In previous articles on anthropocentrism I have detailed how much human-centric thinking distorts the reality of the wider ecological and biological reality of life on earth, but in addition also distorts the social reality of life within hierarchical mass societies. Intellectual life within human societies is also distorted by ideological dogmatism. For example, the idea that there are some individuals who have a more perfect understanding of everything, including social reality, than the rest of humanity, is an integral part of that bourgeois anthropocentric paradigm. It is a constant feature and now emerges among all classes. It is part of an anthropocentric conceit which also results in individual as well as collective forms of narcissism. Such narcissism leads to those individuals who personify that tendency into insisting that their analysis (on whatever subject), is not just an alternative or supplementary view but is the only ‘correct’ one.

Moreover, in seeking to attract the support of other individuals to their own particular view, the phenomenon of sectarianism arises. This narcisistic tendency manifests itself most boldly in religion, and politics. History is littered with examples of various sects and sectarian leaders, who have insisted they have the key to not only understanding any problems encountered within reality, but also the key to the actions necessary to solve those problems. Fortunately, the history of the struggle against sectarianism within the working class struggles of the 18th, 18th and 20th century has been well documented. In describing the essence of sectarianism, Marx for example noted;

“Individual thinkers provide a critique of social antagonisms, and put forward fantastic solutions, which the mass of workers can only accept, pass on and put into practice. By their very nature they are strangers to…coalitions….to any unified movement.” (Marx. ‘The First International and after.’ Penguin p298)

Such individuals then campaign among the working classes to get them to accept their fantastic proposals and solutions. In the 1990’s’ I produced an extensive analysis of sectarianism within the 19th and 20th century anti-capitalist movements and using comprehensive documentary evidence, provided a substantive list of the characteristics of sectarianism. (See ‘Free Downloads’ above) I now draw particular attention to the following four from that study.

Sectarians maintain they have the answer, the solution, the ‘key’.. to the problems of the working class.

Sectarians are religious in the sense of having an unshakeable belief in their correctness, despite any contradictions (it has),with historical development.

Sectarians carry out serious struggles against each other even in the face of common dangers.

Sectarians are generally satisfied by logical deductions and operate by means of abstractions.

It should be obvious that the political task of the elite is to convince the working class that the elite system of class domination and its political superstructures are fair and honest, but every astute worker knows that is not true. Their entire system, including its so-called ‘democratic’ political structures, are dishonest and corrupted to ensure that one or other of its pro-capitalist political parties, is elected to power. The most corrupt or the most financially influential invariably being the victor in such elections. Therefore, ballot rigging, voter influencing and vote exclusion have been practiced since the bourgeoisie came to dominate the political spheres of hierarchical mass societies.

Moreover, it is an additional myth that the chosen political representatives of these bourgeois tendencies make their own decisions. They certainly do not. Does anyone think that Biden was the one who decided whether to stay on or leave the office of President when for months he could not walk or speak fluently? Successful candidates have been carefully groomed for years and are under the control of far more powerful financial, economic and social individuals. Presidential and Prime ministerial decisions are never their own decisions but those made by formal or informal – behind the scenes – committees of the most powerful.

Anyone who contrasts the personalities of Trump, with Harris as having any substantial bearing upon what subsequently occurs, are living under severe self-imposed delusions. Electoral rhetoric, like election promises, will be ignored or rescinded as soon as the real influential powers behind them indicate it is time.  Like all president’s before them the incumbents and those running for office, are the obedient puppets of one or more of the dominant oligarchal bodies within the system. The elite only engage with the so-called democratic charade because they can then usefully claim they rule by citizen consent, not by other more authoritarian and devious means. That some workers believe this myth of ‘democracy’ and presidential ‘independence’ and charisma represents a victory for bourgeois based anthropocentric ideology.

The task of those who are really opposed to this capitalist mode of production is not to collude with this deception by sowing their own illusions and encouraging a vote for one set of bourgeois elites over another. The real task is to expose the continuing deception and explain to working people, that the only thing that a working class vote really validates – in any set of bourgeois circumstances – is the rule of one authoritarian elite rather than another. In other words voting for either side in a system of exploitation and destruction, only validates the system of exploitation and destruction.

It is here that the liberal and sectarian left often play a counter-revolutionary role in convincing workers that voting for one elite section is a better option than the other. Although often dressed up as “we are better than they”, “we are the lesser evil” card is in essence exactly the game that the rival bourgeois politicians are playing. The Republicans are worse than the Democrats? Try telling that to the people of Gaza. The lesser evil mantra is a cave in to the system in the form of a self-motivated fantasy. If successful it results in the fact that whichever bourgeois political part of the elite win, that elite section can claim they rule by consent.

With regard to the coming vote in the USA we can identify that all the above characteristics have either emerged in embryo or been proposed by full-blown rhetorical emphasis, within the contemporary polemics on the issue of voting for Trump or Harris. It is also clear that these characteristics (maintaining they have the answer; an unshakeable belief; satisfied by logical deductions) by those on the left are essentially the same as those upheld by the authoritarians they are opposed to.

It is obvious and perhaps inevitable that the competing bourgeois political elites such as pro- Trump authoritarians and the pro-Harris authoritarians maintain they have the answer to working class problem. Maintaining that the working classes should not have an independent opinion or position but just think and do as they are being advised to by one or other of these two political tendencies is how the dominant bourgeois ideology functions. In confidently doing so these bourgeois alternatives also demonstrate that they each have unshakeable religious type beliefs in their correctness. Furthermore, it is also obvious that they are all satisfied with logical deductions and abstractions from the content of their speeches.

However, I suggest it is not logical or inevitable that those ostensibly representing a working class alternative should aid or abett the one or the other of the two authoritarian alternatives to obtain what both desire – political power over a largely consenting population. The long held revolutionary-humanist position on clashes between successive ruling elite factions, is that the working classes should be urged at every opportunity to maintain independent thinking and to propose alternative strategies. For example it has long been suggested that boycotting rigged elections is one such  alternative strategy, and this US election in particular has being openly and brazenly rigged.

The call by a few for a unified boycott, which even if not successful, would at least lay the ground for developing the idea in future. And just as importantly it would avoid the divide and rule trap of splitting the working classes into two camps on the basis of supporting one part of the authoritarian bourgeois elite over another. The alternative of a boycott would also express aspects of the common interests of working people by them openly adopting a refusal to be duped and manipulated, yet again by their elites and by a refusal to follow the lefts and sectarians who remain firmly committed to the existing system, in one or other of its current lesser-evil guises.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2024)