Mandel's record on the monetary crisis

In his three articles in 'Intercontinental Press' leading SWP member, Dick Roberts is at pains to stress what he claims is the 'dogmatic' and 'sec. tarian' analysis made by the Socialist Labour League, as against that presented by Ernest Mandel.

As all those with any experience in the working-class movement know, 'dogmatic' and 'sectarian' for the revisionist always means 'principled' and 'consistent' as against their own desertion of Marxism to suit the needs of the Stalinist and social-democratic bureaucracies.

It is no accident that Roberts should sprinkle his article with such phrases. The revisionists have now taken over the language of the pletely Stalinists who, from the 1920s onwards, have maliciously attacked Trotskyism for its alleged 'ultra-leftism'.

Our final two articles will therefore examine Mandel's writings on the monetary crisis.

One of Mandel's earliest efforts came at the time of de Gaulle's 1965 proposal for a return to gold as the basis of the international money system. Before outlining Mandel's comments on this proposal, let us recall the present state of the world money Since August 1971, when President Nixon announced that the dollar was no longer backed by gold, the inexorable trend within world economy has been precisely to return to gold as the only means of Ernest Mandel international trade and payments. And every dollar devaluation (already two since that date) and increase in the gold price (now over three times its 'official' price) marks a step along that road. In a crisis, the capitalist system is always, as now, thrown back onto gold as the only means in which its value can be preserved.

What did the erudite Mandel have to say about de Gaulle's ... there is not the slightest chance that de Gaulle's proposal will be taken up. It would be suicide for capitalism One of Ernest Mandel's earliest writings on the monetary crisis came at the time of French President De Ga to gold as the basis of the international monetary system in 1965. to return to a rigid system of money and credit controlled automatically by the supply of gold. Such a system could lead only to a major depression.' And, on the following page: 'Even a sharp increase in the price of gold . . . would not fundamentally alter that situation ... A permanent crisis of international liquidity would ensue, bringing great unhappiness throughout the capitalist Here we have complete and utter reformism. For Mandel, the capitalists can choose inflation. This is completely correct. But increasing inflation is the only means by which a capitalist economy can convert grave depressions into "minor" recessions. What capitalist government in the United States, for instance, would run the risk of having 15 million or 20 million unemployed for the sake of "fighting inflation" or "going back to gold"?' Now the amazing thing is that Roberts quotes this passage from Mandel's 1965 article, thinking he is attacking the SLL! Yet the very week it appeared, leading sections of capitalist opinion in the United States were calling for precisely these deflationary policies, which they correctly feel absolutely essential, whatever cost in unemployment, as the only means of 'fighting inflation'.

Presumably Mandel and Roberts are today more sanguine than ever about capitalist prospects. For inflation is certainly 'ever increasing', so proposal presumably will allow the capitalists to avoid 'grave depressions'.

Of course, the SLL has never suggested that the 'old style' gold standard can ever be restored, as Roberts, attempting a cheap distortion, suggests. The gold standard died with the advent of imperialism. The return to gold has opened up a period not of capitalist stability and expansion, but of acute convulsion and breakdown.

CONTINUED ON MONDAY