[R-G] Harper's Bunker: The State, Neoliberalism and the Election

[Anthony Fenton]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 139 ... September 25, 2008
____________________________________________________

Harper's Bunker:
The State, Neoliberalism and the Election

Bryan Evans and Greg Albo

The manner of governing of Stephen Harper's Conservative government  
might be characterized as a paradox with a purpose. A sharp  
centralization of authority over decision-making and political  
management in the executive branches of the state – particularly to  
augment policing, warmaking and market-enhancing administrative  
capacities – is accompanied by an equally focused policy agenda that  
seeks to hollow out the redistributive role of the Canadian federal  
state. This simultaneous centralization and decentralization is a key  
feature of the process of state restructuring under neoliberalism.

It is not a matter of bypassing or weakening the state in favour of  
markets in general, but a change in the form of the state: the  
executive of the state is strengthened relative to parliaments and  
participative bodies; state economic apparatuses facilitating the  
internationalization of capital and market processes to bolster  
capital accumulation are given policy precedence over redistributional  
and regulatory departments of the state; decentralization is pursued  
as an administrative and constitutional agenda to weaken further  
redistributional and regulatory policies while centralized policies  
for the protection of free trade, commerce and private property are  
adopted; and the internal processes of all levels of the state are  
increasingly commercialized, privatized, insulated from democratic  
accountability and subordinated to capitalist imperatives and agencies.

The phenomenon of 'centralized decentralization' was first observed  
with respect to the British experience with Thatcherism. It was  
observed that the power of the state was in fact becoming increasingly  
concentrated – 'free market, strong state for these iron times' – in  
particular state apparatuses closely controlled by the executive  
branch. This centralization of power was necessary, politically  
speaking, as a means to drive through an agenda to restructure the  
economy, defeat the trade unions, erode the welfare state and  
strengthen control and political usage of the coercive apparatuses of  
the state. The Thatcher-era Conservatives understood that state power  
was a necessary element to restructure the state and economy alike, as  
well as its relations with different aspects of civil society.

The parallel process in Canada had its origins with Brian Mulroney's  
Conservative government of the 1980s (although the Liberal governments  
of Pierre Trudeau first brought neoliberalism to Canada, and he began  
administrative restructuring in the last years of his regime). It  
gained a great deal of momentum under the Liberal government of Jean  
Chretien, and the massive restructuring budgets of Paul Martin of the  
mid-1990s.

What Canadians have witnessed in the two odd years of the Harper  
regime in Ottawa is a variation on these themes. There is a further  
centralizing of power at the centre of state, and in key state  
economic apparatuses, as neoliberalism 'hardens' in response to the  
current economic crisis and the military impasse of the wars in the  
Middle East. As well, a new agenda for decentralization of social and  
redistributional policies of the federal government appears to be  
forming. It is in this light that some of the recent developments of  
the Conservative minority government need to be read as they prepared  
themselves for the fall federal election of October 14, and their  
hoped for subsequent agenda in a new Parliament.

Centralizing Power at the Summit of the Canadian State
Even by the standards of other liberal democracies, the Canadian  
state, burdened by the vestiges of British colonialism, is among the  
least democratic. The immense powers previously held by the colonial- 
era Governor-Generals have, over time, been transferred to the Prime  
Minister Office (PMO). This includes the power over appointments to  
the cabinet and to important non-elected positions within the state  
apparatus, most important through the extension of administrative and  
political controls over the Privy Council Office (PCO – the overseer  
of the bureaucracy). The result is that the prime minister and those  
individuals who inhabit the PMO wield immense power – Canada's elected  
dictatorship – over the workings of the Canadian state.

This political-institutional legacy substantially enables the  
centralization of power within the Harper government, as it did for  
prior Mulroney and Chretien regimes. This process has had several  
dimensions including the building up of separate administrative and  
policy capacities, the formation of a few key (and most often  
secretive) operational committees, placement of key political  
personnel in the PMO and PCO, and a narrowing of persons and  
institutions which can influence policy direction.

In terms of the elected and appointed officials constituting the  
executive offices of the Canadian state in the current regime, what is  
most evident is the number of former 'Common Sense Revolutionaries',  
from the hyper-neoliberal Ontario Government of Mike Harris of the  
1990s, now at the centre of the Harper government.

Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty served in prominent positions in both  
the Harris and the successor Ernie Eves' governments, including as  
minister of labour, corrections, attorney general, finance, and deputy  
premier. He was clearly identified with the hard right within the  
Common Sense Revolution and aggressively attacked Eves in the  
leadership battle to succeed Harris as party leader and premier as too  
moderate.

John Baird, the current Minister of Environment, was the social  
services and energy minister through the Common Sense Revolution  
years. There he took a hard line on young offenders and took every  
opportunity to boast that the rapidly dropping number of social  
assistance recipients was evidence of the success of the Harris  
government's social and economic policy.

When asked where these tens of thousands of former welfare recipients  
were ending up he admitted not having a clue. Tony Clement, who is  
responsible for the health portfolio, is another Common Sense  
Revolution veteran who at various times held the transportation,  
environment, housing, and health portfolios. Peter Van Loan, the  
Conservative House leader, was president of the Ontario Conservative  
party under Harris.

And, behind the scenes, Harper recently appointed as his chief of  
staff in the Prime Minister's Office, Mike Harris's former chief  
policy advisor and also chief of staff, Guy Giorno. This is in  
addition to a bevy of lesser known young Common Sense Revolutionaries  
who found their way into the Harper government as policy and  
communications specialists in various minister's offices.

Taken together, these individual conservative partisans and several of  
their former colleagues were all central players in Ontario's Common  
Sense Revolution. They left Ontario a stunningly different place than  
when they entered government in massively restructuring government and  
bolstering corporate power. A similar project is under construction in  
Ottawa to pursue more radical neoliberal policies, slowed mainly by  
the realities of minority government. Still, the Harper government is  
two and one-half years old and there are clear signs which look eerily  
like Ontario in the 1990s. And like Harris in Ontario, the Harper  
agenda is to embed neoliberal ism and social conservatism as the fused  
governing philosophy in Canada whatever party is in power (something  
that the Harris project was quite successful in Ontario, including  
having it embedded in Toronto municipal government although nominally  
run by a social democratic Council block).

There are, of course, 'insiders' of note who have no link to Ontario's  
Common Sense Revolution, such as Foreign Affairs Minister David  
Emerson and Defence Minister Peter Mackay. By virtue of their current  
portfolios they are responsible for policy fields of considerable  
importance to the Harper government as it aligns Canada to an  
unprecedented extent to the ambitions of American imperialism. Emerson  
in particular is interesting in terms of his background as Deputy  
Minister of Finance in the British Columbia government of Bill Vander  
Zalm but also as a director, prior to election to Parliament in 2003,  
of Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA). MDA specializes in data  
and information processing as well as various satellite technologies  
which have applications to missile and other weapons systems.  
Moreover, MDA's American parent company, Orbital Sciences, is a major  
missile defence contractor.

As Industry Minister in the Liberal Paul Martin government (Emerson  
crossed the floor to join the Conservatives shortly after the  
Conservative win in 2006), Emerson lobbied for a Canadian aerospace  
industry strategy where he openly recognized the "potential industrial  
cooperation opportunities for Canada associated with Ballistic Missile  
Defence" (The Hill Times, November 22-28, 2004). Fast-forward to the  
Conservative Budget of 2008 and a line of continuity is apparent. A  
'Canada First Defence Strategy' was proposed entailing as $12 billion  
increase in defence spending over the next 20 years and using public  
money to forge a "new relationship with industry", as the budget  
speech referred to it.

Continue reading:
www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet139.html#continue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bullet is produced by the Socialist Project. Readers are
encouraged to distribute widely. Comments, criticisms and
suggestions are welcome. Write to info at socialistproject.ca

If you wish to subscribe: www.socialistproject.ca/lists/?p=subscribe

The Bullet archive is available at www.socialistproject.ca/bullet

For more analysis of contemporary politics check out
'Relay: A Socialist Project Review' at www.socialistproject.ca/relay

Current issue of Relay (#23, July - Sep, 2008)

~~~ Table of Contents ~~~

* Socialist Realignment *
~ Habitats for Socialism by Alan Sears
~ Visions of Class, Visions Beyond Class by Ingo Schmidt
~ Communism's New Crisis by Boris Kagarlitsky
~ Party and Movement - Unity and Contradiction by Pratyush Chandra
~ Critique of the Arab Left by Hisham Bustani
~ Portugal by Francisco Louca

* Labour *
~ Reviving Our Movement by Workers for Union Renewal
~ Labour Policies & the Wage Gap by Marjorie Griffin Cohen
~ Labour and (Post)Industrial Policy in Toronto by Steven Tufts
~ Of Gods and Markets: A Lament for Oshawa Workers by Jean-Pierre  
Daubois
~ Class, Labour and Anti-Poverty Struggles by Herman Rosenfeld

* International *
~ Mapping Regional Tensions in Equador & Bolivia by Susan Spronk
~ Bolivia’s Post-Referendum Conjuncture by Jeffery R. Webber
~ Haiti & the Politics of Containment by Roger Annis