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In the previous article on this site, the summary by Karl Marx of the materialist interpretation of history was printed in full. This article will consider how that ‘interpretation‘ can throw light upon the situation global humanity faces in the first two decades of the 21st century. For within Marx’s general description there is an important reference to conflicts arising from transformations of the ‘forces of production’. The relevant section commences with;

“At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production. …….Then comes a period of social revolution…….(Marx. ‘A contribution to the critique of the political economy’.)

The material forces of production prevalent in the 21st century comprise of the immense technical, scientific, organisational and human resources operated by global humanity. Furthermore, it is a fact that robotic assembly lines, computerised production controls and ‘intelligent’ machine learning, have radically transformed the forces of production and have significantly replaced many forms of routine and skilled labour.

These ‘material forces’ now also include the 20th century developments of cooperatives along with large-scale, non-profit public service organisations, in education, health care, social services, local and national government and armed forces. So in terms of the ‘materialist interpretation of history’, over the last century, there has been a continuous and accelerating, ‘material transformation of the economic conditions of production‘. Furthermore, it is a transformation and replacement which has given rise to conflict with the ownership relations of those material forces of production. In this regard, the ‘materialist interpretation’ also suggests that;

“In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production…..and the…ideological forms in which men (humanity RR) become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” (ibid)

According to the materialist view, human consciousness is to a greater or lesser extent a product of the existing relations of production as well as of the material forces as a whole. Moreover, it is undoubtedly true that existing relationships to the material conditions of production are not under the direct (or even indirect) control of society as a whole. They are directly and indirectly controlled by elites, mainly located in the technically advanced countries of Europe, North America and Asia.

For many decades, this elite relationship of control over the mode of production has resulted in severe conflicts fought out by activists against discrimination, unemployment, pollution, ecological destruction, systemic poverty, along with opposition to the promotion of armed struggles over control of markets and raw material resources. In considering the ideological forms of consciousness which are dominant in the 21st century to fight out these various conflicts, the materialist interpretation suggests;

“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based upon what he thinks of himself, so we (cannot RR) judge such a period of transition by its own consciousness…this consciousness must rather be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of production and the relations of production.” (ibid)

Whatever they may think of themselves, the consciousness of the majority of activists during this 20th and 21st century period of transformation has undoubtedly been influenced by the difficulties experienced by various sectors of capitalist societies. Consequently, oppression and exploitation are overwhelmingly viewed from the separate perspectives of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, region or nationality. Therefore, there is clearly a problematic mismatch between the existing consciousness of activists derived from the struggle against these sectional oppressions and the socio-economic source of capitalism’s multiple forms of oppression. Yet as the interpretation suggests;

“…mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.” (ibid)

Maintaining the concepts of the materialist interpretation, the above problems of discrimination, exploitation and planetary degradation indeed ‘have arisen when the material conditions for their solution‘ (ie cooperatives, non-profit public services, non-polluting technologies, widespread means of popular credit) ‘already exist’ – if as yet in a distorted condition.

Moreover, the capitalist mode of production is in an existential crisis spread over six major socio-economic dimensions, (economics, finance, politics, social welfare, ecology, climate and now virus pandemics) all of which exert various levels of oppression and therefore require revolutionary transformations to the existing relations of production in order to solve them. Despite this glaring contradiction, much of 21st century activist, consciousness remains ‘contained‘ within competitive reformist sectional parameters.

The capitalist system is falling apart and is not only steadily destroying the basis of human life, but of all life forms on the planet, yet many activists are seeking reforms from it – as if these could be granted by a system already near terminal collapse.

Viewed from the perspective of the crisis level of contradictions between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production, noted above, the single issue campaigns currently energising various reformist struggles are obviously doomed to failure. But the problem these separate – often sectarian struggles – pose runs deeper than this. For in the process of pursuing sectional reforms these competitive, single-issue struggles become a self-inflicted form of divide and rule handed on a plate to a pro capitalist elite determined to resist any kind of redistributive change.

In face of this contradiction, there is an important task for those whose consciousness has embraced the fact that the capitalist mode of production is the fundamental economic foundation of all current oppression and exploitation. The task is to patiently and consistently explain that the capitalist system is not the basis for a solution to the many manifestations of oppression.

Indeed, their flawed reformist logic needs to be clearly pointed out to single issue activists. For, in persistently and dogmatically seeking reforms from the existing capitalist system – reformists must logically wish (and even help) capitalism to survive (and thrive) in order for its elites to be in a position to grant their desired reforms.

The case needs to be strongly made that what single issue activists against discrimination by gender, disability, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, or religion, are seeking (ie the righting of a particular wrong) can only be realistically achieved (by a movement to right all wrongs) via a social revolution.

To realise their single issue ambitions, a bottom up revolutionary transformation of the relations of production is required. Moreover, it will need to be a type of revolutionary transformation that ensures no human beings are subordinated to an exploitative economic mode of production or made the slaves or wage-slaves of other human beings.

Single issue activists who are able to see beyond competing against others for sectional reforms should be encouraged to link their struggle to other struggles (in real solidarity) and locate it within a revolutionary-humanist transformational one.

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2020)

Before the reader proceeds further, the following needs to be stated. The materialist interpretation of history (often misleadingly shortened to ‘Historical Materialism’) was never meant to be a mechanistic or crude determinist interpretation of history. That was a false conclusion that many critics of Marx, and even some of his so-called followers, arrived at. The materialist interpretation was formulated and asserted in order to correct those views of history which ignored or subordinated the way humans obtained the basic elements of life such as food, water, clothing, shelter and safety.

Therefore, this materialist interpretation keeps in mind that before doing anything else all life-forms need to engage in a metabolic relationship with the natural world in order to take on the solid, liquid and gaseous materials required to support and sustain the bodily structure. Whatever other activities are desired or required can only be developed on that foundation. In researching human history, therefore, it needs to constantly born in mind that the way communities organise themselves to produce these essentials of life, effects to a greater or lesser extent, how people act and think in general, as well as how, as individuals, they act and think in particular.

The materialist interpretation of history, therefore, does not to claim that the means and modes of production are the only determining element of human thought and behaviour, but it reminds us to keep in mind the fact that it is certainly one of the most important ones. When Marx and others recommended this materialist interpretation of history it was common for historical and contemporary developments to be viewed primarily through the ideologies of religion and/or the thoughts and actions of ‘great men’. Ideas were frequently seen as the great motivators of historical events, with the material basis for these ideas, largely ignored or drastically downplayed.

Marx’s condensed description of the materialist interpretation of history, reproduced below (in italics), is from his preface to ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, written in 1857 as translated by N. I Stone and published by Charles H. Kerr and Company of Chicago in 1904. The language used a century and a half ago is, therefore, somewhat dated, as is the then typical use of the male pronoun to cover the whole of humanity.

Despite that slight anachronism, its meaning is clear and, in just 516 words, it remains an important contribution to the revolutionary-humanist perspective on how societies change. For this reason it is also relevant in considering the current stage of capitalist socio-economic development. It’s relevance to the 21st century will therefore be the subject of ‘On the Materialist Interpretation of History – 2’, to follow.

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2020)

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“In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society – the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”

“The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

“At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property relations at which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production these relationships turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.”

“In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic – in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.”

“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary this consciousness must rather be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of production and the relations of production.”

“No social form ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.”

“In broad outlines we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal and the modern bourgeois methods of production as so many epochs in the progress of the economic formation of society.”

“The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from conditions surrounding the life of individuals in society; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism.”

“This (the capitalist RR) social formation constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.”

One step forward; two steps back.

If there were league tables for incompetence, the British Elite (political and governmental) would be very high on the list. The claim of Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, to have personally endorsed an ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal a year ago was never more than half-baked and now looks more like a dogs breakfast than anything else. But incompetence is spread more broadly among the British governing elite with regard to the Covid-19 Pandemic. This can be reliably asserted because the civil servants and politicians who commissioned the UK National Security Strategy, in 2008, apparently ignored the fact that it clearly warned that;

 “Experts agree that there is a high probability of a pandemic occurring – and the speed at which it could spread has increased with globalisation”.

That expensive and comprehensive security strategy also included material on how to prepare for and control the spread of any new virus. Yet everything the British elite have done with regard to public health and basic economic activity, since it became clear in February 2020, that a serious Sars like virus was on its way from China, has been a mixture of gross incompetence and large-scale indifference. Every lock down to prevent spreading the virus was too superficial, was started to late and was ended too soon.

During 2020, the British elite lurched from half measure restrictions with regard to lock downs to half measures in supporting workers and small businesses. The only ones who really benefited from the pandemic fiscal measures were the extremely rich and those involved in speculation within the finance sector. For the rest of the population it has been dire.

In half-heartedly trying to save the economy the British government sacrificed thousands of lives, in half-heartedly trying save lives, they sacrificed thousands of livelihoods. The results of this elite incompetence and indifference to virus transmission, has been that people have continued to spread the virus and the economy has continued to collapse.

These dismal results would be palpable failures on both these accounts even without the predictable (and predicted), evolution of a potentially more virulent variety of the Covid-19 virus. The new strain (designated as ‘VUI-202012/01’) which is now being energetically passed around UK citizens has been declared “out of control” by the British Health Minister. However, it isn’t the virus which is ‘out of control’, it is the elite and their measures which are not effective in controlling the situation.

Blaming a virus, which without legs or wings, relies upon close human contact in order to be passed on, is to shift the blame for its spread away from those who bear prime responsibility for preventative failures and previous overconfident reassurances that the pandemic was under control

This new wave on top of previous waves, clearly means more deaths will now occur in the UK even if the new variant is not more lethal than the original strain. It also means more non Covid deaths will occur as hospitals become swamped again with Covid cases. And with medical staff already ill and/or fatigued by the 10 months front line battle they have been engaged in, the UK situation in December 2020 is actually far worse than it was in March 2020.

It also means that the UK is set to become a hot-spot exporter of the new strain, if other countries do not quickly put restrictions of travelers from the UK. Nor should we forget that ahead of a future successful vaccination programme, people already suffering from a long period of repeated isolation are now going to have to spend more time in solitary or family confinement.

And all this is because an extremely well paid governing elite with practically unlimited power and resources have yet again proved themselves unworthy of their status and stipends and appear only adept at making self-justifying excuses.

Since neither individual sense, political leadership or governmental legislation has sufficiently altered human behaviour to prevent people passing the virus around their respective communities, all hope is now being placed in a vaccine. With regard to vaccines, in Corona Virus Pandemic – 11, I wrote;

“…. viruses mutate and evolve, some – rapidly. Hence vaccines can be effective only as long as the virus has not sufficiently changed.”

The governing elite have belatedly woke up to the fact that Covid 19 can change and has changed – and rapidly. They have been wrong footed again. So it now remains to be seen whether any of the current vaccines and other treatments (targeted at identifying the first Covid-19 variant) will be effective in dealing with this second and any future variants.

Once more elite reassurances are being given out that all is under control when it is obvious – to all those not in a state of denial or indifference – that very little within the capitalist mode of production is under any form of rational control or ever could be – and least of all in responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Roy Ratcliffe ( December 2020)

Below is the preface to a new book I intend to publish soon entitled; ‘An Introduction to Revolutionary-Humanism’. Pre-publication copies in Word document format are available on request to royratcliffe@yahoo.com for anyone who may be interested. I hope to find a way to publish it electronically for a free download, so any advice on how to do this sent to the above email or via comments below would be much appreciated.

PREFACE

In the 21st century, a new generation of young people were born into global society and by 2019, many began questioning the effects of it’s method of production, distribution and consumption as the basis for the future of humanity. School students leaving their classrooms and demonstrating against climate change and many other negative aspects became a phenomenon of ecological ‘enlightenment’. These new activists have replaced the previous generations of people who once protested against aspects of the capitalist system or even against its whole ethos. Previous ideological expressions of this generalised opposition to capitalism took the form of Socialism in the 19th century and Communism or Anti – capitalism, in the 20th century.

These earlier political expressions of dissatisfaction with the capitalist mode of production often gave rise to groups and political parties with the aim, in one form or another, of positively improving or transforming it. Such groups competed with each other for leadership of what they hoped would be a movement of ordinary working people which would by political means elect them, or by ‘revolution’ project them, to political power with a mandate to change things for the better. Some of these groups succeeded in part of that hope and took power in various countries during the 20th century period of extended crisis; the ‘right-wing ‘National’ Socialists in Germany and Italy, the ‘left-wing Socialist/Communist Parties’ in Russia and China, and the ‘social-democratic socialists’ in the UK, Europe and elsewhere.

However, none of these groups and parties, once in power, even tried to end the exploitation of people and the planet. Indeed, most of these so-called reformist and revolutionary (sic) governments even intensified the exploitation of working people and frequently made matters worse with regard to pollution, ecological destruction, climate change, general poverty and hardship for the majority. Clearly, the ideas and practices which these groups and parties adopted did not benefit the mass of humanity or the planetary biosphere and so in the 21st century humanity is faced with even more problems than it was in the 20th.

This introduction to Revolutionary-Humanism seeks to explain why previous attempts to counteract capitalist exploitation were such dismal failures. In brief chapters, the ideas and methods previously employed by these groups and parties which led to dead ends are outlined. There are of course, hundreds of volumes of long – winded arguments detailing a multitude of disagreements within and between these groups and political parties, which for those with lots of time and patience, can be delved into. However, this introduction is an attempt to familiarise new generations of concerned students, workers and climate activists with the past struggles in a more easily digestible form. Longer documents and larger volumes can always be visited and considered if and when time and/or inclination permits.

I suggest there is a pressing need for a younger generations to grasp the complexity of the struggle which faces humanity and to avoid both the sectarian dogma of those previous anti-capitalist political distortions and the reformist economic and social ‘dead ends’ others led their ‘followers’ into. Hopefully the chapters in this book will assist them to re-discover the early Revolutionary-Humanist aspirations of ordinary working people and those who supported them. For it was these aspirations which became abandoned and sidelined by the egotistical and toxic dogma of elitist ‘vanguard’ leaders wishing to become the new leaders and top-down guardians of collective humanity.

The short chapters are introductions to the topics indicated by the chapter headings and can be used for individual study and reflection or for group discussion purposes. The subjects they deal with have been condensed to make them manageable for group discussions and for those new to the Revolutionary-Humanist perspective on the capitalist mode of production. To the best of my knowledge the facts and conclusions stated are as accurate as I can make them given the resources currently at my disposal during Covid 19 lock down..

Roy Ratcliffe. (2020)

In the 20th and 21st centuries a thin piece of plastic card measuring 3 and 3/8 inches by 2 and 1/8 inches became almost ubiquitous; at least in the advanced capitalist countries. Although there are two types of such ‘cards’ (debit and credit) tucked away in individual wallets and handbags, this piece of plastic is almost always referred to as a ‘credit card’. This is an apt description because ‘credit’ has become the overwhelming economic means of exchanging goods and services within the capitalist mode of production.

Furthermore, it is the complex development of ‘credit’ which allows capitalist production of commodities and services to be pushed beyond the general capacity of people to purchase its total industrial output. This tendency known as relative-overproduction periodically triggers a systemic crisis as happened with the devastating examples of 1929 and 2008. However, in a dialectical twist of contradiction, the proliferation of credit not only leads to a collapse within the capitalist system, but also indicates the potential development of a future post-capitalist mode of production.

To explain this contradiction requires a closer look at the basic economic exchanges we all take for granted but rarely think about seriously. For example, before the existence of credit cards, working people sold their skills and energy for a wage or salary paid at the end of a week or month in the form of a packet containing ‘money’. The money was usually in the form of paper notes and coins of the currency legal in the country within which we worked.

This money we exchanged for the goods and services we required. Money was therefore the dominant medium of exchange and not just for ordinary people. Historically this was also the case for the capitalist class who employ working people. A capitalist would expend money on a factory, equipment, machines, raw materials and wages. Then directed the workers to produce goods and/or services (distributed as commodities), which he or she sold at a profit, then sought to repeat this whole production process.

Notably, this original monetary system did not depend upon social trust between the people for exchanging goods and services. Instead trust was paradoxically given to an inanimate object – a valuable metal ‘thing’ termed money – usually in the form of gold (or silver) made into bars or coins. Indeed, with the later introduction of paper currencies it was still felt important to link these ‘notes’ to an amount of gold ‘paid on demand’ (ie the Gold Standard) because ‘trust’ continued to resided in money via its promised convertibility into gold. Shakespeare’s “visible God” lived on!

Even though this convertibility was ended (1931 in the UK; 1971 in the USA) the English notes still bear the words ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand..’. This contemporary promise is a faint echo of that earlier commitment to trust the value of an inert piece of non-perishing precious metal rather than (where possible) trust in people. However, as capitalist production and distribution increased, there was increasingly a delay between the products being finished and distributed and sufficient money from sales returning to the capitalist to continue production.

This delay gave rise to various capitalist producers and merchants supplying the raw (and finished) materials needed to other capitalists without immediate payment but with written promises to pay. So in business, trust in paper backed individual promises started to replace trust in hard cash. These promises often named ‘bills’ or now ‘financial instruments’ allowed production to continue without capitalists necessarily having the money to immediately pay for the various transactions.

Since almost every capitalist started to extend credit the commercial ‘bills’ in a great many cases would conveniently cancel each other out. For example, if capitalist ‘A’ supplied goods worth £1,000 on a months credit to capitalist ‘B’ and ‘B’ had supplied £900 of raw material on a months credit to capitalist ‘A’, then the credit notes of each could partly cancel each other out (£1000 – £900 = £100). Neither would need to keep thousands of pounds on hand and ‘B’ would only need to pay ‘A’ £100 at the end of the month.

Thus complex systems of credit developed both nationally and internationally among capitalist suppliers, producers and merchants, which allowed huge amounts of economic activity to take place without the need for large amounts of money to be held in reserve for immediate payments. For capitalists that previously held reserve money could then be used to invest in order to make more money. This allowed the capitalist classes to increase their production, distribute and sell more and thus become richer.

However, this intricate system of extended credit also introduced two contradictory characteristics to the economic cycle of social production, sale and consumption. 1; an accumulating negative outcome: 2; an interesting positive development.

First the positive outcome: The universal application of credit removed the almost complete trust in an inanimate material (money) in exchanges and re-established trust between human actors in production. People were (and still are) economically producing and exchanging based upon credit (ie trust) without the continual use of money. Apart from a minority of rogues, social production via the extended division of labour and credit was henceforth being conducted on the basis of mutual trust.

And credit was not just extended by capitalists. By always working a week or month ‘in advance’ (ie working before being paid) workers advance a form of credit (eg the value of 5 or 20 days work) to whoever employs them. It is this habit of giving and accepting credit based on social trust which is an important basis for any transition to a post-capitalist form of production. Or as Marx concluded;

“Finally, there is no doubt that the credit system will serve as a powerful lever during the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the mode of production of associated labour; but only as one element in connection with other great organic revolutions of the mode of production itself.” (Capital Volume 3 page 593)

To a large extent in the late 20th century, the plastic ‘credit’ card increasingly replaced money for the day to day exchange of goods and services for practically everyone – not just capitalists. As workers, white-collar and blue, we have become used to working and purchasing without needing pockets full of money. Providing we have a means of credit (derived from entitlement benefits or in exchange for the work we do) we now know we can continue to purchase what we need.

So just as non-profit public services and cooperatives emerged from within all capitalist systems and proved that economic alternatives to private enterprise are eminently viable; credit based economic exchanges demonstrate that alternatives to the money-mad capitalist forms of exchange designed purely to accumulate obscene levels of monetary wealth for the elite are also viable.

Turning to the negative outcome of capitalistic credit, it needs to be born in mind that, as noted above, capitalists only need money to in order to realise and accumulate their profits. For them forms of money are movable stores of accumulated value for further investment – not just a means of exchange – for they also use credit purchases for that.

However, keeping this capitalist ‘need’ of money for accumulation in mind, note also that the longer, the more complex and the more valuable the chains of capitalistic business credit become, the greater chance of even one or more defaults (ie an inability to pay with money when the payment date arrives) travelling along the chain of transactions making it collapse like a line of dominoes (ie as happened in 2008).

So it is a basic fact that financial crises sporadically occur within capitalism when the numerous chains of credit, driven on by – greed-for-profit production – become longer, more complex, involve greater product volumes than are actually needed and consist of considerably more value than the money available to settle accounts. Such crises are further exacerbated when emergency credit facilities or loans – such as pro-capitalist government bailouts etc., – become unavailable.

Now fast forward to 2020! Despite the emergency bailouts, a combination of pre-Covid austerity and now the Covid-19 Pandemic has by additional bankruptcies and unemployment;

1, further reduced the numbers of people able to pay for goods (commodities previously overproduced by businesses using normal commercial credit). Furthermore, due to a lack of cash, many individuals have also now maxed out their personal credit;

2, the Covid Pandemic has also; increased the use of business credit by capitalist producers, also because of the shortage of cash available to, and not returning from, the now unemployed, shielding or locked down former consumers.

All this means that on top of financial problems experienced by individuals, another capitalist inspired general financial and economic credit collapse is looming. It will likely be triggered by business-led credit defaults which will accumulate on the surface of the coming crisis. Even more settlement payments will become due and defaulted, even more goods will remain unsold and even more jobs and homes will be lost.

Although the timing and pace of this coming economic crisis is unpredictable, it will nonetheless involve all the countries around the globe, sooner or later. Its economic effects will also be uneven as will be the consequential social unrest that the ensuing hardship will provoke. How the crisis will be positively resolved this time around will depend upon how many people have really understood the system we are living under, and have also studied and understood how best to address its many economic, ecological, social, political and medical contradictions.

Any positive resolution of the coming crisis will also depend upon whether a critical-mass of citizens become non-sectarian activists and help tip the balance of responses in favour of campaigns for a more sustainable, humane, socially egalitarian, post-capitalist future for humanity.

Roy Ratcliffe. (November 2020.)

Biden beats Trump by 76 million, votes to 72 million, to become the 46th President of the United States of America? Both candidates got the most votes ever in such elections. Despite his obvious shortcomings, his cavalier attitude and the vitriol heaped (fairly and unfairly) upon Donald Trump millions more people voted for him than they did in 2016. So even more people than last time preferred his mixture of outspoken ignorance, arrogance and boasting to the more moderate and measured dystopia of Joe Biden, who also received fair and unfair criticism.

Interestingly, over 71 million voters (including women and men of colour) preferred to back the ‘pussy grabbing’, ‘immigrant child-separating’, ‘climate change denying’ and ‘Covid-19 trivialiser’ Donald Trump. Yet, just as astonishing is the fact that over 75 million voters preferred to put ‘crime bill Joe’, the ‘friend of middle-eastern autocrats’ and ‘military juntas’, in the white house seat of power.

In view of their respective track records, perhaps it would be more accurate to consider that among these 146 million plus voters, many millions probably voted for Donald Trump simply because he was NOT Joe Biden and many millions probably voted for Joe Biden simply because he was NOT Donald Trump. There was undoubtedly a large element of ‘fingers crossed‘ hopeful voting – for the lesser of two evils – on both sides of the political divide.

So no substantial surprises then: Another already divided capitalist country remains deeply and aggressively divided. Despite a record-breaking electoral turnout neither of the two pro-capitalist contenders for the election could attract an overwhelming majority on their side. The narrow victory by Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 has apparently been mirrored by a somewhat larger, but still not overwhelming victory of Biden over Trump. Despite the intervention of a global Covid-19 Pandemic, which threatens not only the death of the elderly and vulnerable, but the rapid atrophy of the capitalist mode of production, nothing much else has changed.

Therefore, apart from Covid-19, the fundamental issues are still the same in 2020 as they have been for over two decades. The two-party pro-capitalist system in the USA has for decades sung the same political anthem and to essentially the same tune – but in slightly different musical keys merely to suggest a difference between them. The basic, but increasingly discordant universal capitalist anthem, contains the lyrics, ‘work hard and you will succeed’, along with ‘you are free as long as you obey the law‘, and ‘voting is the way to change things you don’t like’.

Practically everyone knows that none of the above is true whether one party sings it in the key of ‘D’ and the other in the key of ‘A’. In 2016 and 2020 ‘the Donald’ delivered it in F sharp and in 2020 ‘the Joe’ delivered it in B flat. And yet, as Leonard Cohen once intoned; “everyone knows, the boat is sinking; everybody knows the captain lied”. Passengers on the good ship USA, with Covid-19 unequally spread along all first, second and third class decks, have just chosen which lies to believe or disbelieve and who will get to captain the rapidly disintegrating ship of state.

But everybody knows that although there are exceptions, most people will work hard and now never succeed in getting their basics needs; a well-paid, secure occupation and a secure home. Everybody knows that most people obey the law but will never be free of debt, free of government dictate, or free of official harassment if authority chooses to harass. And everybody knows that voting changes little or nothing for ordinary people. Because everybody knows it is the rich and powerful who wield most influence in and on the institutions of power. Everybody knows that for a large majority of all ages, genders and ethnicities, things have got steadily worse.

However, what was new in the USA was that Donald Trump in 2016 struck a relevant chord with an extra verse to his version of the anthem based on ‘draining the swamp’.

The years of accumulated disappointment and disgust with the political class and state bureaucracy by the so-called ‘little people’ who are numbered in millions in the USA, runs deep and will not be removed by this election. So the elation of those who wanted Trump out – and got it – will be short lived for the following reason. The newly elected Captain Joe will be in charge of the same rotten, badly listing, disease-riddled and steadily sinking ship of the western capitalist Imperial line. President Biden will, among other things, be tasked to oversee the patching up, scrubbing clean and limited repainting (a watered down green?) of the same outmoded economic vessel.

The hope of the multi-millionaire elite backers of Joe Biden is that the patching up, scrubbing clean and repainting of the currently damaged and partly quarantined ‘USS. Enterprise’ will be done by a section of the low-paid working classes who have not yet been made redundant and consigned to tented street living, before ‘boldly going forth‘ again.

That is the hope – if Donald Trump can be persuaded to vacate the White House. His attempt to have the 2020 election results legally negated due to alleged fraudulent voting almost mirrors the Democratic Party attempts (2016-18?) to obtain sufficient evidence that alleged Russian electoral interference contributed to Trumps eventual victory. Those past congressional and present legal antics are not simply a question of bad losers having self-indulgent tantrums. They indicate the depth and extent of the determined struggle between the rival economic and financial factions of the elite for control of the future direction of US capitalism – a rivalry which will persist.

For whatever the result of this particular ongoing political charade among the US elites, the underlying economic and financial reality – everywhere – is that the capitalist business model is in tatters. And it is clear why. Constant industrial and financialised profits ultimately require, constant production and constant global consumption. However, both these requirements need high global employment numbers, relatively high global wages or salaries and limited international competition.

Although computerised and automated production methods quickly create masses of products, these same industrial upgrades to production techniques also reduce the number of well paid employees staffing them. Moreover, competing countries employ similar technology and also require fewer well paid employees. The result is more national and international production than can be sold and the classic, built-in symptom of capitalism – relative over-production – kicks in. More goods and services are produced than can be sold at a profit – leading sooner rather than later – to more bankruptcies and unemployment.

Such global relative over-production, now exacerbated by Covid-19 triggered unemployment, is rapidly producing an extreme crisis needing painful resolution. People reduced to prolonged poverty and oppression in large numbers are faced not only with disappointment and disgust at the political puppets in power, but with the stark alternatives of resigned submission or rebellion. In the past such internal crises were resolved by external wars. In fact two world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) occurred as 20th century alliances of severely troubled capitalist countries compelled (conscripted) their unemployed and angry workers to ‘join up‘ and attempt (somewhat successfully) to destroy each other.

However, in the absence of some unhinged leader prepared to risk everything (MAD) Nuclear weapons now inhibit the option of total war. As a consequence, in the 20th and 21st centuries any serious crisis within a capitalist-based country has therefore been confined to civil wars – short or protracted. Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen etc., provide obvious nuanced examples of this outcome in the less capitalistically developed countries. However, any future large-scale economic crisis within the advanced countries is now also likely to be played out – again – in the form of civil wars.

Although there is an alternative to the above outcomes, as long as there is a lack, among sufficient numbers of people, of a clear and convincing non-sectarian vision of an alternative socio-economic system, then despite optimism or pessimism over current and future election results, the future – everywhere – looks bleak.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2020)

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.