The Collapse of Corbynism

The recent UK election produced at least one of Labour's worst historical defeats. This comes as a shock to many as the party under Corbyn's leadership was possibly the best modern example of grassroots radicals influencing the politics of a mainstream political party. Corbyn became Labour leader as a result of the momentum organization within the labor party. Momentum mobilized a grassroots campaign of party rank and file to place Corbyn into power in a party that in the last century became dominated by neoliberal elements a la Tony Blair.

As a result, this election, Labour ran on a truly social democratic program of social and welfare spending. Despite this initial success of transforming the Labour Party in a direction of real social democratic politics and away from neoliberalism, the project failed it's major test run. Labour lost big time in working class communities which had traditionally been Labour loyal, turning over to the conservatives. Labour has tried to argue that their social democratic program could have been successful if the election wasn't dominated by the issue of Brexit.

Unfortunately for Labour, this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Voters, in reality, were skeptical of the social programs promised by Labour. Corbyn himself even had low approval among the population. It seems what Labour believed would appeal to working class voters, in reality, failed to appeal to them much at all. So why did the return to social democracy fail?

We can't ignore the large role Brexit played in Labour's downfall. Labour's position on the issue was practically non-existent; simply calling for another referendum. However, as we just illustrated, Labour's social democratic program would not have otherwise brought them a victory. Here, we will analyze why.

Voters were skeptical of Labour's social programs because while many supported specific programs that Labour backed, they were skeptical that these services could be effectively financed. Essentially, they didn't know how these programs would be paid for. This concern isn't unfounded, given the state of the capitalist world system. Capitalism is a world system that relies on continual accumulation. In the last century the system has run up against major blocks to it's accumulation. Immanuel Wallerstein explains this in his work "World Systems Analysis: An Introduction".

Not only has capital's expansion run up against the planet's geographic limits, but severe social limits have manifested. Capital has become crunched between organized labor's demands for concessions as well as middle management and specialist demands for more compensation. In addition, the demands by social movements on the state to provide concessions has added to the tax bill on capital which already is burdened by the need for the state to use public funds to cover basic costs of production.

This has created a situation where capital is rapidly loosing it's ability to accumulate and thus to function. Without capital accumulation social services become less tenable. Here, we should realize that social democracy, as a movement to create a more involved state that provides for the population, is not a purely theoretical proposal. Socialist parties around the world took power in elections after the second world war and administered social democratic policies. Welfare states became the name of the game in this period with even Nixon being quoted as saying "We are all Keynesians now".

The neoliberal reality of today was created as a result of world capitalism's inability to sustain welfare states. The above listed limits on accumulation lead capital the world over to attack concessions to labor and social movements and build up a "financialized" system to make up for the lack of accumulation in real production. This is not to say that movements should not fight for concessions. Movements should do everything in their power to reduce the global ruling class's ability to exploit the global laborers and oppressed populations.

What we can take away is that social democracy as a political program, just as "Marxism-Leninism", or traditional state socialism, is past its sell by date. Social democracy was possible in a specific period of the world capitalist system, but as that system matures it runs up against the limits of infinite accumulation in the face of resisting populations and finite resources. Thus its ability to sustain projects like social democracy degrades and ultimately falls apart. The rejection of Corbynism by working class Brits is a reflection of the working class's understanding of this situation. It also reflects the crumbling and possibly kaput viability of social democratic politics. Real social change will thus require us all to think past moldy political projects such as social democracy.

Bibliography:
https://truthout.org/articles/boris-johnsons-right-wing-populism-prevails-in-uk-election/
Antisystemic Movements, Arrighi, Hopkins, Wallerstein
World Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Wallerstein