critical-mass.net

Recent and future class struggles.

Previous to the Covid 19 pandemic, the brunt of the transfer from a welfare-state model of capitalism to the current neo-liberal model were born by the organised working classes. The export of production from Europe and North America, to low waged and low tax countries saw the progressive demise of traditional working class occupations. Large scale engineering, textiles, shipbuilding, docks, mining, automobile manufacturing and railway transport, all but disappeared. The decades of working class struggle to maintain jobs and income levels were undermined and defeated.

Austerity was the term commonly used to avoid exposing the relative and absolute poverty created by neo-liberal elites. Working people over subsequent decades learned to cope on benefits, low-paid precarious employment, or retraining for other jobs. Some started their own small businesses and/or joined the ranks of commercial, leisure or hospitality sectors. It is this latter class which are now bearing the brunt of the current stage of the crisis of capitalism. This is because this sector depends upon a sufficient number of daily or weekly paying customers to keep their individual businesses solvent.

Historically, this section of society neither worked for large, industrial, agricultural or commercial capital (workers) nor owned a big business (capitalists) and have been classed as a petite bourgeois class. This French derived term, refers to the class of self-employed small business traders. Successful members of this class generally enjoy better remuneration, job satisfaction and status than low-paid employed people, but are constantly threatened by big capital moving into their business sector and ruining them. For example supermarkets replacing local shops, individual coffee houses replaced by Costa, Starbucks chains, local pubs closing down when a Wetherspoons or another bar ‘chain’ moves into town, etc.

The socio-economic position of this petite-bourgeois class, thus gives rise to both a feeling of hostility and envy toward big capital. The economic situation of the petite bourgeois has been rapidly exacerbated by the 2020 Covid 19 pandemic. It is this class which are consequently, the main forces behind the global pressure to quickly end lock-downs everywhere. Their class struggle has also taken the form of public demonstrations and campaigns in the USA, UK and Europe, directed at shortening or lifting Covid restrictions. Assorted individuals from other classes have joined these demonstrations, but the main core and thrust of these campaigns is motivated by the social and economic position of the petite-bourgeoisie.

In contrast, the big bourgeoisie have been well supported by government handouts and have other means of putting pressure on governments. Many super rich are even getting richer during lock-downs so this class have yet no need of radical alternatives. Meanwhile, the working class (as a class) are existing on furlough, benefits or still using coping strategies. Consequently, the only class actively rebelling in the short and near term, are the small to medium petite-bourgeoisie. For example, a majority of the ‘rebels’ fired up by Trump and who then stormed the Capitol building on 6th January 2021, were undoubtedly from this petite-bourgeois economic background. (see link below)

However, without the support of the working classes or the big capitalists the petite bourgeoisie efforts at self – survival are doomed to failure. Although they would like to think they are essential, in a long lasting severe crisis, as Covid 19 has demonstrated, they are not essential to community survival, nor strong enough to endure it. As large capital formations weather (or ride) the storm and workers wait for something to trigger their revolt, most of the petite bourgeoisie will be forced to rejoin the ranks of the employed or unemployed working class.

Meanwhile petite-bourgeois class interest will continue to press for authoritarian political solutions to the crisis. In the past, they have looked for strong leaders who will implement measures to save their way of life. The class of individuals based upon small, private enterprise, is one of the dominant factors behind the rise of populist politics in North America, UK and Europe. However, their time is running out.

There is no easy political or economic solutions to petite-bourgeois problems. The historic trend of small to medium capital being squeezed out by large capital continues to be the logical direction of the capitalist mode of production. They can neither restore their previous economic conditions under capitalism nor satisfactorily exist in the current or future conditions now dictated by it.

Accordingly, they can either try to ally themselves with one or other of the political wings of the pro-capitalist class, dominated as these are by billionaire elites whose class interests are not the same. Consequently their only use in mainstream party politics is as voting fodder or bully boys to help crush any future working class discontent.

Alternatively, they could ally with the working classes and save themselves and their futures by changing the entire system and playing a positive role within it. The other side of that potential alliance, – the working classes – have both the responsibility and opportunity to begin to reach out, not only to the workers in the entertainment and hospitality sectors, but to the ex-industrial and commercial workers now hanging on to their own increasingly threatened self-employment and small businesses.

It is certainly not beyond the wit and wisdom of working people to suggest – to all people who work for a living – that a future mode of production with a decent, guaranteed, public-service level of income for all, with all the basic elements of modern living, is sensible and possible. This guaranteed income to be afforded by leveling down the billionaire, millionaire and other extraordinary high earning elite classes and by democratising all aspects of working and social life.

Such a programme benefiting workers in, entertainment, hospitality, leisure, essential and non-essential production and activities of ecological benefit to the local, national and global environments, would be immensely attractive to most rational adults. In particular it would be attractive to the millions of young people in countries and continents faced with unemployment, poverty and an increasingly polluted and ecologically damaged planet.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2021)

[For an initial attempt at identifying the class identity of the Capitol rioters in the USA see mronline.org/2021/1/20/the-class-composition-of-the-capitol-rioters-first-cut ]

The origin of economic classes.

A basic understanding of the economic origin of classes is of the utmost relevance to problems currently faced by humanity. It will help explain the motives and actions of modern global elites and those they rule. It also clears away the confusion caused by economic jargon and consequently reveals the underlying similarities between the ideologies of Neo-Liberalism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism.

For this general outline, the long evolution of humanity, can be usefully divided into two periods. The first (pre-history) stretches over millions of years and across numerous continents. It lasted until humanity developed a systematic form of writing. The second period (history) commences with symbols on tablets of clay, stone/stela, papyrus, vellum and later paper.

The invention of writing developed along with changes from hunter-gathering, herding and pastoral modes of production to settled agriculture. The latter enabled a regular surplus of grain production to be created along with fruit and vegetables. Regular surpluses removed the need for some community members to produce their own daily sustenance and therefore to specialise in other forms of activity, such as writing, pottery, music etc.

That way a socio-economic division between essential workers and other occupations was first established. By the Greek and Persian period of ancient history, forced, repetitive agricultural labour by slaves and semi-slaves had become the economic basis for the rise of towns and cities. On this foundation of ‘strong government’, successive ruling elites maintained possession of the main means of production and control of the lives of essential workers, who were then forced to produce such basic needs.

Control of means of production and labour, enabled historic elites to obtain a tithe or tax (a percentage) of everything produced. Regular surplus-production kept the elite (and other artisans) in the manner they directed. The historic separation of essential workers and other classes, also helps explain why history has been plagued by wars and class struggles.

Class struggles and uprisings occurred because slaves and semi-slaves (or later peasants, serfs, workers) resented being forced to work to support the elite. They would often rebel when compelled to work exceptionally hard. Wars were undertaken by elites to gain additional products and extra surplus-production from sources other than their local essential workers.

Although far more complex than earlier modes of production, capitalism is just a modern version of a society divided by class. This is revealed by the fact that essential workers are still required to work long and hard at repetitive boring tasks, for relatively little reward; and their surplus production is still used to support the capitalist/ruling class and other non-essential occupations.

Modern economic jargon such as capital, money, interest, rent, taxation, salaries, wages, productivity, division of labour, fiscal responsibility, banking law and custom etc., merely masks the underlying economic foundations of capitalist societies. These still comprise of an under class of essential workers whose labour supports an over class who make the rules and direct the administrators.

Of course, capitalism is based upon complex globalised industry and agriculture, so workers who are now essential cover many more occupational categories than previously. Daily essentials such as food, water, shelter and warmth are still needed, but the essential worker class has grown. Factory workers, transport workers, educational workers, building workers, health service workers, administrative workers, shop and warehouse workers, energy supply workers, communication workers, sewage and infrastructure workers, have now become essential.

Moreover, the conflicts between essential workers and those who rule over them have not gone away. Indeed, there are more.

The level of capitalist production now extracts more from nature than can be replaced and produces more goods and waste than can be sold or ecologically dealt with. The greed for wealth that the ruling classes and their middle-class supporters have is destroying the natural basis of all life on the planet. There is clearly a need to replace capitalism with something more humane and sustainable.

In the 20th century, the suggested alternatives Socialism, Communism, Fascism and Neo-Liberalism were all tried. They all tinkered with some symptoms of capitalism before reverting to the aggressive class-divided, strong government type. This outcome is not difficult to understand. These ‘isms’ kept the ancient economic structure intact. Each ‘alternative’ had either a Social democratic ruling elite, a Fascist ruling elite, a Communist ruling elite, or a Neo-liberal ruling elite.

Each political elite once in power selected the administrators it required along with a loyal pro-regime military and police force. These ‘forces’ made it difficult for essential workers to dispute or prevent whatever type of ruling class exploitation was in place. Moreover, the greater the numbers of the unproductive ruling, administrative and military classes, the harder and more efficiently those essential workers were forced to exert themselves to meet societies (!) needs.

The more pressure these superficially different political elites exerted upon their essential workers, the more the latter resisted – the class struggle in various forms continued. The extra production needed to support the various professional–managerial–class occupations also increased the mass of products, waste materials and environmental damage. Despite the different elite political ideologies, essential workers and other life-forms were still oppressed and exploited.

At face value, the political ideologies of Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and Neo-liberalism, appear to have little in common. However, beneath the sophistry and jargon of political and economic discourse, they have the same underlying economic purpose. They all desired to live off the surplus-production of essential workers. The various ideologies and the illusory categories swirling around the intellects of those political elites disguised this fundamental similarity.

A debt is owed to those activists such as Karl Marx, who forensically analysed capitalism and developed the revolutionary-humanist perspective. For this perspective revealed that the solution to the problems inherited, created and exacerbated by capitalism, was to end the historic separation of working people from the means of production and from decisions on how and what should be produced.

Consequently, an important stage in working class consciousness will occur when the mass of essential workers begin to question not only the remuneration levels of their society-supporting labour, but the very nature and ultimate purpose of their exertions. Such questioning of the purpose of class divisions in essential economic activity will also serve to distinguish between those who genuinely support working people in the historic need to found society anew, and those who resolutely do not.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2021)

Extinction. (The ‘normal’ for capitalism.)

In the 21st century, the capitalist mode of production has reached a stage which has undermined humanities metabolic basis of existence. In pursuit of profit, the natural ecological, environmental and atmospheric cycles of nature and the many species which live by a symbiotic relationship with nature, have been destroyed or degraded beyond repair. The planetary biosphere cannot be satisfactorily resurrected on the same basis as the previous 200 years of capitalist destruction. Agricultural land fertility, needed for crops to feed people, animals and insects has been been systematically exhausted. Many insect species needed to pollinate crops and other much needed vegetation, have been destroyed by chemical-assisted, profit-orientated agriculture.

Numerous animal species, robbed of their natural habitats, by profit-led extraction have become endangered or extinct. The seas, another store of nutrients, food sources and oxygenating plankton, have been acidified, polluted and over-fished beyond any natural cycle of replenishment. Science and technology has been progressively subordinated to the needs of capital. These two occupations have been directed to improving the pace and extent of resource extraction, commodity production and consumption. By unleashing an insatiable greed among elites for accumulating wealth, the normality of capitalist mode of production has progressively pushed all life on earth closer toward a series of mass extinction events.

The same business orientated (distorted) science and technology has astronomically increased the efficiency of production and has decreased the number of workers needed to produce these increased volumes. Consequently, ‘normal’ capitalism has progressively made redundant the very buyers it needs for its increasingly superfluous and polluting commodities. This evolution of production technologies has thus led to large-scale unemployment and two 20th century world wars between nations over sources of energy, raw materials and markets. In a self-reinforcing response to the 20th century armed conflict of national ‘capitals’, another branch of science and technology has perfected weapons capable of annihilating most human and non-human species.

So to capitalisms steady productive progression toward mass extinctions has been added a military capacity to enable a rapid mass extinction event. All the above are part of capitalist ‘normality’ .

Of the three main classes which have been established upon the basis of the capitalist mode of production, the capitalist classes, the middle classes and the working classes, the first two have been the ones who have guided and controlled the direction humanity has been travelling for the last two hundred years. Economic, financial, political, educational and military leaderships drawn from the ranks of the, upper and middle classes have managed to consistently steer humanity down the path which all but the wilfully blind can see is leading inexorably toward a series of extinction events.
Over the last one hundred years few from these two classes have seriously criticised the capitalist mode of production. Even the most astute have proved unreliable and have never proposed anything other than some self-serving temporary measures based on charity aimed at the poor.

Revolution. (The need for a new normal.)

The only class, from which could emerge the knowledge, commitment, energy and numbers required to transform the current mode of production to a fully socially beneficial mode, are the various sections of the working classes. And this is no wishful thinking. Under the impact of the Covid Pandemic of 2020 and beyond, the term essential workers became an outstandingly popular one. It was an almost universal recognition of the key role these blue and white-collar sections of the working class played in the existential maintenance of human life on the planet. It became glaringly obvious during 2020 that workers of all skin shades, (in some cases working night and day, often sleeping in corridors and lorries) again overcame obstacles in transport, health, education, emergency services, food and water supplies, energy provision and sewage and waste disposal services.

They collectively demonstrated that they are the actual foundation of all modern societies. All other forms of human occupational activity built upon these essential foundations such as; music, culture, arts, literature, sports, leisure, politics, warfare administration and governance whilst interesting or even useful, demonstrated that they are of less importance to the survival of human communities. Essential workers on low pay kept the essential foundations of societies functioning while most of the rich, famous (and those in the areas noted above) isolated themselves and stayed home. As individuals and as a class the elites among them never once appeared to reflect upon the wealth disparity between the low – paid essential workers and their own well – paid, less-essential occupations. With very few exceptions, the contribution most of them made during lock downs was to invent or purchase non-essential boredom-deflecting activities or invent new ways to increase their wealth.

The above (well broadcast) general description establishes the relative worth of the various classes and the usefulness of their occupational skills. Working people in essential services not only maintained existing societies in crisis, but their demonstrable ability to persist and innovate makes them essential to found societies anew. Upon the foundations laid by the world’s essential workers there needs to arise new attitudes and practical superstructures which value these workers and whose non-essential activities do not conflict with the interests of nature and humanity as a symbiotic whole. Although the pro-capitalist elites arrogantly consider the working classes are incapable of self governance, I suggest that is only a self – induced delusion due to their own blinkered class prejudice.

However, elite consciousness has recognised that the authoritarian discipline imposed on working people by the conditions of employment has been eroded by large-scale unemployment. They have also recognised that any former contentment and engagement during previous welfare-state capitalist forms has been undermined by the neo-liberal stage of social austerity. Therefore, over many decades the elites in government and those in all political parties, have strengthened laws and the states bodies of armed men to ensure authoritarian discipline can be maintained by force during any future form of civil unrest.

In contrast the consciousness of working people is as yet fragmented due to their place in the mode of production, their vulnerable exposure to personal crisis and their absorption of the elites dominant ideology. Nevertheless, working people are capable of transcending these occupational and educational shortcomings by experience and mutual support – particularly during a period of revolutionary change. This because radical transitions involve a rapid reversal in thinking and doing. Meanwhile, their consciousness surfaces in contradictory and partial understandings. For example, conspiracy theories and a lack of trust in authority exist among large numbers of working people and this has been condemned by many middle and upper class elites.

Such condemnations fail to recognise that working people tend to believe in elite conspiracies for obvious practical reasons. From childhood to adulthood, many have directly experienced lies and conspiracies at school, at work, in advertising and in politics. They know the elite (and those in league with them) frequently lie and they know they lie and conspire in order to fool or deceive working people. Indeed, concealing, altering or fabricating evidence, corruption and misconduct are endemic among capitalist society elites. So in a world of almost universal elite deception, dissimulation – and community destruction – workers will rationally and correctly demand of those who criticise them – just whose side are you on?

Going back to Blaming the Victims?

It is therefore rational for working people to assume that those in authority and with power (in whatever form) over them – until extensively proven different – will be at the very best economical with the truth and at worst, they will blatantly and repeatedly deceive them. So to criticise working people for not believing what they are told by democratic or non democratic authoritarians in power over them is a classic case of blaming the victims. To blame working people for believing – even unlikely conspiracy theories – is not only to deny their direct (and indirect) experiences under capitalism but also an attempt to shift responsibility away from those who actually do the conspiring on a regular basis.

Moreover, to blame working people or to describe them as insane or dumb, as some on the left have done, (over masks and vaccines, for example), is to side with the interests of the political and medical elite and Big Pharma. It is also to ignore that all these three categories have a proven track record of experimental, underhand and self-serving rushed chemical remedies, including tactics to silence any whistle-blowing critics. Such ill thought out attacks upon working people is to gravely disrespect working class knowledge and experience of the capitalist system. Those on the left who belittle working class intelligence and abilities or demonise their opinions have in effect helped the bourgeois world of authoritarian class superiority.

It should be obvious that the pro-capitalist elite wish to place responsibility upon working people for everything that goes wrong in capitalist societies. This tactic conveniently directs criticism away from themselves and their mode of production. So it would also be to capitalisms advantage if one section of the working class were to condemn and ferociously disrespect another section. That way any future potential working class uprisings could be levered in the direction of brutal and sterile civil wars. It would be even better for the elite if some among the workers own ranks were to help with the prerequisite efforts of disrespecting their views and sowing divisions among the multi ethnic working class. And unfortunately a few are already doing that.

Forward to a humane normal.

In contrast to spreading disrespect for working people with different views, the task of revolutionary-humanists is not to blame them for any asserted shortcomings or any emotional or situational inadequacies. The task is to put the blame firmly where it belongs. The capitalist system has created distorted, deformed and confusing life experiences for many millions of working people and that is a substantial part of the problem of modernity. The fundamental problem is certainly not the systems numerous and varied victims. The 21st century dichotomy of a crisis riddled system, resting upon the efforts of a working class which mainly produces and serves and a ruling class which mainly consumes and governs is not going to be resolved to the satisfaction of both these classes. It will be necessary to take sides.

The purpose of the revolutionary-humanist research of Karl Marx and those who understand and agree with his basic analysis of capitalism, is to support and assist the working classes to overcome all the illusions, delusions and self-defeating dualisms promoted by the pro-capitalist elite. This includes helping them resolve any other de-humanised results of their historic separation between the means of production and the purposes of future production.

Another world is possible – but not by continuing to blame the working class victims – who are the only ones capable of creating a better one.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2021)

In parts 1 and 2, evidence was presented to demonstrate that the Fascist political form of authoritarianism, offered capitalist and pro-capitalist elites the means to merge economic authoritarianism with the state political form and add a third crucial determining element. The latter was to enroll shock troops for dealing with critics.

Ideologically, die hard Aryan Fascists considered themselves a superior nation and people, whilst other nations and people were morally and intellectually below them. However, with over six million unemployed, most Germans in 1932 were not necessarily attracted to National Socialism by its antiquated racist ideology. It was the promise of jobs and social benefits which interested most of them. Support was;

“.not because they were swamped by Nazi propaganda….(workers)…having seen what democracy had delivered, felt that it was time…for another system.” (’The Nazis: A warning from history.’ L Rees. Chapter 1.)

By ignoring such understanding, it has often been assumed that in countries where Fascism gained power, people were qualitatively different from those in countries which rejected it. In some cases a ‘banality of evil’ was extended to practically all who were seduced or pressured to support the Nazis. Yet many on the side which defeated Fascism, demonstrated a similar authoritarian-based prejudice.

Pans calling kettles black.

Those among the Allied allies, adopting such prejudiced views about German working people in general merely mirrored the intolerant and prejudiced superior attitude German Fascists adopted toward their Jewish, Communist and Slavic victims. I still consider it a bizarre contradiction that men claiming to be anti-Fascist could at the same time be extremely authoritarian, deeply prejudiced against ‘others’.

In those cases, a crucial level of self-criticism was being left out. Research into ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ (T.Adorno et al) and ‘The Authoritarian State’ or ‘State Capitalism’ (Neumann/Pollock) showed that the phenomenon was also present in western ‘Democratic’ countries. This uncomfortable fact needs to enlighten contemporary discussions on authoritarian attitudes. Authoritarian superior and intolerant assumptions within left and right sectarian groups also need to be recognised as part of the problem facing humanity, not part of a solution.

For, it is an indisputable fact that authoritarian practices and ideas of superior and inferior human beings reside in every culture. Indeed, superiority and authoritarianism are deeply rooted in the patriarchal religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These ideologies are founded upon an assumption of male superiority, domination and discrimination of ‘other’ human beings.

For example, within patriarchal authoritarian ideologies and practices, women and children as well as other communities, nations, religions, skin colours are designated – in some way or other – as inferior to those pursuing or administering forms of authoritarian control. Consequently, the whole of bourgeois ideology and practice is replete with historical as well as contemporary forms of prejudiced discrimination and intolerance.

Metaphorically speaking, Patriarchy is not just the ideological father of male-centric monotheistic religions, but also the parent of Democracy, Fascism and Sectarianism – the three secular sibling sons, so to speak. Stalwarts of one or other of these three secular ideologies in the 20th century, controlled the capitalist mode of production in most countries around the globe.

Moreover, intolerance and prejudice are still widespread. What is rarely admitted – but understood by many women – is that most men (elite men in particular) have thinly disguised authoritarian tendencies. [NB; if in doubt, check out feminism and the ‘me too’ movement archives.]

Interestingly, many men can readily identify authoritarianism in other males but rarely in themselves.

Authoritarians de-humanise the ‘other’.

Extreme authoritarian political mindsets, such as those displayed by Fascist and other sectarian organisations, often go as far as fictionally demonising the ‘other’. Not only were all Jews discriminated against and fictionally demonised (as rats), but Slavs and members of rival political parties, were also de-humanised.

Practically everyone who did not wholeheartedly support the German Fascists were targeted, not only as enemies of the Nazi Party, but as subhuman (untermenschen) enemies of Germany. This phenomena was manifest internally as well as externally. In a notable example, left-leaning socialist members of the SA (Sturmabteilung) section of the Nazi Party, were even assassinated by their party colleagues in 1934 and the organisation disbanded.

Secular versions of authoritarianism gave rise to the attitude expressed as; ‘your either with us or against us’. Consequently, the ‘other’ must not only be labelled wrong and inferior, but possibly devilishly evil, twisted or insane and thus be unworthy of human rights, cultural standing, being granted any dignity or even being entitled to life itself.

Notably, this authoritarian and dualistic mode of thinking had previously infused the minds of Colonial and Imperialist era male elites and clearly existed on all sides during the Second World War. It was later re-enacted in Vietnam and later articulated by Bush when launching the ‘war on terror’.

Given the global domination of patriarchal ideology in its varied forms, it is not surprising that the same authoritarian mentality of ‘you are either with us or against us’ also became a hall mark of the ‘revolutionary’ (sic) left in the fledgling Soviet Union. It was eloquently articulated, by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and many Communist leaders – all of whom were authoritarian-inclined men who thought themselves vastly superior to everyone else. Russian, Anarchists, Socialists and Social Democrats and even critics within the Russian Communist Party itself, were consequently not thought worthy of being treating fairly or with dignity and many were expelled, outlawed, tortured or shot.

In the Soviet Union, as in Fascist Germany, disagreement with, and exposure of wrong-doing (whistle-bowing) by individuals was frequently classified as an act against the state. Trotsky was expelled and eventually assassinated after he had repeatedly spoken out. But is that sort of treatment not also the case in most democratic capitalist countries? Are critics not assassinated by democratic regimes and regimes friendly to democratic nations? [Jamal Khashoggy as a recent example.]

If we have the courage to be honest about our male gender, then we have to admit that damaging levels of authoritarianism, intolerance and prejudice are displayed daily by men everywhere.

The 21st century inhumane treatment of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, etc., suggests they were considered by intolerant and prejudiced democratic elites not as flawed truth tellers, but as devious and degenerate enemies of the democratic capitalist state.

Of course, it is still commonly accepted that the authoritarian and intolerant way Fascists and Stalinists dealt with ‘enemies’ and ‘dissidents’ in Concentration camps, Gulags, Gestapo (or KGB) headquarters, was worse than the way the Democratic regimes headed by Bush and Blair dealt with them by extraordinary rendition, or in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. But apart from mass gassing – I suggest – not worse by a large margin.

Authoritarians need to ‘Divide to Rule’.

In addition to the failure of 20th century Democracy to protect working people’s livelihoods, there is another important point to consider in relation to the initial pre-war success of Fascism. Fascist authoritarians in Germany, Italy and Spain were assisted in gaining state power by the fact that the working classes in those countries allowed themselves to be divided against each other. By heeding their ‘leaders’ demonised descriptions of other workers, they subsequently fought each other mercilessly.

In Germany authoritarian Communist leaders also described ordinary Social Democratic workers as Social Fascists and vica versa. In Spain, Communist workers and POUM workers were urged by ‘leaders’ to fight each other – as well as Franco – as enemies. In Italy, Catholic affiliated Workers and Communist affiliated workers were persuaded to lay their hands on each other rather than on capitalism.

Clearly, a united front of working people against all forms of capitalist authoritarianism was needed in the socio-economic crisis of the 1920’s and 1030’s, but the barriers erected by left and right authoritarians; false labeling, de-humanisation, difference, assumed superiority/inferiority etc., became too entrenched to be surmounted.

Instead of listening to each other, many working people listened to political leaders and turned deaf ears and blind eyes on those with different views; instead of discussing, many followed advice to fight; instead of focusing on what they had in common, many were persuaded to focus on manipulated political differences.

True, the Second World War between two squabbling forms of authoritarian capitalism was won by the democratic form, but not before over six million people had been killed. In defense of their democratic authoritarian version of capitalism, the Allied elites conscripted their citizens and among other things used them to fire-bomb Dresden and atomise the non-military residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the end were the Democrat elites really that much better than the blitzkrieging undemocratic Fascist elites who conscripted their citizens for similar inhuman purposes?

In 2021 and beyond, as the ecological basis of all life is steadily being destroyed by capitalist raw material extraction processes, and widespread production for profit is collapsing fast, all capitalist elites around the globe are requiring even more authoritarianism for their system to survive, not less. In face of this new systemic crisis of capitalism, bearing down upon working people, will different ethnic, religious, national, gender, age, sexual preference sections of the working classes still exhibit prejudice and intolerance against each other?

The 20th century tragically demonstrated what happens when the answer to these questions was yes.

It is to be hoped that the new millennial generations will have sufficient knowledge and humanity to avoid letting that 20th century ‘dark age’ experience be repeated again in the 21st.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2021)

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Governments; not fit for purpose.

If 100,000 and 400, 000 Corona virus deaths are not enough to conclude that the Johnson Government in the UK and the Trump government in the US were not fit for purpose, then how many deaths are needed? Even less developed countries have managed the global pandemic with far fewer deaths than the UK and US. On the 26th January 2021, once again Boris Johnson stood in front of TV cameras and without any embarrassment inferred that he and his team had “done everything we could to keep the numbers down”. Only sycophants with something to gain from defending the government could possibly not protest against such dissimulation and distortion of global reality.

In a list of countries numbering over 200, the UK and US are among the top three of those which, through a mixture of incompetence, indifference, and neo-liberal economic dogmatism, didn’t do everything they could have done. The global statistics and every day facts in the UK and US speak for themselves. Medical practitioners and virus research scientists know that on far to many occasions their advice and warnings were either ignored, not taken seriously, not implemented fully or implemented too late. It is an insult to UK and US citizens intelligence to think that such self-serving political disinformation will be accepted at face value.

The type of questions raised by UK press and MP’s after Johnsons TV statement and on the following day (27th January) in the British Parliament were also revealing. Not one question was directed to how we should or could prevent more deaths. Practically all were directed at either ‘how soon can businesses re-open’ or ‘how soon can schools re-open so businesses can re-open’. In fact the very reasons for the high death rate – the repeated attempts to get back to business as usual – was being ignored. It is a blatant form of intellectual blindness or hypocrisy to bemoan the fact of excessive deaths in one breath, then in the next breath urge a return to the circumstances that created those deaths.

But this concern with business as usual and these and future deaths are secondary, does reveal that many governments are not fit for purpose. The Chinese government knew in December that there was a contagious virus circulating in Whuhan, but denied it and punished ‘Wi Wenliang, the Chinese whistle blower, then in January silenced the Chinese researcher who sequenced the Covid19 genome so others could detect it. The Chinese government elite too wanted business as usual so knowing there was a risk of contagion, they allowed the multiple millions of Chinese workers to travel home across China and the world for new year celebrations. The Pandemic was then well on its way.

Moreover, the west knew it. By early January 2020 the west and the World Health Organisation knew it because it had already been leaked to them. The Chinese government spokespersons continued to deny how contagious it was until it became too obvious to deny. At that point they insisted they had not previously tried to hide the problem. Even later they repeated the now classic international elite mantra that they; ‘did everything they could to save lives’. Exactly the same official pattern; denial, damage limitation and dissimulation, was repeated by practically every European government and almost every government in the South and West, including the USA. Capitalist elites are programmed to put business before life.

Capitalist economics; not fit for purpose.

The capitalist mode of production needs human beings for three essential tasks; 1, A regular supply of workers to produce goods and services; 2, A regular flow of people paying for goods or services; 3. Sufficient numbers of paying people to cover the costs of premises rent, service costs, business taxes and wages. Thus the pressure exerted by capitalists on politicians and society for ‘business as usual’ over the last twelve months is for punters – in enough numbers and frequently enough – to be out and about buying and consuming products, services or entertainment.

Hence, the pro-capitalist governments, early virus denial, inadequate border controls, too short lock-downs, government encouragement and incentives to spend and half-hearted testing and tracing. One year on and 100, 000 and 400, 000 dead is still not enough for the pro-capitalist elite to try something different.

Clearly the needs of capitalists are the opposite of what humanity needs, particularly when a highly contagious virus is unleashed upon it. In those circumstances people need to avoid going out as much as possible, avoid close contact with those who have the virus and an adequate health service to nurse to back to health all those who become infected. However, the Covid 19 virus is not the first to be unleashed on humanity by the capitalist mode of production in its insatiable destruction of land and habitats in every corner of the planet and it will not be the last if this system is not halted in its tracks.

But Covid19 and any other viruses lurking in rare and common animal species is not the only threat to a humanity from the dangers of capitalism. Air, water, sea, land pollution, species (and essential species) extinctions, climate change, sea level rises are all the results of capitalism’s insatiable lust for profits obtained by any means from any place. These are results which threaten to destroy humanity communities in large numbers. Another economic model is needed, which would enable humanity to defend itself against such catastrophes and as I have written before, the good news is it is something we are already familiar with. I will therefore risk repeating myself.

A future; fit for purpose.

In most countries of the world there are already two models of economic activity. One model is comprised of two spheres ; a) non-profit public service organisations and b) co-operatives. This model has been in existence for a generation or so and is so good that most of the governing elites and state bureaucracies choose to be employed by one or other of them. Parliaments, Congresses, Civil Servants, Army, Navy, Air-forces, Health Services, Schools, Universities, Social Services, Police Forces are all staffed by people whose salaries, expenses and pensions are not dependent upon the whim of the capitalist market. Their livelihoods are guaranteed, irrespective of fires, floods or even viruses.

If for example, every adult in every economically advanced country were adequately rewarded and employed on the same guaranteed permanent basis as those in the public sphere then the situation in any natural crisis would be vastly different.
There would be no economic need for non-essential workers to ignore or circumvent lock-downs. With sufficient protection, non essential workers could volunteer to work in support categories. With safeguards in place, small businesses such as shops and cafes could continue to operate with much fewer customers and provide a service of benefit to their local community rather than close up, face ruin and have to claim an undignified level of state benefits. Children and teachers could return to school when it was safe to do so not just so businesses could limp on.

To those who think this full employment policy alternative to production for private capital could never work I would refer them to the countries at war during the Second World War. It is true that practically every citizen in Germany, Italy, Britain and many in the USA were drawn into public (and government guaranteed private) service with guaranteed sustenance – for the most bestial of purposes – but purposes aside, it functioned as an alternative method of full employment and production.

It succeeded even though much of what was produced during wartime was wasted by exploding it into smithereens whilst flattening buildings and killing everyone in the vicinity. However, think how much more viable a united campaign against a 21st century virus would have been in each country on the basis of everyone being on a similar (and a more equally) rewarded employment basis as the elite?

If what has been outlined in the last five paragraphs were implemented in advanced countries then the model could be replicated in less technically advanced countries who already have some experience with public service and cooperative employment models. Their efforts of course could be encouraged and supported via non-exploitative internationalist efforts from those countries who had already piloted a total transition to the public service model. Humanity could have international brigades of peace Corp activists dedicated to ecological and egalitarian driven re-constitution of natural habitats and de-pollution instead of armies of death and destruction.

For those of us who wish to ‘have a dream’, in this Covid lock-down nightmare, at least it should be for all humanity and not just our own particular part of it. Since we are all now connected by advances in transport and communications we should use them for revolutionary-humanist support purposes and non-exploitative unity and not let political elites turn them into weapons of our own self-destruction.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)

In part one of ‘Bourgeois Democracy versus Fascism?’ the general case was made that Fascism was a political means of merging capitalism’s intrinsic economic authoritarianism, with its social/public level of authoritarianism and by recruiting sufficient numbers of citizens was able to enforce this three-fold merger on the whole of society. The cases of Fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain differed somewhat but their extreme authoritarian essence was essentially the same. However, to demonstrate the connection in more detail, I have chosen case of German Fascism (Nazism) as illuminated by its founding Program, (in Italics) followed by comments. It begins;

“1. The Program of the German Workers’ Party is a program of the age. Once the aims postulated in the Program have been achieved, the leaders do not intend to set new ones merely in order to render possible the Party’’s continuance through the artificial intensification of the discontent of the masses.”

“We demand on the basis of the right of self-determination of all people’s, the union of all Germans into a Greater Germany.“

“2. We demand equal rights for the German people with other nations and the abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St German.”

“3. We demand land (colonies) to nourish our people and to settle our surplus population.”

“4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.”

“5. Those who are not citizens of the State may live in Germany only as guests and must be subject to the Alien laws.”

“6. None but citizens of the State shall be entitled to decide as to the leadership and laws of the State. We therefore demand that all public appointments of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, the States, or the municipalities, shall be held by none but citizens of the state. We oppose the corrupt parliamentary method of filling posts solely according to considerations of party, and regardless of character and ability.”

The first paragraph, hints at the underlying economic problems by mentioning “the discontent of the masses”. But the combined six points establish the basic authoritarian requirement of capitalism. In this case, the German nation-state will be the main unit of establishing territory and citizenship and (by using fabricated concepts of blood and race) points 4 – 6 define who will be first class human beings and who will not. It also clearly states in point 3 that expanding its authority beyond its current borders (exploitation of foreign peoples) is intended.

“7. We demand that the State shall make its first duty to ensure employment and a livelihood for citizens of the State. If it is not possible to support the entire population of the State, then foreign nationals (non-citizens of the State) shall be expelled from the Reich.”

“8. All further immigration of non-Germans who immigrated into Germany after August 2nd, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich.“

“9. All citizens of the Reich shall possess equal rights and duties.“

“10. It must be the first duty of every citizen of the State to perform either intellectual or physical work. The activities of the individual must not conflict with the interests of the community, but must be carried on within the general framework and for the benefit of all.”

Bearing in mind the period of massively high unemployment in Germany at the time, points 7 to 10, are clearly aimed at appealing to the German born blue-collar and white-collar working classes. This was a clear strategy for ideologically attracting a broad working and lower middle – class membership. Next;

“11. Abolition of unearned incomes.”

“12. In view of the enormous sacrifices of blood and treasure that every war demands of the nation, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We therefore demand complete confiscation of all war profits.”

“13. We demand nationalisation of all businesses already amalgamated (trusts).”

“14. We demand profit-sharing in big concerns.“

Points 11 to 14, demonstrate a need/desire, in a time of capitalist crisis, to include an element of anti – capitalist rhetoric such as confiscation of war profits, nationalisation and profit sharing. These points would also have been attractive to many among the German working class at the time. Then comes;

“15. We demand a large-scale development of provision for old age.“

“16. We demand the creation and maintainable of a healthy middle-class, immediate communalisation of the large department stores, and their lease at low rates to small traders. Most careful consideration for all small traders as regards deliveries to the State, the Provincial Governments or the municipalities.“

“17. We demand land reform adapted to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the confiscation of land for communal purposes without compensation. Abolition of mortgage interest and prevention of all speculation in land.”

The Nazi leadership in points 15 to 17 are still appealing to working people by promising old age pensions, support for the local mom and pop shops and businesses. In a move to entrap the lower middle-class, the program also intends to abolish mortgage interest payments. Confiscation and ending land speculation had the same target audience. Furthermore;

“18. We demand ruthless war upon those whose activities injure the common interest. Base criminals against the nation, ursurers, profiteers, etc., shall be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.“

“19. We demand that Romania Law, which serves the materialistic world order, shall be replaced by a German Common Law.”

Here we have another inclusion which seeks to shield workers and lower middle – class individuals from profiteers rip-off traders and petty criminals who often plagued their lives and others who “injured the common interest.” Then;

“20. In order to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain a higher education and occupy a leading position, the State must provide for a thorough development of the national education system. The syllabuses of all educational institutions shall be adapted to the requirements of practical life. The school must inculcate the idea of the State (science and citizenship) with the dawning of intelligence. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents shall be educated at the expense of the State, regardless of class or occupation.”

“21. The State shall raise the standard of national health by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting juvenile labour, by promoting physical efficiency through compulsory physical training and sports, and by the most far-reaching support of clubs engaged in the physical training of the young.“

Free higher education for bright kids would definitely appeal to upwardly motivated working class and lower middle – class parents. State provision of maternity care would certainly have sounded as attractive in 1920 as it did in the UK and Europe after 1945.

“22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the formation of a National Army.”

“23. We demand that the law should combat the deliberate political lie and it’s dissemination in the press”. (Only German financed, owned, edited and non-offensive newspapers to be allowed RR)

Authoritarians prefer a national army (point 22) rather than a citizens army or a mercenary one, because the latter two are unreliable. Mercenaries, can do their own thing; citizen armies can turn against authority. Authoritarians seek security.
Nowadays, ‘political spin’ and mis-leading propaganda is to be expected daily. So point 23 outlaws ‘fake news’. Next:

“24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, unless they endanger the existence thereof or offend against the morality and moral sense of the Tectonic race. The Party stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish materialistic spirit in us, as well as outside, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent recovery only on the principle of: COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST.“

With organised religion having a considerable hold over people, attracting neutrality or support from religious elites would count as a ‘blessing’. Finally:

“25. For the realisation of all this, we demand: the creation of a strong central Reich Government. Absolute authority of political central Parliament over the entire Reich and it’s organisations in general.” e formation of Diets and vocational Chambers to implement in the individual Federal States the general laws promulgated by the Reich. The leaders of the Party promise to fight ruthlessly for the realisation of the above Points, if necessary staking their own lives.” “Munich, February 24 1920.”

The words ‘absolute authority‘ indicate the essential element of extreme forms of authoritarian capitalism. It matters little to the analysis offered here (and in part 1) that like all other promises made by politicians, those made by the National Socialists of Germany (Nazis), we’re never meant to be fully kept. Even if they were no more than ‘baited hooks’ to catch members and press them into service of the authoritarian elite, they, (and the actual promises delivered) worked sufficiently for the Nazis. It only remained for the non-Nazi millions to be sufficiently divided among themselves to be ineffective in changing the mode of production and therefore stopping the authoritarian mutation from a capitalist democratic form to a Fascist form.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)

In ‘Bourgeois Democracy versus Fascism? – 3’ (to follow), I will consider two questions. 1) Were the vast majority of German workers and citizens who joined the ranks of Fascism, blood-thirsty, sub-human demons, just waiting to steal, torture and kill? or; 2) Were they average, naive human beings who had been economically and culturally conditioned to obey authority, repeatedly misled and eventually terrorised into conforming?

In the wake of recent events in the US, the contest between the Democratic and Republican Parties is being described by many commentators as a dualistic struggle between Democracy and Fascism. Once again the political viewpoint takes surface appearances as representing the complete reality. Consequently, the failure to consider a more substantive view of the contemporary capitalist world is leading to such false dualisms. In contrast we need to consider the socio-economic foundation upon which Fascism and Democracy actually arose – capitalism.

Capitalism is Authoritarian.

Capitalist economic activity itself is an authoritarian process of production. By workplace rules (enforced by fines, sacking, demotion), workers are subjected to the absolute authority of the owner/manager at their place of employment. In a mirror image of that economic foundation, the non-work life of workers within capitalist dominated societies, also requires constraint on their activities. By various laws (enforced by fines, imprisonment), the authority of capitalist elites over citizens is imposed and exercised through their control of state institutions.

This means that whatever political form its elites adhere to, the capitalist mode of production in essence is thoroughly authoritarian.

However, as the working classes advanced during the 19th and 20th centuries, they began to resist and overcome some of the worst features of capitalist authoritarian exploitation. Occasionally they even challenged the capitalist mode of production as a whole. In general, the capitalist class lost a considerable amount of authoritarian control both at work and in wider society. Yet at a particularly crisis-riddled (interwar) period the political movement which became known as Fascism emerged and made a return to elite authoritarian control possible.

The politics of Fascism offered to directly merge the economic power of pro-capitalist elites, with the political power of a pro-capitalist state elite. However, since this combined power was insufficient to dominate the millions of working people, a militant mass political movement was required. The fundamental essence of capitalistic authoritarianism finally merged with the politics of fascism when some authoritarian political parties and movements recruited enough people who were willing and able to enforce the party line. However, it wasn’t political theory, but the depth of the unsolved economic crisis which drove political thinking in the direction of Fascism.

Fascism was the direct merging of capitalist economic and financial elites, with the pro-capitalist states political and military elites, supplemented by a sufficiently large membership who were willing and able to force their opinions and measures on everyone else. But the driving force for them to was the unresolved severity of economic crisis.

Capitalism and Democracy.

Although the capitalist mode of production is in essence, economically and socially authoritarian, capitalist elites have often differed over how best to govern it. The manageable solution they found was democracy. Political parties could campaign for election to those parts of the state which were not staffed by permanently employed individuals. Of course, they were required to accept, a) the principle of production for profit, b) authoritarian discipline at work, and c) elite determined law and order in social life.

Thus bourgeois democracy and parties that call themselves democratic are not only funded by billionaire capitalist authoritarians, but are predominantly authoritarian internally. They also govern externally in an authoritarian manner. It is only necessary to consider the actions by all political parties to realise that democracy – in one or other of its party guises – has conducted a class war against their own working class citizens and the citizens of other nations who stood in the way of their interests.

Democrats as well as Republicans in the USA and Conservatives, Liberal and Labour, in the UK, etc., have all instituted crack downs on their own workers rights and fomented wars on the populations of other nations who resisted neo-liberal impositions. All sides of the ‘Houses’, ‘Congresses’, ‘Bundestag’s’, etc., have agreed to; de-regulate financial services, privatise public services, reduce workers rights, export jobs to countries with cheap labour, militarise police forces, invade foreign countries, bomb civilian populations and extend neo-liberalism.

However it is dressed up, or how polished its ‘spin’ becomes, democracy for decades has been the direct means of promoting neo-liberalism and neo-liberalism is the direct means of promoting various forms of capitalist authoritarian driven poverty and wage-slavery. Consequently Democrats are not the exact opposite to Fascists, as the politically mesmerised imagine: the two are merely rival political tendencies who from time to time compete to control and discipline wage and salary-slaves. For sure, one wears a military style uniform and often says what it really thinks, whilst the other wears a lounge suit and rarely says what it really thinks. But in practice at home and abroad, both ruthlessly enforce compliance to the needs of capital.

In Conclusion.

In my view, supporting capitalist democracy is supporting capitalist authoritarianism in one form whilst condemning it in another. It is definitely not the way to defeat capitalist authoritarianism whether it comes with an iron fist or whether the fist is covered by a velvet glove. Both are ways of social control operated by authoritarian capitalists. Both seek ways to divide working people into self-destructive political or civil wars, so that depending upon circumstances, one or the other political mode of exploitation will dominate.

So exalting and preferring one political form of authoritarian capitalism over another authoritarian political form, is no more a way of ending the slide into further authoritarian controls than exalting and preferring one form of plantation slavery over another would have been a means of ending plantation slavery. Moreover, European history demonstrates that when the capitalist system is sufficiently threatened, the lounge suited, hush-puppy authoritarian ‘democratic’ means of governing will voluntarily merge with, or simply step aside to make room for the uniformed and jack-booted means.

Indeed, in the last severe crisis, European Liberals and self-professed ‘socialists’ assisted the developing European Fascists by voting for public order measures and military defence of elite power structures.

From a revolutionary-humanist perspective, Democracy and Fascism are alternating methods designed by capitalist elites to continue their planetary devastation and human exploitation. In order to permanently prevent a return of any Fascist form of social control, working people, white-collar and blue, will need to unite and defeat all forms of authoritarian capitalist rule and institute a mode of production based upon sustainable cooperation and egalitarian, non-profit public services which are available to and adequate for all.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)

No one should have been surprised that in January 2021, an armed group marched to the US Capitol and entered the building by various routes. For in this case, it had been more than hinted at. The preparation for this ‘halt the Biden confirmation process’, began some time before the 2020 election.  It had been clearly signalled by Donald Trump himself. He previously said the only way he could possibly lose was if the election was rigged. He also repeated that he would not accept the result of the election if it did not return the result he desired. He, had attempted by all means at his disposal, including intimidation to hinder voting  and to ensure that the vote for his opponent was reduced as far as possible.  What else was left on the ‘to do list’ of right-wing desperation?

Furthermore, as a motivational idea in right-wing circles, political coups pre-date the Trump Presidency by decades. In fact rioting, storming and damage to buildings to change what you don’t like has long historical precedents in the USA. They stretch back to the 18th century ‘Sons of Liberty’ disputes with the then English governing elite. Incidentally, in those pre-Independence days of intimidation a noose was also hung up (on the Liberty Tree) to intimidate opponents. Similarly stealing other peoples property (that time dumping it in Boston harbour) occurred as part of the founding reality of the United States of America.

Overthrowing governments even became a principle embodied in the American Declaration of Independence which asserted that “in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness” the American people had “the right and duty” to “alter and abolish” government – “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends”.

This type of hostile bifurcation between the English governing elite and the entrenched Colonial elite was later replayed during the barbarity of the American Civil War following the South’s Ordinances of Secession in 1861. For, it transpired that in “pursuit of life, liberty and happiness” the Southern elite wished to live off exploiting slave labour, whilst in pursuit of exactly the same aims, the Northern elite wished to live off exploiting wage – labour.

At each one of those historical socio-economic high pressure points sections of the governing elite were divided into two main camps. Each were prepared to fight it out in order to impose their economic model and political will on the population of the entire continent.

In the US Civil War, the ordinary people by means of political forms of identity (ie, Confederates and Unionists) were persuaded by their respective elites to arm themselves and slaughter each other mercilessly. This they did for years until one side gave in and the winning, sides elite were able to dominate the whole country. Echoing a phrase in the Declaration, the Southern Government and its dominant economic base (slavery) was progressively “abolished” and by force.

So it would seem that any contemporary American citizen who, a) does still “hold such truths to be self-evident”, b) believes that the words in the Declaration are still valid, and c) considers Democrat Party governance is “destructive of these ends”, might decide to exercise such “rights and duties”. And in January 2021, by trying to interrupt the certification process, some did. But those rights and duties were being exercised on behalf of rival capitalist elites – not on behalf of self-governance of the oppressed and exploited!

Pointing out these precedents does not justify the Trumpists abortive political coup but it may help explain it. The contradictory and tortured similarity in thinking between the 19th century elites who wrote the Declaration and some of the 21st century elites (and others) who wish to implement it for their own ends, has been revealed.

Whether or not the obnoxious and frequently incompetent Donald knew that his supporters would go to the lengths they did is largely irrelevant. This is because their motive and his, (whether co-ordinated or not) were the same as the 74 millions who had voted for him. Not one of them wanted a Democrat led administration to take power in the USA. His followers were convinced that more years of Trump run capitalism would represent their best interests, or if not, that their interests would be undermined by four more years of Democrat Biden run capitalism.

So the real problem for a future Democrat run US capitalism is not the few hundred who stormed Capitol hill and are fairly easily dealt with, but the 74 million who still think their lives and livelihoods will suffer more under Biden’s capitalism than Trumps. And if they actually do, what will happen then?

Through the distorting lens of politics, some of the Democrat representatives seem to think their problems will be solved by impeaching and humiliating Trump – in as many ways as possible – to ensure that the 70 plus million who voted for him will also be silenced and neutralised. But, will that really work? It may actually make him a martyr and sooner or later rebound upon the Democratic Party elite and those who have been aiding in this silencing endeavour. Joined now by the Democrat inclined monopolists, who have banished Trump and Trumpism from their internet platforms. In this way ending a fragile commitment to what little was left of free speech.

We can see that, in pursuit of their elite interests, authoritarian tendencies arise naturally from within the Democratic wing of politicised capitalism. Looking ahead, who will they silence next? I pose that possibility and introduce the larger social picture because there are 80 plus million voters who ticked the Democratic box in 2020, many millions of whom were already far from satisfied with their current ability under capitalism to pursue “life, liberty and happiness”. And in view of the further crisis the capitalist system is now creating, a Democrat-led pursuit of these social aims could soon be seen by those voters as actually being “destructive of these ends”.

The question that remains for revolutionary-humanists – as distinct from reformist political activists – is the following. Will the existing political identities in the USA (as elsewhere) continue to be manipulated by the political elites so as to divide the mass of people into opposed and easily defeated sectional struggles or can these identities be united under the universal identity of oppressed and exploited human beings? If the latter is achieved, then the socio-economic capitalist cause of their collective oppression and exploitation can be eliminated and their lives collectively transformed. If the former, the future will be as the past – only far worse.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)

To understand what is now taking place at the social and political levels of most capitalist countries (for example the January 2021 storming of the US Capitol building) it is essential to comprehend and monitor the economic level. This is because it is the economic level which is the foundation upon which all else is erected. To offer a crude analogy; whatever positive or negative condition the upper floors may be in – any radical change in the foundations of a building will effect the whole superstructure. Understanding the foundations helps to explain what is happening to whatever stands above them. Conversely,continually arguing about the superstructure takes attention away from what is wrong with the whole structure.

Yet in socio-economic affairs such upper level of viewing of society is often what is undertaken by commentators of left, right and centre persuasions. They attempt to analyse what is happening in society as a whole by reference to what takes place in politics. In this way political awareness can mislead social understanding. If the reader doubts this assertion then consider the following;

“The political mind is a political mind precisely because it thinks within the framework of politics. The keener and more lively it is, the more incapable is it of understanding social ills.” (Karl Marx, in Marx/Engels, Collected Works, Volume 3 page 199.)

Why would Marx, who for most of his life, was an avid supporter of working people’s struggle against the capitalist mode of production, bother to write the above (and much else about politics), unless he had reliable evidence for it at the time? And in my 60 years of working class activism, Marx’s observations have been confirmed by ample evidence many times over. Even the sharpest and most eloquent political activists have proved (and are still proving) that their political framework of reference renders them incapable of discovering or focusing on the real source of social ills and recognising how anger against the whole system becomes deflected away by politics.

To return to the building analogy, for a moment; many politically motivated activists do the equivalent of closely examining the walls, etc., then suggest fixing the bulging brickwork and re-plastering it or adding another room – thinking that radical renovations will make the underlying structure sound. However, it doesn’t in buildings and it doesn’t in human communities. For, what lies underneath the disintegrating political, social and cultural walls of modern capitalist societies is an economic foundation which is being hacked away and which is now resting on an ecological substratum that is also being savagely undermined.

The economic foundation of the capitalist mode of production is built upon the separation between the millions of people who do the day to day work to produce what is needed (and desired) and the ownership or control of the means of production which these workers use to make the things we all need. By utilising science and technology (automation, computers and machine learning), particularly intensified over the last two decades, the owners/controllers of the means of production have simultaneously increased the levels of global production and decreased the numbers of workers needed.

Once again, more goods can be produced than can be sold at a profit and by systemic unemployment, fewer working people are able to pay for as much as they did before. Even before the Covid19 pandemic, the relative over-production this change created resulted in relative and absolute levels of global poverty with millions of ordinary people rendered homeless and starving. In this way, the economic foundation of capitalism has become increasingly narrow and unstable whilst sections of the working population have become discontented, resentful and in many cases desperate.

This popular resentment and desperation is not yet being channelled by activists at the foundations of capitalism, but in various substitute directions, such as crime, civil unrest, finding scapegoats, victims turning on other victims and in many cases (as in Europe and USA) dissatisfaction with one or other of the main political establishments.
And is it not the case that over several decades left, right and centre political establishments have earned the level of distrust and anger currently directed against them by one section of society or another?

Furthermore, the very productivity of the science and technology based means of production owned and/or controlled by the capitalist elite, has increased pollution, ecological destruction and climate change to such an extent that the natural substratum on which the capitalist mode of production rests is increasingly undermined. Clean air, stable climate, fresh water, fertile soil, unpolluted, well stocked seas, abundant insect and animal species, were the natural basis and founding bedrock upon which all modes of production – including capitalism – are rooted. However, the capitalist mode of production is rapidly destroying the natural substratum of the planet which life in general and humanity in particular, needs in order to survive.

So it is the above noted shrinking economic foundation of capitalism and the destruction of the natural ecological substratum which are the fundamental source of political expressions of much ‘populist’ discontent along with the many and varied social ills which humanity now faces. The disintegration of these capitalist dominated foundations is so profound and irreparable that taking sides politically over substantial cracks in the superstructure will not solve our problems – a real social revolution is needed.

In other words, the essential foundations of all human productive activity noted above need to be re-cast and rebalanced in the form of non-profit, non-hierarchical, sustainable public services and co-operatives.

However, because politics has become such a fetish and an important means of elite rule, political understanding in general serves to obscure the real source of social problems. The populist political mindset, therefore, seeks power to implement solutions based upon political identity (or even on particular victim status) along with dogmatic political understandings. Not for the first time, political affiliation is being projected as a means of finding a solution to multiple problems, when in fact it stands in the way of socio-economic solutions.

Moreover, political understanding took a particularly nasty and virulent sectarian form in extreme left and right-wing movements which developed in response to an earlier 20th century crisis of capitalism. The extremes of sectarian politics offering radical, hierarchical, non-humanist solutions to capitalist engendered poverty and unemployment were exemplified and personified in National Socialism (Fascism), Bolshevism (Communism) and Zionism. In and out of power, not only did these sectarian political movements fool people about real causes of their distress, but they killed and tortured those who who disagreed with their party line, and also killed and tortured their own party members – if they dared to disagree with the leadership.
In positions of power political and religious sectarians have consistently used it to terrify their citizens into submission and in some cases channelled them into horrendous wars.

Current political and religious sectarians are taking on new anti-establishment identities (such as Trumpism/populism/Islamism etc.) as well as a few dressing up as radical lefts or democratic liberals, while others are content to don outdated uniforms and insignias. In the absence of a revolutionary-humanist alternative, all the above are the present and future power-hungry figureheads of discontent – not the initial creators of it. It is important to note that; this general citizen discontent can outlast any particular sectarian leaders whether discredited or not.

For example, after his supporters marched on the Feldherrnhalle in 1923, Adolf Hitler was put on trial, publicly mocked and jailed. But he and the Nazi oligarchy later gained absolute power by cleverly surfing the mounting wave of German discontent fuelled by the economic crisis and the continuing failure of Weimar Republic politicians to radically change the economic foundations of German society.

Of the ten defining characteristics of politically sectarian forms an outstanding one is with regard to how extremely intolerant and disrespectful they are of alternative views or opinions to their own. If in doubt of this assertion, the reader can check the intolerance level of any centre, left or right political (or religious) identity campaign they come across, by politely disagreeing with a central principle currently maintained by them. The resulting reaction will provide a litmus test of the extent and ferocity of their political-identity form of sectarianism. At the same time such a test will provide an indication of how obstructive that particular political identity mindset will be to an inclusive campaign of liberation for all suffering humanity.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)

[For a more extended description of sectarianism see ‘On Sectarianism’ on this blog and for a more comprehensive analysis with many detailed examples see the book ‘Revolutionary-Humanism and the Anti – Capitalist Struggle’. ]

Lock-down: Third time lucky?

On Monday evening 4th January 2021, Boris Johnson, like a modern day ‘Grand Old Duke of York’, ordered his bemused and exhausted British citizens to march up the steep hill of lock-down for a third time. Was he perhaps following nursery level advice that; ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again’? If so, he was ignoring the wise addition of ‘remember to learn from your mistakes’? However, the latest level of ‘spin’ he tried to put on the reason for this third lock down, like the virus itself was certainly ‘novel’. He claimed it was because a new Covid 19 variant was undermining the previously created 3 tier system.

That excuse amounts to a blatant dissemination of ‘fake news’ because everyone not in a state of self-serving denial knows all the previous tiers (ie ”when we were neither up nor down”) where not sufficiently slowing virus transmission. Otherwise there would have been no need for the alternating ‘off then on’ measures passed prior to the new variant discovery. From mid to late 2020, a mixture of necessity, confusion, exasperation and bloody mindedness had resulted in far too many people ignoring distancing, hand-washing, masking and shielding in general, let alone at (vouchers for meals out) relaxation periods, holidays, Xmas and New Year.

The substantial lack of social responsibility, often condoned and even triggered by the elite themselves, was exactly what the existing Covid 19 virus (and any new variant) needed to continue their reproductive cycle and rapidly infect more people. That was an outcome, which had been predicted by many non establishment, commentators. All of whom were ignored in favour of those supporting the government view and shared by it’s middle-class supporters. Listening to only what they want to hear is the governments default position.

And that wilful ignorance includes the mainstream media, who thoughout 2020, failed to seriously and systematically criticise the governments mishandling of the entire pandemic. It was a failure compounded by a systematic failure to criticise their own role in passing on the stupid analogies of a virus ‘actively seeking out people’ when it has no independent means to move itself around. In fact the opposite is actually the case. Under the capitalist system, people are ‘having to, or are desiring to, contact paying punters day after day – many of whom just happen to have the virus’. The capitalist system is the modus operandi for global virus transmission.

We should not forget the following sequence. The capitalist mode of production’’s human agricultural agents unleashed the virus from its source in the first place, its human commercial agents then transported it around the world from January 2020 on, and it’s human political agents in keeping the capitalist system alive on financial ventilators, will ensure that people, vaccinated or not, are required to keep passing it (or the next virus) on. Furthermore, all these ‘agents’ of capitalism, just like Boris and his ilk, will do so again and again and again – if not physically stopped.

Furthermore, a media hyped vaccine, successful or otherwise, will not solve the virus problem. Already the British elite are doubling down on their gamble with vaccines to save their unfair and unjust system. It is proposed that at least one vaccine tested and approved for two-dose effectiveness is being reduced to a one dose process. This decision has been reached on the unproven hypothesis that administering a lower quantity of vaccine to more people will provide a better result overall than the original amount tested administered to fewer. This panic measure ignores the research evaluation on which the vaccine is based, which in the opinion of many, has already been rushed to (profitable) markets far too quickly. This will likely result in even more reluctance to queue up for the recommended jab.

So in 2021, there could well be some people who get the vaccine as intended and others who get a reduced amount. There will be others who although willing to be vaccinated will have to wait until the manufacturing and administration system has enough resources on hand to deal with them. Then there will be considerable numbers who will just wait and see – in case anything goes wrong – yet again! Others will undoubtedly refuse to be treated as guinea pigs in a rushed social experiment in which they have had no say and from past experience have no reason to trust those in charge of it.

All this means the virus will continue to circulate in 2021 and infect those not carefully isolating and since testing and tracing has all but failed completely, no one will know who is still transmitting it and who isn’t. Meanwhile the more the virus spreads, the more it will mutate, until the immunisation effect of any vaccine will likely diminish or cease altogether. So despite Boris Johnsons 4th January reassurance that this third lock down means we have entered “the last phase of the struggle” against the pandemic, I remain unconvinced. Three ineffective lock downs under this capitalist based system, will not be enough to remove the virus or its cause. I seriously doubt the third time will be lucky.

I also remain totally unconvinced by Boris Johnson’s earnest demeanour and his utterance when he leaned toward the TV camera last Monday and in relation to the new lock down, falsely declared; “I know how tough it is.” No he doesn’t! He has no idea of how tough it is for a single isolating pensioner, or a struggling single parent on zero hours, or a struggling housebound carer, or a homeless individual or couple living on the street. He has no idea of how tough it is for families to queue at a Food Bank to feed their children. He has no idea how tough it is for low paid doctors, nurses, teachers and other essential workers to risk infection on a daily basis in order to care for others.

He shares the same deep down me, me, me, outlook as almost the entire middle-class elites. This includes its intellectuals in art, science, education, medicine, economics, finance, politics and media. He (and they) are infatuated with the capitalist system as it is – as it was – or how they imagine it should be. Just listen to them pontificate daily on TV and Radio! All of them are eagerly hoping and waiting for the previous system to re-boot. The same system which created global poverty, the virus and ecological destruction is what they still crave. They can hardly wait for low paid essential workers here and around the globe to get back to creating the wealth they disproportionately siphon off and start soaking it up yet again.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2021)