New Labour and the Tories are muttering that the left musn’t be allowed to exploit the current economic crisis in order to make a comeback. They have nothing to worry about: the systematic, publicly funded government intervention we’ve seen the world over that has been necessary to rescue global capitalism from collapse demolishes once and for all the myth that private control of capital has anything to do with the ‘free market’.  What capital really fears isn’t state intervention per se, but economic democracy: nationalisation without economic democracy suits capital just fine. A worthwhile, pro-working class left would be demanding that in return for being rescued at public expense, the public should be given an increased say in the running of the economy. The middle-class left isn’t doing this, and has no interest in doing this, and so will remain an irrelevance. (more…)