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The three recent events of shooting, stabbing and attempted decapitations in France are stark reminders of the dangers of religious beliefs. There will of course be attempts to single out Islam as unique in the realms of killing in the name of god. Indeed, Islamic fundamentalism well deserves the condemnation it will undoubtedly get. Stabbing a complete stranger to death and then trying to hack their heads off just because someone else had shown cartoons of a historical originator of a religion drawn by yet a third person, is a uniquely evil form of punishment for a non-crime.

However, heads blown off random bystanders by laser guided missiles, from a Christian piloted modern aircraft over Yemen or Iraq is no less a decapitation – and also for no discernible crime. Likewise, a Jewish Israeli drone delivering phosphorus bombs or missiles into Gaza will no doubt severe numerous body parts of anyone in the vicinity. Killing innocents (collateral damage) is still a feature of many individuals belonging to one or other of the three Abrahamic religions. But then killing is actually in the scriptural DNA of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For example;

“26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come to me. And all the Levites gathered themselves together to him. 27 “And Moses said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel: put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from door to door throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, his friend, and his neighbour.” 28 “And the Levites did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand.” (Torah/Old Testament. Exodus Chapter 32 verse 26 – 28.)

No mention of decapitations here but with flashing swords hacking and killing in a house to house (or tent to tent) frenzy no one can be sure there weren’t any all those years ago! And in Exodus Chapter 34 verse 24 we are informed that God warns; “…I will destroy the nations from before you and enlarge your borders; ” Now these extracts are from the Torah of the Jewish religion, or as it is also known, the Christian Old Testament. So when Israeli Jewish Zionists have been witnessed clearing villages, bulldozing Palestinian houses and Olive groves, shooting Palestinian protesters and bombing Gaza, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, they can, like Islamists, reassure themselves that what they are doing is also sanctioned by their God.

There are many such examples in the Torah/Old Testament, (eg. see Leviticus 20 v 2 and Numbers 15 v 35 and 36). I will just include one more before moving on. After ordering his followers to kill and burn in some Midianite cities, Moses demands;

“15 Why have you let all the women live?”……17 “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him”. 18 “But all the female children who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers 31 v 14 – 18)

Reading this it is obvious that on top of a record of genocide and infanticide what is more than hinted at here is religious approval for adult males to have sex with, under-age girls – as a perk for their recent ‘killing in the name of God’. Now I am a revolutionary-humanist and atheist and I don’t believe there are any Gods so I cannot logically blame a nonexistent entity for advocating such inhuman genocidal brutality and shameful sexual exploitation of young females. However, If they are not instructions from a god then at the very least they are the product of some ancient men, verbally recited at first, continually approved and later written down in the form of legitimate, attitudes, events and actions.

The above and the dozens of other such examples of advocated sectarian brutality and genocide, along with despicable sexist attitudes to women are still an accepted part of the scriptural foundations of both Judaism and Christianity. So when past examples of Christians “destroying nations” and “enlarging borders” (as they once did in North and South America and Africa etc.), are considered, we can recognise the continuity between actions of the ancient religiously guided past and those of the more recent religiously guided past and in some cases – even the religiously guided present!

Is it not truly remarkable that to this day no-one (or group) within Judaism and Christianity (particularly within their priestly hierarchies) have campaigned to have these numerous inhuman scriptural attitudes and actions highlighted and denounced as being completely unacceptable as modern ways of thinking and behaving?

Having briefly indicated the scriptural brutality and prejudice in the ‘foundations’ of both Judaism and Christianity it is now time to consider what scriptural authorisation lies behind those Muslims who shout ‘God is Great’ as they stab, blow up, shoot or decapitate random people they encounter. The Qu’ran (Koran) is one of the documents which guides those who are members of the religion of Islam. It comprises of 114 numbered and named sections entitled Surah’s. Here are just a few examples.

“Believers make war on the infidels who dwell around you.” (Surah 9:123. ‘Al-Tawba’)

“Fight for the sake of Allah those who fight against you…..kill them wherever you find them…..Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allahs religion reigns supreme.” (2: 190. ‘Al-Baqara’)

“Fight for the cause of Allah with the devotion due to him.” (22:78. ‘Al-Hajj’)

Fighting, punishing, striking fear into and killing unbelievers are frequent suggestions throughout the Qu’ran. In fact when you add them all together they total 297 references. Furthermore it is also enough to feel wronged to trigger an act of revenge. For;

“Those who avenge themselves when wronged incur no guilt.” (42:43. ‘Al-Shura’)

The use of terror is a suggested strategy.

“We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers” (3:150. ‘Al-Imran’)

Dealing with unbelievers in battle can require decapitation.

“When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads….” (47:4. )

Heavenly rewards are promised for killing and being killed;

“Allah has purchased of the faithful their lives and worldly goods and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, slay and be slain.” (9:110. ‘Al-Tawba’)

Ambush tactics are recommended;

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” (7:5. ‘Al-A’raf’)

These and the numerous other examples within the Qu’ran explain not only the actions of the Islamist fundamentalist terrorists, who shout ‘God is Great’ as they brutally kill, but also explains the lack of condemnation of these atrocities by ordinary Muslim believers. Just recently (late October 2020) there have been large public demonstrations of Muslims in various countries but not to condemn the random killing and decapitation of the French citizens. Instead, the demonstrations were organised to condemn the French President Macron for not condemning the cartoons.

Amazingly, to many true believers of Islam, the brutal and gruesome deaths of random people by Islamic militants are not bad enough to be publicly denounced – but drawings they do not like are. And again, as with the followers of Judaism and Christianity, no group or individual followers of Islam with regard to the Qu’ran have as yet openly; ‘campaigned to have these numerous (297 and counting) inhuman scriptural attitudes and actions highlighted and denounced as completely unacceptable as modern ways of thinking and behaving’.

It should be a shameful embarrassment to all religious believers, that all three Abrahamic scriptural ideologies – at their very cores – deny the true humanity of everyone other than members of their own particular creed and have thus openly and frequently advocated brutally killing them. Undoubtedly, the founding texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam thus keep alive these ancient patriarchal forms of intolerance and brutality which are still being acted out in various ways by their followers, thousands of years later.

To revolutionary-humanists, religions represent a sectarian and patriarchal problem to be resolved and overcome by humanity; not a solution or guide for our future collective well-being.

Roy Ratcliffe. (November 2020)

Balancing the Books.

In a recent speech, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak explained why he could no longer support all businesses (and jobs) by further financial help. He stressed that it was more important to “balance the books” than support all those in need. He also added that he did not want to pass a high national debt onto future generations. It is hard to identify a more ignorant piece of mis-information spilling out of the mouth of a government representative – and there have been so many during 2020. What he failed to mention is the fact that British Governments, as with the governments of most other countries, have never balanced the books – or intended to – in their entire history.

Even before, the English Civil War in 1641-50, the English monarchy had long spent more than it received. The consequence was an increasing sovereign debt. When Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentary capitalist colleagues defeated the royalists and took control of the UK, the sovereigns debt became in effect the national debt. Moreover, the capitalists in charge then placed making money out of the national debt on an entirely new and expanded footing.

It was a process which accelerated during the Industrial Revolution and has lasted to the present day. From 1692 to 2012 (ie for 300 years!) the lowest yearly overspend successive ruling elites indulged in was never less than 30% more than the GDP. Most years it was much higher.

So not only are the current parvenu political representatives of the British branch of neo-liberal capitalism, incapable of competently managing the Covid-19 Pandemic and Brexit negotiations, they are also unaware of the history of trade and apparently ignorant of the economic methodology of capitalism. The basic fact is that all capitalist countries actually print and coin legal tender (money) and also create credit/debt. Capitalism absolutely relies on these two means of getting things done along with circulating (buying and selling) goods and services. Governments need to print money (bank notes are tokens of credit meant merely for circulation) and create other forms of credit/debt in order to continue doing what capitalist governments do.

So does anyone think that the dual-salaried Rishi Sunak and Bojo Johnson upstarts et al, are suddenly intending to do what no government leaders have actually done for the last 300 years?

Of course not. However, they are going to try to bamboozle the rest of us into accepting that their primary school level of economic pedantry – based on a false parallel of household budgeting – is really how national economic systems work. In reality, the process of how the elite hoover up the nation’s (and other nations wealth) and deposit it into their swollen bank accounts is a bit more complex and obscure than what they tell us.

As workers we are often told (ie by Thatcher and May in the UK) that money doesn’t grow on trees – as if we didn’t know that! However, although money isn’t created by the efforts of tall plants with leaves it is created by the efforts of government printing presses and in the 21st century by central bank digital accounting procedures.

NB. So its a fallacy that governments need our tax money to function. Governments actually don’t need their citizens money. Governments, unlike family households create and print the tokens of credit (money) they need – in as large amounts as they want. True they get some of it back, from multifarious taxes, but not because they need it. It is we that need the governments money in order to live, and pay our taxes.

Therefore taxes are not levied because governments actually need the currency they print and encourage us use – they already have as much of that as they need and can create more if they ever want it. Taxes are levied on practically everything so that ordinary citizens have to work hard in order to get hold of enough money to buy the goods and services produced and to re-circulate the legal tender by paying taxes.

So in 2008 when the banking crisis occurred, of course governments all over the world didn’t visit the rhetorical ‘money tree’ – they simply ordered their central banks to credit the accounts of insolvent banks and financial institutions, etc., with sufficient electronic tokens of credit on their ‘books’ to make them solvent. To obscure what they were doing they called creating these bail-out credit tokens ‘quantitative easing‘. They electronically transferred the new ‘digital credit tokens’ and charged nothing or very low interest rates to any of the too-big-to-fail financial entities (banks, insurance companies, building societies, finance houses etc) they thought should be helped.

These financial institutions then kept a proportion of the credit granted them as reserves and lent credit out to others at interest rates higher than the rates (if any) they were required to pay the government. They also used this politically gifted credit to underwrite financial instruments (specially printed certificates) which were bought by various organisations – including governments.

It’s worth thinking about that for a moment. Governments gave credit money to the ones (banks, finance houses etc.) who had previously spent more than they earned. These financial instigators of the 2008 crisis, then extended this gifted credit to others at interest and sold more financial instruments (bonds etc) to the government and other buyers. Yet as we know, many ordinary people had lost their jobs and houses but after a short lull, the whole finance capitalist system restarted. The culprits in receipt of the bailout credit then gave themselves bonuses and handed out money to their shareholders. In other words, whilst millions of people suffered, those who created the crisis managed to get a two-fold pay out to make up for their self-inflicted losses.

Note also that by this magician’s type trick of distracting the audience by pointing to quantitative easing, the ‘balance‘ of the governments ‘books‘ went further into debt, while the recipient capitalists bank balances went up.

So the winners in this 2008 rigged credit/debt lottery were the bankers and shareholders and the losers the workers and those small businesses without tax avoidance schemes. Taxes were raised supposedly in order to help bring the national debt down – but that wasn’t the real reason – and it didn’t. But it does demonstrate how capitalists utilise national debt to line their own pockets

Historically, institutions and governments frequently needed to spend money before any money rolled in. So they started the practice of coining and printing tokens of credit and borrowed some from those with spare cash and paid the latter back with interest. So a capitalist with a few thousand units of whatever currency was legal in their country could lend them to a government who would pay them back the loan plus interest. Therefore, without doing an ounce of value producing work the investing rich could sit at home or do ‘the tour of Europe’ while the money kept rolling in at regular intervals.

With enough invested in government bonds and subsequently rolled over, generations of rich people and their children have lived off the proceeds of servicing government debt via ‘bonds’ (large tokens) without doing anything useful – unless it amused them to do something useful. This is why the capitalist class and their pro-capitalist supporters have never wanted to substantially reduce the national debts and they never will. Lending to governments still funds, or in some cases part-funds, their lavish life-styles. Many of the rich absolutely depend upon taking a free ride on the financial merry-go-round of servicing government debts, stock exchange speculation or by exploiting workers in factories, offices or in fields.

As long as capitalism and national debts continue to exist, the only questions arising are the following; ‘for what purposes should money be created and thus the national debt be allowed to increase?’ In 2008 the political and financial elite of most countries thought the purposes should be to save the life-styles of the managers and shareholders of the banks and financial institutions mentioned earlier. So they did save them from bankruptcy and the national debt in the ‘books’ of most countries rapidly increased.

Similarly, in March 2020 during the global pandemic, the political and financial elite of most advanced capitalist countries thought that money should be again created by printing or digitally enhancing bank accounts and the national debt should be again allowed to rise. The reason? So that most of the countries big businesses could be assisted by grants and loans to survive. However, that opinion has now changed in the UK and only businesses viable in the long term will be serviced via a 2/3 contribution toward salaries and wages, and of course their much needed and cherished darling national debt will remain.

But note that in 2020 just as in 2008, money will not be created and the largely deliberately manufactured national debt will be allowed to rise not in order to support the essential workers, so recently hypocritically applauded by the elite for keeping the country going and risking their lives while the rich and famous sheltered in relative luxury amid the ravages of Covid-19. No!; the printing press and digital enhancement of their bank balances is again to be reserved for the already privileged elite.

And also note that Rishi and Boris and the rest of the British ‘establishment’ will not have their over £100, 000 per year salaries reduced by 2/3 . Furthermore, those on £150, 000 per year even IF it were reduced by 2/3 would still be left with an eminently manageable £100, 000 per year or roughly £2, 000 per week! Whilst a 2/3 reduction of a low paid £17,000 per year worker (getting £326 per week ie £8 per hour x 40 hrs x 52 weeks) would leave them with £218 per week. How are they supposed to food bank manage on that?

Just think of the disproportionate prejudice involved in this type of new furlough policy piled on top of the unfairness of a system in which many millions are on minimum wages, part-time or zero-hours contracts whilst keeping our basic economic and social infrastructure moving. Contrast that with a super rich class who are in receipt of millions if not billions like the Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg’s et al, who wallow in far too much of everything with little or no conscience.

Furthermore, if we think about the cheap and easy strategy of printing sufficient paper money or the even quicker digital enhancement of bank accounts, in order to pay off the debts and solve the funding worries of the rich, then two pertinent questions arise. 1. Why not print sufficient money or digitally enhance the accounts of all working citizens fully in order to solve the food and rent problems of the working classes (white-collar and blue-collar) for many are already in actual existential crisis? 2. If the elite were really worried about passing debt on to future generations, why not print sufficient money to pay off the national debt or simply officially ‘write it off’ and digitally reduce or even eliminate the amount of debt on the government books?

Although these two suggestions are possible, I know they will not be done. Those who staff the Tory and Labour; Republican and Democrat parties and their counterparts internationally, still benefit from the existing set up so will strive to keep it going. Moreover, to implement these suggestions would begin to undermine the economic foundations and monetary illusions on which capitalism rests, and they are not going to risk that. Endless commodity production and consumption along with endless national debt are the actual foundations upon which middle class lives and occupations have been built. Implementing such radical measures as above would also require them to consider what is for them, as yet unthinkable – an alternative mode of production! One which would be socially and ecologically egalitarian, humane and humanist.

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2020)

PS. Apologies for the length of this article. For some time I have been trying to condense my blogs, but recent Covid related events have been unusually full of ruling class nonsense.

Early in the year 2020, the dysfunctional socio-economic system we are all trapped in (ie the capitalist mode of production) was given its most profound shock ever. Within weeks the whole system of global production, distribution and consumption was exposed by a virus as being unfit for ensuring the health and safety of humanity as a whole. The ‘normal’ working of the capitalist economic system not only released the dangerous Covid-19 pathogen into commercial networks, but rapidly transported it into every corner of the globe. But by thinking within the box (ie within the existing ‘mode of production’) practically everything the systems governing elites did, made the situation worse.

A too-late lock-down, a too-soon ending of lock-down, a botched supply of PPE, testing, etc., the list of incompetent and omitted actions is considerable. The government support for salaries and wages during lock-down was a rare exception of alternative thinking. Yet knowing the virus needed human to human transmission, within a few months, the pro-capitalist elites everywhere began suggesting (in some cases compelling) working people to go back to work and socialise. In other words the capitalist form of ‘business as usual’ thinking required the calculated spreading of the deadly virus among communities – again!

These outcomes (including second Covid-19 waves) were predictable. Capitalist-centred elites could do no other than what they have done! The whole shape and purpose of the global economic system is a product of the capitalist mode of production, guided by its male-orientated elites. Consequently, their way of thinking and acting in any crisis reflects no other practical purpose than conserving the existing system. The socio-economic structure of capitalism, including the language and thinking they (and we) we have been taught to use, is based upon what is best for the elite males in production, commerce, governance and politics.

To expect them to think differently and act upon what is best for humanity as a whole is at best naive.

A crisis of the magnitude triggered by Covid-19, requires a different way of acting and thinking, but this change will not come from those who currently dominate capitalist societies. Historically, the elite male-centred view we are conditioned to accept, is most glaringly expressed in patriarchal religions, where the real world is considered an imperfect copy of the perfect creation of an all powerful male god. If the reader has never seriously questioned religion (or any other aspect) of our male-dominated cultures, that merely indicates that the critical thinking circuits of our brains have been seriously neglected. Yet the reader knows that the human brain is excellent at imagining things which could never actually exist or ever existed outside of the human brain.

Hence, an invisible male super being – who must be worshipped and served – is a taken for granted god, not simply an intellectual reflection of the socio-economic status of men.

It is clear that ideas and perceptions – even obviously false ones – can take on a permanence even when reliable, independent evidence for them is completely lacking. Without a shred of independently confirmed evidence, humans can be conditioned to believe practically anything – providing there is sufficient incentive or authoritative pressure. Yet, now more than ever, everything promoted by all elites needs to be questioned.

The danger of borrowing our thinking from within a male-focussed capitalist system is obvious. When women and men have been educated to think along male-determined, rather than humanist lines, it becomes easier to be led down paths which are detrimental to humanity in general. During 20th century socio-economic crisis periods, for example, people were persuaded to follow, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Mao – just to mention a few of the many examples. The path these ruthless male-centred, dualistic thinking men led people down ended in genocidal brutality.

Challenging Dualism.

Dualism, is a typical male-determined way of thinking. It views the physical and intellectual world via a series of fixed opposites. In dualistic thinking, opposed distinctions are everywhere. Thus for dualistic thinkers there are good and bad people. Good people are never bad and bad people are never good and no one moves between. Most of us know that reality renders that view false, but that doesn’t mean it is no longer used. Good and bad categories are common ‘borrowed‘ ways of viewing contemporary social reality and are rarely challenged. Take the example of the dualistic opposites of black and white and their frequent prejudiced association with good and bad.

Leaving aside paint pigments, very few things in the real world are actually black or white and that includes the skin colours of human beings. Yet that does not mean that these false (and now highly politicised) opposites, including their associated dualisms of good and bad are avoided. The associated idea of ‘race’, as a further example, stems from a dualistic male-centred view of humanity. Racist ideology was invented and used mainly by men to convince both the enslaved and the enslavers that slavery was logical and just. Of course the ideology was not universally convincing, but it convinced enough to become a significant strand of the framework of empires and their subject people’s.

In the 21st century, it is still possible to hear comments such as; ‘I am proud of my race‘; ‘you are disrespecting/oppressing my race’, etc. Even 20th century European legislation forbidding discrimination, utilises the term as in ‘race relations’, ‘racial discrimination‘, etc. The continued use of the concept of race – no matter who perpetuates it – denies two important realities. First, it contradicts the real existence of our common humanity and second, it ignores the fundamental features of human biology.

The success of racial ideology – as a contemporary social force – is not down to fundamental evidence in support of it, but to the fact that – a sufficiently large number of people have accepted it as ‘fact’ and acted upon it.

On this elite male-invented foundation was erected a shaky intellectual scaffolding of black and white races and the idea that power over other humans is a product of skin colour. Yet in fact the real tap root of human power over other humans is obviously not a persons skin colour, but the prevalence of male domination. Male power over females and children and over people’s, communities and nations (ie patriarchy) is the defining characteristic of all human ‘civilisation’ – so far! And this ‘power’ is exercised irrespective of differences in skin pigmentation. So too in the case of the patriarchal development of capitalism and the power that provides. Male power over women and children is universal and exists among all skin shades.

Likewise, capitalists – of all skin shades – along with their ‘law enforcers’, are employed precisely to consolidate economic and social power over their wage-slaves – and do so.

In the present crisis, to criticise only one form of oppression and avoid challenging the ubiquitous existence of male and capitalist oppression in general, suggests a failure to escape bourgeois patriarchal ways of thinking. It also represents a failure to understand and reject the entire content of the box labelled ‘the capitalist mode of production‘. Yes ‘dark – skinned lives matter’ is an important rallying call for an end this particular form of human discrimination, but unless we (and its advocates) make it an integral part of a wider revolutionary-humanist movement – where we assert that all lives (animal and human) matter – whatever their skin colour – it will remain a one-sided demand to be ignored or watered down by the very ‘male power elite’, to whom it is addressed.

Roy Ratcliffe ( August 2020)

Sectarianism.

There has long been a phenomenon within struggles for unity against ruling elites which is the intellectual equivalent of cancer in the human body. It attacks individual units of struggle and breaks down internal group solidarity. The phenomenon is called sectarianism. It is derived from the examples of small religious (and political) groupings known as ‘sects’. Nevertheless, it is not a group which determines the existence of sectarian characteristics, but the existence of sectarian characteristics which determine the nature of a group. The characteristics (outlined in the following section) can also exist in single individuals as well as multiples

First some general points. Members of a sect are primarily preoccupied with external and internal issues. External issues concern problematic economic or political relationships within a given society, which members seek to solve or escape. Internal concerns generally orbit around group leadership and group cohesion. Cohesion is maintained by adherence to a particular set of ideas and practices.

Leadership in such sects is gained by those who convince group members (either democratically or forcibly) that he or she is the best representative of the sects ideas and practices. However, it is the numerous characteristics of sectarianism that are important to understand not who they emanate from. If the following characteristics are identified then whoever personifies them will be the carrier of this fatal disease.

The characteristics of sectarianism.

1. Sectarians claim only they have the correct solution or answer to any problems the movement faces. This claim can be in the form of a doctrine, a set of principles or through special insights and abilities.

2. The reason the sect exists as a separate entity, is because it’s leaders and members consider themselves superior (in some self-identified way) to the general movement they seek to influence and lead.

3. Sectarians have an unshakeable belief in their abilities despite any obvious particular failures and shortcomings they demonstrate in practice.

4. Sectarians can (and do) carry out serious internal or external struggles against rival sects or rival leaders within their own sect.

5. Sectarians often elevate trivialities to the level of principles in order to create disputes between rivals and then create splits within movements.

6. Sectarians frequently call for unity but only unity around their own ideas, practices or leadership.

7. Sectarians frequently distort the positions and efforts of others with whom they disagree. In this way they ‘poison’ any efforts at constructive discussions.

8. Sectarians are often boastful about their own abilities, whilst disrespectful and bitter in relationship to those who differ.

9. Sectarians generally use intellectual abstractions and logical deductions to ‘win’ arguments which bear little or no relationship to immediate reality.

10. Sectarians often explicitly demand that everyone subordinate their thinking and activity to those ideas promoted by them or their sect.

It is obvious that the above characteristics are manifestations of individual and collective forms of supposed superiority over the rest of humanity (point 2 above) The ten characteristics can be used to assess the sectarian nature of any individual religious or political leader of whatever denomination or political persuasion.

Within left-wing politics, sectarians are in many ways, mirror images of the alleged superiority of right-wing elites. They represent micro-sect elites who are ambitious to become national or international leaders. Hence, the phenomena of small group sectarians, after being promoted to power in various ways, becoming new ruling elites. (eg. Bolsheviks, Nazi’s, Maoists, Islamists, Zionists, ANC etc.) Conversely, if sectarians fail to dominate movements, they invariably atrophy slowly or destroy themselves quickly. (eg. WRP, IMG, CP, WF, BP, etc.).

It is rare for all ten characteristics to be displayed at any one time, but any single one of the above characteristics may be enough to start the destructive invasion.

Because, the capitalist mode of production exploits and oppresses the mass of people for the benefit of the few, the oppressed majority are extremely diverse. On the global scale, the mass of humanity dominated by capitalism, comprise of different cultures, genders, ages, skin colours and sexual orientations. To imagine that such diversity does not create a variety of needs and ways of thinking is to ignore both logic and reality. Yet that is exactly what sectarians do when telling everyone what they must (their favourite word) do.

They imagine that such human diversity can be consolidated behind a set of ideas produced by such self-promoted sectarian elites. However, that is a fantasy equal to that of imagining a male super-being occupying a beneficial heaven and patiently awaiting our final ascent. Neither scenario is going to happen. Any movement wishing to seriously challenge the power of a united and powerful elite to negatively determine what happens to the rest of us will need to unite around not just one form of oppression – no matter how abusive that is – but around multiple issues of oppression and abuse.

Like elites of all historical periods, sectarians also imagine that working people need leadership (their leadership) to be able to challenge existing elites and to create productive communities. In sectarian ideology, real-world socio-economic reality is inverted. In fact it is leaders which need workers to support them economically and socially. Without workers producing goods and services, elites could not survive.

Workers may need co-ordination for many economic activities, but they can do that for themselves. However, given their lengthy economic, social and intellectual subordination to the dominant class, working people, need to challenge the false ideas of human superiority and inferiority. In particular, those ideas which are embodied within the ideologies of religion, racism, sexism and nationalism.

Those who have already done so for themselves can help facilitate the challenging of these pro – capitalist ideologies by working people, but only if they have done so thoroughly. Criticism and self-criticism of methods and evidence is important in this regard. It is easy to criticise obvious surface symptoms, but without a thoroughgoing criticism of underlying systemic causes, that criticism leaves the capitalist system as a whole unchallenged and intact.

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2020)

[The above is a precis of a fuller analysis of anti-capitalist sectarianism along with a history of many of its international expressions in the 20th century, in the book ‘Revolutionary-Humanism  and the Anti-Capitalist Struggle’. RR]

Victims and perpetrators.

Recent media references to catching the virus have been more often than not couched in terms of, ‘it hasn’t gone yet’; ‘it’s not over’; ‘it is still there’! Its as if they imagine Covid-19 was actively seeking to infect people like some invisible ninja assassin lurking around  to get us. In fact the only active agents we can blame in the actual transmission of a virus – is ourselves.

A viruses success in invading human bodies is in direct proportion to human failure to avoid spreading it. Viruses do not spread themselves and kill or damage the health of those it infects. It is we who spread it to our families, friends, neighbours, contacts and strangers. We – and our current way of living – are the main problem in ending this or any other pandemic.

So the real tragedy of the high numbers of deaths, now in the tens and hundreds of thousands in each country, is that this biological weapon of mass-destruction hasn’t been delivered by an enemy – but by our own side! Although not intentionally, many of us have spread viruses around communal environments as well as to family, friends and strangers.

Prior to the current Pandemic scientific panels of those specialising in contagious diseases and viruses had produced documented strategies for avoiding or minimising the risks of us spreading the virus. These were duly noted, shelved and largely ignored by the political elite who had their own pecuniary interests to concentrate upon.

A too-late lock-down was all they could think of, which in effect meant the ordinary citizens not the elite, had to stop the virus from spreading – by hiding away from each other. Thus overall responsibility was evaded and handed over to the community. Our tax-funded elites then sent out mixed messages, ignored their own advice and joined in the ‘we are all in this together’ nonsense by clapping once a week.

Meanwhile, the doctors, nurses and other ‘essential’ workers staffing the hospitals and care homes were left to improvise and do their best not to pass the virus on.

But despite, the general confusion and mixed messages, by hiding away from each other most ordinary people succeeded in not passing it on to their fellow citizens. Consequently the contagion slowed and the rate of Covid infections and deaths continued to reduce. That is until the political and capitalist elites realised their mode of production was collapsing. Hardly any wage-slaves were at work supplementing their profits and investments.

So – to save their economy – elites globally have urged everyone to get out and start infecting each other again. They know ordinary people have not got the right equipment and resources, nor sufficient information to make fully informed decisions on how to keep each other safe. The elite know that many are caught in the decades long economic poverty trap deliberately created for them by successive pro – capitalist elites.

They also know that sending working-class kids to school and their parents out to work is a risk the elite will not have to take.

A mixture of confusion, boredom and financial need along with allowing businesses to open up again is creating another round of the virus being handed on like an invisible but deadly relay baton. A second wave of contagion is well on its way in practically all the countries that encouraged their populations to end lock-down and help capitalist economic activity to start up again.

Despite hopes to the contrary, the finishing line for many more people in this race to create a new capitalist normal has been (and will be) an intensive-care bed or a coffin.

Hope versus probability.

Hope 1. Those who catch it will only get it in a mild form and soon recover. That is the Trumpian and Johnsonian hypothesis, but it also the hope of many who gather on beaches, in bars, cinemas, shops and restaurants. However, since this virus is new, clutching at such straws is based upon evidence which may prove unreliable. We know Covid-19 can be fatal for some in vulnerable categories but evidence is emerging that when the lungs have ceased to be dangerously infected, Covid-19 can still be damaging other internal organs.

It may turn out that recovery from Covid-19 could be followed by long-term, debilitating, damage for some of the population. It may be the case that the amount and frequency of the viral load internalised has a bearing upon the lethality of infection. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that the virus will not mutate and infect yet again.

Hope 2. That at least a partial return to normality can soon be achieved and some of the activities (eating out, holidays abroad, night clubs, etc.) we have come to think a right to can be resumed. For many people this is never going to happen. The coming economic collapse will be so great that much of what some have come to consider as entitlement will be unaffordable under the current mode of production. In all probability there will be mass unemployment in advanced, poor countries and middle – income countries. What many of us did before Covid-19 – will never return.

Hope 3. That a successful vaccine will be soon be developed which will allow a nearly full return to the pre-Covid-19 capitalist normality. This is not going to happen soon enough to ease the economic and the many health problems which are now unfolding. And of course, like the hope for many other vaccines, it may never happen.

Moreover, does anyone think the neo-liberal regimes of the globe, are capable of ensuring the development of a safe, effective vaccine, along with a fair and equitable mass inoculation procedure? They have not even ensured plastic aprons, masks, gloves and swabs were available in sufficient quantities and qualities. Their promise of effective universal testing and tracing procedures – still unfulfilled!

Hope is no substitute for initiating direct community action aimed at ending; poverty, homelessness and virus transmission.

[For a more detailed projection of the coming economic crisis, see Rob Urie article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/17/economic-crisis-and%5D

R. Ratcliffe (July 2020)

The reason why capitalism is the first mode of production to threaten the future survival of many forms of life is difficult to understand if the detailed complexities of nature and capitalism are approached separately. However, if one accepts that the abstract concept of ‘nature’ can be considered as covering all life-forms, then the matter is somewhat simplified. That way, after an initial stage of analysis, it is possible to introduce both sets of complexities to reach a more developed understanding.

Thus, we know that all forms of life utilise the materials of the planet and the energy contained within it or from outside it (ie via the sun) to reproduce and sustain themselves. Living things are the planets organic assemblies of inorganic materials, continuously inter-connecting. When life-forms die, those materials return initially to the surroundings where death takes place.

Even before organisms die they ingest material from nature to support their growth and energy and they secrete any unused or unneeded material back to nature. In short everything – including all the mineral and bio-chemical ingredients involved in this ‘cycle of life’ – is connected and re-cycled to be used again.

In other words, recycling is not just a modern ‘feel-good’ obsession but an essential process of the ‘connected’ cycle of all life on our planet, and has been for millions or billions of its annual orbits around the sun.

However, this natural process, was significantly interrupted when the capitalist mode of production became more than just a fringe activity within and between some Mediterranean maritime communities. As large-scale capitalist forms of agricultural production encroached upon inland farming, the essential recycling process of organic and inorganic nature was progressively dis-connected and distorted at all such locations.

When local human populations were separated from direct production of the land to make way for large-scale agri-farming, the land had taken from it the above-noted natural form of recycling local waste products. Much residual material of those things assembled by nature (plants, animals, birds, insects) and from the fecal waste of all living things, went elsewhere and all the essential elements donated by nature to life went with them. Capitalist agriculture thus disconnected nature from its local, natural and human metabolic processes.

Consequently, intensive capitalist agriculture also quickly exhausted the microbiology of the soil. Since profits required continuous production, soil fertility then needed replenishing from external sources. This necessity created another form of profitable activity in the form of foreign-sourced elements such as guano (bird poo) and other material (bones of people and animals) which were used on intensive farms.

As dispossessed peasants and others were cleared off the land they gravitated to towns and cities taking their poo and pee with them. Night soil – as excreta was designated during the Victorian era – was sometimes taken from cities and large towns and used on fields and farms, but much was dumped in rivers and seas. Overall, this meant the soil was being denied much of it’s natural cycle and eventually when guano and bones ran out, chemical substitutes had to be found to keep capitalist farming productive.

This capitalist type of agricultural production amounted to a five-fold robbery of nature – just for the profit of a few! The soil of increasingly mechanised farms, was robbed (1) of their basic nutrients in order to overproduce crops for sale and (2) the soil was therefore separated from its natural local waste-product fertilisers. The peasants and cottagers were separated from their small-holding livelihoods (3) and foreign lands were separated from natural resources such as guano (4). But this capitalist robbery by separation of nature – for profit-led extraction – did not end there. Crops grown by chemical fertiliser methods were not as nutritious as those organically grown. So food was robbed (5) of its natural nutrition and taste.

Even before considering capitalism’s ‘Robber Land Barons’ and the consequent land-clearances, unemployment and low pay, the bodies of working people were being robbed of nourishing food to sustain and replenish their own bodily cells. When capitalist industry and agricultural also instituted long hours, poor conditions, unemployment and low pay these symptoms were added to food poverty and to a diet of less nutritious and chemical contaminated food. It was then that ill health and disease (including epidemics) became disproportionately the lot of working people, both blue-collar and white.

For when people have a diet deficient in certain natural elements, then the micro – organisms and cells that make up the human immune system and body structure are also starved of the elements they need to function properly. It got so bad that vitamin and mineral supplements were produced in tablet, powder and liquid form (for those who could afford them), in order to attempt to make up for what had been lost in naturally grown food.

Fast forward to the modern capitalist (and neo-liberal) era and the problem has intensified and gone global. Ask yourself where the excrement and urine from global cities numbering millions of citizens is going – each day – and what a loss much of this is to soil. Then think about what an imposition it is on nature when tons of it go into the differently based eco-systems of rivers, lakes and seas. Also ask yourself where the chemical fertilisers and pesticides used in huge agri-business farming are extracted from and what effect this has on the quality of food produced, the pollution of nature’s soil, and the consequence of its run-off into rivers and seas.

If we add to this distortion of the intimate food connection between nature in its human and non – human forms, the effects of non-food mass-production of industry and it’s effects upon the air and water quality that all land-based life-forms breath and drink, then certain conclusions follow. Capitalists are not only at war with rivals, for markets and raw materials, but effectively at war with humanity and nature as a whole.

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2020)

Domestic Slavery.

Domestic forms of slavery are mostly founded on the example of the ancient patriarchal family. A male owns or controls the household and exercises power over the skills and labour of all the family members. Any economic activity, including its type, pace and duration will be directed by the patriarch. The family members will be persuaded or compelled to also do domestic labour as instructed by the ‘head of the house‘ – on threat of punishment or promise of future benefits.

The patriarch (kind or cruel) determines the amount and type of food, clothing, shelter and entertainment appropriate, for each family member. In the domestic economy he will decide the allocation of any surplus-production the family generates. Although, the biological members of the patriarchal family are not ‘bought‘, their socio-economic circumstances are analogous to those of indentured or purchased slaves. They cannot escape; for there may be nowhere to escape to; they can be whipped or beaten, locked away, deprived of food and have little or no control over their private lives.

Within the Abrahamic influenced communities of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, many features of the ancient patriarchal family were still prevalent in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wives and children could be brutally beaten, forced to hand over personal wealth, do household chores, locked in their rooms, denied food and even killed. Wives could be forced to have sex and domestic servants could be sexually exploited by the male head of the family.

Moreover, domestic violence, mainly by men against women and children has still not been entirely eradicated from 21st century domestic life around the planet.

Absolute slavery.

What I call absolute slavery is the form extensively developed in ancient times but resurrected in the 17th, to 20th centuries. In warfare and conquest in the ancient world, some enemies were captured rather than killed. They were then ransomed or sold as household slaves or as forced-labour in agricultural or mining activities. But the economic aim was (and is) essentially the same for all forms of slavery; the slave-owner obtains all the value the slave produces that is greater than the value the slave consumes in living. Obtaining this ‘surplus-production‘ (or its equivalent in ‘value’ once these products are sold) is the purpose of all forms of slavery.

In the ‘middle ages’ serfdom became a modified form of slavery in the agricultural districts of Europe and surrounding areas. The serfs worked some days to feed and clothe themselves and were compelled to work for the owner of the land for the remaining days of the week. The latter days supplied surplus-production. However, It was with the development of huge, labour-intensive plantations in the new world of the Americas that human beings became commodities – on a vast scale. Slaves laboured to produce cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee and other agricultural products.

In plantation forms of slavery, the aim was also to extract more value from the labour of the slaves, than the value they cost to purchase (their intrinsic or potential value) and keep alive. The value difference of plantation slave-labour over its costs was often large and their numbers considerable so the surplus-production in monetary terms was frequently huge. Centuries of accumulated profits by plantation based capitalists were used to fund the industrial revolution in Britain, Europe, North America and the world.

The industrial stage of capitalist development quickly became more productive and more dominant than slave-based agriculture. Consequently, absolute slave-labour became less productive than wage-slave labour and returned less capital to the capitalist elite. Absolute slaves had to be fed, housed, clothed, monitored and disciplined 24/7, whether engaged productively or not. If worked too hard they had short lives and replacing them was costly. In effect, wage-slavery increased the surplus-production value going to capitalists and eliminated many of the costs associated with absolute slavery.

Wage Slavery.

In contrast to the absolute form of slavery, wage-slavery (described by the elite as ‘freedom’) meant the capitalist only had to pay for the work actually done and only when that work was needed. Thus the employer saved capital by not purchasing the worker outright and by not housing or feeding them when unemployed. Wage-slaves therefore, had no intrinsic value to capitalists and so were ‘free‘ to starve and even become homeless between jobs. Moreover, the compulsion to work hard for wage-slaves was not via a paid overseers whip, but via their own existential ‘need‘ for the wage or salary.

Better still (from the capitalist perspective), the subsistence level wage was only paid to the worker – after the work was done! Then the wage money was used to purchase food, clothing, housing and entertainment – from other capitalists! So capitalists got the surplus-production created by the wage-slaves during their employment period and got the wage-money back when these were used to purchase essentials for living. Isn’t such ‘freedom‘ wonderful?

The abolition of plantation slavery is often presented as resulting from elite moral conviction. In actual fact there was a strong economic dimension to abolition. Slavery had been considered immoral down through the ages and during the 200 year history of plantations. However, it was only ended, when the advantages of wage-slavery became obvious. When industrial capitalists became more powerful than plantation capitalists they began to impose their methods of exploitation on all other modes of production.

So in fact, the civil war between the North and South in the USA, was fundamentally a conflict between the wage-labour based industrial capitalism of the North and the slave-labour based agricultural capitalism of the South. Politics and morality at the time, was already largely determined by the process of global commodity production, and it was rapidly being shunted in the direction of wage-labour by the steam-driven power of industrial capitalism.

Moreover, on a world scale, all three forms of slavery still exist and still await abolition. In the meantime the bulk of humanity go – job application in hand – to those who only employ us when it suits them. 

Roy Ratcliffe (July 2020)