation before and after the ball. Transport. Meals at nice restaurants.. etc
But the war had killed all of those traditions and the understanding of them.
Of course it did not help the inter-war period that Einsteinian physics had almost totally blown away the security of the Newtonian predictable and mechanistic universe. Humankind was heading away from "Steady State" thinking to "Big Bang", and perhaps we should not be surprised that by 1932-3 there was what was called "World Chaos" ( 1932 G.D.H. Cole "An Intelligent Man's Guide to World Chaos") .. Steven King Hall's book "Our Own Times 1913-38" was a great success in the late thirties because "Commander King Hall had been a navy man, educated in the naval college and a commander at the Battle of Jutland. He wrote his account not as a history but as an odyssey to be navigated as all men of the sea have known how to do. It is interesting because he identifies waves of favourable and unfavourable tides, and for him the period 1933-38 was a period of "interesting times" when the challenge for "The Captain on the bridge" was that fundamental one of bringing all on board through the stormy waters. With war looming- among other threats on the horizon- he welcomed the fact that British domestic policy was socialism that would take care of everyone during this difficult passage.
But after 1945 the amount of destruction in Europe was so great that it was very apparent that ground had been lost, and the most sensible thing to do was to retreat back to more solid and reliable ground that had worked before when everything seemed to be full-steam ahead. That is back to the 1890's. Actually D.H. Lawrence had written a piece on this back in the Twenties when he wrote that Western Civilization had advanced to the brink of a precipice with no way forward , and the only possibility was to retreat back to tried and tested paths..
Thus in the UK the post-war Labour Revolution- as I have called it- more or less totally carried out the goals laid down in the Bradford Conference back in the 1890's. And therewith also brought back the obsessions with power, the economy and militarism from that period.
As for the way ahead.. I have often postulated writing about "Cobbett economics" because William Cobbett, usually dismissed a "Radical Tory", did try to apply the old lessons and principles that had underpinned English economic and social development for at least a thousand years. These ideas were in opposition to the ideas of what he called "Scots feelosofers" who were quite prepared to sacrifice human beings, and societies to the inhuman mercies of the laws of economics.. Interestingly in c1922 in that age of questionning after the IWW, G.K.Chesterton chose to deliver a major lecture on Cobbett and wrote a slim biography, arguing that he had gone too far out of fashion, for the times called for such a man who took upon himself the task of being a champion for "the little man".
As it is my major "book" (unpublished) is called English Peace.
Cass -
Message 28
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Sunday, 17th July 2011
Cass,
In returning to the 1870s, one is struck by the divergent approaches by, on the one hand the US and Germany who responded to the economic depression by
'the formation of trusts, cartels, syndicates and so on...' taken from Hobsbawm 'Industry and Empire'
and on the other , Britain, who was
'disinclined to take the path of systematic economic concentration...this left only one way out....the economic and increasingly political conquest of hitherto unexploited areas of the world. In other words, imperialism...' Ibid
You were alluding to that process in an earlier post, I believe. however, Britain was forced to follow suit, albeit belatedly, and by the early 20th century was witnessing a similar form of economic restructuring.
Reading your posts, if I read you correctly, makes me think you are attracted to the Chesterton/Belloc notion of 'distributionism' of small capitalism- however, surely the direction has been relentlessly towards the creation of bigger and bigger monoploly firms- I'm wondering how you may see your favoured model taking root in the face of big, powerful, multi-national capitalism. What is the agent for change? -
Message 29
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 17th July 2011
stuart
I think that your distinction between Britain and the USA , while real enough, makes a distinction that is not really determined by government policy but by the dynamics of the age- All historians (I think) accept that by the 1860's Britain began to suffer from having been the first country to industrialize, and in so doing the small and personal scale of originally English economic activity was a great advantage. "There is a power in the small to overthrow the mighty"- and England was relatively cheap to defend compared to continental countries, notably France.
In fact the cheapness of "English" defence was something that led those American colonies to feel in 1776 that- now that Britain had really destroyed French, Spanish and Dutch ambitions in North America the colonists could "take it from there" and deal with any further threats themselves with things like Washington's amateur militiamen.
As Steven Watson brings out in his passage on Adam Smith and the "Wealth of Nations" (published in 1776) Smith actually assumed the same kind of stability which European powers seemed to have finally achieved in the Age of Reason, and his whole thesis was really based- not upon the Victorian idea of competition and the struggle of the survival of tyhe fittest, but on the refined and cultured world of his French friends where everything could be negotiated in a civilised fashion.. Under William Pitt the Younger - a great fan of Adam Smith- Britain negotiated trade deals with France based upon mutual self-interest and specialization.. As I have mentioned already today Aldous Huxley in "Brave New World" pointed out that such civilised and intelligent politics was not possible, quoting a Lord who had suggested after about three years of the First World War that there should be an attempt to negotiate the end of a conduct that was merely causing harm to everyone, as it might have been done in the Age of Enlightenment.
But the Age of Revolution changed all of this producing nationalism and national self-interest, and a new age of turbulence, which Britain tried to channel into a trend of solid progress, reform and economic growth. And the successful export of both British goods and the British model created a whole new dynamic in fields that were able to reap economies of scale in a way that was just not possible in the UK. And the wide world was by definition a greater resource than the mere British Isles. What gold and silver these islands had possessed had largely been exhausted as far as commercial exploitation was concerned. The new technologies were using commodities like oil and rubber that Britain did not have. And a great British invention like the Gilchrist-Thomas process for steel making rebounded to Britain's disadvantage. The British deposits of iron ore were just not suitable for exploitation by the GT process.. But the huge deposits in the Lorraine region that Germany took from France after the victory in 1870-1 were ideally suited. As were the deposits around Lake Superior, in the USA.
But in many ways the financial developments and large commercial conglomerates that became typical of the USA, were British creations. You seem familiar with economics so you are probably aware of the argument that states that all the high yield investments get invested in first, so that over time the field for attractive investment gets smaller and smaller.
I used to joke to pupils that from some time around the late Eighteen Sixties the people with "get up and go" got up and went, variously as emigrant workers and their families (the mass Irish emigration had started earlier) or as young men (usually) going out to change the world rather than their own fortunes. And the flow of Capital did the same. From the 1850's I believe that British investors were already heavily involved in building railways around the world. After 1857 when India came under Raj rule railway building was encouraged with investors being given guaranteed returns.. But the great railway investment was in crossing the USA ,and Beatrice Webb's father was one of the great figures involved in financing the US railways..
It was in such "green field" sites that huge investments on a large scale could produce great returns. But Britain was a "brown field" site where there were already governent restrictions on business and employment, local vested interests to protect communities, well organised trade unions, and increasingly a the expense of governing a country that was no longer so cheap because of the demands and expectations of a growing population.
I have not studied the comparative demographics recently, but I am reminded of those famous figures for life expectancy in Manchester during the horrors of the Industrial revolution.. They look to me very much like the kind of thing that Cobden and his Manchester School people produced in the late 1830's when they wanted to persuade the people of Manchester of the need to make use of the new law that allowed Machester to become a city with an elected local government with the power to levy taxes.. Scare-mongering propaganda.
Manchester had grown mostly by inward migration. The old men and women of Rutland stayed in Rutland. The people who moved in were largely young adults, plus at an earlier stage the pauper children. Eventually with a young pupulation babies arrived, and, with mortality being most common amongst babies and infants, and old people- the average age of death in the city was clearly going to be very young. Very few old people and lots of babies.
Emigration from Britain in the late Nineteenth Century similarly was something mostly undertaken by young people, and there was concern over a very real gender gap- significantly more men emigrated than women. And it is the female population, and not the male that determines the birth-rate. By 1914 some of those part of the British Empire like Canada and New Zealand had the highest per capita National Income in the World.. But I have discussed with Caro in the past the very special "Man Alone" culture of New Zealand, in which many homesteads were just run by one man with his sheep.
Dr Kitson Clarke in his Sixties study "The Making of Victorian Britain" paid tribute to the incredible effort that was made in Britain in the mid-Victorian period to address what were seen to be the real problems of the age- the lack of any widespread understanding of Christian Civilisation.. There was so much "promiscuity" (in the Victorian and the modern sense) with the result that the Malthusian spectre of the consequences of growth- war, famine and disease- were a constant concern.. The answers were church building and education. But Kitson Clarke quotes the Red Queen (?) from Alice in Wonderland. "It takes all the running you can do to stay still."
Thus 1870 was a crucial moment Forster's Education Act gave "the private sector" a last chance to provide education for all, after that the State would set up local school boards empowered to set up State schools funded out of the rates.. But this was still to be within the successful traditions of English society. A society of freeborn Englishmen managing human problems on a human scale. In the rest of the world, the inhuman power of tyrants, emperors etc who cared not for their people, and whose government was not subject to the effective "sovereignty of the people" seemed still to be necessary such was the huge scale- so unlike anything in England, and often so terrible.
Perhaps I will end by adding another post from something I have written on my h2g2 site- which I think links up with the general thrust of this post.
Cass -
Message 30
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 17th July 2011
However in 1869 the students turning up to the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford to hear John Ruskin’s inaugural speech as Professor of Poetry were left in no doubt that they would be living in really challenging times once more.
Ruskin said:“There is a destiny now possible for us, the highest ever set before a nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in temper, but have still the firmness to govern and the grace to obey... Will you youths of England make your country again a royal throne of kings: a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace: mistress of learning and of the Arts, faithful guardian of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires: and amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of nations; worshipped in her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? ....This is what England must either do, or perish: she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men: seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching these her colonists that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and sea: and that, though they live on a distant plot of ground, they are no more to consider themselves therefore disenfranchised from their native land than the sailors of her fleet do, because they float in distant seas... If we can get men, for little pay, to cast themselves against cannon-mouths for love of England, we may find men also who will plough and sow for her, who will bring up their children to love her, and who will gladden themselves in the brightness of her glory, more than in all the light of tropical skies.â€
(Correction though Ruskin made his inaugural speech in 1869 this one was listened to by students who included Cecil Rhodes and Osar Wilde- both of whom dedicated their lives to trying to make this world a better place- according to the way they saw it through this Oxford lens)
Cass -
Message 31
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 17th July 2011
stuart
In the absence of other activity I was thinking that perhaps I had not fully addressed your question about future economic models..
But I believe that a purely economic model of life is too specialised and lacks adaptability, especially when the advantages of "economies of scale" become disadvantages. And one could cite the way that the might of the Murdock Empire has amplified the current scandal..
Old English common sense argues "The bigger they are, the harder they fall".. And in the women's World Cup Final today David has beaten Goliath once more..
In c1927 Julian Huxley and H.G. Wells wrote a book "The Science of Life" in which they said that times of revolution were times that did not favour large and cumbersome species that had been favoured by settled conditions to which they had adapted, for they could not quickly adapt to the new and ever changing conditions.. And it is the adaptability of the human species that has proved to be its greatest asset.. And one that large-scale enterprises generally destroy. The USA wants to "Americanise" the world.
Nevertheless as you say England had to adjust to the times, and later on from that Ruskin quote I wrote this:
***
THE VASTNESS OF THE VICTORIAN ABYSS
But that sense of urgency in Ruskin’s speech also reflected the fact this year of 1869 was a year on the cusp of significant change.
In a perceptive study published in 1962 Professor Burns explored the special characteristics of the period of British history between 1852 and 1867. He called it “The Age of Equipoiseâ€, not a period of quiet and calm, but a welcome period when Britain could focus on progress after more than half a century of having to worry about the implications of the external tides of revolution and reaction. In many ways, however, it seemed almost a golden age of progress, not least as the spirit of scientific enquiry produced revolutions in thought that were as striking and important as the more obvious technological innovations.
As a result we have become accustomed to looking at apparent confidence of Victorian Britain, the size and solidity of so much that the Victorians built as indicating a stiff, smug, vainglorious, ‘pomp and circumstance’ self-satisfied culture. But that solidity was, like the solid constructions of Ancient Egypt that were being excavated, a conscious and deliberate effort to defy the inevitable ravages of time and change. For, if politics seemed to quieten down relatively speaking, giving people more time to think anout things in the round and explore new ideas and projects, the Victorians found themselves in a thought- world of chaos, revolution and disorder.
It was an age when History was at times all the rage, and a popular History like Macaulay’s “History of England†could be a best seller, but the comprehension of more recent times was all the more welcome because Modern History had to compete with a growing body of authoritative and “scientific†studies of Ancient History, Medieval History, Archaeology, Palaeontology, Zoology, Botany, and Biology, all of which conspired to shatter the comfortable man-centred time-frame that had been supported by Christian theology for more than a thousand years. There was newly discovered geological time too that seemed totally inconsistent with the words of the Bible; and the Victorians were fascinated by the fact that there had been an age of the dinosaurs, great creatures which had become extinct because they could not adapt. ‘Adapt or perish’ the fossilised bones seemed to say; and mighty Nature “raw in tooth and claw†caught the public mood more.
But the nineteenth century excavations went on to reveal the human faces of Ancient Rome and Egypt, and the new and unexpected mysteries of Assyria. People had long known about Rome and Egypt ; but the discovery of the Mesopotamian civilizations like Assyria, great empires that had been lost without trace was a reminder of “home truths†in a society obsessed with death.
Evidently ancient history agreed with Biology. Life is a fight for the survival of the fittest - and Humankind along with every other species needed to be capable of taking bold action. It was Germany, however, that was to really launch the new age. Niebuhr had been inspired by the strength of England/Britain. But Britain in 1799 was still a small country. Other German historians like Ranke, however, had “excavated from records†the History of a strong and vital Medieval German Empire, while Mommsen, as has been mentioned, had also shown the working reality of the Ancient Roman Empire. Empire were obviously the way forward.
***
But the English at home, unlike the Germans, were a mundane and pragmatic lot. J.R. Green in his radical new "History of the English People" showed that the English had navigated their way through change over a thousand years at the small and human scale of the market towns like his native Oxford. This history was published in the 1870' s just in time to show that the newly emancipated lower Middle Class and prosperous working class had actually been the backbone of England, free to respond to the realities of the common people in an English commonweal.
For the next 40 years it was still hoped that the challenges of the day could be tackled at this level with local boards, and "Municipal Socialism. In fact the horror of the abyss finally came through the gigantism of States like Germany, Russia and the United States dedicated to economic growth and economic models..
Cass -
Message 32
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Monday, 18th July 2011
Cass,
You seem to positively identify with Ruskin's pro-imperialism. For me, 'progress' is best achieved by considering the development of one of his contemporaries, a person much influenced by Ruskin, William Morris. Morris rather liked Ruskin's dislike of modern industrial capitalism but would himself gravitate towards a firm anti-imperialism,actively opposing British imperial wars and aligning himself strongly with radical socialism.
Of course, ideas of racial superiority helped justify imperial ventures, although for an even better explanation of why the 'Scramble for Africa' arose, one should best view it as a response to economic depression, and an opportunity to achieve high yields on investment, opening up markets for exports, securing important strategic bases and protection for important transportation routes.
If I read you correctly, you seem positively struck by the 'small firm' mentality of Britain versus, as you put it, the 'gigantism' of other imperial powers. For me, this will not wash. Surely, the logical response will be, if Britain can enjoy the fruits of empire, why not Germany? And following on from Germany's war drive, what forces are available to stop the drive to war? And here we must consider how it was that the vast majority of German socialist parliamentarians backed their state in August 1914 (despite being pledged not to), an act that would have lasting repercussions across the international left for years to come. -
Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 18th July 2011
stuart
(a) Ruskin's mission including the work of inner city missions to bring Christianity to the British people.. He was like Morris a Socialist, and Rusking College has given us many Labour people like Mr Prescott
(B) You seem to overlook the fact that the English had learned lessons of their history.. The TV series "The Birth of Europe" commentary said of the Roman Empire "ultimately the Empire outgrew its strength" and this would fit in exactly with the kind of "Natural History" version of the rise and fall of Civilisations that was being pioneered by German historians down to 1914.
Britain seems to have been much more interested-while acknowledging the strengths of the Greco-Roman legacy, in the secret of the long-enduring Civilizations of Asia- obviously far in advance of the Mediterranean World for most of the last 5000 years, when Middle Eastern and European Civilizations have come and gone.
The Indian History Professors who wrote an advanced history of India published in 1947 gave full acknowledgement to the British efforts to revive the Ancient Civilization of the Sub-Continent, to make the Indians proud of their great heritage and the undertake a revival that would make it relevant to the modern world..
T.B. Macaulay in his speech on the India Act in the late 1830's ended with statement that an independent self-governing India educated according to the needs of the current world would be possibly Britain's greatest achievement..
And my own view is that the "Labour Revolution" of the Attlee Government was seized upon by the old Indian Civil Service (and its offspring like R.A.Butler) as an opportunity to show that a British Oxbridge elite bureaucracy would be more successful in creating a "British Raj" than it had been in India, where nationalism and the age of catastrophe had hampered their efforts.
I was also interested to read a few years ago Sir Robert Douglas' 1904 volume "Europe and the Far East"" which takes very much that line over China, which was not quite so decrepit when the East India Company started to try to do business there.
Douglas brings out very clearly the very different strategy followed by Britain and France, so that the joint Anglo-French military expedition that went all the way to Pekin and the Imperial Palace, was content to leave the Chinese Emperor in his Heavenly City, but accepting also a role in the wider world.. There was some confidence that once China had accepted to join the growing global community China too would modernise. And in 1904, while dealing with the whole of the Far East, Professor Douglas highlighted the success of the Japanese in adapting to Western ways. At that time it was possible to believe that, though Japan modelled itself a great deal upon Germany, both Japan and Germany might grow out of their "militaristic phases"- often a sign of having suffered from bullying and worse in the Past.
Our Croatian daughter in law asked me yesterday if I had watched the "Three Men Go to Venice" programme, because they went along her beloved Croatian coast. It reminded me of having first read Jerome K.Jerome's "Three Men on the Bummel"- an account of a cycling holiday through Germany before 1914.. It was still possible to hope then that Germany would "see the light" and follow British/English wisdom, rather than have Britain follow the German one.
But from at least the time that Thomas Carlyle did so much to introduce Britain to German thought people, of his aggressive and hardline temperament had been attracted to the paranoid and PMSS German trend of thinking. Once Carlyle had "made it" he turned from his Liberal Progressive phase to the proto-Nazi phase of his "N* problem" period.
Even Matthew Arnold hailed Goethe as Europe's sagest head. Goethe he said:
"was happy if to know
Causes of things, and far below
His feet to see the lurid flow
Of terror and insane distress,
And headlong fate, be happiness".
And after Goethe German thinking just got darker and bleaker.
Cass -
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 18th July 2011
In terms of social and economic models -and the ideas of the twenties- in 1926 G.M.Trevelyan published a new "History of England".. As very much a modern historian the task involved some in depth swotting up on earlier periods, and there was surely a very Twenties feel in this summing up of the Medieval English village:
"It will be seen that this was not a communist society, or a 'village community' in the strict sense. But individualism was shackled. The manor consisted of a number of private holders, including the lord, very unequal in wealth and in their relations to one another, but with closely inter-related rights, and all dependent on one another for cooperation on a traditional system. Cash nexus, freeddom of contract, fluidity of labour were the exceptionand not the rule."
It was a society that endured in Southern England for over a thousand years- evolving with changing times, challenges and chances.
Cass -
Message 35
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Tuesday, 19th July 2011
Cass,
IMO you appear to be attracted towards particular schools of history that lead you to become nothing more than an apologist for British imperialism, to the point at which you justify interventions and misrepresent the outcome. In your more recent posts you invite readers to applaud the benevolent and progressive impact that Britain apparently gifted to India and China. I would have to dissent quite forcefully and would be happy to examine the 'under-development' suffrered in these particular cases, along with other similar examples such as Ireland and Egypt.
E.H. Carr famously brings out the limitations that result from certain historical approaches in his 'What is History?'. For you, one detects, the analysis is one of a well intentioned Britain against an inherently aggressive Germany. For me, this fails to really scratch beneath the surface in a way Carr would have urged. Germany, in the time period we discuss, was IMO, a compromise built around the failed revolution of 1848. The middle-class had subordinated itself to the Prussian monarchy, the monarchy adapted itself to big business but the Prussian aristocracy continued to run the state machine. The best hope for 'taming the beast' lay not in some adaption to some superior British model (that was, after all, the model of Empire) but in the potentially powerful SPD. The liberal middle-class, whilst initially hostile to the Prussian state, simply went along with it and all the internal repression aimed at the socialists. -
Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 19th July 2011
stuart
It just so happens that this whole thread has become focussed - as I said the post-1945 world became- on revisiting the fifty years before 1914 and looking there for rights and wrongs of the conflicts of an age that I have suggested was obsessed with "the abyss" and ways to climb up and away from it..
And growing up and learning about the rigidities of that tradition has inevitably meant for a historian actually trying to understand the human reality behind those 1914 ideas, an effort of research that has been greatly advanced by very much neglected authors from the "failed" and "lost" generation of the inter-war period- who had grown up with the pre-1914 ideas, and knew them as people know their parents more intimately than their grandparents- much more "warts and all".
As I have said frequently on the History MB, I am not an apologist for any particular pieces of human history, I am an apologist for Humanity. It seems that modern generations are encouraged to believe that they are cleverer than their ancestors, a concept that once more this morning was shattered by a young man in a shop. But it seems very popular for people who know very little about the Past, and seem to understand even less about the Present to assume that "things could have been done differently".
Old wisdom used to argue that "to err is human", and a favourite TV moment is that scene in "The Ascent of Man" - recently highlighted in a documentary by his daughter- in which Dr Bronowski is kneeling in a puddle at Auschwitz saying that such horrors were not the product of science, but are what happens when people aspire to the knowledge of the Gods.
Human knowledge is always imperfect and no models from the Past will serve the needs of the Present, a moment that is always unique and unprecedented.
However in the light of that fifty years before 1914, Communists like Marx did not oppose but rather favoured the industrial revolution as essential progress, and Nationalists favoured the kind of modernisation that British Imperialism brought. Marx just wanted Communist control of the industrial economy, and Nationalists wanted to control the modern countries that were emerging as part of the global economy that Britain created.
Of course when the global economy and industrialisation stalled in inter-war period, and notably in the Thirties self-sufficiency became an alternative option but Gandhi's idea of an India of self-sufficient villages based upon "the world has enough for human need and not for human greed" never really appealed to too many.
Cass -
Message 37
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 19th July 2011
"IMO you appear to be attracted towards particular schools of history that lead you to become nothing more than an apologist for British imperialism"
Actually my "book" "A View of History For Our Own Times" covers the broad sweep of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History, and to some extent into the new Millennium.
But already by 1945 Historians had really lost any belief in their ability to write Future History and to see the possibility of actually building a positively better world beyond looking back at past errors and mistakes and trying to avoid them.
As a teacher of course I know that correcting errors is important, but I well recall how the pupils were in my last school reacted when they received A level essays accompanied by pages of red notes.. They said that they were really put off. Other teachers just put a mark/grade or well done or not as appropriate..
I said fair enough. I would not give myself so much work. After the next set of essays they had put their heads together and looked at what I had been doing, which was suggesting how things could have been assembled in a more logical and coherent pattern, how a particular point could have been expanded on etc.. in short constructive comment about how to write better essays and build on what they had done..On reflection they decided that they rather liked this and asked me if I would continue to give them such positive feed back.
This is surely what history should be about.. We can always "do better". But doing better is not just a case of missing out all the mistakes and errors. In essays and in life.we will all always make mistakes. But some people produce positive benefits that leave their life account in credit.
Cass -
Message 38
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Wednesday, 20th July 2011
Cass,
By pre-1914 ideas I assume you refer to the 'ideology of progress' of 'positivism' or 'scientism', articulated by writers such as Shaw, Wells and the Webbs which was of course later challenged by the 'irrationaliy' and bloodletting of WW1 along with certain developments in physics such as 'uncertainty principle'; this leading to artistic expressions of 'modernism' (with both right and left variants).
In continuing along this vein of seeing writing and other artistic expressions as a by-product of actual politico-historical developments, one notes how for many artists and writers the 1929 slump led to a left or 'communist' commitment which meant placing the hopes of humanity in the success of the Communist Party; this in turn meant backing the 'popular front' tactics in France and Spain or the 'New Deal' in the USA. Such an alignment would lead to all kinds of disillusionment however due to particular events notably the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (which surely made many artists wonder what this 'anti-fascist' popular front stregy was all about and therefore encouraged a move towards liberalism and social-democracy to the point at which writers who used to write for communist inspired journals in the 1930s were writing for CIA financed journals in the 1950s- and probably grassing up ex- 'Reds' to McCarthy).
A further ground breaking year was 1956, the Khrushchev speech, the suppression of the Hungarian revolt on the one hand but the Suez invasion and the Algerian War on the other which led a significant number not only to break with the CP (and the emergence of a so-called 'New Left') but a similtaneous questioning of western 'democracy', a process that was further re-inforced by the upheavals of 1968 and the Vietnam War.
And the '1968' movement would in turn be thrown back onto the defensive with the Thatcher/Reagan 'neo-liberal' response to 1970s economic crisis, the resultant popularity of more 'individualist' solutions and the horrible 'post-modernism' that influenced historical interpretation, 'post-colonial' literature etc.
That, for me, sums up in a very brief way how intellectual currents have responded to events over the last 150 or so years.
A couple of asides. You seem to lump together communism and fascism as totalitarianisms as bad as each other- IMO this widely held view is down largely to the evolution of the CP over the crucial decades as noted above; and related to this you mourn the lack of acceptance towards Gandhi's schemes in India. But surely such a 'utopian' approach was in reality (despite his no doubt sincere beliefs) a means of winning (successfully) mass support for Congress from amongst the peasantry but never a serious rival to Nehru's pro-industrial (with significant state intervention as was the norm for the under-developed world) economic line, as India became an independent capitalist state. -
Message 39
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 20th July 2011
stuart
Thank you for your posts..
Your comments on the inter-war period are very much in line with the "failed generation" thrust that has become the mantra since 1945..
But nowhere is the tragedy of the period more evident than Germany where it is very obvious that it was the collapse of the centre, of people committed to Liberalism and consensus, of working together, created the conditions for a massive surge of support for Communism and the extreme left, and encouraged those on the centre Right to bring Hitler and the Nazis into Government.
This very different Middle Class history to that of the English Middle Class was very important. The rise of the Middle Class in England had been right at the heart of the country's development and increasing power. The German Revolution in the century before 1914 had been created by "top-down" Statism with the Middle Class being quite incidental, Middle Class revolutionary intellectuals like Karl Marx being forced into exile. An interesting personal insight into the position of the German middle classes on the eve of the Nazi take-over is given by Christabel Bielenberg who went to Germany to live with her husband Peter just about that time, and describes how the Bielenburg family- with roots in Hamsburg's old trading traditions from the Hanseatic League- kept right out of politics.
But- though the inter-war period did see the effective death of the Liberal Party and the emergence of the Labour Party as the main voice of progressive politics there were other important voices with a very different message than the one that is now associated with the period. Perhaps one of the most important individual Englishmen of that period- was "Dick" Sheppard, who is now hardly remembered because his great struggle against war failed.. And yet I think there were those during the war who took some consolation from the fact that the British people had made it so plain that they wanted to renounce war and to find peaceful solutions.
The book of his "Life and Letters" was first published in July 1942, reprinted in July 1942, reprinted in September 1942, Reprinted in October 1942, Reprinted December 1942, Reprinted May 1943, and Reprinted January 1948.
No doubt war time conditions- and post-war conditions- imposed limited print-runs.. But the reprints indicate a wide readership. Dick Sheppard had in many ways become the nation's vicar in the Twenties- not least by suggesting that the Â鶹ԼÅÄ might broadcast services from his St. Martin in the Fields.. And he varied career did much to foster a mood of Christian socialism and it was through the quiet work of such people that the British electorate was prepared in 1945 to make a "great leap forward" in the interests of trying to create peace within Britain and seeking to heal the class war.
I became aware of Dick Sheppard one evening many years ago when the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio "Any Questions" was being broadcast from the school where I taught that bore his name. A not so old Shirley Williams said that walking up to the school she had been reminded of her mother's great friendship with Dick Sheppard.. And when Vera Brittain married Mr Williams he accepted that Vera's great friend Winifred Holtby would live with them. Holtby too was another one of those important writers and- I have suggested that her best-seller "South Riding" did much to convince people in the late-Thirties that British Socialism would work.
But G.D. H. Cole ended his 1932 "The Intelligent Man's Guide Through World Chaos" with "The Choice Before Us":-
"My own choice is for Socialism; for I believe that the capitalist system has done its work and outlived its strength and usefulness in developing the forces of production that are at men's command. Naturally I want other men to think as I do, and to strike out boldly for the introduction of a Socialist system; but I am well aware that half-hearted efforts to achieve Socialism are worse than useless in that they merely weaken Capitalism without putting anything in its place. If we want Socialism rather than Capitalism, we must make up our minds to struggle for it with all our heart and with all the strength of which men are capable when they make up their minds what they want and act in unity for the realization of their aims."
But after 1945 after the most terrible war in history and quite quickly the prospect of a possibly even worse one (hence D.S. getting re-published in 1948) the mood quickly turned back to the immediate experience of war and the ideas of the pre-1914 period that was overshadowed by wars and class wars.
As you seem to wish to identify my own position, being born in 1944 my early years were quite quickly intimately related to my parents activities in our local Labour Party, where the whole ideal of national unity was perhaps given a real local form by the merging of the Oxford University and Oxford Town Labour Party's.
So those years of post-war childhood were ones when perhaps it was possible to look at the prospects for the world through an Oxford lens- that Matthew Arnold described as being "sweetness and light"..
But I recall the declining of that optimism, and on my seventh birthday, when I was having a very modest party under rationing conditions, my father came in and told my mlother that the Â鶹ԼÅÄ had just reported the feared Wilson-Bevan revolt at the Labour Party conference. Our Labour Government was doomed- but doomed because, as Harold Wilson had to later admit , the "In place of strife initiative" had to be abandonned.
Over the next few years it became obvious that these problems of division were very closely related to the way that History was written and interpreted, locking people into conflicts for they could see no other choice. At the age of 10 I decided to focus on History as the place to look for better answers.
J.J.Rousseau said "All men are born free, yet everywhere they are in chains". For the most part those chains are ideas imposed by what they think that they know about the past.
Cass -
Message 40
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 20th July 2011
Stuart
In view of my last post, and what I felt to be a lost 'window of opportunity' just after the Second Wold War, it seems appropriate to post this link to an extract from the last section of my "book" that highlights another even briefer window of opportunity that looked like being the culmination of the trend of Civilization down to 1914.
I was reminded of this last night when he were at the Proms and witnessed an incredible performance of "The Rite of Spring". What music to herald a new age!
Cass -
Message 41
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Thursday, 21st July 2011
Cass,
The position of the British 'ruling class' through the 1930s was one of seeking to hold on to what they had, therefore looking to avoid war as far as possible as they had more to lose than to gain. As far as what we might call the more indpendent, 'left wing' forces, I would argue that they had been largely isolated following the defeat of the 1926 general strike and the 1931 'betrayal' by Ramsay McDonald. Not so in France it should be noted- although things ended in tears when, in 1940 the parliament elected with such hope for the left in 1936 voted to grant dictatorial powers to Petain.
Ironically the 'left' was, potentially at least, far more powerful in Germany than in Britain but was crushed, IMO, firstly by the SPD leadership who, following the 1918 revolution, worked with the military leaders and used the precursor to the Nazis, the Freikorps, to smash the revolutionary forces- albeit temporarily. The position of the SPD was wholly 'constitutional', thereby failing at any time to use their considerable influence to confront the Nazis, insisting that the latter were acting 'legally'. This was of course compounded by the absurd CP position of regarding the SPD members as 'fascists' and no better than Nazis. And added to this, big business went along with the Nazi schemes as they corresponded to their interests, namely guaranteed profits and the crushing of communism. I'm afraid that looking for 'middle-ground common sense' is fruitless as there was no middle ground.
You write
'A shock of the new from a modernising Russia, whose Finance Minister in 1910 predicted that his country would catch up with the most developed countries if it could have ten years of peace. '
The problem here is that the Russian 'bourgeoisie' absolutely refused to split with the Tsarist autocracy- after the February 1917 revolution and the downfall of the Tsar they carried out exactly the same policy, that of pursuing war. This point is argued well by the Menshevik historian, N.N. Sukhanov when he said that, unlike in previous revolutions witnessed in England or France, the bourgeoisie offered no leadership!
And as regards the Wilson-Bevan split, one only has to point out that Labour, when asked to choose, would without hesitation opt to up military spending in accordance with the alliance with Washington before standing up to any demands to raise health charges. -
Message 42
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 21st July 2011
stuart
I think that your class analysis of the Thirties is incorrect..
1926 was not a "General Strike" in the eyes of the majority of the British trade union movement, though it seems likely that some Syndicalists may well have hoped intended to turn it into one, justifying Churchill's perhaps brilliant use of the term to alert the majority of the people into that possibility.
Nor were the hundreds of thousands of people who agitated and marched for peace in the Peace Pledge Union movement purely non-working class.
But in 1926 some on The Left were probably misled by the apparent great gift to the Trade Union movement by the State when the first tentative steps towards the Welfare State before 1914 recognised the Friendly Society traditions that had been such an important part of the "New Model Trade Unions".. The result- as Henry Pelling brings out very clearly in his History of the British Trade Union Movement- was a vast increase in Trade Union membership in order to benefit from State financed Social Security. In 1926 some may have believed that the strike had millions behind it. But most people had not joined trade unions with that in mind: and perhaps some were old enough to remember that the coal miners- whose strike had been the main issue- had been "working class aristocracy" during the mid-Victorian era. And no-one was too keen on having the State confiscating the Trade Union funds once the courts had ruled against the legality of the Strike- the Miner's Union having been the first to realy try to work within the law employing the lawyer William Prowting Roberts back in the 1850's.
Since 1945 with the Welfare State taking over those Friendly Society functions we have become accustomed to a much narrower and almost purely "trade" role for Trade Unions- especially after the failure of attempts at econiomic partnership with "beer and sandwiches" in High Places on the basis of the Trades Council approach favoured by and pioneerd by the Webbs.
For many men in the Trade Union movement in the Fifties, as I remember well, there was bitter talk of the "lost opportunity" of 1926, and Ramsay MacDonald's betrayal. Trade Unions had no business any more to be "Friendly" and responsible, but only existed in order to fight for their own and other trade union members in a partisan way, led by the Shop Stewards in Wild Cat Strikes that showed the loss of effective overall leadership and direction.
I feel like repeating the quote from Hobbes that I put on the Virgin Queen thread this morning.. about so many people not seeing the necessity for a Commonwealth. But as I also said by the Fifties there was even more of a "ruling class" than ever with- to my mind- a Middle Class establishment trying to validate the British Raj by importing it into Britain.
And your point about the bourgeoisie and leadership applies to both Russia and Germany.. The rise of the Middle Class in England- those who earned their living through their ownership of material and intellectual Capital- is normally traced back to the reign of Edward V. But it is very obvious that it went back even further to the importance of the borough MP's - a much more fruitful source of tax-revenues for Medieval Kings of England than shire MPs. Towns made money, and whenever Medieval Kings asked for money the towns asked for rights and policies that would make them rich enough to earn the money to pay those taxes, and still show a healthy profit.
The monarchs of Continental States did not develop the same traditions, and though they imported much from the English model of Government they could not import the English idea of "the sovereignty of the people"- not least because the English people had their sovereignty wrested away from them as part of the essential process of convergence with Scotland and Ireland, which did not have that same solid tradition and the concomitant solid tradition of a well-established King's Peace.
As for the Wilson-Bevan split- It showed the probable failure of the most important aspirations of the Labour Movement in its most fertile period- that of self-help and self-improvement..
The great Labour leaders of Mid-Victorian Britain took a "give us the tools and we will finish the job" attitude to the Future. MacDonald of the Coal Miners Union and member of the Webb's "Junta", had gone to evening classes since he started work at about 13, and had a degree in Classics from Glasgow University.
After 1945 the great thing was to be equality of opportunity and the chance for Working People to break out of the chains imposed upon them by what Beveridge called The Giants, and thus be able to make their own way in the world as empowered individuals.. But certainly with hindsight the Prescription Charges issue signalled that the post-war world would be characterised by the general growth of a culture of dependence, which Overseas Aid Agencies finally realised was totally undermining their aspirations to empower people and lift them out of poverty. Being working class was now for many defined as being entitled to a subsidised existence largely through the Welfare State, State education and council housing.
"Hands out" and not "hands on" became the way of the world, and in many ways the "ruling class" were quite happy to have masses lulled into a quiesence by means of the politics of the redistribution of wealth so that people enjoyed leisure, security and comfort in a kind of artificial "theme park" "virtual reality".. No wonder it has provided endless plot lines for Coronation Street and East Enders.
Cass -
Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 21st July 2011
Further to my last
I have posted before what I believe is a key quote from the historian and proud Lancastrian C.R. Fay from his 1950 edition of "Great Britain from Adam Smith to the Present Day".
In a piece on the period 1919-1939, in a section entitled 'Labour's Rise and The Social Services' , having refered to Churchill's Widows and Orphans Pension of 1925, Fay wrote:
"How long and how far will the young and fit be willing to work for the old and unfit? Perhaps only so long as the young and fit believe that they can do it intermediately by squeezing the erstwhile rich."
It has been the common experience of States that have accepted the need for some kind of generous Social Contract since 1945 that State spending has tended to rise to almost 40% of National Income.. But very small proportions of the populations in "developed" countries have embraced the need to develop the kind of earning capacities within an increasingly global economy that allow them to spare 40% of their personal or household incomes needed to meet the cost of the State on which they depend.
As the population of "the old and unfit" in these countries is set to rise as the result of 60+ years of Social Security, the whole question of the economic viability of the modern State and its mock-social systems is being thrown into question..
As has been stated several times today the Eurozone was/is a political experiment. But it was a natural progression on from the Anglo-Saxon Plantation solution imposed by theAllies after 1945, by the prestige of victory enhanced by the power of the Dollar..
Cass -
Message 44
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Sunday, 24th July 2011
Cass,
Sorry for delay, was busy and there are a number of points.
If I read you correctly, you continue to take up the Thatcherite argument about the 'unaffordabilty' of the welfare state - clearly a topic that is central to present day politics- and in so doing you pose the alternative of 'self-reliance' in which ideally the role of the state diminishes considerably. Further, you avoid the question of 'who pays' for economic crisis, the rich or poor?; as for you, 'we' as Britons are all in it together (the line of the present government).
I would take issue with you over what I think you believe to be the essence of the welfare state. The welfare state cannot simply be seen as some, ill-conceived, over-generous gift to the masses- a folly for which we must collectively regret and remedy. Rather, as well as being a 'concession', the welfare state was also an important element in helping industry to become more productive, particularly at times of near-full employment; hence public spending on health, education, housing to 'look after' or 'better' the worker. And similarly the safety net of unemployment benefit and pensions can be seen as an attempt to 'conservatise' the working class or to bind them to society's goals thereby making them less likely to engage in industrial disputes.
The problem for industry and governments occur when the system can no longer deliver full employment- doling out benefit to 'long term' unemployed people becomes a 'drain'- hence the constant threats to reduce expenditure. Ideally, the state, from industry's point of view, should only pay welfare to those workers out of work short term during a slump, those workers who will most likely return to employment when the next boom occurs. But this would be very difficult to target towards the 'deserving' and away from the 'undeserving', in reality those most able to adapt what the market demands.
On the question of the General Strike I would say that all the evidence points to a government determined to crush effective trade unionism, one that planned meticulously against a very half-hearted trade union bureaucracy that called out a limited section of workers in the face of government attacks and then, despite the solidity of the strike, ending it abruptly lest 'unofficial' elements take control. The outcome was to render trade unionism ineffective against very harsh economic conditions (particularly in certain areas although due in part to empire trade Britain enjoyed a level of prosperity which will have militated against domestic fascist support) that prevailed through the 1930s.
The economic boom did create conditions whereby some independent shop-stewards networks emerged- the attempts by Wilson and Heath to curb unofficial actions were initially unsuccessful although the 1974 Wilson government finally secured a Social Contract with 'left' trade union leaders, an example of the cosy, 'corporatist' approach of state, unionsand industry in action, which led to acceptance of cuts in living standards- in the face of economic downturn, and thereafter to a decline in trade union strength.
Oddly, you seem less than enthusiastic about 'syndicalism', the more independent form of worker's action that emerged before WW1 and was by nature distrustful of the comfortable arrangements enjoyed by the official layers of trade union bureaucrats who had carved out niches for themselves within the system and were therefore unwilling to 'rock the boat'. Could syndicalism not be seen as positive form of collective self-reliance?
And finally, to respond to your point about the English middle-classes. Whilst there is truth in the point that you make, you give the impression that somehow this results from something superior about Englishness without any consideration as to how political events could shape the particular histories. Of course, middling-classes and 'market relations' did emerge on the continent but developments were inevitably influenced by important conflicts, for example the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, the wars in France, the wars in Germany, the battles and eventual outcome of the 30 years war and, of course, the battles and outcome of the English Civil War. Whole societies, and classes within them could either stagnate, advance or regress depending on the tactics adopted and balance of forces within each particular conflict.
PS. I think you referred to MacDonald but probably meant Hardie. -
Message 45
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 26th August 2011
Stuart
Just back yesterday from a break in France..
An opportunity to do some reading and then writing- which I believe addresses the points that you raise about my attitude to the Welfare State.. When I get time I will type up those reflections that I have entitled "Modern lessons from Medieval History". It is about 50 pages.
But what is relevant here is that the whole concept of a Welfare State is based upon what the 1916 History of Medieval Europe that I read largely deals with, and what the 1963 treatment of Europe in the Renaissance and Reformation identifies as "West of the Rhine" history- the emergence and the inherent strength of the West European nation state..
As the 1963 study points out historians have tended to focus on the role of France, Spain and England/Britain and their various empires. But the world domination achieved by the "West of the Rhine" history was fundamentally challenged when the age of the railways opened up the plains of Northern Germany and the Russian Empire to the developing globalisation- and unleashed the potential of very different traditions.
The supremacy of the "West of the Rhine" increasingly a factor during the second half of the Middle Ages was based upon the relative ease with which these regions could adopt to and adapt principles of legitimacy and security that made it possible for States and those within the States to make use of their "great expectations" in order to unlock the potential of wealth and money. The crucial men behind the men of power were lawyers and bankers, and they made sure that the developing mechanisms strengthened both the hold of the law and the dedication of the community to economic expansion and growth creation.
At the heart of this "West of Rhine" culture was the ambitions to world domination of Spain and then France, balanced by an English determination to always be strong enough to frustrate those ambitions in the kind of world history that could eventually inspire Darwin to believe that all life is about the struggle for the survival of the fittest. Eventually in ages of total war with national conscription essential for the very survival of the State it seemed logical to create the idea of the Welfare State- so that legitimacy and wealth, so long the key ingredients to victorious governments, would be used to extend the benefits of that good government to the common people.
But it is true that conflict is inherent within legitimacy and wealth, and what we have seen since 1945 is that the kind of mechanisms necessary to extend legitimacy and wealth from their crucial historical role in helping the State to meet those responsibilities for which it was created are so large that by their very nature (in the way that they have evolved) they must crush the "common people".
The recent history of trying to create computer systems that will be able to cope with the NHS recoprds of even the population of England and Wales, along with the acknowledged inefficiencies and avoidances of various official programmes like those involved with taxation and social security, shows that the investment required in a traditionally law-abiding community like the UK. In normal times such a State needs almost 40% of GDP and in exceptional times like the ecobnomic crisis of 2008 it may be necessary to borrow money which means a vast increase of the ND, and bind the common people into civil contracts of loan servicing and repayment : not wage-slavery but debt slavery based upon this dependence upon legitimacy and wealth.
After 1945, however, the new Anglo-Saxon world order was based upon the optimistic idea that such values could be rolled out around the world. But not even all of the "West of the Rhine" countries accept this kind of contract, as I know from French history and from long personal experience of French life: and as one moves away from such regions those values, and the associated obligations linked to legitimacy and wealth, have less and less power- hence the ongoing concerns over debt problems in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and where next.
An important part of the thrust of what I have written is that most historians agree that some kind of order, prosperity and population growth was possible during the early Middle Ages because of the emergence of monarchies, nobilities and the church.. But (and this is where East of the Rhine history is particularly significant) those institutions only emerged because of the trust that was earned by individuals who showed themselves possessors of superior qualities. They were, for example, regal, noble and pious and in France the great King Saint Louis shone down through French history as what a King should be like, and in due measure to the extent to which French Governments measure up to that model French citizens will oberve their obligations in the spirit of Jean Jacques Rousseau's "Social Contract".
When legitimacy and wealth are divorced from such higher qualities and obligations, and handled in a purely mechanistical and impersonal way they become impoverished and meaningless. But during the Second World War it became accepted that the kind of mechanisms that had managed the nation at war would also be able to manage the nation at peace.
Driving back through France yesterday morning I listened to a very moving Radio 4 programme featuring the childhood of a writer who has been working very hard to start a free school. His father, Lord **** had drafted the Labour Party manifesto for 1945 and had created altogether about 35 institutions, including what became the Open University. And, having been brought up in this high-powered house (his mother having been a major Â鶹ԼÅÄ producer) he was sent in the Sixties to an experimental comprehensive school where it seems that a leading Labour politician's wife was the Headmistress.
The programme touched me very personally because in 1966 I decided to do a PGCE determined to achieve the same goals as this man's father. As a working class guinnea pig I had got into grammar school and then university, and in 1967 I started teaching in an Inner London comprehensive determined to try to give my pupils the same kind of education that I had had.
The son remarked that he could just not discuss what was going on at school with his father- who was too busy as a workaholic. The father just assumed that the State school would perform, though he himself had gone to a very special boarding school- to which four of his other children were sent.
And at 16 his son got just one O level- a grade C in English.. Eventually he did go to a grammar school and immediately began to thrive, getting a First in PPE at Oxford. And now he in turn is trying to create a new institution that will deliver an academic education to a comprehensive intake. It will not be a State School, but a free school with clear obligations and commitments from all parents and pupils- starting with everyone doing Latin.
He may fail. But he is no longer a believer in the State.. As he said, as a child he would attend meetings at which his father and others would descry and condemn inequality and injustice, and then drive the family home in their Bentley.
The Welfare State was the ultimate culmination of Victorian philanthropic paternalism- in an age of "the loss of the father".
Cass -
Message 46
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Monday, 29th August 2011
the kind of mechanisms necessary to extend legitimacy and wealth from their crucial historical role in helping the State to meet those responsibilities for which it was created are so large that by their very nature (in the way that they have evolved) they must crush the "common people". Â
How exactly would they 'crush' the 'common people'?
In normal times such a State needs almost 40% of GDP and in exceptional times like the economic crisis of 2008 it may be necessary to borrow money which means a vast increase of the ND Â
Two points should be raised here. Firstly, why has it been the case that the percentage you refer to has remained stubbornly 'high' for several decades despite, in the UK for example (although I suggest the situation is consistent across developed nations) our being governed by right-wing regimes utterly opposed to 'tax and spend'? If Thatcher could not shift the process, and those that followed were not markedly different in ideological terms regarding this matter, what factors are responsible for maintaining the situation? Or are you saying we need a government well to the right of Thatcher, are you saying that the 'political will' from the governing classes is just not there? Or could it just be that what we have is simply the reality of a present day capitalist economy in which the state is significant player, regardless of ideologically driven political bluster?
The second point relates to how you go about diagnosing the 'problem'. Indeed, what is the 'problem' ? If you are worried about social spending feeding public debt, then surely what is important is 'net' social spending, that is social spending not covered by taxation. Only if taxes are not being raised sufficiently, and people get a 'net benefit', would any extra borrowing arise. This argument is taken up in a study by Anwar Shaikh, 'Who pays for Welfare in the Welfare State?' -Social Research vol 70, no. 2. It is available on line by googling, I will not post a link as the board does not accept pdf links. Shaikh demonstrates that 'net social spending' does not lead to low growth when making comparions with countries where net social wage is negative ie. spending is less than tax raised.
I would argue that the borrowing problem is not due to 'welfare', rather I would say that wages have generally been too low ie. spending power too weak to facilitate consistent growth rates. Growth has been reliant on borrowing as a result of economic weakness, the only means of warding off recession in the past until we get inevitably to a financial crisis, a massive bail out (more state intervention of course). No sooner has the 'market' demanded bank bails outs than the 'market' demands squeezing on public sector, in the hope that this will stimulate growth when 'high' social spending was never responsible for low growth in the first place. Slumps are, I'm afraid, inherent to capitalism.
. -
Message 47
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 29th August 2011
stuart
(a) "Crushing the people".. Surely you have followed the very hostile reaction to the way that the common people feel an unfair weight has been placed upon their shoulders with the need to service the massive national debts in various Western Countries. What is interesting over the recent riots is the extent to which public opinion seems to have closed ranks against the rioters. The French seem much more prepared to consider that people may have been driven to take extreme action.
(b) "Slumps are inherent to capitalism"..
In fact waves and oscillations seem to be an inherent part of the very dynamic of life- as in the diurnal dynamics of day and night, and the annual dynamics of the seasons.
Nature has evolved methods of organic adaptation and evolution- but the whole point of moderm Western Culture with its dependency upon legitimacy and wealth (both essential to Capitalism and Communism) is that it has been based upon the rigidity of a practical "fortress mentality" in which in some countries- notably the Anglo-Saxon ones- it has been possible to impose a template of human construct and harness the dynamism of life to mundane and fundamentally pointless ends in the greater scale of things.
The whole question of the domination of Western Culture by mechanisms was a theme of Dr. E.F. Schumacher's last book " A Guide for the Perplexed"- a philosophical work that was a logical extension of his "Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Really Mattered".
Regarding the general point about the plight of Western Governments in the post-Cold War era three points are important because of the collapse of Communism:
(a) During the Cold War c20% of US economic activity was defence related- and this is in line with the fact that the USA only achieved full-employment and pareto efficiency when required to act as the Workshop of the World during the Second World War, The Cold War just delayed the post-war depression.
(b) As the result of the end of the Cold War attitudes to the masses changed so that instead of trying to prove the superiorability of Capitalism to deliver higher standards of living, the new approach was much more a celebration of freedom with the personal responsibilities that go along with that. This resulted in a "tough love" approach with people advocating that it should be acknowledged that some people will just use their freedoms in order to live as an underclass- an unproductive burden on productive society with inherent costs in criminality, debauchery and debilitation.
(c) But most crucially the fall of Communism has meant a time of "to the victor the spoils".. Those who paid the high taxes during the Cold War (up to 95% in the UK) now got their opportunity, and a whole new generation of "carpet baggers" descended on the massive potential of countries from which Capitalism had been excluded by Communism and Socialism-- most obviously the huge Land resources of the ex-USSR and the Labour resources of India and China. In the UK Capitalism ended up embarrassed at the Winners and Losers example of Thatcherite Britain. It was not the Capitalist model that they could sell to the rest of the world, and moreover by keeping up taxation levels as a % of National Income in order to give people spending power greater than they earned global mult-nationals maintained a mass market for the low-cost goods that they could produce in their new developments- earning vast profits from globalisation with Western consumers sentenced to "consumer-slavery".
Cass -
Message 48
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 30th August 2011
PS.. Do I remember correctly that the UK Finance Industry in the age of globalisation was producing about 70% of the national tax yield? Perhaps that was just income/revenue taxes.
Cass -
Message 49
Posted by stuart (U1648283) on Wednesday, 31st August 2011
Surely you have followed the very hostile reaction to the way that the common people feel an unfair weight has been placed upon their shoulders with the need to service the massive national debts in various Western CountriesÂ
I've see it presented in this way as a right-wing narrative that 'explains' yet another capitalist crisis. The argument that basically says 'we are all in it together' and that therefore 'we' cannot allow wages to keep up with inflation. And by wages I mean the actual money wages along with what has been termed the 'social wage', sometimes known as 'welfare'. So to pay for the crisis, the 'common people' must accept lower real wages (actual and social) in order that profits remain as high as possible. And as I've already stated, the 'social wage' is actually financed by taxes deducted from actual wages- it simply represents a redistribution of existing resources.
Output can either be distributed as profit or wages (capital or labour). The excessive amounts of borrowing over many years has occured as a result of relatively low real wages. As I've aready said, growth has been largely reliant on spending power in which wages have been supplemented by loans.
In fact waves and oscillations seem to be an inherent part of the very dynamic of life- as in the diurnal dynamics of day and night Â
So you believe this can explain the ups and downs of a capitalist economy?
This resulted in a "tough love" approach with people advocating that it should be acknowledged that some people will just use their freedoms in order to live as an underclassÂ
So why did they did not appear to exercise such 'freedoms' in the post-war period of near full employment?
and a whole new generation of "carpet baggers" descended on the massive potential of countries from which Capitalism had been excluded by Communism and Socialism-- most obviously the huge Land resources of the ex-USSR and the Labour resources of India and ChinaÂ
How has this helped to protect the global economy from slump and stagnation? -
Message 50
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 31st August 2011
stuart
Thank you for your reply.
The problem of low wages that you have pin-pointed has been associated in my experience with an inability to persuade people to get qualified enough to take on the tasks that are worth more within the global economy.
Taking up your point about full-employment and the Welfare State after 1945 as I have said before this was very much in line with the Marshall Plan idea that people must be weaned away from the extremism of Left and Right that led to the World Wars and the threat of a Third.
Keeping the masses away from Right Wing or Left Wing revolutions could be achieved by means of redistribution of wealth, from the USA to Europe in Marshall Aid and internally from the "vermin" rich.
But this whole analysis was based upon the confidence of modern science- including the science of economics. A few years ago I read a collection of pieces written by one of the great LSE intellectuals "The Radical Tradition" ..name escapes me for the moment- Pretty sure it was not Tawney- , but an article that he wrote c1919 about how the British Coal Mines would be run so much better with proper scientific and professional management reminded me of all of that post-war optimism about how our super new Nationalised industries were going to operate.
But the whole thing was based upon ideas about "the down-trodden masses" and how things were going to be radically different when there was equality of opportunity.
Well as a young Labour activist from the late Forties I was part of a working class family that very much bought into that idea. My older sister was too old to really benefit from the new opportunities. My brother did get transferred to a Technical School and acquired the kind of skills that meant that when he was about 60 years old management told him that they had a problem with him because he produced so much more than all the other workers. They struck a deal. As they had made the shop "no smoking" he would go out and have a walk around for 15 minutes out of every hour, which would mean at only about 75% productivity he would not put the other workers to shame.
As the youngest I got to grammar school and university, and then decided to become a teacher and try to give other working class children the same kinds of opportunities that some of my generation had been given in the new Wilson Labour Comprehensive movement.
But, by and large most of my pupils from the indigenous South London population did not want a new land of opportunity, they wanted to do what their parents had done, especially now that the Welfare State had removed so many of Beveridge's Giants and made life less of a struggle.
It was largely in vain that I pointed out that jobs for people with very low education levels, or none at all, would not stay in the UK-- in spite of Harold Wilson's "Buy British" campaign. And there was no point being angry when firms sent the work abroad to workers, who did not expect British standards of living or British wages, because when they went shopping they too would choose the best value goods, then commonly produced in Hong Kong and Japan. As consumers they were not prepared to pay for British wages so they could not blame others for feeling the same way.
Of course some jobs requiring very low educational attainment could not be exported.. Economists often refer to hairdressing as an example of a service industry in which we are forced to pay the people who serve us: and with the gradual demise of British industry as a productive and exporting force, an increasing element of the British work force has been involved in the Service industry just looking after a population in a lifestyle that is pampered in comparison with global norms and, apart from the Finance industry that earns massive profits from helping to Capitalise the global economies where there is a real commitment to growth, the Service industry does very little to help the UK to earn its way in the world.
We are like a decaying aristocracy still trying to hold on to the comforts of our domestic staff.
By the way my brother's firm used to make components for a German firm. They eventually sent a message saying that they had noticed that some of these machines had a word (actually our family name) stamped on them and that these were of a much better quality than the rest. So please could they only have these in future. Needless to say the firm closed down, and my brother's last job was in the Service industry as an undertakers assistant. We can not yet export the funeral business either.
Having mentioned one category of pupils, of course those who did have a drive to make the most of their educational opportunities were often those of immigrant families or status, as I mentioned recently to the Hindu parents of a couple of pupils of mine from some years ago- the oldest one being in my tutor group.
I remember her specifically because in the Sixth Form we discussed her turning down the chance to study at Oxford. She felt that she could not for fear of the Headmistress's anger. I recalled that I had turned town such a chance in 1963 because I did not think from my experience of Oxford (my home town) that Oxford was really ready to take someone from the working class like myself as just a normal run of the mill student rather than a "Guinnea pig" in the spirit of the late forties film starring John Mills.
So I was prepared to back her- even to the headmistress- but by then our daughter had graduated from Oxford, and I felt that I could reassure her. She really had a good time, and then went to work in Cambridge.
But in terms of what can be achieved perhaps the stand-out pupil of my entire career was the 12 year old girl who turned up in my class having been the only one of her family to survive the boat trip that took them out of Cambodia. She arrived from that trauma with no English, but a constant smile and a zest for life. After the Sixth Form she went off to University to do a degree in English literature, and I was especially proud when she asked me to sign her application forms for British citizenship.
The Welfare State was supposed to be all about making this a land of the opportunity to achieve, and some people have treated it as such.
As for your final remark only, the "fat West" seems to be in slump and stagnation according to the latest figures I have seen for the many countries for which the New Millennium contines to be a time of opportunity with spectaular rates of economic growth- and the Land resources of the ex-USSR and the Labour resources of India and China are producing new millionaires and billionaires both in those countries and within the Western Finance industries.
Cass
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