critical-mass.net

Whether or not Boris Johnson uttered the following sentence, “I would rather let the bodies pile up – than order another lock-down”, or something similar, back in August 2020, they do represent what has happened in the UK and elsewhere since the Covid19 epidemic morphed into a global pandemic. The figures speak for themselves. In the UK at least 127,000 bodies have so far piled up; in the US 574, 000 bodies; India 195, 000 bodies, and globally 3, 100, 000 bodies have piled up. Whether spoken or thought, the neo-liberal capitalist elite system has preferred to allow 3.1 million bodies to pile up rather than close down – or radically alter – its normal economic practices.

Indeed, ‘let the bodies pile up’ could well stand as a future epitaph on a monument or preferably a gravestone erected to the capitalist mode of production.

This article is too short to include an accurate assessment of all the human bodies which have piled up since the 18th century period of European wars for capitalist domination, including the colonialist period, the imperialist stage of world domination and the post Second World War period of localised wars, such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, Afghanistan, Yemen etc. So let’s just remind ourselves of the bodies piled up due to two 20th century globalised wars between the two rival capitalist camps headed by Germany on the one hand and Britain on the other. The first World War (1914 – 18) an estimated 21 million dead bodies piled up; the Second World War (1939 – 1945), an estimated 70 million dead bodies piled up.

It should be absolutely clear that the last two or three generations of elites in control of capitalist countries would rather ‘let the bodies pile up’ than significantly alter their profit-based method of production. It is also clear that the new 21st century generation of capitalist and pro-capitalist elites are no different in this regard. So no matter whether they openly say (or in April 2021 deny saying it) that ‘let the bodies pile up’ that is exactly what is actually happening. So it must also be what many influential people, such as Boris Johnson are actually thinking if not saying. And all across the globe bodies continue to pile up in order to keep capitalist forms of ‘business as usual’ open. But we also know that business as usual capitalist competition is not only devastating human beings, it is also devastating the ecological basis of all life-forms.

The same week that the ‘let the bodies pile up’ phrase was revealed in the UK, another news-bite phrase was uttered – this time in the US. Joe Biden, in announcing a post-pandemic economic development plan, declared, ‘America is on the move again’. Revealingly, he emphasised that America on the move meant not just re-booting the internal capitalist form of production but also competing with China economically and militarily on the world stage and beating them. In other words, the massive overproduction of everything containing surplus-value (ie private profits from unpaid working class labour), is to continue in a more reinvigorated form. This on a sliding scale, is also essentially the same mantra coming from most economic, financial and political elites. These views demonstrate that the elites everywhere do not understand that they are part of the problem for humanity, not part of the solution.

Indeed, despite their obvious failures, the elites everywhere self-indulgently think they are the most important part of any future solution. More problematically, they have convinced many among the middle – class and working class to believe them. Consequently, large sections of humanity have not yet started asking the right questions, let alone envisioning appropriate solutions. Deliberately educated to rely on borrowed thinking handed down by ‘experts’ in the pay of capitalism, most people – as yet – think the current economic system is the best possible. They have bought the political message that despite the obvious mess in health, social care, housing, pollution, ecological destruction, climate change, unemployment and poverty, they should welcome the return to a pre-covid (Doctor Pangloss viewed) normal. Meanwhile the bodies are continuing to ‘pile up’.

If it is correct that only a changed reality can alter ideas and opinions which have been accepted as ‘normal’ and mostly ‘useful’ for a generation, then hopefully a change in thinking should  follow recent events. The new reality of a Covid19 infected, climate destabilised, polluted and extinction-prone economic system, sooner or later, should challenge and change what has been a normal and useful form of thinking for global citizens. However, it will take a critical – mass of people to actively challenge existing norms and then adopt new perspectives on economic and social activity, before masses of people will join a practical campaign. A campaign to change the mode of production to one which benefits the whole of humanity and the rest of the biosphere. Hence, the name chosen for this blog site and the motive for the ideas presented and developed in the new ‘Introduction to Revolutionary-Humanism’ (see below).

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2021)

By clicking on the long Web link below, (or by copying and pasting it into a search engine) a copy of a new document ‘An Introduction to Revolutionary-Humanism’ can be obtained at no cost. In 35 short chapters of explanation and criticism, it covers the many forms of exploitation, oppression and patriarchal prejudice which characterise the capitalist mode of production. The document builds on the original anti-capitalist perspective of Karl Marx – as it was before his firm revolutionary-humanist principles were ignored or suppressed by subsequent generations of sectarian dogmatists. Presented in what I hope will be easy to understand language, the chapters in the document are aimed in particular at anti-capitalists, humanists and eco-activists, but has also been written with an even wider and more general audience in mind.

If the web link fails to deliver then a copy of the document can be requested by email to royratcliffe@yahoo.com

The link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTgiCGN-50rGR9uOFKxOmWztx8_4v88kKMy3dHtlTGjZcC5wBQYKu3CXRlmUZcvtQegx-lzvWl83peo/pub

The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police on March 2020 was clearly not first degree murder. The state prosecution in bringing the charge, the defence, the judge, the jury, the press and the political class all concurred on the fact  that the actions of the police officers in arresting and subduing George Floyd were not deliberately intended to kill him. His death was an unintended consequence of the routine, authorised, police intention to force a submission upon someone they became (or become) determined to arrest.

It is important to recognise that – as yet – the role of police officers in particular and law enforcement in general, is to enforce total  citizen submission to the authority of the state. The four-man police tag-team sent to  the scene of George Floyd’s arrest, tried a number of unsuccessful times to bundle him into the back of a police vehicle. He resisted. At this point Derek Chauvin took charge of the operation of enforcing George Floyd to submit to their demands. 

Recognising the difficulty of forcing a large unwilling  man into such a small space, officer Chauvin soon decided another tactic was necessary to enforce his submission to police authority. This tactic was implemented by manhandling him to the ground and officer Chauvin pinning him there ‘for as long as it took‘. Compliance, with every instruction given to him – to the letter – was required by the men in blue. However, it took 9 minutes and 29 seconds to achieve the level of preliminary submission that Derek Chauvin felt was necessary in this particular case.

Unfortunately for George and many bystanders, this amount of time was too long. Already handcuffed, a knee was placed upon one side of George’s neck, the pavement pressed against the other side of the neck,  another knee on his back, with other officers  holding his legs down, the new tactic was accomplished. As the video footage demonstrates this was a ruthless and reckless enforcing of an absolute submission attempt on a helpless victim. Eventually, after 9 minutes and 29 seconds, George’s struggle to breathe was over. Every living spark within him had been subdued – he died!     

Sadly, during this police initiated, one-sided, mixed martial arts event, there was no neutral referee present to step in and make sure the neck and back holds were released before the life was squeezed out of the now prone and inert body of George Floyd. Some concerned bystanders (including an off-duty first responder) tried to play the part of unofficial referees by pointing out he was helpless and the submission holds were going to harm him if maintained for too long.

But the police are taught that citizens have no rights to advise police or comment upon their conduct. Bystanders are seen as the problem – as Mr Chauvin’s defence lawyer later emphasised.

And this brings us to the real crux of the matter; beyond this particular event, the power of the modern state and its armed bodies of men versus the powerless citizens. It matters, little whether the power of the modern state is exercised in Africa, Arabia, Asia, Russia,  China, Hong Kong South America, North America or Europe, the relationship between the modern state and its citizens is essentially the same.       

Total submission to authority by anyone, guilty or innocent – to be achieved by whatever means necessary – is routine procedure for police officers and law enforcement regimes the world over. Deaths in police custody are nothing new because sometimes it takes extreme measures to make someone submit to a kind of authority which is admittedly biased, deeply prejudiced, possibly corrupt, frequently gratuitously brutal and more concerned with achieving performance levels of crime prevention, and self-preservation than achieving social justice.

So not surprisingly there is something revealing about the personification of law enforcement as witnessed on the face of Derek Chauvin. The filming of the event by a young bystander was the main reason why this particular death in police custody became subject to a criminal prosecution. It was just too blatant and too public to cover up the death in the usual officially internal manner. Hence the court case and the subsequent verdict of murder and manslaughter. But over the 9 plus minutes of  filming what was was expressed in the face and body demeanour of the officer who ended George Floyd life was revealing.

It has been said that during the 9 minutes twenty nine seconds, officer Chauvin’s eyes were cold and emotionless, his manner cool and collected, but I beg to differ. Face and body languages reveal much and we humans have evolved to judge even the most subtle changes. Over the nine minutes it was clear from Derek Chauvin’s eyes, facial muscles and arm movements that something of a change was occurring in his mind. From an initial concern in his eyes and his body posture that George Floyd should be physically prevented from turning on his side or sitting up, once this aim was achieved a noticeable change occurred.

When his victim was finally still, a subtle change of facial expression in Derek Chauvin happened. A degree of satisfaction now registered on his face and, no longer needing two hands and two knees he placed his left hand in his left pants pocket. He then looked up toward the bystanders as if to indicate publicly this successful submission. If you doubt this – carefully watch the footage again! I suggest he was so pleased with his victory over George (where the other more junior officers had failed) that he continued this position of domination despite suggestions from other officers and bystanders, that perhaps enough was enough.

He maintained this position of superiority and dominance until the paramedics arrived. However, when he finally stepped away from his helpless victim his victory became a pyrrhic one. He had won the battle to subdue George Floyd but having lost his humanity, he then lost his credibility and later his job and freedom. But the eventual legally sanctioned sacrifice of Derek Chauvin to the court of popular opinion, has not altered the essential bifurcation between the state elites law enforcement agencies and the people. Until the entire system is transformed, this unremitting strategy of elite-directed, class warfare will continue unabated (and mostly undetected) even if some new tactics are in the meantime adopted.

Roy Ratcliffe ( April 2021)

A new document.

By clicking on the long Web link below, (or by copying and pasting it into a search engine) a copy of a new document ‘An Introduction to Revolutionary-Humanism’ can be obtained at no cost. In 35 short chapters of explanation and criticism, it covers the many forms of exploitation, oppression and patriarchal prejudice which characterise the capitalist mode of production. The document builds on the original anti-capitalist perspective of Karl Marx – as it was before his firm revolutionary-humanist principles were ignored or suppressed by subsequent generations of sectarian dogmatists. Presented in what I hope will be easy to understand language, the chapters in the document are aimed in particular at anti-capitalists, humanists and eco-activists, but has also been written with an even wider and more general audience in mind.

If the web link fails to deliver then a copy of the document can be requested by email to royratcliffe@yahoo.com

The link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTgiCGN-50rGR9uOFKxOmWztx8_4v88kKMy3dHtlTGjZcC5wBQYKu3CXRlmUZcvtQegx-lzvWl83peo/pub

Understanding Socio-Economic Forms.

The complexity of modern human societies is such that most people do not fully understand how they function at a universal economic level. Confusion is therefore understandable. However, complexity in general becomes easier to grasp when underlying features are reduced to simplified abstract (non-particular) categories. Once these essential elements are understood, complexity can be added later. Using such a method in what follows will hopefully help readers comprehend past, present and future possible modes of production.

Consumption and Production.

Consumption and production are relatively easily understood abstractions because all life forms need to consume organic and inorganic material (food, air and water) in order to survive. These materials need to be produced in order to be consumed. Production and Consumption are therefore not just related economic, (non-specific) abstractions but represent the interconnected basis of everyday life – including human life. The abstraction we commonly describe as ‘nature’ is the producer of food, water and air. Historically, human communities have learned how to interact with nature in the economic activity (i.e. work) of obtaining and distributing food, water and shelter to its members.

Work, (doing practical tasks), is therefore, another easily understood level of abstraction. Moreover, in any given society there will be at least the following four categories of people. 1. a percentage who are fit and able to work. 2. a percentage too old to work; 3, a percentage too young to work; 4, a percentage who are too ill or incapacitated to work. In the essential work of producing food and shelter, the last three categories can be considered as unproductive! That is to say they are unable to produce the essentials to live. Yet, until their circumstances change, such non-producers still need (at a minimum) to consume air, water and food. Most human societies have by various means ensured this was achievable.

Divisions of labour.

Over historic time, the percentages of these four categories have varied and additional non-productive categories have been added. The abundance of food and water within easy reach and the number of productive members available, has in general determined how many or how few ill, incapacitated, old and young people can be supported at any one time. However, with the development of technological tools, increases in the efficiency of food production have occurred and the need for productive members reduced. This left some members free from essential production to undertake other forms of useful social activity. For example, teachers for the young, nurses for the sick, carers for the old etc. In other words an extended division of labour developed.

A further degree of detail and complexity can now be added to this basic, but still abstract human socio-economic formation. For example, if for every one thousand (or million) members of a community, twenty percent are too old, twenty percent are too young, two percent are ill, two percent are incapacitated by injury or pregnancy and ten percent comprise of teachers, nurses, carers, entertainers, utensil makers etc., (ie a total of 54%) then logic suggests the following. For the community to survive, the remaining 46%, of productive members by means of equipment and favourable natural resources, need to be able to produce enough essentials for themselves and for the rest of the community.

Trading and leisure activities.

If by a further development of skills and technology, the productive members (in the above hypothetical case – the 46%) can create more than enough essentials for themselves and their community, then, other things remaining the same, the following could happen. Those working in essential production could either shorten the duration of their productive activity (and have more leisure), or reduce the numbers working productively. Alternatively, they could continue to work for the same length of time and use their extra surplus production to trade with other human communities (originally) by gifts or barter. All three alternatives could be explored by any dynamic human community.

Historically some communities have undoubtedly used surplus production of fish, meat, fruit and grain, to increase the extent of their cultural activities (gatherings/festivals/music/art etc), others to reduce the time spent in producing. Others have used surpluses to become accomplished river and sea trading communities. In early non-hierarchical societies, the choice of how much to produce, how to allocate human resources to various forms of activity and how to utilise any surplus production would have been the decision of the entire community using whatever decision-making processes they had developed.

Faced with any problems (famine, drought, flood, pandemic etc) they could then decide to allocate sufficient human resources to shielding some from the problems whilst others volunteered to address solutions. In short, as a community they could flexibly adjust their socio-economic activities to address any developing positive or negative circumstances.

Class divided societies.

A further level of complexity can now be added to the above abstract model of socio-economic development. If one section of such an egalitarian community – for whatever reason – armed itself and gradually (or even suddenly) made itself into a ruling and controlling elite strata, then much would change. By making all the main socio-economic decisions this elite could dictate how many people should do productive work, how long workers should work, how much of the surplus production the elite would keep for themselves and how problems would be tackled. Class societies would begin to for. 

Although, the above simplified linguistic abstractions describe no actual historical human community, once these basic inter-connections are comprehended, then social solutions to various problems became a community wide effort. Furthermore, it would not be too difficult to discover in historical, archaeological, anthropological and ethnological records, actual hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, herding and even agricultural communities which approximate to the lines of abstract development suggested above. Indeed, the 21st century neo-liberal phase of the capitalist mode of production, despite its many extra layers of complexity and socio-economic differentiation, confirms the validity of these abstractions.

Modern capitalist dominated socio-economic forms, merely demonstrate extra complexity woven into and onto them and have  disconnected such basic forms of human socio-economic collectives. Yet in the 21st century, we still have essential productive workers, who feed, clothe, house etc., and entertain themselves along with supporting the (ever more numerous) non-productive, political, cultural and administrative classes. And by increases in surplus production, modern complex societies still feed the sick, the elderly, the young and now with capitalist labour-replacement technologies, support for the unemployed. Although under capitalism, each of those ex-producers are supported at a substandard level.

Decision making.

In modern class divided societies – whether so-called democratic or not – the community as a whole no longer decide on how many productive workers are needed, how long they should work, what and how they produce, nor how much resources they and the young, old, sick and support-service workers should get. Instead, the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite, through control of the legal system and the law enforcement agencies of the state, decide on all the above – and much more – including how problems such as pandemics are handled! They also decide which governments we should trade our surplus with, whether corrupt (ie Saudi Arabia etc.) or not. Crucially, they decide on how much they should pay themselves from the surplus-production of wealth for engaging in their non-productive ruling activities.

At all times, in peace, war, famine, flood or pandemics, their particular and general ruling class interests invariably come first. By any humane or ecological criteria, it is clear that the capitalist economic system they fiercely uphold is not just extremely unfair but is impoverishing millions, destroying species, polluting land, sea and air and now stirring up and circulating lethal viruses. Metaphorically speaking, the ruling elites everywhere are assertively, even at times aggressively (ie Myanmar, Syria, Yemen), killing the habitats and golden geese (ie working populations) that lay the golden eggs that disproportionately enrich their lives.

Elite power and their consequent ability to determine the future of humanity needs to be ended. A new socio-economic formation needs to be created. Cooperatives and non-profit public services have indicated the organisational direction humanity needs to now take. Egalitarian control and ecological sustainability now indicate how and why we and future generations need to limit the quantity and determine the quality of what is produced and consumed.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2021)

By clicking on the link below I am assured (by google help) that access to a detailed document entitled ‘Revolutionary-Humanist Reflections on the 2020-2021 Covid19 Pandemic’, will be obtained. The document contains numerous condensed weekly or monthly comments covering many of the situations and concerns arising from the initial stages of the Pandemic in February 2020 through the spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter of 2020 until the Spring of March 2021.

It offers an anti-capitalist and Revolutionary-Humanist perspective and evaluation of the 12 months of Pandemic disaster for millions of working people. Hopefully it’s critical observations and reflections will help refresh memories and also to offset any undoubted local, national or international attempts to deflect blame for the thousands of unnecessary deaths, away from the pro-capitalist economic, financial and political elites. The establishments rationalisations and blame dodging will likely be a series of ommission,  unforeseen (sic) circumstances and fatalistic inevitabilities.

If the link below fails to deliver, then an email to royratcliffe@yahoo.com requesting the ‘Reflections’ document can be considered a reliable back up.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSTMzKeeo0jIM0Gzin0RW16UWwjPl-OZsf-1SNHfbQxCR5U9fGwJrgHjkpregjPANHLvZL3XPfq6mSo/pub

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2021)

(Beginners Guide to Revolutionary Humanism 21.)

The Bourgeois World View.

In the 20th century, the French word bourgeoisie was often used to refer to the European capitalist and pro-capitalist class in general. It was this class that during the 17th and 18th centuries ushered in the capitalist mode of production. The relevance of using the term in the 21st century is that our world today is clearly a product of the capitalist mode of production. Furthermore, the ideological framework that developed in support of this ‘mode’ still dominates modern elites particularly in Europe. Moreover, global humanity in general is still dominated by the economic and financial operations of capitalism and most people are heavily influenced by ‘the bourgeois world view’.

Even faced with multiple viruses swarming along the network of capitalist commodity supply chains and killing millions, the daily economic basis of capital (buying and selling for profit) is a priority energetically protected by its pro – capitalist governing elites. Despite the heavy death toll, the Covid19 Pandemic is still being encouraged to spread by business as usual politicians and their support networks. So dominant is this bourgeois ideological hold on politicians and large numbers of people that efforts to ‘jump-start’ the virus-stalled world economic system – as it was formerly – is viewed as ‘common sense’. Bourgeois forms of exploitation, entitlement and conspicuous consumption have become considered as ‘normal’ aspirations.

Just as problematically, those who prefer the bourgeois world view over saving human lives also implicitly accept species loss, climate change, air, sea and land pollution, ecological destruction, global poverty and daily armed conflict. It seems anything bad will be tolerated rather than become reasons to challenge the capitalist system. Satellite producers are even making an orbital junk yard high above the planets atmosphere. It is clear, capitalism and its bourgeois elites recognise no limits to production either physical or moral. All the above 21st century problems and more to come, are simply the logical unfolding of the 17th and 18th century ‘bourgeois world view’.

Bourgeois ideology.

During its practical development, the ideology of the European bourgeois classes had to challenge and subordinate the previous religious views of the world. Medieval religious elites predominantly viewed the world through their mystical beliefs, according to which an invisible male God created the world and its many organic species in a matter of six days. This God was further imagined as overseeing that earthy creation 24/7, aided by his earthly representatives – the priests and later the Kings. This was an undoubted reversal of reality. The priests and Kings had their own earthly patriarchal purposes and merely claimed – as intellectual back-up – that these same purposes were those of the male God they chose to follow.

Economic and social control by priests and Kings was unsuitable for the emerging capitalist traders and producers. They required a more direct control of production and a more secular form of ideology in order to administer an extended world of buying and selling for profit. With the world as their intended ‘shopping mall’, they re-assigned God to control of an imaginary ‘department of heaven’; relegated priests to control of departments of ‘kneeling down and praying’; and royalty to palaces of ‘waving and bowing’. Then they promoted themselves to managers of the earth and all its species. From then on, improving the planet by ‘civilising’ it into a multitude of global business-opportunity nations became the duty and ‘burden’ of self-appointed bourgeois male elites.
Bourgeois expansion.

To enable this long term global trading project, the European bourgeoisie had to name and create a detailed description (and potential use) for each item encountered. Ocean voyages of ‘discovery’ departed from Europe and came across lands which contained “new caught sullen peoples” (as per Rudyard Kippling). These were Indigenous communities living on Islands and continents which they had ‘discovered’ thousands if not millions of years previously. Nevertheless, they and their habitats were not considered existentially valid until 17th and 18th century Europeans literally set eyes and feet on them. Naming the contents of the Old and New World (sic) and labelling them was – like modern bailiffs – also a preliminary act of intended confiscation and possession. Even the reckoning of time, was imposed upon local conventions in favour of European Greenwich mean time (GMT).

These ancient human cultures and non-human resources were forcibly incorporated into European empires of overseas territories. Adam Smiths (Wealth of Nations) inspired insight, “the whole world for a market” via “water/sea carriage” was being opened up. Bit by bit, most of the world was eventually controlled by Europe and since Europe was controlled by the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie effectively controlled most of the world. Everything, large or small, was examined and recorded within a catalogue or taxonomy. Hence, the naming and describing disciplines of Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Mathematics, Sociology, Ethnology, Anthropology, Astronomy, Geography and Biology developed alongside capitalist production and commerce.

Each ‘rationalised’ discipline functioned to bring as much of the world as possible into conformity with the languages, prejudices and profit-making world-view of the European bourgeois classes. By imposing European science, technology, time and languages wherever possible, a single bourgeois ‘civilising‘ narrative, made up of multiple strands, was woven into a global network of communication. The narrative was exported alongside commodities until it collectively embraced and dominated the actions, thought processes and the imagination of global humanity.

Land masses along with human heads and bodies were ‘scientifically’ measured, assessed and judged in a negative relationship to the assumed cultural and intellectual superiority of the European heartland and its pale-skinned bourgeois males. Once mapped, global land masses had lines drawn upon them and dependent or subordinate ‘nations’ were created. The ultimate European bourgeois mission was the transformation and shaping the world in accordance with their own preferred mode of production and prejudiced world view. Their practical task, utilising the developments maturing in science and technology, was to harness, control and improve on nature and its evolutionary development.

At the practical level, the bourgeois radical/revolutionary changes (always designated as improvements) imposed upon the ‘advanced’ (sic) countries by their anti-aristocratic revolutions, were then supplied and supported by extracting resources from the ‘New World’. First by means of Free Trade and Colonialism, then by Imperialism, this buying, selling, profit-based (‘advanced’ and ‘backward’) socio-economic model, was imposed upon the entire world. At a practical and ideological level the mission of the bourgeois elite in general was to make the world a mirror image of its own socio-economic development. Any other economic mode of production or any alternative cultural or social narrative was violently opposed or even physically eliminated.

Bourgeois profit-driven realities.

However, at a practical bourgeois production level, the dominant socio-economic motive was the continuous creation of private wealth for bourgeoisie accumulation and their desire for conspicuous consumption. The means of achieving this wealth was by the production of commodities and services using, slavery and wage – slavery to create surplus-value and profit. The profit motive required the most relentless and ruthlessly efficient production processes. However, these profit-driven methods were in direct conflict with nature and the evolution of the planet and humanity.

Thus, a dystopian contrast occurred between the ‘civilised’ pristine technological order existing among the up-town wealthy parts of urban living and the down-town slums and tin shacks of the poor. Those two outcomes became a universal symptom of 19th to 21st century bourgeois reality. The manicured lawns and pristine environments of the rich and famous were (and are) in stark contrast with the brown field sites, denuded forests, the polluted disorder of slag heaps and chemical overspills – all resulting from profit making for the benefit of bourgeois elites.

This re-shaping of the earth according to the ‘common-sense’ dictates of the bourgeois men and women who influence and control the capitalist mode of production, thus turned out to be a mis-shaping and un-balancing of the planets ecological and evolutionary development. So powerful and ingrained is the current hold of the bourgeois world view on humanity, that the end of the world can be more easily envisioned, than devising an alternative mode of production. However, for those not blinded by self-interest and temporary advantage, the bourgeois world view presents itself as one of progressive disorder and species extinctions which needs to be urgently curtailed.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2021)

The decades (or centuries) old Caucasian prejudice against women and people of colour has again been spectacularly highlighted. In 2020, the spectacle of a US police officer immobilising George Floyd by kneeling upon his helpless body was flashed across the globe as a typical, but nevertheless outstanding, example of institutional prejudice and violence. On Saturday 13 March 2021, in the UK we had an almost parallel optic by a UK police officer, holding a female down on the ground whilst arresting and handcuffing her. A number of other women were treated similarly whilst attending what was a peaceful vigil.

The irony in this UK case was that the vigil was triggered by the murder of Sarah Everard, who the police suspect was abducted and murdered – by a male member of the police force. A further layer of irony was added by the fact that the police action occurred under the authority of Cressida Dick, the first female Commissioner of police in the UK. Any thought that a female in charge may have moderated how a female rights vigil – against male violence – was policed was mistaken. Patriarchy, prejudice and disrespect of all kinds is so woven into the institutional culture and regulatory methods of most – if not all – police forces, that this culture over-rides any other human rights considerations.

With regard to police prejudice and disrespect in relation to gender and colour, recall for a moment the fairly recent ‘selfie’ photos of UK police officers taken adjacent to the bodies of two murdered women of colour! However, the police are not unique in being seeped in patriarchal forms of prejudice. To a greater or lesser extent it exists throughout all male-dominated societies. Prejudice against women, people of different skin colour and class, permeates every institution, from the royalty, government, politics, economic, finance, education, law, military and even some aspects of family life.

Women are subject to discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and rape in everyone of the above areas of life. Males of colour and the essential workers of the ‘lower’ classes are also discriminated against and exploited in many of the above areas. Additionally, the patriarchal and patronising attitude to women is currently revealed in the treatment of female essential workers. They have born the brunt of the front-line struggle against Covid19 infection in hospitals, care homes and private dwellings.

In the UK, as elsewhere, up to seventy-five percent of all paid and unpaid health and care workers in most countries are women. Apart from a few weeks of hand clapping they were effectively abandoned by men in government and by every other male dominated socio-economic institution. In the UK none of the men within the ‘establishment’ or mainstream, have seriously protested against the paltry wage settlements offered by the government to those who had quite literally saved lives and comforted the ill at considerable risk to themselves.

Silence with regard to violence or sexual exploitation against women – epitomised by the murder of Sarah Everard – will also be the probable response by most men and even some women, such as Cressida Dick. The social silence by such ‘elevated’ women has been bought by their privileged positions within patriarchal institutions. Allowing a token number of ‘deserving’ women or people of colour or class, into bourgeois institutions is a means of moderating criticism over discrimination whilst maintaining prejudices and male domination.

This is why since the 20th century horror of the Yorkshire Ripper, in the UK, women are still living in fear of harassment, violence, rape and even death at home, work or when travelling between.

Another incident highlighting deep-seated prejudice recently occurred in the UK. Revelations by a royal prince and his American bride of mixed parentage, suggested a form of colour prejudice was operating within the British Press and the Royal Family. A question was hurled at one royal along the lines of; ‘is the royal family racist?’ Since only in an imaginary ‘virtual’ world are there such human categories as races, this question entirely missed the real issue.

The question should have been; ‘is the Royal family prejudiced?’ Clearly they are. Not only against people of colour, but of non-royal people in general. The royals are even deeply prejudiced against non-conforming royals such as Edward (with Mrs Simpson) or Margaret (with Snowden) and of course – Diana. The royal family are just the gaudy be-medalled apex of bourgeois elitist pretensions and are symptomatic of an all-embracing prejudice. They live off public money supplied either via tax-payer subsidy or by charging for land and property they have inherited or acquired. Having taken taxpayer cash they button their lips and turn a blind eye to the systemic exploitation of women and working people in the UK and the former colonies, who are the ultimate foundation of their extravagant life-styles.

Although the head royal is a female, she shows little concern about women’s oppression. Indeed, she has always been proud of the military men and their historical regiments who have unapologetically confiscated land and resources, raped, killed and terrorised women in all the former British Empire territories. Indeed, she ‘salutes’ them in an annual ceremony of mutual admiration and self-justification. The British Caucasian ‘establishment’ throughout its numerous layers is saturated with many forms of prejudice.

Such practical and ideological prejudice is part of the ‘muck of ages’ which Marx identified as being the challenge working people need to overcome in pursuing their own release from elite oppression and exploitation.

It is to be hoped that many more women will become active in asserting their rights as human beings and that more men will start to support their efforts in this endeavour. In this regard, I suggest it is not enough for men to defensively assert that ‘not all men’ are rapists and murderers. That is undoubtedly true! But it is also true that ‘not all men’ are engaged in supporting women’s rights or even actively challenging sexist jokes and other disrespectful attitudes to women.

Yet if only half the male population routinely spoke out about and actively supported women’s rights, then together with campaigning women – a critical-mass would develop – to such an extent that all women would soon start to feel protected at home, valued at work and safe on our streets.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2021.)

A couple of points in recent articles demonstrated two perennial problems on the left. One was the desire for strong active government. The other was the use of quotes from Marx to support a political position that essentially contradicts Marx. They are as follows.

Left Dualist thinking.

This first example included a strong critique of capitalism’s neo-liberal stage from a working class perspective. It then went on to contrast the neo-liberal rhetoric of the ‘less state the better’ with the level of support for business from capitalist states. The neo-liberal rhetoric on competition was also contrasted with the actual amount of centralisation and planning big businesses undertook. The 20th century KeynesIan economics and centralised planning was then questionably extolled. It appeared the authors were making the case for big government solutions.

Two problematic assertions then followed. The first was that the “fight against racism” needed a “strong and active government”. The second assertion was that “fighting a global pandemic” also needed a “strong and active government”. It seemed they concluded that since capitalist governments around the world were failing to eliminate the virus of racial prejudice as well as the virus of Covid19 it was because of inactivity or weaknes. Therefore, something more was needed from future governments.

So from this particular perspective the solution to end racism and virus Pandemics, was to choose strong active governments, which would somehow eliminate both. Although a few of the existing strong active governments around the world have done better at controlling the pandemic than weak inactive ones, actually none have eliminated it or prejudice on colour, gender, sexuality and disability.

But that result shouldn’t be surprising. All big government – including strong active ones – are based upon a fundamental form of prejudice. It assumes that some human beings are fit to govern and others, particularly working people in general, are not. All other forms of prejudice stem from this primary practice of governance by elite classes. If the governing elites are predominantly of one particular gender, religion, ethnicity, skin colour or ideology then a pyramid of hierarchy and prejudice of the other identities will generally flow down the social ladder below the ruling class identity. That was historically so in all parts of the world and is still the case in the 21st century.

Moreover, the above idea of centralised planning by a strong government also springs from the material act of governing itself. Ruling elites always desire to plan and control as many resources as possible. Thats how they accumulate their wealth. The modern version of these concepts only became attractive to middle-class intellectuals when capitalism needed to open up the technical and managerial positions within the industrialised stage of its development.

The professional, managerial middle-class, (PMMC) which this economic stage required can lean left, right or centre politically. Moreover, in one or other guise, PMMC individuals and cadres helped initiate and occupy the managerial levels of societies as politically diverse as Fascist, Stalinist, Neo-liberal and Social Democratic. Such governmental regimes were extremely strong and active – particularly in keeping the working classes at work and producing surplus – value. The latter being the source of their governmental income and elite wealth.

Governments, strong or weak are the active authoritarian means by which elites force their particular distinctive form of exploitation and oppression upon essential and non-essential workers. In fact solutions to prejudice and virus pandemics require the opposite of strong active governance. It is local self – governing non-profit, eco-sensitive producing communities which are the future solution for humanity.

Working people need to actively challenge the idea of (and actively dispense with) strong active governments, not champion them. Only by a revolutionary transitional process away from hierarchies and strong government will humanity be able to end the muck of ages prejudices based upon colour, gender, age, sexual-orientation, disability and religion. Which brings me to the next recent left confusion.

Marx on Religion.

This second case was one of utilising the prestige of Marx to support a position of neutrality with regard to religion. These authors quoted Marx’s concept of religion as being the ‘Opium of the People’, but then wrote that Marx;

“…insisted on treating religion as a matter for the individual, strictly separating it from the state and public affairs.”

I will demonstrate below that this politicised assertion severely distorts Marx’s revolutionary-humanist perspective on religion. Whatever, the purpose of this literary distortion or omission, it is a case of withholding relevant information. After writing of the need for a “ruthless criticism of all that exists,” Marx adds, we;

“…have to make religion, science etc., the object of our criticism…religion and…politics…we must take these in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure….religion is a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind….our motto must be: reform of consciousness……by analysing the mystical consciousness…whether it manifests itself in a religious or political form.” (letter from Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher. emphasis added RR.)

In the a ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’ which contains the above noted ‘opium of the people’ phrase, the following precedes it.

“The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly a fight against ‘the world’ of which religion is the spiritual ‘aroma’”.

This is then followed by;

“The criticism of religion disillusions man to make him think and act and shape his reality like a man who has become disillusioned and has come to reason,..Criticism appears no longer as an end in itself, but only as a means. Its essential sentiment is ‘indignation’, it’s essential activity is ‘denunciation’”. (Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’)

One final extract from the many by Marx on religion.

“..we have once and for all declared war on religion and religious ideas and care little whether we are called atheists or anything else.” (The conditions of England. Past and present by Carlisle.)

So Marx – in his own words – did not treat religion as ‘a matter for the individual’. Nor did he separate it ‘from the state and public affairs’. Instead he advocated ruthless criticism, rigorous analysis of, struggle against, denunciation of, and an open fight against all religious and political forms of mystical consciousness. Anything creating illusions and virtual realities was to be openly and ruthlessly criticised.

I hope this demonstrates to new generations of oppressed and exploited blue and white-collar workers, that they should not automatically assume that those who appear to know what they are writing (or talking) about, are as thorough as they should be. Indeed, they frequently mislead themselves as well as others.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2021)

‘Dead Epidemiologists’. By Rob Wallace.

This article is not a full review of the above book, but it does contain extracts from it. Subtitled; ‘On the origins of Covid19’ it is a collaborative work by specialists in Pandemics, Agroecology, Economics and Virology. It’s author identifies himself as “an evolutionary biologist and health phylogeographer. The many such technical references may indicate a potential difficulty for non-specialist readers.

Nevertheless, from a revolutionary-humanist perspective this book makes an important contribution in understanding the connection between Pandemics, the Capitalist mode of production in general and industrialised food production in particular.

In an early section, a list of 27 previous strains (or variants) of viruses is identified which governments and politicians have failed to recognise as part of a systemic pattern. The author notes that the Pandemic emergency itself is used as a ‘too busy’ excuse for not considering how capitalist economic structures in food production and commerce have unearthed the Covid 19 virus and enabled it’s global spread. Eg.

“…wet market and ‘exotic’ foods are staples in China, as is now industrial production, juxtaposed alongside each other since economic liberalisation, post Mao. …..ostriches, porcupine, crocodile, fruit bats, palm civets…All are treated as food commodities.” (in the section on Notes on a novel virus)

The author makes clear that the interface between huge intensive international agro-industrialised food production, factory farms and outsourced just-in-time local suppliers of livestock products are virus enabling pathways. This means that viruses can originate in many locations globally and be passed on to large-scale food processing factories across continents. The frequent pro-capitalist game of blaming the various places of origin for any virus outbreaks conveniently ignores the fact that the problem lies in the entire food production system, not in any one particular sub-location.

The source problem is further avoided and exacerbated by the fact that those employed by government to deal with outbreaks and their counterparts in academia (ie the “professional managerial class”) are simply acting to ‘clean up the mess after the event’. They also tend to accept existing capitalist economic values and practices rather than critiquing them. Campaigning to end the current pathogen prone system of food production is not even considered by this section of the middle class. In contrast, the author argues that;

“Anyone who aims to understand why viruses are becoming more dangerous must investigate the industrial model of agriculture, and more specifically, livestock production….few governments and few scientists are prepared to do so.” (Interview section)

This is why so much mainstream government and media analysis of the Pandemic is based upon superficial considerations and on solving immediate Covid 19 infections. Yet even at this superficial level the preventative measures have been the epidemic equivalent of donning condoms after sexual intercourse rather than before. Ordering workers back into crowded factories and keeping factories open during Pandemic lock downs was not cutting off viral transmission. Eight hour shifts in enclosed spaces is ideal for viruses carried on aerosol droplets or other particles before being inhaled into workers lungs. Indeed the author suggests;

“Working people are treated as cannon fodder”. (and thus need to) “..find a way to wrestle operative command from the greedy and incompetent.”

Moreover;

“Agri-business as a mode of social reproduction must be ended for good. Highly capitalised production of food depends upon practices that endanger the entirety of humanity….food systems (should) be socialised in such a way that pathogens this dangerous are kept from emerging in the first place.” (ibid)

The obvious government failures revealed when the Pandemic broke out didn’t just commence when it started in 2020/2019 but years earlier when the neo – liberal economic model of just in time supply chains were introduced and imposed upon countries. Indeed;

“The failures were actually programmed decades ago as the shared commons of public health were simultaneously neglected and monetised. “

But of course the whole point of commodifying and monetising everything possible – including public services – is to enable the owners of capital to reap the profits and interest from the intensive exploitation of animal, human, vegetable and mineral resources. However, the social and financial pollutant ‘side effects’ are passed on to everyone else. For;

“..the private control of production remains entirely focused on profit. The damages caused by the outbreaks that result are externalised to livestock, crops, wildlife, workers, local and national governments, public health systems and alternative agrosystems abroad.” (section: Covid19 and the Circuits of Capital)

Of course the greed for profit means that capitalist production must be constant and as rapid as possible. Industrial livestock rearing is no different and animals such as pigs and chickens are intensively reared and profitably ‘processed’ quickly from birth to slaughter and sale. Global investors know this and so with an eye to pig and poultry farming;

“Goldman Sach took 60% stock in Shuanguhi Investment and Development, part of the giant agribusiness that bought US based Smithfield Foods, the largest hog producer in the world. For $300 million, it also scored out-and-out ownership of ten poultry farms in Fujian and Hunan, one province over from Wuhan and well within the city’s wild foods catchment. It invested up to another $300 million alongside Deutsch Bank in hog raising in the same provinces.” (ibid)

Not surprisingly, American and European investors are deeply embroiled in their own and other countries virus-producing commodity chains. Intensive farming, in particular, not only destroys natural habitats, but the use of bio-chemicals as fertilisers or as animal medications, kills insects, damages gut flora and increases crop or animal disease transmission. It also creates continuous high volumes of waste material (and excrement) which of course are huge reservoirs for pathogen development and spread. For example;

“Whole counties in the United States are dedicated to the production of industrial food animals. …the state of Iowa, a centre for livestock and poultry production, is an epicentre for nitrogen, phospherous, and total solid waste. It’s North Raccoon , Floyd and Little Souix watersheds, home to 350,000 people,…host the waste equivalent of Tokyo, New York City and Mexico City combined….cutting Iowa’s clean rivers in half, polluting private water wells with nitrate and fecal coliform bacteria and producing nation – leading emissions in fine particulate ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate and hydrogen sulfide.” (section: The origins of industrial agricultural pathogens)

It is important to remember that Covid19 is not an isolated event, it is merely one newly identified symptom of a global capitalist system which is damaging air, water, sea, land and killing insect, animal and human populations. So until the capitalist system is changed, if this virus doesn’t get us, one or other of the symptoms probably will.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2021)

[The book ‘Dead Epidemiologists’. By Rob Wallace is priced at £4.95p and available from online book stores and at MR online, via monthlyreview.org ]

Pills, Politics and Profit.

Have you ever wondered why the capitalist influenced medical profession prefers curing ills rather than preventing them? The reason is simple. More profits can be made from injecting vaccines than from preventing viruses. More income can be made from palliatives (pills) than from removing the causes of pain and stress. Medicines and vaccines which are prescribed for long term illnesses or recurring pandemics provide long term income streams and profitable returns on private investments.

The pharmaceutical industry, in particular, is capitalist profit-making on steroids. Pro-capitalist governments around the globe have been throwing money and resources amounting to billions at the pharmaceutical industry in a global effort to produce vaccines to immunise against the Covid19 virus. Yet no money or resources have been directed to preventing viruses from crossing the animal to human barrier. Clearly it is far easier for big Pharma to make profits from regular vaccine production than to eliminate viruses.

It is the pharmaceutical equivalent of capitalist builders deliberately erecting homes on flood plains, without flood barriers, in a period of rising sea levels and intensified rainfall and then when the house is swept away, telling you to ‘get used to it’ and offering to sell you another unit on exactly the same basis. From a humanist perspective, that makes no sense. However, it makes a form of inhumane capitalist sense to allow novel animal viruses to circulate among human communities and then use public money to supply us with yet another intravenous chemical.

Public Payment and Private Plunder.

And soak up public wealth they do. Pharmaceuticals even collaborate with public funded university departments to develop medicines and procedures and then patent them for profitable distribution. Nice trick that isn’t it? Get a tax-payer funded university departments graduates to do as much of the research as possible then patent the result for the benefit of a private company and its shareholders. Like other such public/private initiatives, the profits of private companies and a minority of shareholders are being subsidised by the majority of taxpayers.

But that is only half the problem with the interface of capitalism with health care. Curing patients with one – off treatments does two things to interrupt the cash flow of big Pharmacy. First, it cuts off the need for regular medications and second, it reduces the number of carriers able to transmit the disease to future patients. Hence there is no real capitalist incentive to campaign for preventative measures or create one-off cures. Indeed, it would really put the public purse in big Pharma’’s pocket if, in addition to turning their backs on virus prevention, pro-capitalist governments now made vaccination compulsory.

So it makes perfect sense to those who make money via vaccination pricks to keep producing and selling syringes and vaccines and update them when a virus mutates. So there is clearly no incentive for them, their shareholders or their elite friends in government to make a global effort to ensure viruses stay in their animal host where they can do little or no harm. Not only are governments pouring money into pharmaceutical companies, for vaccines, they are doing nothing to prevent new viruses from entering the human transport chain and clearly not enough to prevent existing ones circulating.

I think it revealing that there are no voices among the political and governing elite who are challenging this profit-based single narrative. This sole script of – vaccination is the only way forward – reveals that there is absolutely no intention by governments, politicians, medical professionals, bio-tech companies etc., of making sure that viruses, stay in their normal animal hosts, do not cross species barriers and are not allowed to spread far and wide. But this single-note tone poem by the elites (echoed by some on the left) also reveals more.

Deaths, Data and Dystopia.

Rather than change to a policy of virus prevention and elimination, the pro-capitalist elite in most countries are prepared to allow regular pandemics and repeated vaccinations to become the new normal. They prefer a dystopian nightmare of countries and communities coping with unemployment, climate change, pollution and a succession of death-dealing pandemics rather than change their preferred profit-based economic system. Using fear of the virus and the boredom of lock-down confinement along with a one note vaccine ‘saviour’ narrative, they hope the public will accept an alternative dystopia and dutifully offer up their arms for more and more jabs.

In the UK the elites only concern now is to work out how many infections and deaths they can allow before it becomes too self-defeating, too embarrassing or before people finally see through this cynical pro-capitalist strategy. It is the same strategy that political and military elites use when engaged in warfare. How many soldiers can be sacrificed to the ‘cause’ before the fathers, mothers, husbands and wives of these soldiers and humane citizens stir themselves to oppose the military action ordered by the governing elite?

The recent UK Covid19 normalisation strategy, (a staged return to capitalist profit – making) outlined in March 2021 reveals the mentality of the neo-liberal governing elite over here. The question they have openly addressed is; how many ordinary citizens can we afford to let get ill and die before we need to interfere again with our business as usual gig? Indeed, their ‘no more lock-downs’ strategy includes a cynical tactic. They are allowing a weekly gap between each phase of lifting restrictions. This ‘gap’ will allow them to examine the data on deaths and infections and in their executive offices, decide if these are too high to be acceptable or too crippling for the health service infrastructure and understaffed personnel to cope with!!!

Vaccine Nationalism/Imperialism.

Then there is the vexed question of vaccine nationalism and Imperialism. The government’s of the richest capitalist countries in Europe and North America representing less than 20% of the world’s population have purchased over 50% of available vaccine supplies. An attitude of me, me, me first – led by governing elites is rampant in the advanced countries. At the time of writing, 10 countries have already absorbed 75% of available vaccines and 130 countries have been left with none. According to reliable sources Astra Zenica and other vaccine producers are charging poor countries at least three times more than European countries to purchase each dose of vaccine.

Furthermore, the British and other involved governments have refused to lift restrictions on the vaccine formula and ingredients and thus denying poor countries the ability to manufacture the vaccine themselves. Apparently 2,400,000 (yes 2.4 million) Covid deaths globally are not enough to melt some capitalist, patent-protecting hearts. Another researcher suggest that international vaccine producers are currently charging between $6 and $75 per dose. Does this not stench of modern Imperialism?

Moreover, at the current rates of vaccination it could take six years to immunise everybody on the planet who wants to be injected. Bearing in mind that the planet is still interconnected, that the existing viruses are still mutating and that new viruses are still being released from animal to humans, the hope of a me-first strategy getting us back to any kind of pre-Covid normal is sheer Disneyland make-believe. Elite promoted ‘vaccine speak’ – echoed by various partially empty brain chambers – is meant to immunise us to concern about the unfolding brutal realities of late capitalism. Will it succeed?

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2021)