Marxist Moments

DR VON HELDENLEBEN AND HIS LIEBLING

          Dr Fritz von Heldenleben, EU Commissioner for Deregulation, began his interview with our European correspondent Jack Blanchard with an observation on his country’s linguistic practices. ‘We Germans who are short speak High German, while we Germans who are tall speak Low German. In that way do we achieve mutual audibility.’ (A little warm-up joke?) We sat, writes Jack, sipping chilled Moselle in Dr von Heldenleben’s  magnificent high-vaulted panelled study in the family schloss which offers a panoramic view of the Reichstag Valley across which spreads the medievally picturesque old town of Knappertsbusch, ancestral home of the Heldenlebens.  The houses have that charming cuckoo-clock look about them, as indeed we hear all the cuckoos cook-cooing on the hour every hour. ‘Yes, it is wunderschön,’ said Dr von Heldenleben, ‘with the highest suicide rate in the world, which is only natural, of course - our traditional Weltschmerz.’

          Von Heldenleben is currently implementing a Greek Rescue Plan to save the German economy in the event of the fall of the Deutsche Bank but the subject of the discussion was Brexit Britain. The Commissioner was sanguine about future prospects:

          ‘We and the Dutch and the French own nearly all your railways and energy companies, so I do not see too much of a problem with any so-called separation. And as your banks gradually re-locate to Frankfurt (and New York also) and we buy up your Stock Exchange as originally planned, I view the future with optimism. One problem remains: you are not sufficiently privatised to prepare the ground for further acquisitions of your assets by our government-owned companies, but no doubt that tag will come.

          ‘But ach, Joachim, such opportunities going to waste! As that charming freulein of yours, Juliet Samuel, in your Daily Telegraf for 14.10.16 asks [‘If the government won’t build new infrastructure let others have a go’], how to unlock private capital for more fracking, new coal plants, a third airport runway and more autobahns , not to speak of unaffordable housing? I think she realises all too well that time is of the essence if you are to push back further the natural environment to achieve all these things before the world comes to an end – a race for profit against time, schnell!, schnell!

'As she notes also, and as you see I have here the newspaper in front of me’ (Dr von Heldenleben wiped and adjusted his pebble glasses) ‘“Yesterday, Simon Wolfson launched his annual economics prize. The task was centred on Britain’s infrastructure problem: find a way of improving our clogged road network.”’

          To have less cars? ventured Jack Blanchard.

          ‘But nein! nein! More autobahns with first- and second-class lane tolls, supplemented by a north-south, high-speed business-class railway! Infrastructure, Joachim! Infrastructure! All that green but useless countryside… And, as Freulein Samuel says: “If the government isn’t prepared to build, it could at least let private companies do so.” As she says also, housebuilders and airport owners and shale drillers cry out to invest but are held up at every turn “while the police gently talk protesting hippies out of the bushes.” How very English!  Ha! Ha! A good expression!’

          I’m not sure all the protesters are hippies, protested Jack of Marxist Moments.

          ‘It does not matter: they act as hippies, whoever they are!’

          Dr von Heldenleben goes on to say that enormous private pension funds lie idle as the government stalls on infrastructure, as Juliet Samuel writes. ‘”Set the people free” as our former enemy Churchill once said to you austere-rationing English (betrunken alter Dummkopf); and then that charming Gallic expression of Guizot: “Enrichissez-vous!” Privatise all your infrastructure! But here is once more from the newspaper meine kleine liebling:

‘“Toll roads are lambasted as unfair. Train companies are accused of price gouging…new nuclear plants have been regulated to death, new windfarms are banned, coal plants are being shut down and shale drilling permits take years…The Government has lost the courage to level with voters and admit that from each development, there might be losers in the local area, but that this is the price Britain must pay to stay a competitive modern economy that can pay for its own defence and decent services.”

‘Do you not see, Joachim, that we keep telling this to the Greeks, the Portuguese, the southern Italians? Until they learn that each country has a price to pay, and that there are inevitable losers, such as them, Europe too will never be competitive!’

          It proved too much for our reporter, unable as a conscientious interviewer to argue back point by point, so Jack has instead turned to editorialising in print:

          So, Monty – I like the way Juliet Samuel writes about ‘losers’, but since potential fracking sites are dotted all over the country, including choice bits of Southeast England, who is to pick the fracking locations for the losers while leaving the ‘winners’ alone? Why not start all this in the North, for example? They don’t vote Tory up there anyhow. And so we have. And at what point will all the loser areas join up, one way or another?

          ‘Britain paying for its own defence.’ Does this include Trident renewal, by the way, said by military critics to be entirely – and dangerously – obsolete in the cyber age? Perhaps cutting out dozens of billions of that might make ‘paying for our own defence’ a little less prohibitive?

          If nuclear plants are ‘regulated to death’ does Juliet Samuel mean they shouldn’t be regulated at all, or perhaps only a little bit regulated – like Chernobyl?

          And don’t the problems of our existing infrastructure stem from its privatisation in the first place? Vast sums are creamed off services to pour into shareholders’ and hedge-funders’ pockets, as well as into the coffers of foreign state-owned enterprises that subsidise cheaper rail fares and energy-bills for their own citizens at our expense (we pay just about the highest rail fares in Europe). And with yet more privatisation will yet more private building and owning not lead to yet more ‘price-gouging’ - on a huge, larcenous scale?

          And where do renewables come into the picture – something Juliet Samuel leaves unmentioned?  We can have off-shore wind-farms without invading the land. Carbon-capture can be developed for coal production (she doesn’t mention that perhaps because she wants to keep the argument confrontational, tough and gritty); there is solar power, wave and water power, even power out of the methane from excrement! But of course as all these apart from carbon-captured coal are relatively cheap they won’t yield the big profits both of coal itself and of the other non-renewables.

          Ultimately there was something unclear about her argument. On the one hand, shale drillers and so on are crying out to invest but are held back by Government hesitation. On the other hand, infrastructural building is apparently held back by timidity over releasing privately invested funds, not to speak of unleashing private building companies. But I thought fracking and coalmining and so on were already invested in and run by private companies? And in any case the Government is fully committed to fracking, so where’s the hesitation? What this argument turns out to be is a pitch for yet more private profitmaking, on a vast scale and as soon as possible to bring ‘recovery’ to capitalists. Though we’ve seen what privatisation has done to our ‘decent services’ so far. With the Government’s stance on fracking, it’s only the ‘hippies’ who need neutralising now. And it looks as though what Samuel is insinuating is that all protest against non-renewables must be forbidden by law so that Britain remains ‘competitive’.  Perhaps this can be extended to banning protests in favour of renewables.

We shall see in due course (almost no doubt about it) what Nature has to say on the matter…

Fortunately for Dr von Heldenleben, he can enjoy the luxury of a beautiful view and pristine air, whatever the cuckoo-clock noise-pollution plus the suicides, because he’s sat in the middle of the mountains, which one can do little with except climb, riddle with pistes and yodel across.

That [says Jack, veering from conviction to unhingement] is what Britain needs: mountains!  Not piddling Pennines and Ben Nevises but the real deal: Alps, Rockies, Himalayas! Maybe after all the frackings could induce greater earthquakes, leading to mountainous upheavals! Volcanos never did Iceland any harm: it’s the most prosperous post-Crisis country in or near Europe!

Think about it, Monty. Think about it.

We thought about it and advised Jack to take a short holiday, preferably in the Fens.