What can leaders do?

Chris Dillow asks What can leaders do?.

Jeremy Corbyn's victory has prompted Corbynmania from his fans and talk of the collapse of the party from his critics. Both reactions beg an important question: how much difference do leaders make?

There's a famous quote from Warren Buffett:

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

What he's getting at is that companies have organizational capital — cultures and ways of doing things — which are very difficult to change. The same might be true of political parties. It is rare for big established ones to collapse, Pasok and the Canadian Liberal party being notable exceptions: the thing about the Strange Death of Liberal England is that it was strange. And it is rare for them to be utterly changed: as Archie Brown points out in The Myth of the Strong Leader, transformative leaders are rare, and require especial circumstances. Those who complain about Blair moving to the right understate his orthodox social democratic achievements in, for example, reducing pensioner poverty and NHS waiting times.

In fact, Buffett is echoing something Marxists have long pointed out, that Labour is fundamentally a social democratic party which has only limited ability to change capitalism: Mr McDonnell's aspiration to transform it might be over-optimistic. One thing Miliband and Poulantzas agreed upon in their famous debate was that there are big constraints upon what parliamentary parties can do. As Miliband wrote:

Social-democrats have tended to be blind to the severity of the struggle which major advances in the transformation of the social order in progressive directions must entail. (Socialism for a Sceptical Age, p163-4)

Emphasis Mine

This is why a political party outside of the mainstream is needed to wage revolutionary struggle. This party has to be grounded in the realities of workers' lives, but develop their revolutionary consciousness.

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Conspiracy Theories as Comfort Food

I think that conspiracy theories are a way for people to comfort themselves with the competence of our evil overlords.

As I read about conspiracy theories and listen to their believers, I notice that there is an unshakeable belief in the efficiency and competence of the conspirators. People ardently believe that the conspirators are capable of maintaining the conspiracy over decades and changes in personnel.

Any objection to the veracity of the conspiracy is immediately countered by a fantastical suggestion. The believers have no doubt that the conspiracy is real. No argument can dislodge that belief.

One thing that the believers cannot abide is incompetence. These conspiracies have been carried out and maintained flawlessly.

It is this fervent faith in competence that gives hope to the believers. Even though the overlords (The British Royal Family, the Bilderburgers, the Illuminati, the Masons, the Catholic Church, the International Communist Conspiracy, the Lizard People, etc) have evil intent, they are supremely competent in implementing their plans. There is a plan, no matter how evil.

This gives comfort to people in that we are being ruled by a competent, disciplined group of people who have a long term plan.

The reality of a mob of squabbling, rich brats who are fighting over short term gains, is too horrible to comtemplate.

It into this squabble among the ruling class that the workers must insert themselves in order to get rationality over the future of humanity. The Capitalists do not know what is best for us; only we do.

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The lies that keep the PKK on terror list

Dave Holmes debunks The lies that keep the PKK on terror list.

The Erdogan regime is waging a war on the Kurds. Cities, towns and villages in the Kurdish-majority southeast are under attack by the security forces. People have been killed in their homes and on the streets; thousands have been arrested. More than 100 areas have been declared “special security zones”. Recently, HDP offices across the country were attacked by rightist mobs.

Naturally the PKK is helping people resist these attacks. But despite everything, its response has been limited. PKK leaders have said its forces should attack only those police and army units that are involved in attacks on the people.

The war must be stopped and the settlement process restarted. This is what a big majority of the people of Turkey want. The war is the project of the Erdogan regime.

Australia should not be its accomplice. The government should pressure Turkey to stop the war and re­start genuine peace negotiations. Lifting the ban on the PKK would be an excellent start to such a campaign.

Emphasis Mine

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Is the Pace at Which Labor-Saving Technology is Entering the Workforce Accelerating?

Mark Thoma asks Is the Pace at Which Labor-Saving Technology is Entering the Workforce Accelerating?

There are various pieces of evidence suggesting that the answer is “no.” Most importantly, if the rate at which machines are replacing workers is increasing, then productivity growth—output/hours worked—should also be increasing. But it has been slowing.

One reason for slower productivity growth is diminished investment in capital goods—like machines—a trend that also doesn’t square with the acceleration hypothesis. …

Emphasis Mine

In other words, there is no acceleration in automation, but a constant growth. The cap on real wages has kept the incentive for capital investment low.

Inefficient use of human labour is cheaper than efficient use of automation. This means that productivity growth is slowing.

With the slowing of productivity growth, the opportunities for profitable investments are decreasing. This leads to a decrease in capital investment, and so the cycle continues into a global recession.

Stronger unions means stronger wages growth. This means that human labour has to be used more efficiently, and this drives technical and managerial innovation as well as capital investment.

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