Left bankers
Sir: It was generous of James Buchan to write that he found After the Fall, the col- lection I have edited on the failure of com- munism and the future of socialism, to be 'by far the most interesting new book' he read in 1991 (Books, 21/28 December). And agreeable to be criticised in the pages of The Spectator for being insufficiently aware of the demerits of capitalism. But I would like to take issue with his mis- chievous contention that 'getting rid of investment bankers is arguably the sole remaining appeal of socialism, and not lightly to be given up.'
Elegantly put though it might be, this is wrong on both counts: socialists have often had a soft spot for investment banking, and socialism still has much else to recommend it, in our deeply divided and unstable world.
Indeed the first Socialists, the followers of Saint Simon and Proudhon, more or less invented modern investment banking just as French investment bankers more or less invented modern socialism. No doubt it is a sobering thought that the Credit Lyonnais
started out as a socialist experiment. But since investment banking is one of capital-
ism's own devices for socialising and disci- plining private property the subsequent interest of such Marxist thinkers as Hilferd- ing and Parvus in the theory (and practice) of high finance should not be surprising.
How can socialists realistically hope to bring about a society without millionaires and paupers unless they take an intelligent interest in the financial techniques which presently impose market disciplines on pri- vate capital — and which might be subordi- nated to the quite different purpose of ban- ishing the inequality and heedless rapacity of capitalism? If James Buchan is urging us to rely solely on the state to socialise the market then he has missed the most subver- sive element in the new thinking of the Left.
Robin Blackburn
New Left Review, 6 Meard St, London WI
Previous page
