Really Useful Knowledge about British Brexit capitalism
David Edgerton has written a very interesting and useful examination of the recent history of British capitalism:
https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/2307
He has also written on the subject for the Guardian and most recently in the New Statesman (link below).
I was pleased to chair a recent seminar at Kings that he gave under the auspices of the London Socialist Historians Group, where we discussed in particular the issue of total history. That is an understanding not just of labour history but how that is part of the history of capitalism and the interaction between capital and labour that is a key dynamic in history.
I copy below the final two paragraphs of the NS piece.
In it he argues correctly I think that the idea that the British bourgeoisie were divorced from direct political representation is wrong and that many industrialists of the pre-1945 era were also Tory or Liberal politicians. He goes on to argue that by the 1960s there was a kind of national capitalism with giant concerns such as ICI dominating industry.
In the present day much of UK industry is owned elsewhere in the world and while that is also a pattern in other countries Edgerton argues it is far more pronounced in the UK.
If we take for example Labour’s commitment to nationalise the core telecoms network currently in private hands, in France and Germany it remains very much in the hands of the State.
The first paragraph below I entirely agree with. The second is more problematic. It has something of the ring of the Alternative Economic Strategy of the 1970s promoted by Tony Benn amongst others.
There are several points that can be made. The first in defence of Edgerton is that while in the 1970s the AES may have looked a bit like the politics of Little Britain given the disconnect there is in British society between wealth and those who create it bringing the focus of wealth creation nearer home may an important political move.
However the issue about how to control a capitalism that is global still wont be solved by autarky, not of course that Edgerton is suggesting that it would be. Perhaps the point is to shift the emphasis of British industry back more into the European mainstream and way from the extreme position created by Thatcherism and now promoted by Johnson and Co. Its not socialism but the process of making the shift could raise many important matters in that direction.
Progressive reform has always depended on understanding present realities in order to determine exactly what needs changing about the economy and how it can be changed. If nothing else, Brexit has been a long overdue education in the realities of Britain’s economy.
While both liberals and Marxists argue that the nationality of capitalism does not matter, there is a need to rethink the case for a national capitalism in this age of economic inequality, political fracture and geopolitical uncertainty. If nothing else, by embedding the economy more deeply into the nation and the daily lives of its citizens, and by directing itself towards national purposes and having a greater stake in developing national skills and innovations, a national capitalism would underline and reinforce that lost idea of the common good.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/11/how-britain-was-sold
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