Marxism vs Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Adam Booth, 06 September 2019

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MMT has created a buzz on the left recently, with its supporters citing it as an answer to all our economic woes. Instead of trendy new ideas, however, we need the clear, scientific analysis of capitalism that Marxism provides – Adam Booth writes.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

John Maynard Keynes

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is the latest craze to hit left-wing circles; the supposed panacea to the problems that a future Bernie Sanders administration or Jeremy Corbyn government will likely face.
Advocated by leading lights of the Democratic Party in the USA, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and by those trying to gain the ear of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in the UK, MMT is currently the talk of the town on the left. And it’s not hard to see why. After all, the concept offers activists an easy rebuttal to right-wing critics who ask how radical policies will be paid for.
In this sense, MMT might as easily stand for ‘magic money tree’. That, after all, is what this theory promises: a way of funding everything we want, and more, without having to worry about the hassle of taxation or – more importantly – class struggle.
Think the left’s shopping list of demands are unaffordable? Think again! Want free healthcare and education? No problem, we’ll just print money. Mass investment in green energy? Don’t worry, we can turn on the government’s taps. Build a million council homes? Easy – we’ve got MMT.
But, truth be told, Modern Monetary Theory is a bit of a misnomer. In reality, it is not much of a theory. Nor is it particularly modern. As John Maynard Keynes once noted, those imagining themselves to be ‘pragmatic’ and ‘practical’ are all too often in fact the slaves of some defunct economist – in this case, none other than Keynes himself.

Consensus breaks

The fact that a broad debate has opened up around economic alternatives to austerity should come as no surprise to anybody. After a decade of crisis and cuts, workers and youth are rightly calling into question the neoliberal consensus that has continued to hold court, despite the seemingly never-ending ‘Great Recession’.
With growth stalling, business investment stagnant, and monetary policy at its limits, even mainstream capitalist economists (generally of a Keynesian variety) are now challenging the demand for balanced budgets. After all, with austerity failing and interest rates at 0%, what other weapons do governments have left in their arsenal?
For the bourgeois priesthood that defends this capitalist creed, however, any criticism of the all-powerful ‘invisible hand’ of the market is sacrosanct. Hence the barrage of attacks and insults that is thrown in the direction of any alternatives put forward.
“MMT is appropriate only in exceptional situations,” claimed John Llewellyn, a former chief economist of the OECD, “where economies are far from full employment, deflationary pressures are in evidence, and interest rates are at the zero bound”.
After a decade of crisis and cuts, workers and youth are rightly calling mainstream economic arguments into question. But does MMT offer the solution? Marxists argue the crisis lies with capitalism itself / Image: Socialist Appeal
The problem for Llewellyn and his cohort, however, is that these “exceptional” conditions are the ‘new normal’. The situation he describes sounds very much like that which the world economy has faced for the past decade or more.
Larry Summers, an economic advisor to Barack Obama and former head of the US Treasury under Bill Clinton, has even described the global economy as being in a state of “secular stagnation": one with permanently subdued demand and muted private investment, where “fairly ordinary growth” is sustained only by “extraordinary policy and financial conditions”.
This situation, Summers argues, has existed not just since the 2008 crash, but in the decades preceding it also. The world’s economic engine has only been kept going thanks to an endless injection of cheap credit and government stimulus. The ‘exception’, then, has become the rule.
Those criticising MMT from the right, therefore, clearly aren’t in a very strong position to do so. After all, as Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, admitted in a speech to an audience at the London School of Economics in the wake of the 2008 crash: “Most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst.”
Unfortunately for the MMTers, however, two wrongs do not make a right. And it is the duty of socialists to provide an honest appraisal of the ideas being proposed, in order to show the way forward for the labour movement.

What is MMT?

First off, it should be noted that MMT is a tricky beast to define. Indeed, this eclectic theory has almost as many versions as there are followers.
Of interest to us here, however, are those who put forward MMT from a supposedly left perspective. These include, amongst others: Stephanie Kelton, a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders; Bill Mitchell, a vocal MMT advocate who has managed to gain an audience with left-wing MPs in Britain; and Richard Murphy, a prominent tax campaigner and political economist in the UK.
In order to deflect criticism, MMT’s devoted army of followers attempt to bamboozle their opponents with a series of contortions and mental gymnastics. Traditional economic ideas are turned inside out and upside down, confusing the viewer like the optical illusions of an Escher painting. As the Economist journal wryly noted:

“Speaking with MMT’s adherents is sometimes like watching a football match with friends who insist the ball remains stationary while every other element in the game, including the pitch and goalposts, moves around it.”

In fact, even MMT’s own supporters state that it is less a theory, and more a “description of how the monetary system works”; an analytical “lens” that can help us to see the existing economic reality.
Putting aside the fact that a theory, in a scientific sense, is precisely an analytical explanation of reality, what is it then that MMT has to offer? What supposedly radical new perspective does this “massive paradigm shift” provide?
Most fundamentally, MMT asserts that:

1. A government that issues its own sovereign, ‘independent’ currency can never run out of money, since it can always choose to pay for any debts by creating more money.
2. Inflation will not kick in if such a government spends lavishly and runs a budget deficit, as long as there is spare productive capacity in the economy.
3. Taxes do not fund public spending. Governments, therefore, do not need to tax first in order to spend later. Indeed, the real process at play (we are told) is the opposite – governments spend on goods and services, and then adjust tax rates in order to manage demand in the economy.

Although this ‘description’ of the economy doesn’t explicitly lead to any policy conclusions, MMT has unsurprisingly been lept upon by some left-wingers for what it necessarily implies: that governments need not worry about balancing the books, and can always find the money to foot any bills.
Indeed, this has been spelled out by leading MMT proponents. For example, when rhetorically asking her followers on Twitter “Can we afford a Green New Deal?”, Stephanie Kelton replies: “Yes. The federal government can afford to buy whatever is for sale in its own currency.”
Elsewhere, Richard Murphy, has stated that: “What this [MMT] means is that there is no requirement per se to balance the government’s books. Indeed it is not just illogical but completely economically perverse to seek to do.”
Despite being the self-proclaimed author of ‘Corbynomics’ and founder of demands such as ‘People’s Quantitative Easing’ and the UK’s version of the Green New Deal, Murphy has been kept at arm’s length by the Labour leadership, who have categorically rejected MMT and its policy prescriptions.

What is money?

At root, the problems with MMT lie with its (mis)understanding of what money is, and what role money plays under capitalism.
MMTers subscribe to a theory of money known as ‘chartalism’. This term was coined (no pun intended) by a German economist called Georg Friedrich Knapp, who put forward a hypothesis called ‘the state theory of money’.
In short, Knapp asserted that money originates with the state and its imposition of taxes upon a people. The state, according to chartalists, creates money – and then creates a demand for this particular currency by insisting on its use as a ‘means of payment’.
To truly understand the nature of money, however, we must turn to another 19th century German economist: Karl Marx.
MMT suffers from a (mis)understanding of money / Image: Latuff
In Capital, Marx noted that “the riddle presented by money is but the riddle presented by commodities”. In other words, to understand the role of money in society, we must first understand its real origins – those of commodity production and exchange.
Marx explained that money’s history is tied to the rise of the commodity: goods and services produced not for individual consumption, but for exchange. All commodities, Marx showed, have an exchange value. This is a relationship – a ratio – between commodities, expressing how much of one product would (on average) be exchanged for another.
Building on the ideas of his predecessors, such as David Ricardo, Marx outlined how the value of a commodity is dependent on the labour embodied within it. This labour consists both of the ‘dead labour’ contained within the raw materials, tools, etc. required for its production, and the ‘living labour’ labour added in the production process by the worker.
Marx called this total labour the ‘socially necessary labour time’: the time required for the production of a given commodity, based on the current level of technology and industry, etc. within society.
With this in mind, Marx explained in his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy how money serves several functions:

1. As a unit of account, or measure of value. In money terms, this is represented by prices.
2. As a medium of exchange. In this role, money breaks up the circulation of commodities into two separate acts: an act of sale (C-M, a commodity exchanged for money); and an act of purchase (M-C, money exchanged for a different commodity).
3. As a store of value, allowing accumulated wealth to be maintained and preserved over time.
4. And as a means of payment, allowing debts (denominated in a certain currency) to be settled and taxes to be paid.

Money, therefore, plays a number of roles. Above all though, money is a representation of value: the ultimate expression of the generalisation of the law of value; the logical conclusion of the development of commodity production and exchange, which requires a universal yardstick – a standard measure – against which the value of all other commodities can be expressed.
And yet chartalism (and also MMT) offers no analysis of value, or of commodity production and exchange. As a result, it misses the essence of capitalism, and of money’s role within it.
Money arises historically, not by design, but as a result of the development of commodity production and exchange. It begins primarily as a ‘money commodity’, such as the precious metals, with a value of its own, but later develops to be a mere symbol of value. This is clear today, where money is predominantly not coins, but cash and credit; notes and numbers.
Importantly, in this respect, Marx emphasised that we must understand money as a social relation. Money itself is not wealth, but is a claim to a portion of the total social wealth created in production – ultimately by the labour of the working class.

Money and the state

The chartalists and MMTers, then, are correct to say that the state can create money. But the state cannot guarantee that this money has any value. Without a productive economy behind it, money is meaningless.
Money is only a representation of value. And real value is created in production, as a result of the application of socially necessary labour time. The money that a state creates, therefore, will only be of any worth in so far as it reflects the value that is in circulation in the economy, in the form of the production and exchange of commodities.
As Marx noted, the sum of the values in circulation must ultimately equal the sum of the prices of these commodities. Where this is not the case, then this is a recipe for inflation and instability.
It is not the state that creates the demand for money, but the needs of capitalist production, which are driven by profit / Image: public domain
The state can of course choose what unit of measurement to use when accounting for the value in its economy, just as Americans choose to measure distances in feet, whilst Europeans choose metres. But whether we choose feet or metres, this does not alter the objectives heights of objects in the real world. Nor does constructing more rulers and tape measures.
Similarly, a society does not get wealthier by imagining itself to be so, by printing money or otherwise. As David Graeber explains in his book Debt: the first 5,000 years, referring to the arguments of 17th century English philosopher John Locke and his theories on money:

“Locke insisted that one can no more make a small piece of silver by relabelling it a ‘shilling’ than one can make a short man taller by declaring there are now 15 inches in a foot.”

In any case, Knapp and his MMT followers are wrong to say that the state creates the demand for money. Under capitalism, as the Positive Money campaign have highlighted, the vast bulk of money in circulation – 97% of all money in the economy – is not created by governments but by private banks, in the form of bank deposits.
This money is created in response to demands from consumers and investors, as credit and loans. Where this demand dries up, in terms of falling household consumption and/or business investment, so too does the demand for money.
So the state can create money. But it cannot ensure that this money is put to use. Indeed, the vast programmes of Quantitative Easing that have been conducted across the advanced capitalist world since the 2008 crash are a testament to this.
Trillions have been pumped into the economy by central banks over the past decade, and to what effect? Business investment and GDP growth remain subdued. And yet asset prices – on the stock market and of property, gold, cryptocurrencies, and even artwork and fine wines – froth and fizz like a newly opened bottle of champagne. In short, the speculators are having a field day, whilst ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.
In summary, it is not the state that creates the demand for money, but the needs of capitalist production. And this production is ultimately driven by profit. Businesses invest, produce, and sell in order to make a profit. Where the capitalists cannot make a profit, they will not produce. It is as simple as that.
And yet chartalism – and thus MMT also – has nothing to say about profit, the motor force of the capitalist system. As a result, it cannot explain the real dynamics of the economy under capitalism.

No independence under capitalism

At best, it seems, the ‘revolutionary’ tenets of MMT are just tautological, self-evident truisms. At worst, they are a regurgitation of incorrect ideas that have been proven wrong in practice.
Take the first point outlined earlier, for example, which is the key principle of MMT: governments that run their own ‘independent’ fiat currency cannot go bankrupt.
On one level this is true. A government in a country such as the USA or UK – where the currency is not pegged, and where the central bank can increase the money supply – can always choose to print money to meet its debt obligations or fund a budget deficit.
But firstly, we must ask, where in the world is a government and its currency that is truly ‘independent’ and ‘sovereign’? The whole of the eurozone goes straight out of the window, since it is the ECB [European Central Bank] that calls the tune.
Similarly with the ex-colonial (‘developing’ / ‘emerging’) countries, which are entangled in debts to the big imperialist powers – debts that are for the most part denominated in US dollars. Clearly no ‘sovereignty’ there, either.
And even in a country such as the UK, monetary independence is illusory. Yes, the Bank of England can set interest rates, print money, and lend to the government in its own currency – pounds sterling. But were a radical left-wing government to come in and abuse this power by running large deficits, fuelled by loose monetary policy, in order to carry out large-scale public programmes, this would quickly shake the confidence of the markets.
Within the confines of capitalism, this would lead to an economic catastrophe. The rich would move their money out of the country; the capitalists would carry out a strike of capital; and the government would be forced to hike up interest rates in order to attract investors. The currency would quickly be deemed worthless, leading to rampant inflation – inflation that would hit workers hardest as real wages became eroded by rising prices.
Capitalism today is a truly global system, no country can escape its influence, meaning its crises are also global / Image: Mike Lucovich
This is no mere conjecture. It is an historical fact. In 1976, the Labour government of the day was faced with precisely this predicament.
Harold Wilson’s Labour had come to power in 1974 in the midst of a world crisis of capitalism, with the economy in a state of stagflation (simultaneous economic slump and high inflation) as a result of decades of failed Keynesian policies. Wilson’s calls for cuts were shouted down by the Labour left, forcing the Prime Minister to resign.
Wilson was replaced by James Callaghan. Worried by a run on the pound, the new PM was forced to go cap-in-hand to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and ask for a bailout of $3.9 billion – the largest loan ever requested from the IMF at the time.
Needless to say, the Fund’s loan came with strings attached. And so, having won the ‘74 election on a promise to nationalise the top 25 monopolies, Labour found itself instead carrying out austerity, under the diktats of the IMF.
The same could take place today, even in a country like the USA. At the end of the day, the dollar’s ability to act as a world currency arises from America’s relatively hegemonic imperialist position. This, in turn, is derived from the strength and stability of US capitalism.
Only for this reason is the dollar deemed ‘as good as gold’ by international investors. If the US’ ‘strong and stable’ economy was to be called into question by the financial markets, then the dollar too could quickly fall.
“The dollar’s dominance is not guaranteed to last indefinitely,” recently remarked, commenting on the apparent strength of the dollar in relation to calls for greater government spending.
“When the pound sterling lost its pre-eminence in the early 1930s,” the liberal journal notes, “Britain, with a debt-to-gdp ratio in excess of 150%, faced a currency crisis”. And there is no reason why history could not repeat itself regarding US capitalism and the dollar.
In short, there is can be no such thing as economic, financial, or monetary ‘independence’ for any country within capitalism. Capitalism today is a truly global system, based on a thoroughly-integrated world market and the domination of the major imperialist powers and the multinational monopolies that they protect.
Only by breaking with this system – through the socialist transformation of society internationally – can we be truly independent and free to carry out the economic policies that society needs.

No free lunch

Even if we accept MMT’s claim that certain countries are monetarily ‘independent’ and free to print money, does this really mean that there is no financial barrier standing in the way of a left-wing government?
The MMTers themselves correctly highlight that there is a limit to any government’s ability to create and spend money – a limit beyond which there will be ramifications in the form of inflation. This limit is the productive capacity of the economy: the economic resources available to a country in terms of its industry, infrastructure, education, population, and so on.
If government spending pushes demand above that which can be supplied, then market forces will push up prices across the board – that is, it will generate inflation. All true so far.
If this point is reached, MMT advocates continue, then it is the job of government to stop the economy from ‘overheating’ by reducing demand. This, they claim, is the role of taxes – to suck money (created by government) back out of the economy, like the control rods in a nuclear reactor, which absorb neutrons and prevent a runaway chain reaction.
But governments do not simply create money and then tax to control demand. Money can be created ‘out of thin air’, but value and demand cannot. Value is produced in production, and this is then redistributed by taxes. And effective demand, under capitalism, is determined by the profitability of production and the limits of the market.
There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to capitalism. Whilst the state can print money, it cannot print teachers and schools, doctors and hospitals, or engineers and factories.
Of course, if these things are not being provided and produced by the private sector, then the government can step in and provide them directly through the public sector. But the logical conclusion of this is not to create more money, but to take production out of the market by nationalising the key levers of the economy as part of a rational, democratic, socialist plan.
Ultimately, as long as the economy remains dominated by big business and private monopolies, any money pumped into the system will go to pay for commodities – food and shelter, etc. – that are produced by the capitalists. In other words, all this money will end up in the hands of profiteering parasites.
The aim of the left, therefore, should not be to strengthen the money system, but to abolish it. Implementing MMT’s policy conclusions might end up destroying the value of a currency, but it will not put an end to the power of money. This can only be done by abolishing the system of commodity production and exchange out of which money has historically arisen.
This means tackling the roots of the capitalist system: private ownership and production for profit. Only by bringing in common ownership over the means of production and implementing a socialist economic plan can we satisfy society’s needs. We cannot print our way to socialism.

Capitalism and class

Rather than printing money and bureaucratically managing economic demand, socialists should be calling for economic planning. But you cannot plan what you do not control. And you cannot control what you do not own.
MMT, however, avoids this key question of economic ownership. In fact, it largely avoids the question of capitalist production and the economic laws that govern this altogether. After all, by its own admission, it is not so much an analysis of the capitalist system, but a description of the relationship between government spending, taxes, and the money supply.
In glossing over these questions, however, MMT fails to recognise the fundamental realities of our economy: that it is not just numbers on a screen or equations on a chalkboard, but living flesh and blood, with women and men trying to live their lives and put food on the table.
MMT completely overlooks the question of class struggle / Image: Pxhere
Indeed, like Keynesianism, MMT’s economic analysis seems completely devoid of the issue of class and the fact that we live in a class society, composed of antagonist economic interests: those of the exploiters, and those of the exploited.
For example, when MMT talks about the state, what kind of state is being referred to? As Marx noted in the Communist Manifesto, under capitalism, “the executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”.
If we want a government that will run the economy in the interests of ordinary people, then we need a workers’ state. But where in MMT is the role of the organised working class in running and managing society?
Lenin once remarked that capitalism, far from being a democracy, represented the ‘dictatorship of the banks’. But instead of overthrowing this dictatorship, MMT’s advocates suggest replacing it with another: the dictatorship of one bank – the central bank.
In this future vision of the MMTers, who would be in charge of this omnipotent central bank – the working class or the capitalist class? Similarly with the big monopolies that dominate the economy under capitalism. Are these to remain in private hands, producing for profit?
A national bank, directing society’s resources around the economy, would certainly be a vital element of a socialist plan of production. But in this setup, such a bank would have to be under the control of the working class. Is this what MMT’s supporters envision?
MMTers state that their theory “gives us the power to imagine truly transformational politics”. But, at the end of the day, they do not propose fundamentally challenging the power of the capitalist class, nor altering the current economic relations and the failed dynamics that flow from these. Private property, for them, remains inviolable and sacrosanct. The anarchy of the market is untouched.
Rather than “the working classes seizing the means of production,” prominent MMT theorist Bill Mitchell asserts, “it’s the working classes seizing the means of production of money” (his emphasis). Richard Murphy goes further, reassuring right-wing critics of MMT that its supporters have “no plans to sweep the private sector aside”.
Like their Keynesian predecessors, then, MMTers’ strategy is one that saves and patches up the capitalist system, rather than overthrowing it.

The New Deal

What MMT proposes, therefore, is again nothing but the old Keynesian economics of demand-side management. But such Keynesianism has been tried before – and found wanting.
This top-down attempt at economic management was in vogue across the advanced capitalist countries throughout the 1960s and 1970s, up until the point where its inflationary policies led to a global capitalist crisis of overproduction, stagflation, and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system that had underpinned the post-war boom.
Today, the call for a Green New Deal (GND) has become popular on the left, advocated by AOC in the US and by left-wing Labour activists in the UK. A key element of the GND proposals put forward on both sides of the Atlantic is the idea of a ‘jobs guarantee’: the provision of a minimum-wage, public sector job to all those who are unemployed.
In this way, left-wing MMTers argue, governments can maintain an ‘appropriate’ level of demand in the economy. Maintaining full employment becomes the primary target. As capitalism’s ‘reserve army of labour’ (as Marx described it) expands and contracts, so too does the government’s own army of labour to compensate.
This of course is designed to emulate the original New Deal: President Roosevelt’s programme of public works that were intended to stimulate US economic growth during the Great Depression.
The ideas of Keynes were clearly influential in shaping the New Deal. After all, in his General Theory, the English economist even suggested that the government could boost demand by burying money in the ground and getting workers to dig it back up.
Keynes: “It is... politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organise expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case — except in war conditions” / Image: public domain
“There need be no more unemployment,” stated Keynes. “It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like,” he continued, “but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.”
The only problem that the advocates of a ‘jobs guarantee’ fail to mention, however, is that the New Deal did not work. The slump continued long after its implementation (in fact, it became worse with the rise of ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ protectionism). Unemployment even went up. Only with the onset of the Second World War and the mopping up of workers into the army and the arms sector did unemployment fall.
Even Keynes himself was forced to admit defeat. “It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organise expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case — except in war conditions.”
The same can be seen in China today, where the largest ever Keynesian programme of construction has been undertaken in the last decade, in an effort to escape the impact of the global capitalist crisis. But the result has been a massive increase in public debts, on one side, and the ludicrous contradiction of ghost cities alongside a huge housing crisis, on the other.
This is the logical conclusion of Keynesian attempts to bureaucratically manage a capitalist, profit-driven economy. There is no reason to believe a new New Deal would fare any better today in America, Britain, or anywhere else.
And so we arrive back at square one, asking ourselves what MMT really has to offer?

Marxism vs Keynesianism

MMTers, however, are not deterred by the historical failings of similar economic strategies. After all, as MMT advocate Richard Murphy points out in the Financial Times, why should we worry about pushing the economy beyond its productive limits, when “no economy has operated ‘normally’ for more than a decade”.
Indeed, even in times of ‘boom’, the febrile global economy operates far below its productive capacity, only able to limp along thanks to ultra-loose monetary policy and a glut of cheap credit.
‘Excess capacity’ has become a hallmark symptom of a system that has long outlived its usefulness. Even at its height, capitalism can only successfully utilise about 80-90% of is productive abilities (see below). This falls to 70% or less in times of slump. In past recessions, the figure falls to as low as 40-50%.

source: tradingeconomics.com

Across the world today, vast swathes of industry lie idle. Markets are saturated with steel and smartphones. And millions of workers remain unemployed or underemployed.
But the question never asked – either by MMT’s proponents, or those economists of a more traditional Keynesian variety – is how we have ended up in this situation in the first place?
“The use of MMT is akin to pumping up a flat tyre,” remarks Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian. “Once it is fully inflated there is no need to carry on pumping.” But what is the cause of the original puncture?
Why aren’t businesses investing? Why isn’t our full productive capacity being utilised? Why do we see a permanent ‘reserve army of labour’? Why must the government step in to ‘stimulate demand’? Why, in short, is the world economy in a ‘permanent slump’?
To this, the MMTers and Keynesians have no answer. The latter merely state that ‘excess capacity’ is the result of a lack of effective demand. Businesses are not investing because there is not enough demand for the goods they produce. But why?
How has the economy become stuck in this downward spiral of low investment, unemployment, and stagnant demand? And why is this cycle of boom-and-bust (these days, mainly bust) such a never-ending feature of capitalism?
The most that Keynes himself could offer in the way of an explanation was to invoke capitalism’s ‘animal spirits’. The capitalists, he suggested, were simply driven by ‘business confidence’. But this is nothing but philosophical idealism.
Confidence under capitalism has a material basis: the profitability of production. If there are profits to be made, then the capitalists will be brimming with confidence and they will invest. If not, then pessimism – and slump – sets it.
Marxism, by contrast, provides a clear, scientific analysis of the capitalist system, its relations and laws, and why these intrinsically lead to crises. These, in the final analysis, are crises of overproduction. The economy collapses not simply because of a fall in demand (or confidence), but because the productive forces come into conflict with the narrow limits of the market.
Production under capitalism is for profit. But to realise a profit, the capitalists must be able to sell the commodities they produce.
Profit, at the same time, however, is appropriated by the capitalists from the unpaid labour of the working class. Workers produce more value than they receive back in the form of wages. The difference is surplus value, which the capitalist class divides amongst itself in the form of profits, rents, and interest.
The result is that, under capitalism, there is an inherent overproduction in the system. It is not simply a ‘lack of demand’. Workers can never afford to buy back all the commodities that capitalism produces. The ability to produce outstrips the ability of the market to absorb.
Of course, the system can overcome these limits for a time though reinvestment of the surplus into new means of production, or through the use of credit to artificially expand the market. But these are only temporary measures, “paving the way,” in the words of Marx, “for more extensive and more destructive crises” in the future.
The 2008 crash marked the culmination of such a process – a climax that was delayed for decades on the basis of Keynesian policies and a boom in credit alike. But now the crisis has hit, and neither the Keynesians, the MMTers, nor anyone other than the Marxists can explain why.
At most, Keynesianism and MMT provide a palliative medicine for a chronic disease. But neither can diagnose this disease correctly, nor offer a genuine cure.

The point is to change it

MMTers hope that their groundbreaking new outlook can liberate the left, the labour movement, and – in turn – society by giving us the arguments and analytical tools needed to break with the neoliberal consensus, demand the impossible, and achieve our dreams.
But true freedom is not obtained by imagining ourselves to be free of capitalism’s laws. Rather, genuine liberation comes about precisely from understanding these economic laws – and organising to replace them with new ones, based on socialist planning and workers’ control.
The proponents of MMT, in contrast, do not seem interested in scientifically understanding the economy. They imagine that governments can dictate to the market. But under capitalism, it is the market – and the laws of the market – that dictate to governments.
Our criticisms of MMT come from a Marxist perspective – from what is necessary to abolish capitalism and liberate humanity / Image: Socialist Appeal
A look at the experience of François Mitterrand’s government in France provides important lessons. Mitterrand was elected in 1981 on the back of a left-wing Keynesian programme, promising nationalisations, a rise in the minimum wage, and a 39-hour week.
But after just two years, facing a flight of capital and a fall in the competitiveness of French industry, the President was forced to undertake a tournant de la rigueur (austerity turn) to fight inflation and regain the confidence of the markets. All of this took place whilst France was a supposedly ‘sovereign’ country.
It is not scaremongering to talk of economic collapse, hyperinflation, capital flight, shortages and sabotage: this is the dire reality faced by workers in Venezuela right now as a result of short-sighted economic policies that are strikingly similar to those proposed by leading figures in the MMT world.
Such ladies and gentlemen may be full of good intentions. But, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with such well-meaning wishes.
As Paul Krugman remarked in regards to mainstream macroeconomic ideas, MMT is not just wrong but harmful – harmful because it sows illusions, preparing the way for disaster and disappointment.
In this respect, we must shout loudly like the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen's tale – the emperor has no clothes! We have a duty to offer a word of warning to workers and youth: do not believe those trying to foist their quack remedies upon you. Now is not the time for the wily charms of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen.
We do not criticise MMT from the same position as the apologists of capitalism. No, our criticisms come from a Marxist perspective – from the standpoint of what is good for the world working class; from what is necessary to abolish capitalism and liberate humanity.
The left and the labour movement will not be liberated by carelessly throwing aside the shackles of orthodoxy, but by working out a correct, scientific analysis of the economy. Only in this way can we overthrow the decrepit capitalism system and replace it a socialist plan of production.
This was the task that Karl Marx set himself with his economic writings – in particular, his magnum opus of Capital. In order to change the world, you must first understand it.

Cuba found to be the most sustainably developed country in the world, new research finds. The Morning Star, Nov 29, 2019

Matt Trinder

Friday, November 29, 2019

The Capitol building in Havana, Cuba

CUBA is the most sustainably developed country in the world, according to a new report launched today.
The socialist island outperforms advanced capitalist countries including Britain and the United States, which has subjected Cuba to a punitive six-decades-long economic blockade.
The Sustainable Development Index (SDI), designed by anthropologist and author Dr Jason Hickel, calculates its results by dividing a nation’s “human development” score, obtained by looking at statistics on life expectancy, health and education, by its “ecological overshoot,” the extent to which the per capita carbon footprint exceeds Earth’s natural limits.
Countries with strong human development and a lower environmental impact score highly, but countries with poorer life expectancies and literacy rates as well as those which exceed ecological limits are marked down.
Based on the most recent figures, from 2015, Cuba is top with a score of 0.859, while Venezuela is 12th and Argentina 18th.
The SDI was created to update the Human Development Index (HDI), developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and used by the United Nations Development Programme to produce its annual reports since 1990.
The HDI considers life expectancy, education and gross national income per capita, but ignores environmental degradation caused by the economic growth of top performers such as Britain and the US.
“These countries are major contributors to climate change and other forms of ecological breakdown, which disproportionately affects the poorer countries of the global South, where climate change is already causing hunger rates to rise,” Mr Hickel said.
“In this sense, the HDI promotes a model of development that is empirically incompatible with ecology and which embodies a fundamental contradiction: achieving high development according to HDI means driving de-development elsewhere in the world. For a development indicator that purports to be universal, such a contradiction is indefensible.”
Britain, ranked 14th in 2018’s HDI, falls to 131st in the SDI, while the US, 13th in the ul Haq index, is 159th out of 163 countries featured in the new system.
Mr Hickel added: “The SDI ranking reveals that all countries are still “developing” – countries with the highest levels of human development still need to significantly reduce their ecological impact, while countries with the lowest levels of ecological impact still need to significantly improve their performance on social indicators.”
The SDI is available at sustainabledevelopmentindex.org.

I’m Jewish. I fight anti-Semitism and I support Palestinian rights, By Phyllis Bennis Dec. 26, 2019

President Trump’s executive order that targets criticism of Israel on college campuses has come under fire from some Jewish groups for chilling free speech.

(Eric Baradat / AFP via Getty Images)

By Phyllis Bennis

Dec. 26, 2019

When I was a Jewish kid growing up in suburban Los Angeles, we thought being Jewish meant supporting Israel.
There really wasn’t a choice. If you identified as Jewish, as I and most of my friends did, the religious education we got, the youth groups we joined, and the summer camps where we played were all grounded in one thing. It wasn’t God — it was Zionism, the political project of settling Jewish people in Israel.
We never asked — and no one ever taught us in Sunday school — who had already been living on that land, long known as Palestine, when European Jews arrived around the end of the 19th century and started building settlements there.
My own break with Zionism came in my mid-20s, after reading the letters of Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl, imploring Cecil Rhodes, the leader of British land theft in Africa, to support his work in Palestine. Their projects were both “something colonial,” Herzl assured Rhodes.

Today, younger Jews are asking hard questions at earlier ages, and more of them have been actively critical of Israel in its assaults on Palestinians and Palestinian rights.
When the Trump White House says that criticizing or boycotting the state of Israel is anti-Semitic and issues an executive order that aims to shut down criticism of Israel on college campuses, many Jewish students aren’t buying it. One 20-year-old Jewish student and Hillel member at the University of North Carolina told the New York Times that she worried the executive order “falsely equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism” and is targeted at eliminating criticism of Israel.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, claims that the executive order is intended to make sure that Jews are protected by the Civil Rights Act’s “prohibition against discrimination based on race, color, or national origin.” He says that the executive order does not define Jews as a nationality, but he goes on to proclaim that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” This formulation essentially labels Jews — along with Palestinians and all others — who don’t support Zionism as anti-Semitic.
Jews come in all races, colors and ethnicities. The Trump/Kushner view is an insidious way of claiming that Jews are all somehow linked to or accountable to Israel. That charge of “dual loyalty” is one of the oldest anti-Semitic canards around.
Of course, even as the Trump administration tries to silence criticism of Israel, real anti-Semitism is rising, especially during the Trump administration. We know what it looks like.
Anti-Semitism looks like the attack on a synagogue outside San Diego. It looks like Pittsburgh, where the alleged Tree of Life synagogue killer accused Jews of “bring[ing] invaders in that kill our people” by supporting resettlement of refugees. It looks like Klansmen and Nazis shouting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville.
That virulent anti-Semitism doesn’t come from supporters of Palestinian rights. It comes from the violent white supremacists operating increasingly publicly and proudly across the United States. Those same anti-Semites are still reveling in the support of the president, who called them “very fine people” after Charlottesville.
Real anti-Semitism is also coming directly from the White House itself — from a president who tells Jewish Republicans that he doesn’t expect their support because he doesn’t need their money, who invites to a White House Hanukkah party a Christian pastor who says Jews who don’t convert to Christianity “are going to hell,” and who asserts that Jews will “have to vote for me, you have no choice” because Democrats are proposing tax hikes on millionaires and billionaires.
Trying to suppress criticism of Israel even as Israel’s government becomes ever more repressive of Palestinian rights won’t work, especially when the White House itself is surrounded by anti-Semitism. Jewish and other progressive student groups are already asserting their intention to fight against the denial of free speech.
Likewise, insisting that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism doesn’t make it true. A new generation of young Jews — and a whole bunch of us who aren’t so young anymore — know that’s wrong.
Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Believing in Ghosts in Hong Kong 6 October, 2019 ~ Dr Roland Boer

Believing in Ghosts in Hong Kong

6 October, 2019 ~ Dr Roland Boer     

llink: https://stalinsmoustache.org/2019/10/06/believing-in-ghosts-in-hong-kong/   

In an earlier piece, I proposed that the dominant narrative concerning China in a small number of former colonising countries (usually known as ‘the West’) is like believing in ghosts. What is the narrative? It is the pure fancy that the Communist Party of China is a ‘secretive’ and ‘paranoid’ outfit, which is terribly afraid of its own people whom it monitors all the time, and is scheming for world domination. Nothing new here, since the same was believed concerning the Soviet Union.

How is this like believing in ghosts? If you believe in ghosts, then you can fit all sorts of odd things into your narrative. It might be a weird dream, a creak in the corner, a door closing by itself, a misplaced set of keys, and so on. All of these and more become part of your belief, confirming what is clearly false. And if you run out of a few twisted facts, you can simply make them up.

In short, if you believe that the CPC is an ‘authoritarian’ bunch with ‘evil intent’, then there are spooks everywhere. Boo!

In that earlier piece, I gave a number of examples, from Xinjiang, through Huawei to the Social Credit System in China. But let me focus here on the recent drug-fuelled violence in Hong Kong, with significant financial and logistical support from outside.

The narrative promoted misleadingly in a few ‘Western’ media outlets and government agencies has had a number of intriguing phases.

Phase 1 of the Ghost Story: The false idea of a ‘groundswell’ of popular opposition to ‘authoritarian’ measures.

This phase turned on deliberate misrepresentation of a modest extradition bill. The bill itself was simply standardising procedures for crimes such as murder (a murder case, with the culprit fleeing to the island of Taiwan, was in fact the immediate trigger for the bill). But through social media and deliberate misinformation, the extradition bill was pumped up into a measure instigated by the ‘authoritarian regime’ in Beijing, so that anyone and everyone in Hong Kong could be whisked away at any moment.

Behind this phase were a couple of assumptions: first, the obvious one is a ‘Western’ liberal paradigm of ‘authoritarianism’, a loose term used for any country that does not fit into the mould of the ‘Western’ bourgeois state.

The second is that Chinese people, and especially those in Hong Kong, are supposedly longing for Western ‘freedoms’, bourgeois ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ and … Facebook. There were desperate efforts to show that the majority of people in Hong Kong supported the riots, although this flew directly in face of the fact that the majority are resolutely opposed to the riots and see themselves very much as part of China.

However, this assumption that people everywhere hanker after Western ‘freedoms’ is so strong in parts of Western Europe and North America that it underlies what passes as foreign policy in these places. While trying to claim the high moral ground, they use it consistently to intervene in and disrupt the sovereignty of many countries around the world, with the result that such countries are singularly unimpressed.

Curiously, this assumption leads to profoundly misguided policies. As they say in China, ‘seek truth from facts’ (Mao Zedong and especially Deng Xiaoping promoted this one). And what are the facts? In international surveys, Chinese people show between 86 and 90 percent trust in government and public institutions, along with confidence in the direction in which the country is headed. The more educated and younger the respondents, the higher the level of trust and support.

Phase 2 of the Ghost Story: ‘Beijing’ is ‘pulling the strings’.

When it became clear that the one country – two systems policy was being followed strictly, and that the local government in Hong Kong, headed by Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, was standing firm, another piece of the narrative came to the fore: ‘Beijing’ was ‘pulling the strings’ behind the scenes, making sure that the ‘puppet’ leader was doing its bidding.

Now it was time for pure fabrication. Supposedly, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (to use her full name) had her resignation turned down. This lie was swiftly shown for what it was. This did not stop the ‘pulling strings’ line, which now relied on a standard approach in some places: using gossip, propagated these days through social media. Thus, they promoted by whatever way possible the belief that every step taken by the Hong Kong local government and its police to quell the riots were directed from ‘Beijing’.

A few points are worth noting? First, this approach was taken since the PLA garrison in Hong Kong had not been deployed, and troops from the mainland had not moved in. This turn of events was disappointing to some anti-China ideologues, if not the rioters themselves, so they had to find another line.

Second, it was a classic case of ‘look over there’. There is more than ample evidence of systemic interference in Hong Kong by government agencies from the United States and the UK, at times through NGOs and at times by direct political interference. For some time now, significant funds have flowed to the rioters, as well as logistical support. For example, more than 1000 Hong Kong police officers have been ‘doxed’, with their names, addresses, phone numbers, bank information, and so on, hacked and then spread widely. The result had been significant harassment of their families. Doxing requires a high level of logistical support, along with the assistance of compliant social media outfits like Facebook. How to respond to these embarrassing facts? Cry ‘look over there’ and blame ‘Beijing’.

Third, let us ask what is actually taking place. Since tensions in Hong Kong society had risen to the surface, extensive research for the sake of informing policies began. This research focuses on – to name a few – the problematic educational system in Hong Kong, extremes in poverty and wealth (more than one million people in Hong Kong live in poverty, in a city of seven million), the flawed political structure bequeathed by the UK, in which vested interests have an inordinate say in the Legislative Council and any resolution must have a two-thirds majority. We can expect much more in-depth research and reforms in these and other areas.

Of course, the whole idea of ‘pulling the strings’ is based on the ‘authoritarian’ paradigm, which shows profound ignorance of what the one country – two systems policy entails.

Phase 3 of the Ghost Story: The lie of Hong Kong police ‘brutality’.

With the initial protests fading away as people woke up to themselves, smaller and smaller groups raised the level of violence on the streets. They would typically be dressed in black, wear face masks or gas masks, and take drugs to bring on a type of ‘beserk’ behaviour. In their armoury they had petrol bombs, bamboo spears with knives attached, batons, baseball bats, lethal slingshots that fired large ball-bearings, and some began carrying guns.

They set about vandalising, smashing and burning public transport facilities, banks, shops, police vehicles, the airport and many other facilities. They would beat up any isolated police officer (most recently setting an officer on fire with a Molotov cocktail) or indeed member of public that condemned their acts. As the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions has opposed the violence, service centres of the federation have been vandalised and forced to close for repairs. These service centres provide medical, welfare and other community services to workers, especially its members but also the wider public.

Obviously, none of this was reported in the biased media outlets or indeed statements from some ‘Western’ foreign ministers and even leaders. Instead, they focused on supposed police ‘brutality’. And of course, ‘Beijing’ was behind it all.

The facts are quite different. The Hong Kong police have been exceedingly restrained, using measures only where needed to counter the escalation of violence by a small minority. For example, the anti-face mask law, with stiff penalties for covering one’s face in any public gathering, came in to effect on 5 October, 2019. This is quite late in the piece, follows international practice, and was instigated in response to widespread urging in Hong Kong. Indeed, the police have widespread support in Hong Kong and the mainland, with ‘I support Hong Kong police’ being displayed on many shop windows, on social media and so on.

Phase 4 of the Ghost Story: Supposedly, people on the mainland are ‘denied’ information about Hong Kong.

This one really runs through the whole story, but it was revealed to me by a question while I was in Western Europe: ‘What about Hong Kong, do the people in China know what is going on?’

The assumption behind this question is obvious: Chinese people are supposedly ‘denied’ information about the world and their own country.

Not long after I was asked this question, I returned to China. Not only are the news outlets regularly providing detailed and complete information about Hong Kong, but in everyday conversations people express their deep concern about what is happening. The foreign interference is clear, which they resent, and they are troubled by the overturning of central Chinese values, especially harmony, security and stability. Above all, they are not anti-Kong Kong, but instead feel for what ordinary people in Hong Kong are suffering (in light of the economic downturn in response to the riots) and hope that the situation will be stabilised soon.

I found that here one could gain a sense of the all the facts in relation to what was going on in Hong Kong. Thankfully, this is also the case in the vast majority of countries in the world, which increasingly do not listen to the biased material being pumped out of a few former colonising countries.

from the Archives: The Permanent War Economy and De-industrialization, by TJ Petrowski, September 24, 2016

by TJ Petrowski September 24, 2016

(Image: Detroit, Michigan, the former centre of America’s auto industry)

Politicians of all political stripes like to dress inflated military budgets, and the wicked arms deals that frequently accompany them, in terms of “job creation.” Former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, arguing against any reduction in military funding, claimed that any decrease “would result in job cuts that would add potentially 1 (percentage point) to the national unemployment rate.”[1] Here in Canada, both Stephen Harper and his Liberal counterpart Justin Trudeau have justified the $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the largest such deal in Canadian history, as a means of creating jobs. “The fact is that there are jobs in London relying on this” deal, Trudeau said [2].
A closer examination will reveal something different. By not producing a life-serving product, i.e., an article used for either consumption or for further production, military spending is not only the worst of available choices for job creation, it contributes to industrial and infrastructure decay.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst found that for every $1 billion in military spending far more and better paying jobs could be created in education, healthcare, and green energy. A billion dollars spent in green energy would generate 6, 000 jobs that pay between $32, 000 and $64, 000 a year, and another 2, 300 jobs that pay over $64, 000. The equivalent amount in military spending, however, would generate 4, 700 mid-income and 2, 350 high-income jobs, 15% less overall than in green energy. In education the results were far more striking, where $1 billion would generate 120% more jobs than would be generated through the military. “[S]pending on clean energy, healthcare, and education,” the researchers concluded, “all create a much larger number of jobs that pay wages greater than $32, 000 per year” than are created through military expenditures [3].
A permanent war economy also leads to deindustrialization and the slow death of local communities. Workers are led to believe that it is due to their excessively high wages that multinational corporations transfer production overseas. While it is true that multinational corporations have transferred production to countries such as Mexico and the Philippines to profit from low wages, that in itself does not explain how after World War II the U.S. auto industry, for example, paid the highest wages in the industry while still being able to produce the lowest price per pound of vehicle in the Ford, Chevrolet, and Plymouth plants, and why they no longer can (or will). Nor does it explain how Japanese and European automakers have been able to seize a large chunk of the North American market.
These are questions Seymour Melman addresses in his book Profits Without Production. Melman argues that the deindustrialization of America can be traced back to the adoption of cost-maximizing in the machine tools industry, a consequence of producing for the military economy [Ibid, p. 5]. In the 1950s, in the heat of the space race between the Soviet Union and the U.S., the U.S. Air Force was the chief sponsor of technological development in this critical industry. Numerical control technology, for instance, allowing many of the tasks of a machinist to be supplanted by prerecorded control information for greater accuracy, was developed by MIT engineers and the U.S. Air Force. This became an open invitation to abandon cost-minimizing [Ibid, p. 5]. Since capability and performance are primary to the military when selecting a contractor, any incentive to offset costs by changes in internal production methods and design were discarded by the leading manufacturers. Costs were simply “passed” along to be added to the final price. It is this cost-maximizing that is at the root of the exponential increase in the cost of military equipment, such as the F-35 fighter jet, which has increased in price by more than 93% before even being put into operation [6]. Between 1971 and 1978, as the new management style of cost-maximizing became more widespread, the cost of machine tools increased on average by 85% annually, outpacing the rise in wages [Ibid, p. 5]. Consequently, in important industries like steel and auto, there was no incentive to invest in new machinery, and this in turn led to an unprecedented decrease in productivity. The machine tools industry itself had failed to invest in the very technology it developed to improve productivity. In the decade 1965-1975, annual productivity growth in Japan and the U.S. was 10% and 2% respectively. By 1980 the annual productivity growth in the U.S. had reached an unprecedented low of -0.5%, as investments in new technology and machinery came to virtual standstill [Ibid, p. 6]. During this same period the U.S. military used up every $52 of capital resources for every $100 that was assigned to civilian production [Ibid, p. 88]. Unable to compete with Japanese and West German manufacturers, many U.S. manufacturers of steel, autos, electronics, machines, and other industries were pushed out of the international and domestic markets. Despite the hourly wages of Japanese workers increasing on average 4.9% annually between 1960-1967 and 8.8% between 1967-1976, compared to 1.7% and 0.8% for American workers respectively [10], by 1980 Japanese manufacturers supplied 20% of all U.S. steel, eliminating one out of every five jobs in the U.S. steel industry [Ibid, p. 188] ; 27% of all the autos on American roads; 87% of all the televisions; and 15% of all the executive aircraft [Ibid, p. 2oo].
The massive quantity of capital needed to feed the war machine has also led to the deterioration of infrastructure and social services. “The federal government,” writes Melman, “has been milking the economy of New York State (and Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin – all of them centers of civilian industry) and transferring capital and purchasing power to the states where military industry and bases are concentrated.” [Ibid, p. 231] Healthcare, social services, education, and clean water have all been shortchanged to fund the war machine. In 1981, according to a report by the Council of State Planning Agencies, one out of every five bridges required rehabilitation or reconstruction; the Interstate Highway System was deteriorating at a rate requiring reconstruction of 2, 000 miles of road a year; and 9, 000 dams were in need of safety improvements [Ibid, p. 228]. The case of New York was particularly striking.

South Bronx, New York. Source

The report estimated that in New York City 6, 200 miles of paved streets, 6, 000 miles of sewers, 6, 000 miles of water lines, 6, 700 subway cars, 4, 500 buses, 17 hospitals, 19 city university campuses, 950 schools, and 200 libraries would require repair, service, or rebuilding to remain operational [Ibid, p. 228-229]. A New York City Councilman, so desperate to acquire funding to rebuild the South Bronx, asked for a $5 billion loan from the Soviet government through a Soviet Peace Committee delegation in 1980 [Ibid, p. 231].
Due the application of federal funds to the war machine, an estimated 1, 015, 000 man-years of labour was lost between 1977-1978 [Ibid, p. 238]. This estimate, however, does not include the secondary effects of the absorption of capital by the war machine, “like further productivity forgone owing to the economically nonproductive character of military goods and services.” [Ibid, p. 238] The social cost of the deindustrialization of America is staggering. According to a study conducted by Harvey Brenner, for each 1% rise in unemployment nationally, there is a corresponding annual increase of 650 homicides, 920 suicides, 20, 000 deaths from heart disease, 3, 300 admissions to state mental hospitals, as well as increases in prison admissions [19].
A permanent war economy is not sustainable. The working class and all peace loving people must reject any further military expenditures, and struggle for a future where peace and prosperity are to be shared by all.

Voices from Syria: “Syria’s Secularism and Pluralism Cannot Survive without Assad.” February 27, 2016 By Vanessa Beeley

 

Rev. Andrew Ashdown
21st Century Wire
“What the government and Russian army are doing is fighting Takfiris.  Few civilians are left there [Aleppo], but we know there has been collateral damage. That is sad, but war is dirty and everyone is guilty.   But the government is not targeting civilians.”
That evening I joined a group of young Muslim [Sunni and Alawite] and Christian friends in a bustling Damascene cafe in the Old City, where Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christian, Alawite, from all parts of the country still mingle quite happily. Talking to people it is evident that no-one has escaped the horrors of war – whether it be close friends,loved ones killed and/or kidnapped, and/or homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet,  whilst realistic about the multiple complexities of the realities, all are determined to keep living, and most want to preserve the integrity of Syria, and reject the sectarian agendas that outside forces are creating.
I asked my friend about the situation in Aleppo.  He replied:
“The western media is putting out that there are 70,000 fleeing the area.  Turkey hasn’t opened the borders to people fleeing the ‘Russian bombing of civilians’.  But where are the 70000?  We are only seeing clips of hundreds, maybe a few thousand gathering.   We cannot deny that there are still some civilians there and people who couldn’t manage to get to other safe cities, but remember,  more than one and half million people have already come from Aleppo to Lattakia, Tartous and Damascus, to the safety of Government-controlled areas.  So who is left in Aleppo? 
We know that there are a lot of foreign fighters there… it is all over the media… lots of Chechens in South Aleppo and Turkmen, and fighters  from around the world.  What the government and Russian army are doing is fighting Takfiris.  Few civilians are left there, but we know there has been collateral damage. That is sad, but war is dirty and everyone is guilty.   But the government is not targeting civilians.
Those who fled to Latakkia and Tartous are Muslims.  They  don’t want to have the terrorists there.  They are praying for the army to defeat the terrorists.” 

[Cover image is of a car damaged by regular “moderate rebel” mortar fire into Damascus civilian areas, taken by Rev. Andrew Ashdown. This image was supplied to 21st Century Wire by a resident of Aleppo, showing similar damage caused by daily “moderate rebel” Hell Cannon bombardment of the remaining civilian areas – 21st Century Wire]
From my experience of talking with refugees from Aleppo, sheltering in Lattakia in 2105, this was definitely the case when listening to their experiences. My friend continued talking:
“If all the people the government are fighting are civilians, wouldn’t it be easy to take over the area?   Why does it take five years?  No.  The army are trying to liberate the towns and villages in the Aleppo area.”
He went on to talk about Homs.
“There are parts of Homs that the rebels were in control of for a long time.   They were taken out in a reconciliation agreement.  My home and a lot of homes were destroyed because the terrorists occupied them, and were firing on the government-controlled areas from them.  They were launching mortars and missiles all over the city that killed a lot of people. When we were told that the government would bomb our house, we told them ‘Fine. Go ahead.’   We want to defeat the terrorists, and if it means losing our home, so be it.”
[A young Christian woman whose home in Homs was destroyed in the same way, said almost the same thing to me when I visited Homs last year.]
My friend continued:
“Homs witnessed a lot of car explosions that killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of houses. [Actual number of car bombs in one civilian area of the city is so far 33.]   The city is now free of terrorists, but there are terrorists in the area, and the reconciliation project is still going on.   We say to them:  let the foreign fighters out, and lay down arms, and everything will come back to normal.  In a lot of cities, the fighters are giving up their weapons, and some of them are joining the army against the takfiris.  Homs is mostly at  peace now, and there are plans already for its reconstruction.”

Terrorist car bomb in Zahra, civilian area of Homs. Photo SANA

[For further information on the terrorist mortar and suicide bomb attacks on Syrian towns and cities please read Eva Bartlett’s blog: InGaza.wordpress.com.]
I asked about the political prisoners, so often mentioned by Western and Gulf media:
“We cannot deny the issue of political prisoners and we don’t like it,”  he continued.
“A close member of my family spent nine months in prison for criticising the President, but he was released.  They didn’t mistreat him or torture him.  It is the same for most. 
You know the ‘Caesar Report’ is mostly a fake.  It was financed by Qatar, and many of the pictures come from other parts of the region, or are even of Syria soldiers. It is ironic that Qatar, where there are no human rights, should fund a report that claims to be about human rights! 
In any case, the President issued a decree in 2014 lifting the emergency laws that say that the President cannot be criticised.  The problem is that the Secret Services continue to arrest people for doing so, even though the President has called for the cessation of such action.” 
Actually, contrary to the mythology presented in the West that Syrian people live in fear and will not say a negative word about the regime, I found very few people who were not openly critical of the regime.
The issue that was mentioned to me again and again, both by supporters of the regime, and of opponents, was the corruption within the regime, and the presence of ‘bad characters’ who wield excessive influence.
By contrast, talking to Sunni, Shia, Druze, Kurds, Christians, residents of Syria, refugees in neighbouring countries, internally displaced people,  supporters or opposition, I have heard very little criticism of Assad himself.   The fact of the matter is that, whether the West likes it or not, Assad personally retains an enormous level of popularity and respect.
There seem to be very few people, even amongst those who are highly critical of the regime, who believe that the secularism and pluralism of Syria can survive without him.  Even refugees outside Syria, who have opposed the Syrian Government, have expressed to me their deep fear, of what would happen if Assad were deposed and the US NATO backed “moderate rebel” forces gained power.
The following day I met and had lunch with another young Christian friend who spoke freely about the struggles of life amidst the conflict.  She too was from the Old City of Homs and had fled the rebel occupation of the city.  She echoed the narrative of others I met in Homs itself.
Together we visited a medieval caravanserai which I last visited with my family in 2010. A place of craft shops and culture, I had assumed that it would be boarded up, but no the shops were still open. I watched one man making replica swords and medieval armoury; another making replica clay tablets of Ugarit writing and Koranic verses, artists selling paintings, and other shops of silks and carpets. How they survive I don’t know.
My friend could not imagine either…
“None of us have the money to buy luxury items” she said.
The shopkeepers, however were proud of their trade.  They said:
“This is all we can do – to keep working and to keep living until peace comes.”
In my view, these people, and the many friends I meet, represent the hope for Syria.  These are the people who will ensure the survival and healing of Syria… if the international community don’t sell it to the forces of violence and terror.
That evening I had dinner at a friend’s home, in the company of a teacher, a doctor, a university professor, a TV presenter, and another university teacher and independent translator. They were people from different faiths and communities and different parts of the country. We shared in wide-ranging, deeply honest and open discussions on social and political realities of life in the country, the conflict, it’s implications, and the tragic effect it is having on everyone and everything.
I have huge respect for these friends, who in the face of so many difficulties are committed to and desirous of a brighter future for all the people of the country.
Damascus University
Despite the conflict, the University of Damascus continues to operate, with a shortage of staff, and with students who still come from all over the country to complete their studies.  Everyone has their stories of suffering, loved ones killed, homes and livelihoods destroyed.
It is one of the largest universities in the Middle East.  Given the abundance of highly intelligent students, different political views are represented amongst both students and staff.  But the University has suffered as well.  Several times it has received direct hits from rebel shells.   Staff and students have been killed.  I met one professor who had both legs amputated following a car bomb explosion.
Within the University, there is a strong desire to set up a department for the study of Peace and Reconciliation and Conflict Resolution, and the University is seeking to work with the Centre for Peace and Religions at Winchester University to develop a joint programme.  This area of study and research will be vital for the long process of healing that will be needed once the conflict has ended.
I met with the President of the University, Dr. Hassan Kurdi and also with Professor Dr. Mohammed Tawfiq Ramadan, Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Jurisprudence, and son of the renowned former Grand Mufti, Dr. Moahmmed Said Ramadan Al-Buti, who was assassinated  in his mosque in 2013.  A scholar who supported inter-religious dialogue and the plurality of Syria, his son is continuing his father’s work.
Coming to Syria independently, my primary purpose, and one which was largely successful, was to spend time with and speak with ordinary Syrians, and it was a joy and privilege to speak with many from different backgrounds and different parts of Syria. Though I was not able to go beyond Damascus on this occasion, I talked with many who have experienced the horrors of Homs, Aleppo, Daraa, Deir Ezzor etc.
I was deeply disappointed that my efforts, with the help of friends and contacts, to visit Aleppo, failed. As I was travelling independently, the paperwork and permissions required to visit the city, and the number of departments and officials through which such application has to proceed, was just not possible in the time available. It was quite telling that even the Grand Mufti, who told me when I met him, that he would gladly support me in visiting Aleppo, felt he would be unable to influence the speed of the bureaucratic procedure.
Civilians and supplies are now travelling freely and safely between Damascus and Aleppo since the Syrian Arab Army has cleared the highway of the Western & Gulf backed extremists, however, the government-controlled half of Aleppo is still a dangerous place due to the raining shells, bombs and sniper -fire of the “moderate rebels”.
I was willing to put my life on the line to visit friends and contacts, including members of the Christian community there, because no-one from the West is reporting from and about those areas. And our desk-bound experts in London, Washington and around the world, refuse to listen to the numerous different voices and realities on the ground.
In my view, by refusing to do so, they are only helping to perpetuate the conflict and the suffering of the innocents on all sides of the conflict. The tragedy for so many millions is unimaginable, and no party to the conflict is free of blame.
End of Part II
[Editors Note:  Part III will be an interview with Dr Ali Haider, Syrian Government Minister for Reconciliation]

The Reverend Andrew Ashdown is an Anglican priest in England.  He has been visiting and leading groups to the Middle East for over 25 years, and has visited Syria four times since April 2014, both as a member of faith delegations, and more recently independently.  Andrew is undertaking research into Christian/Muslim relations in the region. 

ALSO READ: Part I – Reports from Inside Syria by Rev. Andrew Ashdown