“Brexit is the outcome of a civil war within capitalism. …

There are two dominant forms of capitalist enterprise. … Housetrained capitalism … benefits from stability, predictability and the regulations that exclude dirtier and rougher competitors. It can coexist with a tame and feeble form of democracy. …

Warlord capitalism. … They fetishise something they call ‘liberty‘, which turns out to mean total freedom for plutocrats, at society’s expense.

In unguarded moments, the warlords and their supporters go all the way. Hayek, for example, on a visit to Pinochet’s Chile, said he preferred a ‘liberal dictatorship’ to ‘a democratic government devoid of liberalism‘. Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, confessed: ‘I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.’ …

Brexit … threatens to destroy the market advantage for businesses that play by the rules. … The Confederation of British Industry warned that leaving Europe would cause a major economic shock. In response to these concerns, Johnson … made a remark that might previously have seemed unthinkable, coming from the mouth of a senior Conservative, ‘fuck business’. …

Understood in this light, Brexit is scarcely about the UK at all. … By far the biggest individual donors to the Brexit party are Christopher Harborne, who is based in Thailand, and Jeremy Hosking, who has businesses listed in Dublin and Delaware. The newspaper owners who went to such lengths to make Brexit happen are domiciled offshore. For people like Rupert Murdoch, … turning Chile or Indonesia into a giant free port is one thing. The UK is a much bigger prize.

None of this is what we were told we were voting for. I see Nigel Farage and similar blowhards as little more than smoke bombs, creating a camouflaging cloud of xenophobia and culture wars. The persistent trick of modern politics – that appears to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements. Throughout this saga, the media has reported the smokescreen, not the manoeuvres. …

Brexit … is likely to harm the lives and freedoms of millions of people in the UK. But it’s not about us. We are just caught in the crossfire of capitalism’s civil war.”

aus: George Monbiot: Brexit stems from a civil war in capitalism – we are all just collateral damage. The Guardian online, 24.11.20, im Internet

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