Alternative Budgets Shouldn’t Avoid The Question Of Power

There’s a real problem with socialists producing alternative budgets. You see, if you’re not in power then you’re making demands on the current capitalist government, which immediately rules out a lot of what you’re calling for if you’re calling for radical measures.

Then again, if you’re talking about a future left government why would socialists get to write the budget? Wouldn’t Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, Labour and the Greens have their own pro-market budget? Mary Lou McDonald is hardly likely to turn to Richard Boyd Barrett TD and ask him to write up their budget!

And if you’re talking about the future, after a workers’ rebellion, then simply calling for another fifty quid on welfare payments seems silly. But the expectation is that a budget is written for the present. It’s a budget for Ireland for the coming year.

This makes alternative budgets highly problematic. Take the People Before Profit budget as an example. The basic problem is that their document oscillates between three different documents without ever clearly distinguishing them:

Firstly, it’s a call for demands that Fianna Fáil Fine Gael could implement now, like increased welfare payments, public sector pay or more social housing.

Secondly, it’s simultaneously a list of demands for a Sinn Féin-led government that PBP tells workers PBP they would join, but in reality they’d end up supporting or pressuring from outside.

Thirdly, it has bits and pieces of a programme for what a workers’ movement would fight to achieve if there was a fundamental change in power. But the document never spells this out. The question of power is never raised so the demands are implied to be for the second tier, for a Sinn Féin led government.

The opening statement is clearly framed as an alternative to the actual 2027 Budget. They argue that there are currently “resources available” and that the present government could do this or that and that “priorities have to change”, meaning it’s clearly addressed to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael now and the government’s priorities need to change.

So you’d think it’s straightforward then, that the document is written as policies we need to pressure and protest to force the current capitalist government into implementing.

But then it contains things like: Nationalising all the major energy generators, replacing the energy regulator with a democratic People’s Power Agency, transforming the LDA into a state construction company, taking vacant property into public ownership, taking most private disability services into public control, creating a publicly owned National Childcare Service and radically transforming RTÉ.

Ok so now we’re asking Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to implement an “eco-socialist” budget? Good luck! Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can’t just decide to do these things not only because of the class affiliation of those parties but also because it would bring them into conflict with their masters in the boss class. So the PBP budget document rests on a contradiction that it never overcomes.

For example, the energy section asks for energy credits but doesn’t just propose a bigger subsidy. It says energy is “too important to remain in private hands”, it proposes nationalisation of all major generators and a new democratic planning institution.

But it doesn’t say that without worker control planning would be done by overpaid state bureaucrats loyal to the capitalist class. Look at Irish Water or the HSE. Nationalization without worker control just creates neoliberal quangos run by overpaid bureaucrats.

Fianna Fáil Fine Gael won’t do any of these things. Even a Sinn Féin led government won’t do most of these things. We’ve already seen Sinn Féin in power in the North and in the South Pearse Doherty has told business leaders they’ve nothing to fear. Davy Stockbrokers says the investor class in Ireland are happy enough with Sinn Féin policies.

So who is this budget written for? It’s completely confused and conflates various levels of demands, those for now and those for the future, without clarifying the transformation of state power that would be necessary to implement and secure the more radical demands.

Whatever you do don’t mention the need for a workers’ rebellion to establish a workers’ state that could actually deliver on those demands! Is this a budget that the existing capitalist state could implement or is it a programme for transforming the state and wider economic relations?

If it is the former, the proposals are wildly under-theorised because the existing system won’t do most of those things. If it is the latter, the document doesn’t adequately explain the political forces required to carry them through.

Paraphrasing, the PBP Budget document repeatedly says: “Ireland is extremely wealthy; there is a huge budget surplus; the money exists; the problem is political will.” The introduction concludes: “We have enough resources to create a better, ecosocialist society… All it needs now is the political will.”

And the revenue section says Ireland’s current capitalist finances are “extremely healthy” and that there are “unprecedented resources available”. It describes the existing model as “pro-capitalist” and argues that enough resources can be raised through taxation to fund a transformation.

It’s as if the nature of the capitalist state and the wider capitalist system can be changed from “pro-capitalist” to “pro-worker” simply by changing the people running the system and changing the policies they implement. If the resources are already there and the obstacle is simply political will, then why does PBP need a socialist transformation of society at all?

But if capitalist property relations obstruct radical demands, then “there is enough money” and “political will” aren’t the central arguments because we need to talk about who is actually in power.

Under capitalism governments make “second order” decisions, the “first order” decisions are made by the capitalists. It’s the boss class that decides where to invest, that class commands armies of workers, they control the overall economy while the government responds to the market. Governments can make things slightly worse, slightly better, or have a neutral impact.

But the cycles of investment and the crises that come along every few years are out of their control. Not that the capitalists fully control things either because they’re like a bunch of sharks just chasing profit and what we call economic “laws” are simply the aggregate effect of millions of companies competing with millions of companies.

If we look at the demands in the PBP document there are what you’d call minimum demands. These demands make perfect sense as demands on the present government, like calling for €350 welfare, a €17 an hour living wage, additional public-sector pay, free GP care or more hospital beds.

Then without clarifying why, they jump to measures which might be technically possible through a parliamentary government but would require a much more confrontational political programme than any of the current left parties actually advocate. This includes nationalisation, massive public construction, public childcare, public energy and public food distribution.

The only left government on offer is Sinn Féin, Labour, Greens and the Social Democrats. They show no inclination to take these measures. And since the recent Dublin bye election Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats have been arguing in the media and have ruled out a left coalition.

If we really wanted to implement a budget that does all these things and more, why not talk about power? And if we were in power wouldn’t we do more? If this is supposed to be a programme for the future, why is it so cautious?

To actually control the economy would require more than just control over a budget implemented through a capitalist state. We need our own workers’ state, where delegates are elected from industries and we have control over budgetary decisions and over the overall economy.

Then you could plan what to produce and when to produce it. You’re not just playing at the edges of the economy. PBP proposes nationalisation and a democratic plan to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030. But the immediate budgetary measure they propose is €5 billion investment, funded partly by the existing government’s Future Ireland Fund.

The presentation of each problem follows the same pattern. They say that we can afford this, here is the revenue source, here is the current administrative mechanism. They depoliticise the transition to socialism and evade the question of power, that way they don’t have to talk about breaking capitalist power but can insinuate a parliamentary majority could do it using current mechanisms.

Nationalisation of major industries isn’t simply a budget allocation. You have to take on the power of the boss class and battle a state machine that’s loyal to them. You have to deal with ownership claims, compensation claims and EU rules that you’d have to break.

Not to mention control over supply chains without which state run grocery stores, as an example, would simply be held to ransom by suppliers unless the supply chain was part of an overall planned economy.

The PBP document treats transformations in key economic relations as though they were ordinary items in a fiscal budget and they avoid any mention of state power and real consequences.

PBP correctly state that the current government represents capitalist interests. The document explicitly describes Ireland’s economic model as “pro-capitalist” and says multinational corporations have access to corporate welfare.

They don’t simply write capitalist but “pro-capitaist”. That way the solution becomes to elect a government with the “political will" to use the capitalist state differently. But the capitalist state isn’t simply a neutral administrative machine with the wrong people in government.

The top civil servants are loyal to the system. That means that the sentence: “All it needs now is the political will” might work as rhetoric but it’s theoretically problematic. It turns a class relation into a psychological deficiency in the establishment politicians.

The problem isn’t that FF/FG politicians wake up in the morning and just fail to think: “Hmm, you know what lads, maybe we should build 36,000 council houses!” It’s not that they lack “political will”, it’s that they lack the class interests to ever reorganise production. They are wed to the market.

They do what they do because of their class interests, the class they represent and the class basis of the state. The state is not neutral. It’s a capitalist state.

The PBP budget is confident about extracting big sums from capital to pay for everything. The €25 billion take from corporation-tax estimate is a striking example. Taxation is not wealth production.

They avoid talking about control over the overall economy and simply talk about adjusting tax because it allows PBP to seem radical in the list of demands they make while using existing state mechanisms and state funds, remaining cautious about the question of power.

The problem isn’t that PBP asks for too much. It’s that it asks workers to demand a great deal from the state without explaining how workers themselves could acquire the political power to run the society those demands presuppose.

There’s nothing wrong with making demands on the current government. But say that’s what you’re doing. There’s also nothing wrong with putting forward measures socialists want to take. The problem is when you suggest using the current state to implement radical demands and avoid talking about how we put workers in the driving seat and actually transform the economy.

You don’t get a revolution by talking about it. But you don’t get a revolution by not talking about it either. You can’t use the working class as an unconscious battering ram that expects a parliamentary left to deliver all these wonderful things and then once disappointed will somehow magically gain an insight into the need for a revolution.

There needs to be a significant minority of workers who already know we need to go beyond the current system or else disappointment can just as easily lead to demoralisation. We need to prepare workers to take the driving seat and should never tire of repeating the need for a new kind of political power, where workers call the shots.

The Red Network clearly marks our programme with minimum demands we make today and maximum demands that it would take a rebellion to get. We won’t tire of repeating that we need to put workers in the driving seat of a new state so that workers can drive the economy. That way we won’t just be balancing budgets but can plan the whole economy to satisfy our needs.