Re: [PEN-L] Stunning legal victory on the "real threat to the life of the nation"
If I am right in accepting the verdict of "Liberty"
that this is one of the biggest progressive constitutional changes in UK legal
history for a long time, to what extent is it a victory in the superstructure,
independent of the economic base? To what extent is it congruent with the
economic base?
The passage I quoted from Engels noted that there
is a degree of autonomy in a sphere like the law and "the faithful reflection of
economic conditions suffers increasingly".
Clearly the ruling is producing ideas consistent
not only with a democratic image of British nationalism, but with a European
citizenship. Bearing in mind that the victims that the law lords were moving to
protect, came in some cases from outside Europe, the widening scope of the legal
ruling about "human rights" is potentially world-wide. Any economic or social
grouping, not just a nation, can be a "social organism" across the globe. It is
not dependent on the historical development of the nation state.
Lord Hoffman, in fact has long been associated with
Amnesty International.
So this could be seen as a victory of abstract
utopian justice which is being applied increasingly on a world scale, devoid of
class content. Eg it could be applied against Cuba.
On the other hand the forces of international
finance capital arguably on balance favour, and even require, a fairly
homogenous global state system and civil society, for the fastest circulation of
commodities, and turnover of capital, for the more efficient exploitation of
labour power, including educated labour power, which is especially important in
utilising advanced technological innovations.
Yes there are clusters of capital such as that
around the Neo-Cons, which prefer to trample carelessly over civil rights. Yes,
there was a wing of capital that favoured the brutal crushing of the
anti-capitalist protesters at Genoa. Nevertheless I would argue that finance
capital itself, as seen in the spreading influence of the European Union even to
Turkey, and to the Ukraine, on balance favours the more smoothly
controlled bourgeois democratic rights agenda contained in this legal
victory.
The implication about terrorism, is that the
markets can stand a quick sharp overthrow of an internally repressive
nationalistic regime, if it is done quickly and successfully. But they will
gravitate towards a smoother control of and digestion of, repressive regimes if
unsure. They would rather assimilate Iran.than invade.. It produces less
uncertainty, and surer results over a 10-20 year timescale. And that is the
timescale that finance capital is interested in.
It implies a complex agenda for countering
terrorism. Thus terrorism does not imperil the "life of the nation". Repressive
laws do.
So much for global finance capital.
As for working people - working class and
self-employed workers on the land - a more radical agenda of human rights
is to their advantage, but there is a downside in that it ultimately tends to
emphasise atomised individualised rights, despite Lord Hoffman's praise for the
"social organism".
My take on the dialectics, behind this
victory.
Chris Burford
London
