The new Labour leader, who claims to be a socialist, seems to be doing everything he can to destroy democratic socialism within the party. Why?
In Twitter conversations I’ve seen, socialists seem deeply hurt by the words, actions and inaction of the new Labour leader. ‘The Trilateral Commission’ cropped up in quite a few comments about Sir Keir Starmer…. so I decided to look deeper into it.
What is the Trilateral Commission?
“The Trilateral Commission was founded at the initiative of David Rockefeller in 1973. Its members are drawn from the three components of the world of capitalist democracy: the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Among them are the heads of major corporations and banks, partners in corporate law firms, Senators, Professors of international affairs — the familiar mix in extra-governmental groupings. Along with the 1940s project of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), directed by a committed “trilateralist” and with numerous links to the Commission, the project constitutes the first major effort at global planning since the War-Peace Studies program of the CFR during World War II.” Noam Chomsky https://chomsky.info/priorities01/
Global planning or global control of capitalists’ interests?
Laying my cards on the table, I’m a lefty, anti capitalist, believer in small local enterprise, non-monopolistic business, equality of opportunity, workers rights, public ownership of social housing and public services etc. I am a Democratic Socialist. As such, and having read up about it, I agree with Holly Sklar’s take on the Trilateral Commission, as reported in the Washington Post:
“ To Holly Sklar, who edited the 1980 anthology “Trilateralism,” the commission “represents the interests of multinational corporations and banks,” which means it’s contrary to the interests of Third World countries and workers all over. It wants wages kept low. It wants voters kept apathetic and polarized.
The Trilateral Commission is not a “conspiracy” and is not “omnipotent,” Sklar says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not influential.” For example, she says the commission set out to economically “co-opt” OPEC, persuading countries like Saudi Arabia to put their petrodollars back into Western banks, and to buy weapons from the West, instead of investing in developing countries.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1992/04/25/beware-the-trilateral-commission/59c48198-9479-4c80-a70a-a1518b5bcfff/
In my view, the Trilateral Commission was founded by the capitalists to protect: capitalist interests and their private wealth. Therefore, capitalists need to have control, ergo they are anti democracy. However, they wouldn’t get away with being a full on dictatorship, so they had to find a way of creating an illusion of democracy whilst not allowing people to have the power of a true democracy.
‘Democracy in Crisis’ – My Observations with Extracts
In setting up the Trilateral Commission as controllers of capitalism to protect private wealth for the elite, there has to be a structure which enables a few guardians* to gain and maintain control. United States already exists in America, but Europe needs to be unified. The populace needs to be compliant, let the leaders lead. The leaders need to be willing to do the guardians’ bidding. Reading through the Democracy In Crisis report, it became clear to me how they would achieve it.
* guardians pops up a number of times in the report
My argument
The ‘Democracy in Crisis’ report was presented as a strategy for elite capitalists to achieve the control they needed to protect their interests:
- Justify the need for a guardian of democracy in Western societies:
Pose the threat of danger……
- Predict dictatorship
“In recent years, acute observers on all three continents have seen a bleak future for democratic government. Before leaving office, Willy Brandt was reported to believe that “Western Europe has only 20 or 30 more years of democracy left in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless, under the surrounding sea of dictatorship….”
- Too many educated people
“In an age of widespread secondary school and university education, the pervasiveness of the mass media, and the displacement of manual labor by clerical and professional employees, this development constitutes a challenge to democratic government which is, potentially at least, as serious as those posed in the past by the aristocratic cliques, fascist movements, and communist parties.”
- Spoilt teenagers don’t care about anyone but themselves….
“In all three Trilateral regions, a shift in values is taking place away from the materialistic work-oriented, public-spirited values toward those which stress private satisfaction, leisure, and the need for “belonging and intellectual and esthetic self-fulfillment.” These values are, of course, most notable in the younger generation……. They tend to be privatistic in their impact and import.”
- Too much socialism – bring back poverty
“The rise of this syndrome of values is presumably related to the relative affluence in which most groups in the Trilateral societies came to share during the economic expansion of the 1960s.”
- Democracy needs a guardian …..
“The demands on democratic government grow, while the capacity of democratic government stagnates. This, it would appear, is the central dilemma of the governability of democracy which has manifested itself in Europe, North America, and Japan in the 1970s.”
2. Justify the need to leave decision making to the leaders:
Identify the ‘bad’ influences in democratic systems…..
- Socialism is bad
“…Britain has become the most dramatic example of this malaise, not because it is the worst example but because Britain, which had escaped all the vagaries of continental politics, had always been considered everywhere as the mother and the model of democratic processes. Its contemporary troubles seem to announce the collapse of these democratic processes….”
- Diversity is bad
“Each country, of course, is substantially different. The main characteristic of Western Europe is its diversity….
> The European political systems are overloaded with participants and demands, and they have increasing difficulty in mastering the very complexity which is the natural result of their economic growth and political development.”
- Solidarity and access to information are bad
“First of all, social and economic developments have made it possible for a great many more groups and interests to coalesce. Second, the information explosion has made it difficult if not impossible to maintain the traditional distance that was deemed necessary to govern. Third, the democratic ethos makes it difficult to prevent access and restrict information, while the persistence of the bureaucratic processes which had been associated with the traditional governing systems makes it impossible to handle them at a low enough level.”
- Decision-making systems are complex and dysfunctional
“Politicians and administrators have found it easier and more expedient to give up to complexity. They tend to accommodate to it and even to use it as a useful smoke screen. One can give access to more groups and more demands without having to say no and one can maintain and expand one’s own freedom of action or, in more unpleasant terms, one’s own irresponsibility.”
- Decision-making in fewer hands is good
“….…. a country like Sweden, which has developed an impressive capability for handling complex problems by relieving ministerial staffs of the burden of administrative and technical decisions and by allocating considerable decision-making powers to strengthened local authorities”
3. Establish a reason why national democratic systems in their current diverse forms don’t work, ie political rhetoric (nodding to the people’s demands to get elected) versus policy administration (only able to implement small changes to group rather than general social advantage). Thereby, justifying the need for unified, standardised regulation, to maintain social order and acceptance of decision-making powers being in the hands of a few.
Why European countries should Federate….
- Blame bureaucracy
“Politico-administrative regulations work according to a basic vicious circle: bureaucratic rule divorced from the political rhetoric and from the needs of the citizens fosters among them alienation and irresponsibility which form the necessary con- text for the breakdown of consensus that has developed. Lack of consensus in its turn makes it indispensable to resort to bureaucratic rule, since one cannot take the risk of involving citizens who do not accept the minimum rules of the game.”
- Too many groups fighting in their own corners
“In Denmark, the Netherlands, and Britain, the social democratic consensus is breaking down while the relationships between groups have become so complex and erratic that citizens are more and more frustrated.”
- Look, Europe’s great!
“European societies are still very civilized societies whose citizens are well-protected and whose amenities and possibilities of enjoyment have not only been maintained but extended to a great many more people. In addition Europe suffers less from social disruption and crime than the United States.”
- Let’s Federate before people’s demands cause governance problems
“There are growing areas, nevertheless, where governments’ capacity to act and to meet the challenge of citizens’ demands has been drastically impaired……This impairment of capacities is becoming prevalent in more countries in bargaining among groups, income redistribution, and the handling of inflation.”
4. Socialism gives too much democracy. There has to be justification for a class system comprised of workers and those who govern i.e. the holders of power. Socialism doesn’t work because people get ideas above their station, and create unrest when their demands aren’t met.
Convince the public Socialism doesn’t work….
- Spin the post war period
“……tremendous economic gains made during the past twenty years* by all groups and especially the workers……..Instead of appeasing tensions, material progress seems to have exacerbated them.”
*1950s and 60s
“Once people know that things can change, they cannot accept easily anymore the basic features of their condition that were once taken for granted. ….…. citizens have been more sophisticated politically…..”
- Demonise the Unions
“Rank-and-file workers do not recognize themselves in such a bureaucratic process and they tend to drift away, which means that the more trade unions and working-class parties accept regular procedures, the weaker they become in their capacity to mobilize their followers and to put real pressure on the system. Thus, they have to rediscover radicalism.”
5. Encourage people out of their comfort zones
Heighten the fear – easier control
- Change is disruptive
“.…accelerated change is extremely costly in terms of disruption. It means that many branches and enterprises decline and even disappear while others undergo tremendous growth.”
- Unfamiliarity is unsettling
“People are forced to be mobile geographically and occupationally, which can be accounted for in terms of psychological costs. They have had to face a new form of uncertainty and are likely to compare their fates more often to the fates of other groups. Tensions, therefore, are bound to increase.”
https://theconversation.com/war-on-the-picket-line-how-the-british-press-made-a-battle-out-of-the-miners-strike-60470
Extracts from: https://archive.org/details/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975/page/n25/mode/2up?q=acute+observers+on+all+three+continents
Conclusion
In my view, the last forty-plus years UK governments policies align with the Trilateral Commission strategy for the capitalist elite to gain control.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Some Outcomes from 40+ years of UK Governments’ policies
- Council Housing sell off – property ownership is touted as mark of success, never mind those who can’t buy
- Trickle down economics – the rise of neoliberalism and the ‘special relationship’ with America
- Slowly destroy manufacturing industry and coal industry
- Call, and treat strike action as ‘riots’ – Orgreave; Regulating and disempowering Unions
- Control education – Produce a Statutory National Curriculum
- Encourage economic migrants, then make them unwelcome ‘Go Home Vans’
- Corporatism in Public Services
- Point the blame at others if people don’t climb the ladder of ‘success’ – immigrants, benefit scroungers, identity politics
- Demonise Socialism with fake or spun information – shout Zimbabwe; Venezuela; Russia; Strikes; Labour Broke the bank!
- Suppress the working class – Austerity, ‘flexible working’ ie zero hours, unstable jobs
- Devolution – NHS, Local Government
Under the guise of identity politics, the majority of Labour PLP continue to support the suppression of democracy and through his messaging, delayed action, or inaction the new leader of the Labour Party allows the fear to grow.
Is Socialism really that bad that people decide to vote with the Capitalists?
Final thoughts:
I cannot see socialism being allowed to exist in the party when the leader of UK Labour is a member of the Trilateral Commission………
It does not mean the end for Socialism though
Idle Observations 
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