Craig Murray — Nationalisation Without Compensation

What the Labour Party should be going for?

What Craig Murray is addressing, without being explicit about it, is the theory of natural property rights based on John Locke's just-so story about mixing labor with land to acquire a natural right through use. This is based on a narrative that is unhistorical, on one hand, and on the other, it doesn't justify transfer, especially through inheritance.

Marx gave the correct historical account based on "primitive accumulation," which amounts to "enclosure" — seizure really — by those powerful enough to do so. This resulted in the bifurcation of society into property owners and workers as separate classes with opposing interests.

Ayn Rand provides perhaps the most outspoken but honest statement of this mindset:

"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using.... What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent." — "Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974"

Murray proposes that it is high time to address this. What he doesn't address is the importance of the concept of the commons, which Ayn Rand denies. As nomadic tribes, the Native Americans were obviously using the land collectively as do other such groups worldwide to the present day, although in decreasing numbers as "civilization" and enclosure encroach on the commons.

In Locke's account there was no commons, just unused land waiting to be made useful — given utility — through work that confers property rights as natural instead of institutional. Institutional confirmation was subsequently added to that which was gained naturally in his view.

Again, this is unhistorical. The truth is that until enclosure the vast majority of people were collectively self-sufficient based on the commons, Enclosure ended that self-sufficiency, forcing them to labor for others — the property owners — on terms dictated by the others‚ the ownership class. Initially, this was "the palace" (warrior class) and "the temple" (priesthood). This developed into feudal aristocracies in the Agricultural Age.

What Murray is proposing is real socialism rather than pseudo-socialism that is a weak reform of monopoly capital based on the spurious history and logic of the bourgeois ideology that came to dominate as bourgeois liberalism replaced the divine right, capitalism replaced feudalism as the dominant socio-economic system in the Industrial Age. Property owners became the new aristocracy through inheritance laws — inheritance of estates contradicting personal initiative and meritocracy as the basis of capitalist accumulation and political rule. 

While Murray's proposal may seem utopian in the current environment, such proposals are needed in order to shift the narrative and engage in consciousness-raising by addressing what Marx and Engels called "false consciousness," in which workers are persuaded by owners' control of the narrative to accept an ideology that disadvantages them. This narrative "proves" how this is just — all receive their "just deserts." Moreover, the narrative runes, this the only alternative.

Based on this starting point — Thatcherism in the UK, Murray's proposal is a beginning but not enough. Based on the lessons of history, sudden change doesn't not always produce the optimal result and may even worsen the situation. Diagnosis must be complemented by etiology (identification of causes) and treatment by addressing causes in order to not only remove the systems but also to return the system to health. Murrays' post remains on the level of symptom. Deeper analysis is needed.

Reflection is required on how to meet the challenge of getting from here (monopoly capital) to there (socialism). The most promising path seems to be through social democracy as pioneered in the Nordic countries but which some of them are moving away from under the pressure of neoliberalism, the current flavor capitalism that has become dominant through globalization. 

What is "capitalism"? Favoring capital as a factor of production based on growth and assuming trickle down. What is "socialism"? Favoring people as a whole and land as the environment ("the nest") over growth for its own sake. This requires an integrated ecological approach that prioritizes the factors differently in terms of human purpose consistent with human values, including human rights, e.g., as set forth in the UN General Assembly's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Social democracy can be developed as a transition to socialism and the regaining of the priority of the commons as humanity's home and life-support system. The "correct" approach to economics would therefore be something more like ecological economics and green economics instead of conventional (neoliberal) economics.

The problem with much "heterodox" economics is that it is a reaction to conventional economics and is concerned with reforming a system that has outlived its usefulness and is now becoming a threat not only to the human species but all species as the Earth hurtles toward the next extinction event.

Craig Murray's post is just a beginning of the debate that is needed where change can happen, the ballot box. Bold action is required.

Craig Murray Blog
Nationalisation Without Compensation
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Jesse — US Government Considers Nationalizing US Cellular Network And Unifying Upgrade to 5G Next Generation Wireless

Speculation at his point, but if the US doesn't do something like this, China will leave the US seriously in the dust.

Jesse's Café Américain
US Government Considers Nationalizing US Cellular Network And Unifying Upgrade to 5G Next Generation Wireless

See also

President Donald Trump’s national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on U.S. phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network, a senior administration official said on Sunday….

Earlier this month, AT&T (T.N) was forced to scrap a plan to offer its customers handsets built by China’s Huawei [HWT.UL] after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with federal regulators, sources told Reuters....

"We want to build a network so the Chinese can’t listen to your calls,” the senior official told Reuters. “We have to have a secure network that doesn’t allow bad actors to get in. We also have to ensure the Chinese don’t take over the market and put every non-5G network out of business.”

Reuters
Trump security team sees building U.S. 5G network as option

also

Comprehensive and detailed.

Zero Hedge
White House Is Planning To Nationalize 5G Network: Report

Tyler Durden

Bill Mitchell — The case for re-nationalisation – Part 2

In the first part of this blog (July 13, 2016) – Brexit signals that a new policy paradigm is required including re-nationalisation – I suggested that re-nationalisation of certain sectors has to return as a key industry policy plank for any aspiring progressive political party.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The case for re-nationalisation – Part 2
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

teleSUR Evo Morales: War is the Most Lucrative Business for Capitalism

Bolivian President Evo Morales delivered a speech on Friday at the U.N. General Assembly calling on world leaders to work together to provide more opportunities to economically disadvantaged populations.

In efforts to achieve this, the Bolivian leader encouraged countries to curb what he described as “unprecedented military spending.”

“War is the most lucrative business for capitalism,” President Morales said.

He also warned of ongoing efforts by wealthy countries to “demonize and criminize leaders of progressive governments with anti-capitalist agendas.”

During his speech, Evo Morales criticized the current global economic system, calling on the international community to genuinely examine the root causes of poverty.

“If we get rid of the capitalist system, then we will get rid of poverty,” Morales added.

In his address, President Morales also highlighted the importance of nationalization polices as a strategy to provide governments with greater economic sovereignty over its wealth and natural resources.

Since Morales came to power in 2005, the Bolivian government has become the main wealth generator in the country, distributing this funding through programs and social investments. As a result, since 2006, social spending in the area of health, education, pensions, and poverty alleviation programs has increased over 45 percent.

teleSUR
Evo Morales: War is the Most Lucrative Business for Capitalism

Gar Alperovitz — Wall Street Is Too Big to Regulate

It’s also true that not all Chicago School economists (not to mention their descendants) agreed with Simons, especially on the controversial issue of nationalization. But the logic of his argument remains: With high-paid lobbyists contesting every proposed regulation, it is increasingly clear that big banks can never be effectively controlled as private businesses. If an enterprise (or five of them) is so large and so concentrated that competition and regulation are impossible, the most market-friendly step is to nationalize its functions.

What about breaking up the banks, as many on the left favor? Recent history confirms another Chicago School judgment: while a breakup might work in the short term, the most likely course is what happened with Standard Oil and AT&T, which were broken up, only to essentially recombine a few decades later.

The New York Times | Opinion
Wall Street Is Too Big to Regulate
by Gar Alperovitz
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Of course, it would probably take another financial meltdown to make banking nationalization politically tenable. But given how the sector has behaved since the last crisis, a repetition seems inevitable, and sooner rather than later.

This is the way that the scenario unfolds in my view at this point.

Roger Mitchell on bank nationalization

Rodger says nationalize 'em. They had their chance and blew it.

Read it at Monetary Sovereignty
The end of private banking: Why the federal government should own all banks
by Roger Malcolm Mitchell

Money creation is a public utility. In the United State, the US Constitution, Article 1, section 8,10 establishes the federal government as the currency sovereign with a monopoly on currency issuance. Under present institutional arrangements, the federal government creates a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and allows banks and bank-like institutions to generate credit money denominated in USD by extending credit. The banking system is a public-private partnership already, and the argument that banks are "private" is simply mistaken. Regulators are already required to put insolvent institutions into resolution. According to Bill Black, the law did not fail in the present crisis, the regulators did.

There is little question that the federal government acting through elected representatives can determine money and banking in the US largely as it sees fit. The question is to what extent should the money creation process and banking in general be public or private. 

Those who favor free banking would like to see money and banking completely under the control of the private sector, with government borrowing from the private sector to fund itself and using taxation for revenue. Thus government would be a currency user, and its policy space would be extremely limited.

At the other end of the spectrum is a currency only system in which government issues currency directly without needing to tax to get revenue or to borrow to finance itself. This, of course, puts an enormous amount of power in governmental (political) hands, and it greatly expands policy space.

I don't think that there is a way to resolve the issues involved through going to either an entirely private or an entirely public system, or, for that matter, a remix of the present system. The problem isn't configuration bu rather perverse incentives that distort the system. Any system can work with the appropriate incentives and controls to make it work as desired.

One thing we do know for sure is that the present system is broken and that if it is not repaired, the next crisis is already in the making.