Starve the Beast, Feed the Depression: Anti-government ideology is crippling pandemic policy<\/em>) Yet what are they doing? Krugman notes the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cEveryone, and I mean everyone, knows what is really happening: McConnell is trying to get more money for businesses while continuing to shortchange state and local governments. After all, \u2018starve the beast\u2019 \u2014 forcing governments to cut services by depriving them of resources \u2014 has been Republican strategy for decades. This is just more of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which raises an obvious question: how is the politicians of a governing party seeking to funnel government money into the hands of business an example of \u201canti-government ideology\u201d inaction? In reality, it is government action and so these \u201canti-government ideologues\u201d are<\/em> responding to the crisis, they are<\/em> using the government machine they are part of \u2013 <\/em>to funnel monies to the wealthy, to the capitalist class, to corporations. Yes, this is not what is required now. Yes, they are obstructing and squeezing out more sensible policies. Yes, they will cause vast suffering \u2013 but it is hardly \u201canti-government\u201d when politicians are using the bloody government to pursue their favoured policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo how is a government bill which sought to give billions to corporations \u201canti-government ideology\u201d? How was the goal of giving the head of the Federal government carte blanche <\/em>over $500 billion \u201canti-government ideology\u201d? How is skewing government action towards favoured sections of Capital an example of \u201canti-government ideology\u201d? is it a case of flawed and self-interested government action not really government action? Is it a case of that the recipients of government largess determine its \u201canti-government\u201d credentials rather than the fact of government action?<\/p>\n\n\n\nSimply put, the government having the wrong \u2013 whether subjectively or objectively \u2013 policies is not \u201canti-government ideology\u201d: it is government action. Thus we have the frankly bizarre situation that many \u2013 including well-educated professors \u2013 view giving $500 billion to corporations as an expression of \u201canti-government ideology\u201d but giving an identical amount to the people is \u201cgovernment intervention\u201d! Strange\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there is other example of cognitive dissidence: \u201cEarly Monday Trump tweeted out an assertion that he has the power to overrule state governors who have imposed lockdown orders \u2014 which suggests that we may have a constitutional crisis brewing, because as far as anybody knows he has no such power.\u201d (Economists Aren\u2019t the Ones Pushing to Reopen the Economy: On cronies, cranks and the coronavirus<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\nSadly, Krugman does not explain how seeking autocratic power and concentrating even more power into the hands of the head of the government expresses \u201canti-government\u201d ideology, feelings or policies. Presumably, if Trump does indulge his authoritarian instincts and refuses an election or refuses to admit defeat and the Republicans back him then we would have an \u201canti-government dictatorship\u201d? Presumably any citizen protests shot by troops \u2013 or by pro-Trump activists \u2013 in such a scenario would be victims of \u201canti-government government violence\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or, to take another example, Trump using government power to force meatpacking industry to open and to protect the companies from future lawsuits. Then there is the awkward fact that Trump and the Republicans have been very happy to increase funding for the armed forces, indeed they even want to add a new branch \u2013 Space Force! \u2013 to the armed might of the State! How is that the action of \u201canti-government ideologues\u201d? Or is it a case of \u201cin space no one can hear you rant about Ayn Rand\u201d and so does not count?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the UK we have to suffer comments like these on \u201cthe innate Tory distrust of collectivism and state intervention \u2013 which Johnson shares, whatever his rhetoric\u201d (John Harris, \u201cWe can\u2019t hide behind the bunting \u2013 let\u2019s face up to what\u2019s happened to Britain,\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, 12 May 2020). This completely ignores that the Tories have made state intervention against, say, trade unions a leitmotif of their administrations and which Johnson vocally championed and, in his election manifesto, promised to increase. Does this mean laws regulating workers\u2019 organisations and actions not \u201cstate intervention\u201d? What of the centralisation of funding and control under Thatcher which gutted the independence of local councils? Is that not \u201cstate intervention\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe facts are the Republicans and Tories are opposed to the State acting even slightly in the interests of the population but in favour of it acting in the interests of the elite, the capitalist class and their various hangers on. Yet anti-worker policies and intervention is still state intervention. So we must neither forget that the State intervenes all the time, for numerous reasons., and that these \u201canti-government ideologies\u201d will never refuse to use the State to protect capitalist property rights. Nor will they refuse to use governmental forces if people decide not to pay rent, utility bills, etc. as a result of Covid-19 impacting on their income. Nor let people act for themselves \u2013 they will send in police and troops if, say, homeless people take over a hotel or hospital staff take needed equipment from warehouses \u2013 private or public \u2013 without paying for it or getting permission from the appropriate bureaucrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That the right wants to limit State action to specific and very narrow sections of society does not mean government action is restricted or limited, for helping Capital can be an expensive business. Moreover, it increases State power for it does not reduce the repressive functions which are its essence, in fact the powers of repression must by strengthened as free competition results in more discord and inequality. Thus the so-called paradox of \u201cfree market, strong State\u201d is no such thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government acting in the interests of business (or, at least, certain sections of it as some bosses seem to be aware that dead workers cannot produce profits for them) is hardly \u201canti-government\u201d \u2013 not least decreeing that capitalists cannot be sued by those \u2013 or, more correctly, their next of kin \u2013 who are infected as a result of being forced by necessity to go back to work. Still, this will not stop many on the left proclaiming elements of the right as \u201canti-government\u201d or \u201clibertarian\u201d when the reality of the situation is clearly and obviously the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So in terms of left and<\/em> right, the Situationists were correct: theory is when you have ideas and ideology is when ideas have you. Although, is it fair to call the right ideologues when they clearly have no ideas?<\/p>\n\n\n\nStill, the right are seeking with unseemly hast to kill workers to \u201csave the economy\u201d, or, more correctly, the profits, interest and rent extracted from labour. Yet the dangers of reopening without disease control or a vaccine can be seen at the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, USA. Its boss offered workers a bonus if they showed up every day in April to increase attendance and it worked. However. in a pandemic, this simply encouraged the sick to haul themselves into work and so the plan backfired. Hundreds of Smithfield employees were infected, forcing the plant to shut down for more than three weeks. Another example: A hairstylist from Missouri potentially exposed more than 90 customers and colleagues to coronavirus after going to work for a week with symptoms of the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The right want to repeat the same mistake across the whole economy. It is no coincidence that Senior White House Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett called working people \u201chuman capital stock\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Needless to say, genuine libertarians \u2013 libertarian socialists \u2013 are urging people to understand and follow the advice of the experts. This means the epidemiologists rather than the politicians who filter that advice. Likewise, we should be dismissive of others who claim a competency where none exists. So, for example, while many economists have been asked \u2013 often not even asked! \u2013 to talk about how to manage the pandemic, few \u2013 if any \u2013 epidemiologists have been asked about managing the economy. Which seems unfair, particularly as most economists understand how a real capitalist economy works just as well as the typical epidemiologist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which brings the relevance of libertarian tactics to the fore. Direct action and solidarity is what we need now. Solidarity with our fellow workers means self-isolating until it is deemed safe not to. It means direct action when it is not safe. As such we applaud the welcoming sight of workers walking out when faced with unsafe working practices during the current crisis. Thus, according to a Guardian<\/em> report, dozens of employees at an American Apparel clothing plant in Selma, Alabama, took direct action on 23 April after two workers tested positive for coronavirus. The plant has remained open during the pandemic to manufacture face masks for a US army contract. \u201cWe left for our own protection,\u201d said employee Norma Kennedy. \u201cBeforehand, management said if someone tested positive they would shut down and have the plant cleaned. When workers tested positive, they didn\u2019t want to shut it down. They\u2019re not really concerned about the workers.\u201d Elsewhere, Ieshia Townsend, a McDonald\u2019s worker in Chicago walked off the job in protest of lack of hazard pay, proper personal protective equipment, paid sick leave and lack of health insurance benefits: \u201cWorkers like me are going on strike because McDonald\u2019s and other billion-dollar corporations do not care about us as workers. They don\u2019t care if we\u2019re safe on the job, they don\u2019t care if we\u2019re sick on the job\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs anti-government \u2013 and anti-capitalist \u2013 theorists, anarchists should be encouraging such actions and arguing that the only genuinely safe way of opening the economy is by workers\u2019 control. Likewise, we need to resist the Trumpian death cult attempts to \u201copen\u201d the economy at the expense of working-class lives. We should be following the example of the medical workers who, in suitable PPE, protested the Astroturf \u201creopen the country\u201d events. Solidarity, like mutual aid, in a pandemic is essential \u2013 profit-grinding is not and will get you killed. And we must never forget that there are better ways to help those workers who are suffering during the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To conclude: we must use a new, better, label to describe this. These words from these words from the very first issue of Freedom<\/em> (October 1886) are still appropriate:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cTo understand the Governmental application of laissez-faire<\/em> learn the two -following rules of thumb. 1. When the proprietors molest the proletariat, laissez-faire<\/em>. 2. When the proletariat resist the proprietors, interfere to help the proprietors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nSo a suggestion: how about replacing \u201canti-government\u201d with \u201canti-worker\u201d? This is a far more accurate label, not least because it resolves the apparent contradiction of \u201canti-government ideologues\u201d being in the government and using it for their own goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another article written at the start of the covid-19 pandemic pointing out that those labelled by the media as \u201cAnti-government ideologues\u201d are not. They are more than happy to join governments and use State power for their own purposes and class. It would be better to call them \u201canti-worker ideologues\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}