N°10-31/01/2021 In the Communist Manifesto, F. Engels and K. Marx note: "Big industry created the world market... [It] has tremendously accelerated the development of commerce, navigation, and communication. This development has led in turn to the expansion of industry... "
and further: "Since the establishment of big industry and the world market, the bourgeoisie has finally seized the exclusive political sovereignty in the modern representative state". This tendency towards a large world market and the political domination of capitalism was confirmed and accentuated with the formation of the imperialist system.
Certainly, the forms of market organization and of political powers have changed and large capitalist groups have been formed, such as the European Union (EU) and many free trade agreements around the world… International institutions have emerged such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), large imperialist military alliances have been formed such as NATO. In this large European and world market described by Marx and Engels, the capitalist multinationals, which appropriate all the powers of the States at their service, engage in fierce and brutal competition to conquer markets and control the sources of raw materials, communication channels and exploit human labor power.
With Brexit today, the question is framed as follows: will England exit capitalism by leaving Europe? The answer is no, capitalism will continue and amplify its political, economic and social domination over England and Europe.
What benefit for the English and European peoples? None, power in England as in Europe remains under the domination of capitalism. Getting the bill paid by the English and European peoples will remain its objective. The relations between states within this capitalist unit that is the EU do not derogate from these profit-making relations which are both common and conflicting. The choice of the dominant British corporations to lead to Brexit has no other meaning than to preserve as much as possible their class interests in a country whose main wealth today comes from the service sector which represents 80% of the added value (VA) produced in 2018 when these activities represent 80% of employment. The financial center of London, the City, being a centerpiece. It is indeed one of the most important in the world, the second after Wall Street in the USA. The weight of financial services and insurance in the British economy is particularly important (7.0% of VA in 2018 and 4.2% of the workforce). For its part, industry, which represents around 16% of VA, remains strong in a few areas: aerospace, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, automotive, energy, and the military, while the food industry with 1.4% is the 'poor relation' of the UK economy. This structure of the UK economy is accompanied by deep social inequalities that have grown since the Thatcher period. In 30 years, the share of income captured by the richest 1% has doubled, rising to 8% of GDP in 2018. Simultaneously, the poverty rate rose to 23% of the population in 2018. Among these poor, more than half, or 4 million people, receive only half the amount corresponding to this poverty threshold. 8 million employees are contingent workers, including one million on 0-hour contracts, that is to say with almost no social protection.
Brexit is obviously not meant to improve their situation. What the British capitalist multinationals want is as much as possible to have a free hand while preserving their industrial and especially financial interests to increase their competitiveness in world trade.
The agreement that has just been registered in Brussels preserves all these objectives. The United Kingdom and vice versa the EU retain the almost free access to their respective markets, while the United Kingdom is free again about its trade agreements with other countries outside the EU and especially with the USA. The newspaper Les Echos writes: “Despite Brexit, the City should keep a predominant role in global finance. The 'exodus' of bankers from London to European capitals was ultimately not as massive as some might have hoped. In Paris, some 1,900 employees of banks based across the Channel have thus migrated since the announcement of Brexit, a rather limited number. London could also take advantage of Brexit to try and ease certain regulatory constraints hitherto applied to banks by Europe. Enough to make the British financial center even more attractive”. On balance, the trends towards free movement of capital in an economy dominated by multinationals are still at work against a backdrop of heightened competition within capitalist economies. As revolutionaries, we stress once again that the economic, social and political struggles against capitalism until its eradication are indeed the first condition for liberating England, Europe and Humanity from it.