{"id":15813,"date":"2011-11-21T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=15813"},"modified":"2011-11-18T02:01:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T02:01:50","slug":"political-crisis-in-italy-and-greece-marx-on-%e2%80%98technical-government%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/11\/political-crisis-in-italy-and-greece-marx-on-%e2%80%98technical-government%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Crisis in Italy and Greece: Marx on \u2018Technical Government\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years Karl Marx<\/a> has again been featured in the world’s press because of his prescient insights into the cyclical and structural character of capitalist crises. Now there is another reason why he should be re-read in the light of Greece and Italy: the reappearance of the \u2018technical government.\u2019<\/p>\n

As a contributor to the New York Tribune<\/em><\/a>, one of the widest circulation dailies of his time, Marx observed the political and institutional developments that led to one of the first technical governments in history: the Earl of Aberdeen<\/a> cabinet of December 1852 to January 1855.<\/p>\n

Marx’s reports stood out for their perceptiveness and sarcasm. The Times<\/em>, for its part, celebrated the events as a sign that Britain was \u201cat the commencement of the political millennium<\/em> in which party spirit is to fly from the earth, and genius, experience, industry and patriotism are to be the sole qualifications for office\u201d; and it called on \u201cmen of every class of opinion\u201d to rally behind the new government because \u201cits principles command universal assent and support.\u201d All this excited Marx’s derision, which poured forth in his article \u201cA Superannuated Administration. Prospects of the Coalition Ministry, &c<\/a>\u201d (January 1853). What The Times<\/em> found so modern and enthralling was for him sheer farce. When the London press announced \u201ca ministry composed entirely of new, young and promising characters,\u201d he mused that \u201cthe world will certainly be not a little puzzled [to learn] that the new era in the history of Great Britain is to be inaugurated by all but used-up decrepit octogenarians (…), the bureaucrat, who served under almost every Administration since the close of the last century; other members of the Cabinet twice dead of age and exhaustion and only resuscitated into an artificial existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside the judgments of individuals are others, naturally of greater interest, concerning their policies. \u201cWe are promised the total disappearance of party warfare, nay even of parties themselves,\u201d Marx noted. \u201cWhat is the meaning of The Times<\/em>?\u201d The question is unfortunately all too topical today, in a world where the rule of capital over labour has become as feral as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

Economics and Politics<\/h3>\n

The separation between economics and politics that differentiates capitalism from previous modes of production has reached its highest point. Economics not only dominates politics, setting its agenda and shaping its decisions, but lies outside its jurisdiction and democratic control \u2013 to the point where a change of government no longer changes the direction of economic and social policy.<\/p>\n

In the last thirty years, the powers of decision-making have passed inexorably from the political to the economic sphere. Particular policy options have been transformed into economic imperatives which, brooking no contradiction, disguise a highly political and utterly reactionary project behind an ideological mask of apolitical expertise. This shunting of parts of the political sphere into the economy, as a separate domain impervious to change, involves the gravest threat to democracy in our times; national parliaments, already drained of representative value by skewed electoral systems and authoritarian revisions of the relationship between executive and legislature, find their powers taken away and transferred to the market. Standard & Poor’s ratings and the Wall Street index \u2013 those mega-fetishes of contemporary society \u2013 carry incomparably more weight than the will of the people. At best political government can \u2018intervene\u2019 in the economy (the ruling classes often need to mitigate the destructive anarchy of capitalism and its violent crises), but they cannot call into question its rules and fundamental choices.<\/p>\n

The events of recent days in Greece and Italy are a striking illustration of these tendencies. Behind the facade of the term \u2018technical government\u2019 \u2013 or \u2018government of all the talents,\u2019 as it was known in Marx’s day \u2013 we can make out a suspension of politics (no referendum, no elections) that supposedly hands over the whole field to economics. In an article of April 1853, \u201cAchievements of the Ministry<\/a>,\u201d Marx wrote: \u201cThe best thing perhaps that can be said in favour of the Coalition [“technical”] Ministry is that it represents impotency in [political] power at a moment of transition.\u201d Governments no longer discuss which economic orientation to take; economic orientations bring about the birth of governments.<\/p>\n

In Italy, the key programmatic points were listed last summer in a letter (meant to remain secret!) from the European Central Bank to the Berlusconi<\/a> government. To restore market \u2018confidence,\u2019 it was necessary to proceed rapidly down the road of \u2018structural reforms,\u2019 an expression now used as a synonym for social devastation: in other words, wage cuts, attacks on workers\u2019 rights over hiring and firing, increases in the pension age, and large-scale privatization. The new \u2018technical governments,\u2019 headed by men with a background in some of the economic institutions most responsible for the crisis (Papademos<\/a> in Greece, Monti<\/a> in Italy), will set off down this road \u2013 no doubt \u2018for the good of the country\u2019 and \u2018the well-being of future generations.\u2019 And they will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who raises a discordant voice.<\/p>\n

If the Left is not to disappear, it must discover again how to identify the true causes of the crisis that is now upon us. It must also have the courage to propose, and experiment with, the radical policies necessary to achieve a solution.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

Marcello Musto is a Professor of Political Theory at York University, Toronto, Canada. He maintains a blog at www.marcellomusto.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 socialistproject.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years Karl Marx has again been featured in the world’s press because of his prescient insights into the cyclical and structural character of capitalist crises. In the last thirty years, the powers of decision-making have passed inexorably from the political to the economic sphere. The events of recent days in Greece and Italy are a striking illustration of these tendencies. Behind the facade of the term \u2018technical government\u2019 \u2013 or \u2018government of all the talents,\u2019 as it was known in Marx’s day \u2013 we can make out a suspension of politics (no referendum, no elections) that supposedly hands over the whole field to economics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-socialism-marxism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}