IN – OUT – SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT!

Posted on March 15, 2016 by stutteringsteps

When I was a young chap (before television, let alone the internet) there used to be at celebratory gatherings a silly collective song/dance called the Hoky Coky. Forming a circle the participants of this silly, but harmless, nonsense were encouraged to sing along with the music. The words included the following; “you put your left leg in, your left leg out; you do the Hoky Coky and shake it all about”.  All the parts of the human anatomy were progressively instructed by the compare to be moved toward the centre of the circle and taken out again in time to the music, before ‘he’ (yes usually a he) called an end to the activity or the band stopped playing. To my mind this vintage form of keeping busy by fruitless ‘entertainment’ stands as a cultural analogue to the political encouragement the working classes are now having from the elite. Working people are being encouraged to put their efforts, time and votes into deciding whether to place themselves in and out of a capitalist Europe.

A number of years ago workers were encouraged by a section of the pro-capitalist elite to vote in  – so things will get better. Now they are to be encouraged by a section of the elite to vote out – so that things will get better. Does the hollowness of that promise ring any bells? Should we be trusting any of them? To my mind its another invitation to a political game of Hoky Coky (or should that be Hocus Pocus) dressed up as a question of profound political importance – for everyone! The six-month (or more) debate on ‘IN’ or ‘OUT’ of Europe, dubbed ‘Brexit’, began in the UK in late February 2016 and doubtless will continue to dominate the media in Europe and elsewhere for some time.  Despite the steady disintegration of the capitalist dominated European Economic Community and the crumbling socio-economic collapse of the various nation-states of the world – including the most advanced – the British media, in particular has focussed public attention on the outcome of a fairly useless referendum.

Is it not a remarkable fact that the issue of in or out of the European project has never been one instigated or generated by working people or the poor? There have never been petitions or demonstrations generated initially from working class organisations demanding the joining or leaving of the EEC. The question of being in or out of the economic and political organisation of European states has always been one that the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite have initiated and in some cases sustained. The topic is also one which has divided these elites on the basis of their perceived interests. Some have calculated that they would benefit from being in the ‘club’ others that they would be worse. Each side of this elite-promoted disagreement have sought to involve others including the working classes and poor (and their organisations) as voting fodder to assist whichever outcome they prefer.

In or out of Europe, the world will still be in the grip of a fundamental economic, financial, social, ecological and moral crisis, in which the elite ‘system’ will be used to impoverish the working classes and poor. The only difference to being in or out will be which set of finance-capitalists and bureaucrats will be at the forefront of orchestrating the squeeze on the living standards and welfare of the poorest in society. For this reason ‘in or out’ of the European Economic Community, the working-classes, white collar and blue along with sections of the middle-classes will be fighting not only to prevent further deterioration of their standards of living, but in many cases for their actual lives. The working classes and the poor would do well to concentrate their time and energy in achieving solidarity with each other than solidarity with one or other sections of the pro-capitalist establishment. Because ‘in or out’ our societies will continue to be ‘shaken about’ as the rich and their representatives defend their privileges with all means possible.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2016)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Economics, Finance, neo-liberalism, Politics, The State | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

SECTARIANISM IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR – 2.

Posted on February 3, 2016 by stutteringsteps

Revolutionary illusions and delusions.

Despite the fact that many participants in the Spanish Civil War were convinced  they were engaged in an anti-capitalist revolution, the reality as it unfolded in the 1930’s, demonstrated something different. Events proved in 1930’s Spain that an anti-capitalist revolution was never more than an ideologically inspired illusion for some and a deliberately promoted delusion by others. In most cases  an anti-capitalist aspiration was nothing more than a politically induced fantasy!  In Spain, as elsewhere, during this entire period, the factors necessary for a post-capitalist society were not in existence. In addition, it seems clear that a basic level of understanding of revolutionary transformations was deficient if not entirely missing from much of the ‘left’ public discourse within Spain as well as internationally. To have a chance of being successful, an anti-capitalist revolution requires the following.

First the mode of production must have ceased to represent the needs and aspirations of a majority of those who are part and parcel of its economic, social and political fabric. Second, sufficient socio-economic elements of a new potential mode of production need to have already materialised. Third, any general dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs, has to sufficiently seep into the ranks of the ruling elites to cause serious intellectual and practical splits among them. Fourth, the dissatisfaction among the general population requires the more or less rapid development of a common focus, a generally shared goal, large numbers of activists and crucially a more humane practice than those who are determined to defend the outmoded system.  None of these factors were more than partially fulfilled.

The end result of this lack and the above-noted illusions (along with the divisions yet to be discussed) was not a social revolution but a political polarisation of society and a descent into a bitter civil war.  From very early on the struggles within the Spanish Civil War quickly degenerated into a veritable holocaust of death and destruction. As we shall see, this outcome was a result which the sectarians among the anarchists, communists and socialists played an active part in promoting. It was a tragedy that has haunted the collective memory of Spain for decades and it should not be hard to understand that it still has a degree of contemporary relevance – for sectarian battles continue within the contemporary class war.

A sectarian war within a class war.

It is in the early stages of what became a civil war that the previously noted political differences on the left – including the revolutionary left – became transformed from a battle of ideas into direct physical combat. Some militia groups attached to Anarchist groups and socialist groups began to compete to implement agrarian reform by the forcible dispossession of large landowners possessions. The class war intensified. In other areas of Spain ancient hatreds against economic oppression and exploitation spilled over into assassinations of hated figures whilst other groups in other places burned churches and killed priests. In many places local self governing committees were set up to control roads and communications networks.

As noted, there were socialist groups, trade union groups, anarchist groups and non-affiliated groups who had their different agendas and modes of operation. Such diversity might have been a creative advantage offsetting the fact of no centralised control by involving ever greater numbers in becoming self-active, self motivated and organised. But sadly this was not to be. The dominant sectarian tradition within these left forces, meant that each section thought their ideas and practices were the ‘correct’ ones and should dominate proceedings. Thus began an internecine struggle for resources and domination among the forces opposed to Franco and the nationalists.

Like many other internationalists, (famous and otherwise), the writer George Orwell had joined a brigade as a fighter in the Spanish Civil War. His experiences there led him to make the following observation concerning left infighting, in the book  ‘Homage to Catalonia’ based upon his time there;

“In Barcelona there had been a series of more or less unofficial brawls in the working class suburbs. CNT and UGT members had been murdering one another for some time last; on several occasions the murders had been followed by huge, provocative funerals that were quite deliberately intended to stir up political hatred.” (Orwell. Homage…. Chapter 8.)

He observed that after only 6 months of fighting, the republican government had to resort to conscription which indicated a lack of support and the lack of a clear positive purpose which would encourage a sustained flood of volunteers. He also noted that politically conscious people were far more aware of the internecine struggle between Anarchists and Communists than of the fight against Franco. That direct experience in Spain led Orwell to gradually explore the logic of the system of political sectarianism with full control of state power. Two of his subsequent works, ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’, both in different styles, in literary form, laid bare the internal structure of the Stalinist form of this schismatic aberration.

But this sectarian struggle of militant left political activists against each other was not the only debilitating problem created by political turmoil in Spain. Another dimension of the sectarianism in Spain was in relationship to those who – for whatever reason – stayed neutral or were critical of the ideas and methods of some of the extremist militia men. Paul Preston in his well researched book, ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ noted the following with regard to the make up and actions of some of the armed patrols.

“Thus the armed members of the patrols were made up of a mixture of extremists committed to the elimination of the old bourgeois order and some recently released common criminals. In the main, they acted arbitrarily, searching and often looting houses, arresting people denounced as right-wing and often killing them. As a result, by early August, over five hundred civilians had been murdered in Barcelona.” (Preston. …The Spanish Holocaust. page 228.)

Paul Preston devotes a whole chapter in the above-noted book to this ‘gratuitous’ violence on the left which although, as he points out, was much less than the right violence, was nevertheless considerable. There were also many extra-judicial assassinations by the left of other left personnel. Arbitrary searches, looting and arresting on the basis of denunciations without some kind of transparent, accountable process or proof was no better than what happened under the previous form of aristocratic authority and later under the Fascist. I suggest this behaviour was part of the ‘muck of ages’, noted by Marx!

The muck of ages.

I have elsewhere written on the comment by Marx on the need for the revolutionary class to rid itself of the muck of ages. [See Marx and the Muck of Ages.] Here I will draw attention to another remark Marx made which is relevant to this context. It is with regard to the consciousness of those who see the eventual necessity of revolution against the capitalist mode of production. He argued that;

“A class must be formed…which does not claim a particular wrong, but wrong in general…a sphere of society which claims no traditional status, but only human status…This…as a class is the proletariat. (Marx. Contribution to Critique of Hegel’ s Philosophy of Right.)

In other words the working class, or at least large sections of it, need to understand that to be successful they need to rise above their immediate own class interests. Their own freedom from oppression and exploitation can only be achieved by ending all forms of systemic oppression and exploitation. A revolution against the domination of capital means more than a struggle for their own immediate protection or improvement under the capitalist mode of production. Revolutionary workers need to see themselves as acting on behalf of all sections which suffer under capitalism.

Additionally, a post-capitalist revolution needs to be a thoroughgoing social revolution not a political revolution. In short the working classes seeking to free themselves are in effect representing the future for all humanity.  In this endeavour they must do all they can to represent and defend those unable to defend themselves. More than that they need to do their utmost to gain support not only from those already convinced and committed, but from those who are at first neutral or even for a time passively hostile.

This realisation was clearly not the case for the left in Spain during this period.  Much of the left in Spain seemed not to realise – or not to care – that anyone who they robbed, tortured or killed unfairly or unnecessarily had friends and family. Many of those family and friends were turned against those perpetrating or justifying such arbitrary violence on the left as well as the right.  Such extreme incidents, once set in motion on the left, not only acted as a barrier to some people from joining the anti-capitalist or republican struggle but such ‘dawn-squad’ groups acted as a pole of attraction for those who actually enjoyed unleashing violence.

Indeed as the civil war developed another twist was added to this downward sectarian spiral. When Franco’s side committed bombing atrocities and killed people, the extremists on the republican side wreaked violence not on the guilty, who simply flew away, but on right wing people close by who were innocent of any crime. This indiscriminate violence was mirrored by the Franco-led nationalists who also took revenge on innocent republicans when they could not easily get at the perpetrators of crimes. On the republican side as well as the nationalists side people, were increasingly detained, tortured and assassinated simply because of their political affiliation – even if they had not committed any direct injury or act of aggression.

This inhuman degeneration could not but negatively effect the chances of winning the civil war, let alone transforming the war into a revolution.  The extremists on all sides, left, right and centre saw everyone who did not agree with them as not deserving to be treated as human beings, but as pests to be eliminated. This included turning on each other for the slightest doctrinal difference. Outstanding among these sectarian thugs on the republican side were some of those affiliated to the Stalinist Communist parties, sections of the anarchists, some of the bourgeois liberals and some left socialists. Outstanding purveyors of depravity on the nationalist side were the Falange, the North African brigades,  the Foreign Legion and some Catholic clergy and of course Franco.

So it is a matter of historical record that sectarians on all side’s tortured, raped, stole, lied, cheated, murdered and betrayed. In an important sense it matters little that the side associated with Franco’s nationalists outdid by 3 to 1 the inhumanity of the republican side. The result was that millions who might have been won to a genuine revolutionary transition, stayed neutral, became critical or even in some cases swapped sides. The unfolding of this sectarian depravity and its sustained virulence was one of the important factors which destined the class struggle for a change in the mode of production in Spain to be deflected and thus defeated. The anti-capitalist struggle simply disgraced itself and was deflected away to be replaced by a war between democracy and Fascism.

As a consequence, even the transition to a open civil war was to the disadvantage of the republican side and to the advantage of Franco and the nationalists. In such circumstances and under such a combination of conditions, how could it be otherwise? And given the conditions of Spanish life at the time, most of this disastrous outcome could have been predicted, because 90 years previously Karl Marx, – who some of the sectarians claimed to follow – wrote the following;

“These conditions of life, which different generations find in existence, decide also whether or not the periodically recurring revolutionary convulsions will be strong enough to overthrow the basis of the entire existing system. And if these material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against separate conditions of society up until then, but against the very ‘production of life’ till then, the ‘total activity’ on which it was based), then as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already…” (Marx. German Ideology.)

It needs to be recognised that the revolutionary masses in  Spain, and that includes those who self-appointed themselves to leadership positions, were not clear on the previously noted requirements. They could not go beyond or rise above trying to settle old scores, wreak arbitrary vengeance or satisfy their own particular conditions or sectarian perspectives. It is also clear that the other part of the ‘necessary material elements’, the existing productive forces, were insufficiently developed in Spain at the time to sustain a post-capitalist mode of production. However, the latter requirement might have perhaps been developed if the former (the muck of ages) had not been present. But it was.

Concluding remarks.

So in effect the underlying class struggle element within the Spanish Civil War (as it was during the Second World War) became diverted away from a social revolution against the capitalist mode of production, into its opposite. Despite a profound crisis of the capitalist mode of production working class energies were deflected and directed into a struggle between two tendencies among the national and international bourgeoisie; in fact three tendencies if we include the Stalinist state officials as among those dedicated to continuing capital (state owned) and maintaining wage-labour.

In the 20th century working people, were drawn into a global struggle between the democratically inclined bourgeois classes and the undemocratically inclined; between the State-capitalist Fascist and the State-capitalist Stalinist elite and the Liberal Democratic capitalist state elite. Workers were again drawn into killing each other – on mass – for the purpose of being exploited by one ruling class or another Their fate was to be used as cannon fodder in order to become the wage-slaves of Fascism, Stalinism or Liberalism.

Undeniably, sectarianism played an instrumental role in sowing illusions and divisions among working people. This in turn assisted the bourgeoisie in undermining and diverting of the struggle against capital.  It is a historical fact, still with contemporary relevance, that the relative small size of ruling elites requires them to be able to divide those they seek to conquer and/or rule. The cliché ‘divide and rule’ is no less relevant by being repeated add nauseum. Left sectarianism, once injected into working class struggles, created another division conveniently erected and maintained by the left itself.  The ruling elite in Spain led by Franco were thus materially helped by left sectarianism as well as by the military support provided by Hitler and Mussolini.

Finally, in any serious crisis of the capitalist mode of production, it helps the ruling elite to invent or create an existential ‘enemy of the people’ in order to invite or compel working ‘people’ to fight for the capitalist system rather than against it. The 20th century saw the rise of Fascist state-capitalism and Bolshevik state capitalism both of which served to deflect the struggle against capital into one of support. In the 21st century the evolution of militant Islamic Fundamentalism creates another potential diversion of working class energies and creativity into defending neo-liberal capitalism instead of opposing it. And of course injecting the poison of sectarianism into the working class struggle remains the default characteristic of many of those considering themselves anti-capitalist.

Roy Ratcliffe (February 2016.)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Marx, neo-liberalism, Politics, Reformism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

SECTARIANISM IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR – 1.

Posted on January 26, 2016 by stutteringsteps

In any serious struggles, particularly in the case of wars, the victors invariably have the means to ensure that their version of what took place is the one that dominates the historical record – at least for a considerable time. This is no less true of the Spanish Civil War than any other such comparable event. The victory for Franco and his military, monarchist, clerical and bourgeois allies ensured that for decades the numerous episodes of this battle between contending forces in 20th century Spain, were distorted in favour of flattering the victors. The brutality of Franco’s Nationalist forces was both played down or justified where it could not be absolutely covered up. In contrast the crimes committed by the Republican forces (and there were many) were deliberately exaggerated and frequently fabricated.

The voluminous and partisan right-wing narratives of this struggle continued to be produced until the death of Franco and changed circumstances in Spain allowed a more balanced and nuanced assessment of the upheavals of 1931 to 1936. This alternative perspective has also become considerable and further atrocities, particularly those perpetrated by Franco’s Nationalist side, continue to be uncovered and recorded well into the 21st century. However, most of this additional research and scholarship, welcome as it is, tends to focus on the detail of the many episodes and events within Spain, without sufficient reference to the serious socio-economic context previously created by a profound systemic crisis within the capitalist mode of production.

Of course, it is important to consider the sectarian motives and atrocities committed by the armed brigades and military commanders on all sides. And this article (together with the second; Part – 2) will do so. But it is also important to understand the political upheaval of the Spanish Civil War within the economic context of the 20th century structural crisis of the capitalist mode of production. One consequence of the previously noted national emphasis, (an emphasis much favoured by the pro-capitalists) is that the wider revolutionary implications and problems which this international economic crisis revealed, are also generally missing in most of the literature. The popular interpretation of this struggle as simply being between Fascism and Democracy, is conveniently misleading. This first part of this article will attempt to introduce and briefly explain this missing perspective before continuing to take into account some of the specifics which took place within Spain.

Capitalist crisis and the rise of Fascism.

The development of a civil-war struggle within Spain was part of a much wider economically driven political phenomena which to a greater of lesser extent – arose in all the advanced capitalist countries of the world during that period. Practically every country in the capitalist world witnessed huge class-struggle issues surface as the economic and political crisis deepened during the 1020’s and 30’s. Most of the countries experiencing this crisis also saw the rise of totalitarian movements (and/or political parties), even if they did not always achieve political power, as they did in the European countries of Spain, Italy and Germany. These political symptoms were reactions to the fundamental economic nature of the crisis.

When the capitalist mode of production entered its early 20th century stage of relative overproduction and consequent downturn, the lives of millions of working people reached a critically low ebb. This crisis embraced the whole of Europe and North America. Unemployment and poverty escalated exponentially in all these centres of International capitalism. A radicalisation of working class consciousness and activity proliferated, to a greater of lesser extent, in all the countries effected. This in turn gave rise to a questioning of the capitalist system along with movements aimed at either reform or revolution. However, it wasn’t only the working and oppressed classes who were radicalised by these traumatic events.  The middle-classes, (bourgeois and petite bourgeois) were also radicalised but in directions aimed at protecting the capitalist mode of production, rather than in superseding it.

The later stages of the Spanish civil war, as with the Second World War, both of which were subsequently celebrated as a struggle against Fascism, began as a struggle by workers against the capitalist mode of production. Practically everywhere in Europe and North America, during the crisis period of 1914 to the 1930’s, working people began to mobilise and organise against the capitalist system. Demonstrations, Petitions, strikes and General Strikes proliferated and galvanised workers into questioning (and acting against) the interests of capital. Revolution was  discussed openly as being a necessary method of resolving the problems faced by the employed and unemployed working classes. Indeed, revolution although attempted elsewhere came closest to being realised in Russia, only in this case to be quickly hi-jacked by the sectarian Bolshevik elite.

It became increasingly obvious to sections of the ruling elite that the anti-capitalist focus and aspirations arising among the working classes, needed dampening, extinguishing or diverting. In fact the emergence of Fascism among sections of the ruling elite and middle-classes, created a convenient pretext for all three outcomes. It was a successful diversion in which the talents, energies and lives of millions of working people were expended in defending one international section of the capitalist elite (the Allied forces) against a rival international section (the Axis forces). It was the second 20th century war in which the working classes of each country were driven or led into exterminating the working people of another country.

During this period, the class war against capital was everywhere (from the east to the west) transformed into a military war between the liberal-democratic minded capitalist elites and totalitarian-minded ones. The ensuing global war and the example of Bolshevism completed the dampening down and extinguishing of revolutionary aspirations and energies among the working classes. The added importance of the Spanish Civil War in the context of this extended international economic crisis, and its transformation into a global Armageddon, was that it became something of a dress rehearsal for those political and military actors who later unleashed the Second World War. So to return to the situation in Spain.

[A fuller discussion of this 1920’s and 1930’s economic and social crisis along with the development of Fascism is contained in the following articles;  ‘Capitalism and Fascism’; ‘1914 – 1918 Capitalisms 1st World War’; and 1938 – 1945, Capitalisms 2nd World War.’ All on this site!]

A brief historical background.

For many centuries Spain was a very wealthy feudal country. In fact it was for a time the world’s most dominant super power with a vast empire stretching across North and South America and parts of North Africa. During this period, most of its surplus wealth was created by extracting it from other economic communities across the world in the form of precious metals, minerals and produce which circulated internally and externally in Europe. The extent of this Spanish Empire funded the development of a diverse and powerful elite who invariably consumed without producing and a landowning section not entirely dependent upon peasant agriculture and efficient land use. This elite (along with the wealth) was predominantly spread among the aristocracy, the Catholic clergy and the military. This was a combination which while it remained united made it an immensely powerful social and political force.

However, the gradual loss of this external empire due to the competitive rivalry of rising capitalist and colonialist countries, such as France, Holland and Britain, weakened the international foundations of this Hispanic socio-economic elite. Initially this loss also created some internal divisions within the Spanish ruling classes, but without significantly eliminating their social and political domination. Despite these divergent interests what prompted substantial sections of them to eventually come together were challenges emanating from the accumulated rise within Spain of a bourgeoisie, a petite bourgeoisie, a proletariat and an increasingly militant peasantry. The ordinary citizens who staffed these new economic categories, increasingly spawned by capitalism, began to demand the type of reforms and resources which in effect would curtail some, if not all, of these feudal-style privileges.

It is important to understand that not all these developing bourgeois economic categories wanted the same thing. In general the relatively weak bourgeoisie in Spain wanted conditions which allowed a fuller development of industrial and commercial capital, the petite bourgeoisie wanted freedom of expression and access to careers and career progression, whilst workers and peasants wanted better pay, better conditions and shorter hours. The socialist revolutionaries among the workers (those influenced by the Soviet experiment in Russia and others) wanted to overthrow the clergy, the military, the monarchy/landed aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeois privileges and form a worker’s state. The Anarchists, and those affiliated to them, of which there were hundreds of thousands in Spain, wanted some of the above plus a stateless society of self-organising communes.

This diversity of interests was already producing a mixed cocktail of views and preferences, to which sectarianism eventually added its fatal dose of poison. Under such emerging economic conditions, an astute social and political understanding would have recognised that in order to succeed in any struggle, (reformist or otherwise) tactics would be need to be adopted which played upon divisions within the Spanish elite.  However, such an understanding was missing among most if not all of the forces actively engaged in challenging the then existing state of Spanish affairs. As already noted, the left in particular were divided into competing political groups each of which sought to implement its own agenda post-haste and treated other left groups as obstacles to be overcome.

The (Stalinist) Spanish Communist Party agenda in particular, was being directed from Moscow, and consequently viewed left socialists, Trotskyists and Anarchists as enemies rather than possible allies. The Anarchists saw anyone who supported any form of state as reactionaries holding back the communal stage of the revolution. Whilst, many trade unionists and the POUM considered the Stalinists and Anarchists as part of the obstacle to unity rather than part of the solution. In other words, the toxin of left political sectarianism was ready to flow through the body politic of working class Spain. It just needed the right conditions to allow it to be injected. These were provided by the results of a particular election which triggered the civil war.  This created the conditions which then allowed this poison to infect the subsequent struggle.

An election which triggered the civil war.

An election in 1931 saw the return of a petite-bourgeois government which viewed itself as a republican solution to the many problems faced by the majority of the Spanish people. With a limited reform programme this government and subsequent ones in 1934 and 1936, served to raise the hopes and expectations of the middle-classes and the oppressed but at the same time raised the fears of the existing clerical, military and land owning elite. The new governments passed numerous  basic reforms benefiting the professional middle-classes, the working and peasant classes. These reforms were not the prelude to a revolution, they merely intended to lead Spain belatedly into the 20th century bourgeois world. Nevertheless, this modernising intent was more than the previous elite were prepared to accept. They were so incensed that the military wing of the ruling elite ignored the democratic election results and began to consider plans for a military rebellion.

The petite-bourgeois leadership newly in government, were initially (and naively) confident in their democratic right to govern, a right ostensibly guaranteed by the election results. They viewed the subsequent right-wing military rebellion as illegal under the constitution, and of course it was. However, as all history indicates, elites do not abide by constitutional rules – even the ones they create themselves. If they feel sufficiently threatened and strong enough to resist changes they do not endorse, they do so. This was a lesson the new petite-bourgeois government and their supporters had failed to learn. Reality, as it unfolded during the civil war, was about to teach it to them – big time! It did so the hard way through loss of life, limb, careers, wealth, partners, children and even a decent and identifiable burial place after their eventual execution. Before one or other of this macabre list of punishments befell government officials, it was to fall upon millions of ordinary working people. For some workers who were so punished their crime was to do nothing other than vote for the new government.

For those workers and peasants who actually answered the new and later governments call to fight against the military uprising instigated by Franco and a hard core of right wing military generals, torture, rape and bodily dismemberment can be added to the above grossly inhumane list. And those who answered the call to oppose the military rebellion were many. Originating for the most part after the 1931 elections, numerous citizen militia groups were formed, often affiliated or attached to a political party or trade union and armed themselves as best they could.

Their initial purpose was to either resist or prevent any local or regional military rebellion from spreading to or becoming established in their own particular area. As was to be expected, such grass roots activity created a considerable diversity of aims, objectives and methods of operation. Some of the groups were cautious and moderate, whilst others were aggressive and extremist. However, as already mentioned, far too many, particularly the latter, were also rabidly sectarian.  The divisive and destructive effects of this sectarian degeneration within the civil war struggle will be considered in more detail in Part 2.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2016)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Left Unity, Politics, Reformism, Religion, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

WHAT IS STRIKING ABOUT STRIKING?

Posted on January 13, 2016 by stutteringsteps

In the continuous war between Capital and Labour the working classes have relatively few weapons, whilst the capitalist classes have many. Those possessed by the working classes are mostly weak whilst those of the capitalist class are immensely strong. Collectively the capitalist classes control (or disproportionately influence) the media, the state, the finance system, the legal system, the police force and the armed forces. All of these are decisive and have been constantly modernised. And any of these instruments of class control they can (and do) use individually or in flexible combinations to resist, deflect and punish any working class action against the economic and social system the capitalists benefit from.

In contrast, the modern working classes have only four or five very old and relatively weak weapons with which to defend their wages and standards of living. It is worth considering these weapons in some detail and it is even more valuable to be honest about how effective they have been or continue to be. The first is the demonstration, the second, the petition, the third is the boycott, the fourth is the strike and the fifth is the vote. The first thing that is ‘striking’ about them all is that whilst the capitalist classes have updated and modernised their weapons of class warfare, the workers have not. The latter remain in essentially the same form as when first invented. Considered dispassionately, these five tools in the working class activist toolbox are ancient, blunted or in many cases ineffective.

Petitions, demonstrations, boycotts and voting.

Petitions are effectively begging letters addressed to the powerful in the unlikely hope they might be persuaded to act against their own class interests. Consequently the essence and content of petitions are routinely ignored or sidelined – no matter how many signatures they attract! Even the 19th century Chartist petition for voting rights did not achieve its desired end. Since that time there have been thousands of petitions, millions of signatures and very little to show for them. Modern electronic petitions are similarly ineffective in most cases.

Demonstrations – even mass demonstrations, are likewise routinely ignored and have been so since their invention in the 18th century. Some peaceful demonstrations in the 19th century ended in the massacre of those who attended. In modernity demonstrations are kettled or led into traps, dispersed using water cannon, pepper spray and arrests. Global demonstrations such as those against war in the late 20th century were largely ignored by the global elites. Indeed peaceful demonstrations are in many ways just an extension of the begging letters addressed to a ruling elite in the form of petitions. Violent demonstrations are no better and indeed in many ways are worse. Violence at demonstrations frightens off many workers and gives the establishment and its armed forces the excuse to be even more brutal.

The boycott can still be given a sharp edge and be effective in certain specific and limited circumstances. However, it is rarely, if ever possible to transform it into a tool for a general struggle involving the essentials of life. Boycotting a specific product or service may or may not work if the action is popular, but all products or services cannot be boycotted without a serious case of working class self-destruction or a distinct lack of popularity. All three of these weapons of struggle have consumed much time and energy but apart from indicating the numbers interested in a particular issue have produced very little else. This brings us to the vote.

A great deal of working class hope and energy went into achieving the right to vote in national elections. This weapon was supposed to be the means by which the cruelty, indifference and domination by the capitalist class was to be ended. It soon proved to be an illusion and continues be so in the 21st century. Very few working people have any illusions that voting will radically alter their circumstances. The direct hold of the wealthy over the political system is complete and it is backed up indirectly by control of production, distribution, the state and monetary policy. The power of the latter being demonstrated recently with regard to Greece.

Strikes.

It is an undoubted fact that historically strike action has been the most successful weapon in the working class activist toolbox. The withdrawal of labour from its productive connection with capital impedes the production of surplus-product, surplus-labour, and surplus-value. Consequently this withdrawal of labour not only destroys profit but also potentially degrades the capital tied up in machinery, buildings and raw materials. This is the great strength of the strike weapon and in normal and boom times this weapon can produce good results. However, in times of crisis and overproduction it’s use becomes limited precisely because during a crisis capital in some sectors cannot be employed profitably. But there are two other glaringly obvious problems with strike action as it has been historically practised.

The first problem is that strikes are most achievable with regard to individual industries or enterprises. For this reason they are – in a social sense – a selfish form of action in which little or no regard for the effects the strike may have upon any other workers is considered. It also assumes the permanence of the capitalist mode of production and that each group of workers needs to wield its own version of the strike weapon irrespective of their actual ability to do so. Undoubtedly, this ability is severely restricted under conditions of economic downturn or slump.

The second problem is that strikes were devised and developed in a period when the level of capitalist technology dictated large numbers of workers assembled in one place and engaged in commodity production. Under the capitalist mode of production surplus-value is required to be embodied in some commodity or service which can be sold profitably. In the 21st century the economic situation has changed. In the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America, advances in technology and efficiency mean fewer productive workers are needed by industry and commerce. Stikes are more successful the larger the numbers of workers and the capital involved in the enterprise. Additionally, from the capitalist perspective, workers who do not create surplus-value (profits) are considered unproductive and so strikes are less effective.

Strikes for uproductive workers.

So another problem which now afflicts the use of the strike weapon in the advanced capitalist countries arises due to the relative increase in non-productive forms of labour. The large scale employment of workers in Education, Social Services, Health Services, Fire, Police and Military services mean that strikes by such workers does not hinder the production of capital and surplus-value. Strikes in these sectors do not directly effect profitability or even the incomes of those who manage these services. However, they can, and often do, directly and detrimentally effect other workers. This is renders the strike weapon in these sectors a double-edged one.

A strike in the public sector can directly or indirectly inconvenience or harm other workers and therefore has the potential to divide working class communities. In most cases this undermines the strikes intended purpose and does little or nothing to promote present or future working class solidarity. Since the capitalist mode of production has almost reached the end of its possibilities for global expansion/saturation and in doing so has ruined communities, polluted land and seas and exhausted entire eco-systems this form of economic production is well overdue for change.

The only groups which have the ability (and potentially the motivation) to create an alternative to capitalism are to be found among the working classes. Working class solidarity is therefore crucial to achieving any future post-capitalist mode of production. The contradiction facing the working classes, both white-collar and blue-collar along with anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists, is clear; the most effective weapon they have – the strike – is both less effective in times of crisis and frequently counter-productive in terms of class solidarity.

Thus when white-collar workers such as nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers, or public transport workers go on strike profits are not lost, but patients, pupils, claimants and commuters suffer – often seriously. Similarly when gas, water and electricity workers strike, whether privatised or not, the main sufferers of any consequent cold and deprivation are ordinary working people. A most vivid example of this contradiction in action was in the UK’ s winter of discontent (1978 – 79) when for a time working people lived in the dark, surrounded by refuse and could not even bury their loved ones as power workers, grave diggers and refuge collectors went on strike.

One of the results of this 1970’s sectionalism and dislocation of working class solidarity in the UK, was the election of a right-wing government headed by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. This in turn led directly to a full-scale attack by capital and its representatives upon the organisations of the working class – also on a section by section basis. Not only the organisations but the general living standards of working people were reduced in the period which followed. In fact the working classes in the UK are still suffering from the effects of this misuse of the strike tactic and its attendant sectional strategy.

New forms of struggle?

Whilst the methods of struggle noted above should not be abandoned, their blanket use needs to be critically examined and adjusted where possible and moderated where necessary. However, what is striking about the class struggle in the 21st century is that very few new weapons of struggle – if any – have been forged by the white-collar workers. Despite the higher education needed to gain employment in these sectors they have simply slavishly copied the centuries old strike tactic wielded by the blue-collar workers who were previously crammed by the thousands into factories, mines and docks in order to produce surplus-value.

Yet there are alternatives in existence as well as those which have as yet to be imagined. The ‘Rules for Radicals’ book by Saul D. Alinsky, was an early attempt to suggest new tactics, along with the more recent Occupy Movement, Anonymous and Hackers groups etc. However, such new thinking and new purposes have for the most part failed to take hold among most workers in struggle. Yet more than ever such new weapons of struggle which don’t penalise or detrimentally effect other workers are urgently needed. They need to be forms of struggle which point toward and also lead (however tentatively) to a future beyond capital. There is no other way forward for humanity.

R. Ratcliffe (January 2016)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Ecological damage., Economics, Politics, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

FLOODED HOUSE? Blame the rain!

Posted on December 13, 2015 by stutteringsteps

Once again working class families in England have experienced the destructive effects of flooding in their communities and homes. Not for the first time, communities of terraced and semi-detached houses have seen the lower portions of their homes flooded to considerable depths. Yet again their furniture, fittings and personal items have been completely ruined by debris and sewage. For the third time in a decade, serious infrastructure failures along roads, bridges and electricity supply chains have also occurred leaving people stranded, cold, wet and in considerable danger.

Where was the prevention and preparation given this latest inundation was not entirely unexpected?  Weather and climate specialist have repeatedly predicted the kind of changes in weather patterns which would cause exactly these results. But hey! Don’t blame the elected representative, the officials of the state, or the executives of the power companies for lack of preparation – do want they want us to and – blame the rain!

Blaming this or that aspect of the planet’s ‘natural’ events and climate reactions has become a hackneyed excuse for the pro-capitalist economic and political elite of Europe and America in particular. Leaves are routinely blamed for train delays, hurricanes are frequently blamed for topping levies and now ‘excessive’ rain fall is regularly blamed for spilling over river banks and into homes. Sometimes I wonder if these elites are for real and if they think we are all stupid! Sufficient  funds can be found by them for dozens of £250, 000 ‘smart’ bombs to drop on Syria but not enough can be found for more than a few lorries of ‘dumb’ sand-bags and a few miles of woefully low walling – job done!

I suggest one of the characteristics which for thousands, if not millions of years, has distinguished the human species from other species is the sophisticated ability to predict the likelihood of negative patterns reoccurring and importantly – to take measures to counter them. And indeed extreme weather events, due to the excessive industrialisation of the planet created by the capitalist mode of production has been reliably predicted for decades. So why are there not numerous counter measures in place in the form of considerably more than adequate flood defences? This extreme weather is serious stuff and should attract serious attention.

Actually the failure of the pro-capitalist elite to take measures to adequately counter these events where they effect the poor and the working classes shouldn’t be too surprising. Nor should it be surprising that it Is very rare for the rich and the elite to have their houses and workplaces flooded and still rarer for them to be stranded and left for long periods of time without electrical power and other essential services. This is something which has happened again and frequently will in future in less fortunate areas. In this case, as in many other areas of life, class differences exist. Under this current system, the wealthy are protected, and the poor are neglected.

On an increasingly regular basis across the globe, working class families and communities are suffering from climate change and many other negative side effects of the capitalist mode of production. In the eyes of the elite, working class communities are just not worth protecting, nor are they worth the considerable expense of really 21st century-proof flood barriers. And what is the ‘unnatural’ probable cause of this relatively recent weather-related development? Fortunately that is not too difficult a question to answer.

Since the invention of the steam engine, the internal combustion engine and the electric motor, the complete reliance of capitalism upon fossil fuels has undoubtedly contributed considerably to this state of affairs. Irrespective of any other factors which may be involved, this technological fact harnessed to the economic profit motive has now led to accelerated pollution, rapid resource depletion, incremental changes to global temperatures and erratic weather patterns. The entire economic, social and political life of capitalism is now structurally dependent upon burning fossil fuels for heating, lighting, commodity (and service) production and of course all – forms of transport!

The profits of companies – the economic motive of production under capitalism – are now tied inextricably to the production, and consumption of coal, oil and gas. And despite well meaning attempts to sever this historic link by reform, (including the latest bourgeois climate conference in Paris 2015) it is just too firmly – and profitably – attached to be voluntarily be broken. To maximise profits, the cheapest forms of energy and waste disposal are the default position of capitalist industry and commerce.

As the saying goes; ‘There are none so blind as those who won’t see’.  Or in this case those who choose not to see beyond their investment portfolios and bloated bank accounts.  Yet it is precisely such people who control the hierarchical nature of contemporary capitalist societies, along with the tax revenue. Consequently the multiple side effects of the capitalist mode of production, including dangerous global weather patterns, will continue to disproportionately effect the working classes and poor. That is until the mode of production itself is transcended. Yes it really is as bleak as that!

The political class along with the economic and military elites are just too firmly attached to, and reliant upon, their numerous privileges to question the domination of capital and think for the future of humanity as a whole. The perspective of seriously thinking about the future welfare of the entire planet and its varied human and non-human inhabitants will have to arise in a different class than those with already vested interests in the current mode of production. In the meantime don’t be surprised when flooding occurs again – and it will – that they won’t blame the system but continue to – blame the rain!

R. Ratcliffe (December 2015)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Ecological damage., Economics, Politics, Reformism, The State | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE.

Posted on November 28, 2015 by stutteringsteps

The title of this article is an extremely well-known extract from a criticism of religion by  Karl Marx. On the basis of much of the left confusion and error with regard to a contemporary problem of considerable magnitude, I think this criticism is insufficiently considered. I am referring to the problem of the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The widespread and justified horror with which the brutal targeting and killing of those who do not conform to the ideology of any of the militant Islamic sects, has led to a serious questioning of the fundamental principles of Islam. This has also led in some places to an increasing blanket suspicion of all Muslims on the supposed basis of not knowing which among them will be the next to commit an atrocity or assist in perpetrating one. The stiffling of criticism and the past demonstrations by Muslims who were sufficiently offended by criticism of Islam to burn books, flags, effigies and issue fatwas has added to this conclusion if not the suspicion. So to has the efforts of many Muslims to infiltrate schools and ensure a curriculum dominated by Islamic religious ideology.

The right-wing racists in Europe and elsewhere have jumped upon these facts and in many places directed their hatred and violence against any Muslim they happen to come across or choose to target. As a further consequence of this ‘reaction’ some on the left in a dualistic knee-jerk response to this situation have chosen to defend Islam and coined the term Islamophobia to label all criticism. They are mistaken if they think this is a solution. The term is used to lump all those who criticise Islam intellectually or from a secular or humanist position into one homogenous group along with the racists. This will not do. The contradictions within this latest phase of the capitalist mode of production deserve to be understood on a much more sophisticated level than such crass reductionism allows.

Defending Islam is not actually defending Muslims human rights because Islam in numerous ways oppresses and exploits those of the Muslim Faith. As with believers in Christianity and Judaism, many Muslims are the victims of their religious belief system as well as of western racism. In this case also, not only are their thought patterns interfered with from childhood in order to indoctrinate them into accepting Islamic ideology, but their very bodies are operated upon in the most grotesquely inhumane ways. It is a religious crime to leave Islam, homosexuality is viewed as a crime and atheism is an offence. Women and children in particular are the most oppressed. Female genetal mutilation, (FGM), child marriages with damaging births, honour killings and facial mutilation whether sanctioned by the Qur’an, Sunna, or not are common occurrences within Islamic communities. And not just those under the jurisdiction of ISIL or similar sects.

Furthermore I suggest that for the left to defend Islam is a betrayal of all those who went before us, socialists, communists, humanists and secularists who struggled and suffered to free people from the tyranny of organised religion and the stultifying intellectual hold it had over ordinary people, particularly the working class. It is also a betrayal of the revolutionary traditions associated with the struggle against the capitalist mode of production. Marx, perhaps more than anyone, contributed intellectually to the working class struggle against capital and he had a good deal to say about religion. So it is at this point I think it worth considering more fully his thoughts on this issue along with the role of anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists with regard to it.

Marx on religion.

From very early on Marx confronted the issue of the inversion of reality which permeates religion and makes his humanist position clear; man makes religion; religion does not make man. Religion from this humanist point of view is entirely a man-made ideological construction. It represents an inverted consciousness precisely because the economic and social world of human communities has been inverted. Religious ideology serves the purpose of being a consolation and justification for the existing state of affairs because that state of affairs is in conflict with the essence of humanity. In view of this Marx suggests that;

“The criticism. of religion is the premise of all criticism….Religion is indeed man’s self-consciousness and self-awareness so long as he has not found himself or has lost himself again…..The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly a struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness….The criticism of religion is, therefore, the embryonic criticism of this vale of tears of which religion is the  halo.” (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’ s Philosophy of Right.)

Hence his famous phrase that religion is “the opium of the people” and its compliment; ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature’. Some people need or become reliant upon religion for the same reason that some people need or become reliant upon drugs. It allows them a temporary escape from the unpleasant realities of the existing world into another paradigm – either an imaginary future or drug induced present. Of course religious ideology of the Abrahamic variety also serves an elite purpose. It simultaneously justifies the existence of a hierarchical form of society and replicates that hierarchy within its own institutions, a state of affairs which is conveniently attributed to the wishes of an imaginary male super-being. Of course the continued existence of divided, exploitive societies, of which capitalism is one, will continue to generate the need for such conciliatory and justifying ideologies.

However that does not mean anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists refrain from rigorously criticising religion on the basis that it simply exists, may offend some ardent believers, or could lose them some votes in an election. Such opportunist accommodation to hurt feeling or election results is entirely self-serving and ignores the fact some of those expressing hurt feelings may well be advocating real physical hurt or turning a blind eye when it happens within their communities. On the contrary the statement for a rigorous criticism of everything applies here also. In a series of comments upon the Gotha programme Marx also made the following comment regarding the inclusion of a reference to religious freedom of conscience.

“..the workers party ought at any rate in this connection to have expressed its awareness of the fact that…for its part it endeavours rather to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion.” (Critique of the Gotha Programme.)

Religion is a serious problem.

For humanity, religion is a serious social problem. That is obvious from direct experience. Within each religion, particularly the patriarchal Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, oppressive male practices are given a supposedly supernatural authorisation. That is bad enough. But in addition each of these religions asserts that it is the only true religion and their respective scriptural texts authorise killing in the name of their God. These religions were the human designed products of an ancient period of tribal social organisation when the world was not fully linked economically. This is no longer the case. Capitalism has created a world market and whilst it has done so to extremes and with calculated violence, any attempt to go beyond capital must have a fully humanist perspective in which all peoples are treated without prejudice. International human rights will need to be really put into practice not left as rhetorical aspirations on some tablet or scroll. For this to occur religion will have to be given a back seat and not be given the centre stage in human affairs.

Those adopting such a revolutionary and humanist position need to criticise all religions whilst defending all individuals against racist, sexist or other forms of prejudice and violence. Solidarity is with regard to their human rights not solidarity with any prejudiced views they may hold. It is certainly not our task to defend any ideology based upon ancient myths (for which there is scant or zero evidence) nor to encourage believers to become comfortable with accepting patriarchal practices of domination, discrimination and oppression. On the contrary the revolutionary-humanist criticism of religion in its content and form aims to expose all those conditions in which humanity is debased, exploited, oppressed by the economic system of capital and the ideas it’s elites use to reconcile and justify that system. Revolutionary-humanist criticism points ahead to a future for humanity beyond capital by denouncing the system and exposing all ideas and illusions which stand in the way of such progress. Religion along with nationalist ideologies are precisely those illusory abstractions which do so.

[See also ‘Totalitarianism; ‘Religious and Political’. And; ‘Religion – is – Politics’]

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2015)

 

Posted in Critique, Fundamentalism, Patriarchy, Politics, Reformism, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism, Revolutionary-Humanist theory | 2 Comments

SPLITS IN THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY.

Posted on September 25, 2015 by stutteringsteps

Only minutes after the announcement that Jeremy Corby had overwhelmingly won the leadership contest within the British Labour Party, the divisions within it were quickly exposed. The first snub by a Labour MP to the winner took place almost immediately the results were made public. Mr Corbyn almost as quickly made a speech appealing for unity within the party which, as many before, him he characterised as a ‘broad church’. This term is a useful one for the inclusion of ‘church’ hints at the level of ‘belief’ which is necessary in order to have ‘faith’ in the bourgeois political cathedral of self-deception (Parliament) of which the Labour Party is an integral part. In turn the word ‘broad’ adequately describes the range of bourgeois views contained within the Parliamentary section of the Labour Party – if not the ordinary membership. So it wasn’t too surprising that other shadow cabinet resignations predictably followed. Does this rapid exit by the right-wing mean a space will open up for the left? Not necessarily, but even if it ultimately could we need to be clear on what kind of left.

So before going further, the following general points should be remembered. The parliamentary section of the Labour Party has always had three main tendencies with regard to active participation in and support for the capitalist mode of production. Historically within the Labour Party there have always been left-wing, right-wing and centre groupings competing for policy and organisational domination. This spectrum has served to confuse the fact that these tendencies have all been bourgeois in outlook and dedicated to maintaining the capitalist mode of production, albeit with differing tactical modifications. The spectrum in essence is no different today. In modern times the Blairites have represented the right wing bourgeois elements, who for all economic and social purposes are practically indistinguishable from many in the Conservative and Liberal parties. The left-wing bourgeois elements inside the Labour Party are now represented by Jeremy Corbyn, whilst the modern centre ground of bourgeois thinking is probably best represented by Andy Burnham and his supporters.

Not one of these tendencies within the Labour Party has even bothered to critique the capitalist mode of production, let alone seriously considered the full implications of the destructive domination of finance-capital; a domination which led to the 2008 financial crisis. Whilst, condemning the politics of ‘austerity’ (just one of the symptoms of the current crisis) the parliamentary left of the Labour Party have shown no understanding of the economic and financial origins of this bourgeois policy imposition. The promise of ending austerity is therefore a hollow one and like the one promised by Syrza  leadership in Greece earlier this year, it will amount to very little – or possibly nothing at all! The same fate lies in wait for Mr Corbyn’s well-meaning words about more equality, more democracy and no poverty during his acceptance speech. There has not been one example of these abstract rhetorical principles being implemented beyond a privileged minority in the whole history of the capitalist mode of production.

In an interview during the period of the leadership contest in the Labour Party, one member declared that a rejuvenated Labour Party was necessary because it was ‘the last defence of the working class’. It is interesting that in this member’s mind, the real position of the Labour Party in relationship to the capitalist mode of production is reversed. It only appears to be this if it is assumed that there is no other possible mode of production. In actual fact the reverse is historically accurate. The Labour Party is the last defence of the capitalist class and it’s mode of production. Indeed, this expected role for Labour is hinted at positively by establishment approval for Blairism and negatively by the histrionic outpourings by Conservative and right-wing Labourites, who worry that a Corbyn leadership threatens the safety and security of 21st century British and European capitalism.  This follows similar bourgeois establishment concerns over the demise of Labour in Scotland and the threat posed by the Scottish Nationalist Party to dissolve the union with England and declare independence.  However none of these or other proposed or supposed micro changes by Labour threaten the system of capitalism for the following reasons.

The British Labour Party is seen by practically everyone within it as a ‘loyal’ opposition and the loyalty is universally understood to be to the bourgeois constitutional system and the capitalist mode of production. The almost ubiquitous furore over the lack of singing of the national anthem by Mr Corbyn further illustrates the core concerns of middle England. God save the Queen, for this middle-ground being synonymous with servile deference to the royalist minded wing of the bourgeois/capitalist establishment. Not even a republican minded petite bourgeois politician is supposed to stay true to his or her anti-royalist principles. It remains to be seen how quickly many more ‘positions’ (including the kneeling position in front of the queen) that Mr Corbyn has previously frowned upon will be abandoned. For he will be under sustained pressure from those establishment figures around him who disapprove of even rhetorical criticism of neo-liberal capitalism or its bourgeois affectations. A recent article in People and Nature on the Corbyn election sums up (correctly in my view) the role of the Labour Party as a bourgeois social democratic safety valve for political protest. The author suggested;

“One way to see the defeat of Labour in Scotland and Corbyn’s election a leader,  is as a chapter in the crisis of social democracy  as a method of ruling and controlling the  working class,  a means of locking it into,  and tying it to, the political system that administers and protects capitalism.“ (People and Nature https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/jeremy-corbyn-delivers-a-blow-to-blair-ism-and-now-what/)

Once this role of the Labour Party (as part of a bourgeois social democratic trend) is understood then it becomes clear why so much mainstream attention is being focused upon bringing Mr Corbyn, the imagined rebel, to heel. Hence the extreme establishment tetchiness at even his rhetorical departure from the current neo-liberal consensus and also why he is being censured by much of the media. However, as noted, the right wing and centre-ground representatives of capital within the Labour Party need have no fear, because Mr Corbyn has indicated by numerous statements and appointments, that he wishes to include as many other grades of pro-capitalist opinion and policy as possible. Only the unwillingness of some right wing Blairites has prevented their inclusion in the shadow cabinet.  This said, the divisions within the Labour Party, will not be papered over by potentially lucrative appointments or by appeals to party unity. This is because, as with political parties in general, it remains a party divided by personal ambition, greed and factional loyalty on how to manage capitalism and to individually prosper whilst doing so.

These divisions may or may not be on public display during the coming Labour Party Conference, but they will certainly be there. Meanwhile there is another role that the middle class supporters of social democracy have played which needs to be seriously considered by those opposed to capitalism. During previous crises of the capitalist mode of production politicians from this group has actually assisted capitalism’s survival. When the bourgeois system has been in its weakest and most crisis-riddled stages they have assisted in splitting the opposition to the system and undoubtedly many will play this role again. It is a political role that involves creating illusions, raising expectations, draining energies, dashing hopes, causing despondency and introducing authoritarian measures to combat any revolutionary developments.

In any serious crisis new activists enter the political arena and many are channelled into support for left sounding bourgeois politicians. Their expectations are raised (along with a large section of the public,) their energies are exploited and drained, before sooner or later their hopes are finally dashed by the compromises and half-hearted efforts of the social democratic politicians. This in turn creates despondency among the new activists (and public) eventually leading to inactivity and cynicism among some and more radical ideas and practices by others. It is at this stage that the true bourgeois nature of the bourgeois socialist posers is revealed. In the name of social stability and order (and supported by openly right wing politicians) a section of them invariably introduce authoritarian measures to quell any grassroots solutions which threaten the bourgeois political order and the capitalist mode of production.

In the past this pattern has revealed itself, most clearly and demonstrably in pre-Hitlerite Germany (see ‘Nazi’s: a Double warning from History) and most recently in Greece where a number of these stages have already been reached. In the case of Britain the first stages of this process have already been reached. Already expectations are rising among some of the left, as a recent statement by Left Unity makes clear.

“This a victory for the movement as a whole. It is a victory for all those opposing the welfare cuts, for all those campaigning against war and racism, for all those fighting to defend our NEW and a host of other issues. “ (Left Unity statement. September 12 as published in ‘Links’)

In the previous campaigning activity in support of Mr Corbyn’s election, expectations were already considerably raised and as this Left Unity extract illustrates, his success in becoming leader has raised them even further. This election of a dedicated reformist bourgeois politician as leader of a parliamentary group – who by and large are much less dedicated than him – is hailed as ‘a victory for the movement as a whole’! What a crass piece of wishful thinking that assertion amounts to! Of course just who the movement as a whole is, is not stated. However, if it is meant to include all those who are just opposing welfare cuts, war and racism (ie those sincerely wishing to reform the capitalist mode of production in a positive direction) I doubt whether even a majority would agree that this election represents a real victory for them. If it is meant to include those of us who are opposed to the capitalist mode of production, and wish to seriously go beyond it, then this Left Unity assessment of the value of Mr Corbyn’s election is laughable.

But such wishful thinking can serve a purpose that is perhaps not intended. If the effective role of the social democratic middle classes in government is to create illusions, raise expectations, drain energies and dash hopes, (whether intended or not) then certain things follow. Given the historically warranted disillusionment in politics, these ‘official’ political elements will need allies who will at least sustain and perhaps amplify the early stages. Some people outside the parliamentary fold will be needed to also create illusions, further raise expectations and energise – as many activists as possible – all to support those promising things through parliament. This support at the minimum will require electioneering, canvassing, leafletting, attending public and party meetings all of which will drain energies and almost certainly will result in dashed hopes and cause future despondency. Anti-capitalist activists would be advised to make themselves aware of this possibility and treat critically those outside of the parliamentary fold who choose to amplify the messages emanating from the social democratic supporters of the capitalist mode of production. And that is not the only reason to be critically aware of this possibility.

Encouraging activists to become the dogs bodies of the reformists will almost certainly also have the effect of diverting them away from alternative activities. That is to say away from activities that will be crucial in order to strengthen grass roots organisations. This along with supporting the understanding of ordinary working people and local communities to develop critically is I suggest, a vital part of the work of activists. If successful this reformist political tactic of diverting activism away from grass roots self organisation of working people and their communities will leave these communities more vulnerable to the eventual introduction of authoritarian measures. As mentioned previously when the crisis deepens, authoritarian measures by politicians and state officials, will become necessary in order to prevent non-parliamentary solutions by ordinary citizens becoming a permanent feature of social and economic life.

Roy Ratcliffe  (September 2015)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Left Unity, neo-liberalism, Politics, Reformism | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

WHITHER THE NATION-STATE?

Posted on September 4, 2015 by stutteringsteps

Whether we consider the multifarious problems in Greece, Spain and other countries, or the emergence of radical Islam (as with ISIL), the continuing 21st century economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production has undoubtedly produced a profound political crisis which impacts upon the nation-state. The present crisis is truly one of global proportions and of multiple symptoms. Of course, any systemic crisis in the economic base of the capitalist mode of production, is bound to be reflected one way or another in the socio-political practice and ideology that represents the interests of those who benefit from this system. The ideology and practice which has most accurately reflected the capitalistic interests of the bourgeoisie and petite-bourgeoisie up until the late 20th century, has been that of nationalism. And it is indeed the practice of the bourgeois state and its ideological offspring – bourgeois nationalism – that is currently under serious attack.

The first line of attack upon the nation-state is coming from the representatives of the finance-capital, and multi-national sectors of capitalism. The needs and aspirations of this sector have long outgrown the territorial limitations of the nation-state, but now they aspire to control even more. As a group it is led by an oligarchy who wish to consolidate their global economic and financial domination of everything and this now includes significant ‘outside’ control over the politics and legislation of nation-states. The investment logic of the financial section of the bourgeoisie (the market fundamentalists) increasingly requires the submission of national sovereignty – in all matters related to their global financial interests. They now insist that their appointed fund managers and internally elected boards of directors in the IMF, ECB, for example, have the right to demand that elected governments ignore their electorates wishes, implement and enforce state laws and enter and honour contracts beneficial to their financial wellbeing.

The second line of attack upon the bourgeois nation-state is from extreme Islamic fundamentalism, whose representatives also reject the nation-state form – neo-liberal bourgeois or otherwise. This religious category of fundamentalists recognise only religious boundaries and also want their own form of global domination – more recently designated as (and centred upon) a resurrected Caliphate. These militant religious fundamentalists also insist that their unelected elites and religious oligarchs have the right to demand that elected governments bow to their wishes and implement laws (Sharia) beneficial to their Islamic religious interests. Whilst, the finance-capitalists ruthlessly wield weapons of economic destruction, the Islamists ruthlessly wield weapons of physical destruction. Both seek to govern either directly or indirectly and in pursuit of their respective aims. Both sets of elites seek to destroy each other and seriously harm anyone who gets in between or opposes their intentions.

In each case it is the ordinary people of the world who are suffering and will continue to suffer from these two sources of elite oppression and exploitation. This is done by creating fear of (and actual  loss of) jobs, homes and pensions on the one hand, (perpetrated by the economic fundamentalist IMF/ECB) and fear of (and actual loss of) life or limb (in this case by the religious fundamentalist ISIL) on the other. Both of these increasingly powerful groups wish to control the lives and labour of ordinary people – for their own elite ends. And promoting as well as implementing life threatening actions and ideology is not the only similarity between these two different ideological positions now competing for eventual global domination.

Competing ambitions.

What fuels the ambitions of the finance-capitalist sector is the arrogant assumption that the system they uphold is the best for humanity. Operating as high-level loan sharks, the logic of their economic assumptions and social aspirations are such that they consider themselves entitled to trample on other citizens rights. This amounts to a classic case of persecuting the victims (the working classes) of this current mode of production. The working classes, blue-collar and white, have no say over what is produced, how it is produced, nor do they have a say in what loans their government choose to sign up to. Yet they are the ones that suffer from unemployment by production being moved to low-cost countries or the import of low-cost labour. They are also the ones who suffer most from environmental degradation and who suffer most from taxation and the effects of governmental austerity measures.

What fuels the ambitions of the Islamists is also an arrogant assumption that Islam is the best religion for humanity. The logic of their religious assumptions and social aspirations are also such that they are convinced they are entitled to trample on other citizens rights, including the right to live. The three Abrahamic religions, of which Islam is one, are based upon ancient texts which were formulated during a period when tribal patriarchy dominated societies. Consequently these texts are deeply prejudiced not only against people of other religions but also internally against women, homosexuals and rational-based science. The existence of these ancient writings is also the textual foundation of all forms of religious fundamentalism, including those who kill in the name of God and justify it by those texts.  Followers of all these religions have killed in the name of their God, Islam is just currently the one most openly committed to perpetrating crimes against humanity.

Resistance to either of these two elite-sponsored fundamentalist attacks upon the bourgeois state has been slow to develop and only began to stir in the second decade of the 21st century. This as yet ineffectual struggle to defend the bourgeois nation-state within Europe has commenced among the professional middle-classes, who have reason to fear not only the Islamists and the neo-liberalists, but also the potential for revolution among the working classes and dispossessed. All these three constituencies threaten the ambitions and the middle-class privileged nation-state positions achieved during the 20th and 21st centuries. As yet the token resistance to finance-capital has been to be rhetorically (or in a few cases politically) opposed to neo-liberal ’austerity’. In contrast the resistance to Islamism has been less effective. In pursuit of ‘political correctness’ it has been limited to denouncing ‘killing in the name of God’ as not authentic Islam.  This is an assertion which merely indicates they have not seriously studied the Qur’an or many of the Hadiths.

Although the latter two fundamentalisms (economic and religious) differ considerably on intended outcome, they are both examples of the increasing attacks upon the ideal and reality of the secular bourgeois nation-state.  An additional and less obvious symptom of a threat to the bourgeois state is the above noted increasing disillusion among the working classes of the economically advanced capitalist countries of the world. General support for the nation-state is waning precisely because capitalist and state-capitalist states are increasingly failing their citizens. The development of the neo-liberal phase of capitalism and its attendant crisis has served to erode the supposed ‘contract’ between state elites and their citizens. The social contract to pay reasonable taxes and obey state laws in exchange for economic participation, justice, peace, protection and security has gone. For the middle and working classes, the poor and the dispossessed, taxes have gone up but economic participation, peace, justice and security has gone down.

Failed States.

It is popular amongst some sections of the press and the academic media to point to the failure of ex-colonial states as they descend into either systemic anarchic dysfunction or systemic dictatorial corruption and eventual collapse. Whilst these failures are true, such orientalist/racist prejudice labelling is to miss a glaringly obvious point. In the advanced countries of Europe and North America the technically bankrupt, bourgeois nation-state, as noted above, is also demonstrably failing its citizens. After a previous profound economic and political crisis in the early twentieth century had caused mass unemployment followed by two wars of mutual mass extermination, the bourgeois elite had promised a radically different state and a more egalitarian world in future.  Job creation, welfare provision, education, health, dignified retirement and many other areas of life were to be provided by the bourgeois nation-state.  The capitalist mode of production and its institutional off-spring, the nation-state was in future supposed to be harnessed to these and other worthwhile ends.

In actual fact this promised entitlement for every citizen was never fully realised and for those who did benefit from it, this post-war settlement did not even last for one generation before a new political elite reneged on the promise and simultaneously accelerated a new crisis. This fact has not been lost on those citizens who care to think about it. For the second or third time (two instances In the 19th century and now in the 21st) the economic system of capitalism has proved itself incapable of providing an adequate standard of living for the mass of ordinary people – the white and blue-collar working classes. Ever since its economic domination, the fulfilling of the investment needs of capital for its preservation and augmentation has prevented this possibility. In the 21st century, ‘austerity’ and ‘zero-hours’ are the words chosen by the capitalist system to attack the living standards of the working classes.  Considered open-mindedly, and from the standpoint of the working classes, employed or unemployed – the whole world is full of failed or failing states!

The investment dynamic of the capitalist mode of production, directed by its political representatives – left, right and centre – has created a global form of dystopia.  Whether we consider the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America, or the so-called Third World countries of Africa, South America and Asia, the capitalist system and its state-forms can no longer provide economic or social stability for even its most privileged citizens. Secure careers, secure borders, secure transport, secure pensions, secure streets, satisfactory health care are increasingly no longer a permanent possibility for the middle-classes, let alone the working classes and the poor. Whether we consider, the left reformist programmes of Venezuela or 20th century Europe, the radical neo-liberal programmes of the USA, Germany and the Nordic countries, or the numerous dictatorships around the world, capitalism and the nation-state system only works for a relatively small minority.

Another glaring failure of the bourgeois nation-state has been with regard to the promotion of the neo-liberal stage of capitalist development in Europe and its economic effects. Despite the pious rhetoric, the freedom of capital and labour to move around Europe and the world, for example, was little more than an attempt by the representatives of capital to boost profitability by eroding working class advances in economic and social welfare after the Second World War. It succeeded temporarily within the European Economic Community, as a further example, because under EEC de-restricted regulations capitalists were able to import cheap labour or export capital to places of cheap labour virtually as they saw fit. For decades, this ’open-door’ policy was championed and implemented by capitalists and mainstream politicians of all persuasions. But now we see even more of the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production that are coming home to roost.

The allied global neo-liberal economic policies with their military muscle backing them up have also caused further states to ‘fail’ together with creating massive numbers of dispossessed people – particularly in the middle-east and north Africa. These millions of dispossessed, from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya etc., are now using every conceivable means to flee to safety toward the ‘open-doors’ of Europe. Suddenly the economic and political representatives of capital are having second thoughts about the ‘free movement of labour’ policy  and these distressed individuals and families are now being treated like criminals or bureaucratically herded and processed like cattle in and between what amount to no more than makeshift ‘concentration camps’.

And this mass migration of dispossessed people from war-torn ‘failed states’ toward  European states which are themselves already failing their existing citizens, has grave implications. There are already serious infrastructure problems, in housing, health, social services, education, pension provisions, within European nation-states, all of which will become acerbated  by any serious influx of dispossessed people. So what is maturing now within and without European nation-states has revolutionary implications – at least with regard to the social fabric of European societies. Economically, the current ‘migration’ crisis is no less problematic, for the question of employment under a capitalist mode of production and nation statehood has already been revealed as unsolvable.

The system of capitalist production with profit as its motive has not been able to provide adequate full employment for its citizens in Europe for decades prior to this dislocation of economic and social life in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya etc. There is no way that the capitalist mode of production can employ all those who already need employment within the nation-states of Europe or elsewhere, let alone many thousands more who are also dispossessed and are looking for a safe and productive haven. The funding methods of the state under the capitalist mode of production has likewise rendered it unable to provide adequate, housing, health care, education, pension provision, etc., for its existing citizens, let alone millions more needing these resources as they enter and attempt to integrate into Europe. This poses the following contradictory problems for a struggling humanity: in the future there will three possible forms of socio-political struggle; the first, a struggle to change the mode of production; the second, in the form of a mutually destructive civil strife between the pro-capitalist haves and the have-nots within the capitalist state system; or a third possibility in the form of another serious war.

Revolution, Civil Strife or yet another War?

A third world war may seem an unlikely outcome of what has now become the third most serious systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production. However, bear the following in mind. Systemic crises of relative overproduction were the actual economic tap-roots of the social discontent leading to the outbreak of both the 1st and 2nd world wars. Whilst a globalised  total-war of 1938-1945 dimensions may be unlikely, there is at least the beginnings of a serious possibility of full-scale conflagration in the middle east. The stated intentions of the Islamic fundamentalists centred around ISIL is to deliberately provoke one with the west and the military and political elite in the west are already flexing their armed response muscles again. It needs to be fully understood that wars are particularly good for the capitalist mode of production when in crisis. This is not only because the profits of arms manufacturers benefit directly, but also because political and military elites become totally entrenched in power under conditions of state-regulated war. History has demonstrated that an economic crisis followed by a serious social and political crisis within an allied capitalist ‘camp’ can often be the pretext to ’bring one on’!

An important further benefit of war to the capitalist mode of production in a crisis lies in the fact that workers and materials which have become surplus to labour market requirements (ie by large-scale unemployment) can be enlisted and sequestered to serve as war materials and if necessary as expendable cannon-fodder.  The millions of workers who died during the 1st and 2nd World Wars partly solved the problem of the systems pre and post-war mass unemployment in the 19th and 20th centuries. The subsequent carnage effectively removed large numbers of human beings who might have questioned the capitalist mode of production – and the nation-state which dragged them into war – had they not had their short lives truncated. Of the three possibilities mentioned it is clear that a successful struggle to change the mode of production to a post-capitalist internationalist one would be the most beneficial to collective humanity, the bio-diversity of the planet, its eco-systems and its climate. However, the route to this particular outcome will not be an easy one.

Although humanity is an international species and linked economicaly, if not yet socially, it is also currently conceptually divided on the basis of age, gender, sexuality, nationality, politics and religion.  And of course, agencies in each division are prepared to manipulate and widen these secondary differences for their own benefit. Another dimension of this contradictory inclination of the human species lies in the divisions among the sectarian anti-capitalists, who themselves cling to outdated dogma and manage to cleave their ranks into smaller and smaller mutually antagonistic and disrespectful sects. All this means that the route to an alternative beneficial post-capitalist internationalist mode of production  may well lie through civil strife and further warfare until the repeated folly of both bring about the eventual realisation that the capitalist mode of production, the nation-state and sectarian divisions are the problems for humanity to overcome and not the practical solutions to the ecological and sociological challenges facing us.

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2015)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, dispossession, Economics, Fundamentalism, Nationalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Religion, Sectarianism, The State | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

JEREMY CORBYN’S TEN POINTS!

Posted on August 20, 2015 by stutteringsteps

It can hardly escape anyone’s attention that the British Labour Party’s leadership contest has revealed the existence of deep divisions within this party of ‘left’ reformism. In addition this contest has revealed not only the sordid personal jockeying for elevated political position by some, but also the utter bankruptcy of the political class in general. There has been a total failure to recognise the existential problems caused by the capitalist mode of production in its 21st century neo-liberal stage. They seem to naively imagine that a change in the political complexion of a government can solve capitalisms fundamental contradictions. With one exception, the contestants also simply display incompetence, opportunist posturing and a complete lack of internal solidarity. Jeremy Corbyn with his well earned reputation for activist involvement with numerous issues of injustice, is the exception.

Mr Corbyn, who has been, and continues to be, one of the most principled soft left politicians in the British Parliament, has surprised practically everyone by becoming the front runner to become the Labour Party’s new leader. Yet this cannot be too surprising given that a turn to soft left reformism is occurring in a number of European countries.  Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain are just two other examples of this development. As resistance to neo-liberal austerity motivates the actions of the middle-class and their supporters amongst the politically active, this trend will continue. This process demonstrates the fact that the overwhelming majority of the British middle-classes are still committed to the capitalist mode of production, but have slightly different perspectives on how to manage the system.

These different perspectives are the basis of the current minor differences between the major political party’s in Britain – Labour, Liberal and Conservative. They are also the basis for the 21st century party-political competition for the ‘middle ground’ of voters by these three’one-nation’ political party’s. The ‘middle ground’ being a term to cover the decreasing sections of the electorate who regularly turn out to vote. It is to this middle-ground that the left of the Labour Party, as personified by Mr Corbyn, wishes to appeal and this was revealed by his recent ‘Standing to Deliver’ speech in Glasgow. Echoing many of the policy sentiments if not the actual words of the Syriza leadership, Mr Corbyn, as part of his platform, has produced a ten point list of measures with which he hopes to combat austerity.

THE TEN POINTS.

The measures Mr Corbyn proposes are those he considers will at least provide some of the content of what he characterises as “a new kind of politics: a fairer, kinder Britain based on innovation, decent jobs and decent public services.” It should be apparent from the above formulation that ‘a fairer, kinder Britain, with ‘innovation, decent jobs and decent services’ is not a new kind of political aspiration even though it differs somewhat from Conservative political aspirations. In fact these are  – in essence – the political aspirations pursued by the British Labour Party and its supporters in the immediate post Second World War period. Nevertheless it is worth critically considering the ten points he stands for in some detail. Deliberately vague and abstract as political policies always are they are primarily designed to maximise agreement. The published points are as follows.

1. Growth not austerity – with a national investment bank to help create tomorrow’s jobs and reduce the deficit fairly. Fair taxes for all – let the broadest shoulders bear the biggest burden to balance the books.

Almost every word of this first point could be taken from parts of Syriza’s programme – before their total capitulation to the European financial and political elite. The essence of all bourgeois political positions, left, right and centre, is to propose some form of capitalist economic growth. Yet it is growth that has caused the current economic and financial crisis. The capitalist mode of production has ‘grown’ so much it is no longer sustainable either with regard to the environment it exhausts and pollutes or with regard to employing the mass of workers and dispossessed people it continues to create. Modern capitalist means of production have even destroyed the mass tax base upon which the capitalist state depends for any token semblance of fairness. Since capitalism can only continue to exist on the basis of growth, capitalist forms of growth can only make matters worse – far worse!

2. A lower welfare bill through investment and growth not squeezing the least well-off and cuts to child tax credits.

Point two is directly related to point one and demonstrates the above noted confusion is consistent throughout. A lower welfare bill requires higher levels of employment, which harnessed to the investment needs of capital would create more goods and services which need to be sold in markets already competitively saturated. Even if in some isolated cases (or countries) this could be made to work it would merely put other workers in other countries out of work before or after their industries and governments adopted the same misguided growth strategies. This is not to mention the increasing strain this ‘growth’ would cause on planetary resources, pollution and climate dislocation. Which anticipates point 3. Meanwhile child credits, as with all such ‘subsidies’ are a symptom of ridiculously low wages and unemployment.

3. Action on climate change – for the long-term interest of the planet rather than the short-term interests of corporate profits.

This is another typically vague abstraction with no mention of what action on climate change is to be contemplated let alone implemented.  Yet to anyone not totally hypnotized by the bourgeois point of view, it should be clear by now that the long-term interest of the planet and it human and non-human inhabitants cannot be served by the short-term interests of corporate profits. This crucially important issue cannot be fudged in this way. The contradiction between corporate and financial power and human and planetary welfare cannot be resolved by vague promises of action or reformist political compromises. It really is a case of one or the other: we cannot have both.

4. Public ownership of railways and in the energy sector – privatisation has put profits before people.

Privatisation has certainly put profits before people, but is public ownership (nationalisation by another name) the answer required by the current circumstances? Public ownership does not prevent profits being put before people. Cheaper public ownership transport and energy benefits the profits of the private enterprise sector of society far more than the working classes and the poor. The history of Public Ownership in the UK as elsewhere in these sectors demonstrates this fact as does the existence of a publicly funded road network system – choked up with privatised lorries belching out diesel fumes. Just as importantly nationalised sectors can be de-nationalised (privatised) by government again at some later date – so back to square one for a future generation!

5. Decent homes for all in public and private sectors by 2025 through a big house-building programme and controlling rents.

Decent homes for all remains a meaninglessness abstraction on the basis of the capitalist mode of production. This is because the private sector is linked to finance-capital via the mortgage system, where profits are extracted by land owners, building firms and mortgage providers. This means only those with sufficient surplus income can afford any type of shoddy-built home, let alone ‘decent’ ones. The provision of public sector housing (decent or not) is currently a pipe dream for there is no financial or practical mechanisms for implementing a small programme let alone a large one. Local governments have become the fiefdoms of overpaid executive officers and their political counterparts. The cuts to local government funding also means that rent controls will be inconsistent to say the least.

6. No more illegal wars, a foreign policy that prioritises justice and assistance. Replacing Trident not with a new generation of nuclear weapons but jobs that retain the communities’ skills.

This is another stitching together of meaningless and dangerous abstractions. Is a war which has been legally decided by some ruling elite (including a British elite) something to be advocated and supported? Since when has any war (legally justified or not) NOT been the means by which working people and their families have been decimated on all sides of the conflict? A foreign policy on the basis of capitalist competition for resources and markets simply cannot prioritise ‘justice’. In the history of the capitalist mode of production, it never has and never will. It must prioritise sales and profits!

7. Fully-funded NHS, integrated with social care, with an end to privatisation in health.

The 21st century capitalist state in Britain, as elsewhere, has become so indebted to international finance-capital that it has not the means to fully-fund a National Health Service, let alone provide social care for the young, the disabled or the elderly. To realise such an ambition under the capitalist system would require the capitalist state representatives to declare bankruptcy, repudiate the sovereign debt and start funding these sectors in the manner they need. To do this would require a revolutionary transformation of the way the current political classes view the world and this is not going to happen any time soon. In the absence of this radical solution the best that any of the current political class could offer would be a slowing down of privatisation within the already declining health service.

8. Protection at work – no zero hours contracts, strong collective bargaining to stamp out workplace injustice.

There is already a raft of legislative instruments which are intended to protect workers from the physical and social hazards connected to their occupations, but this does not mean they do not continue to suffer in large numbers from accidents and ill health at work. Most employers are able to circumvent or ignore safety requirements or where something goes wrong blame the victims. This has been the case when previous supposedly ‘left’ Labour Governments have been in power so despite this pius intention, how is it going to be different with Mr Corbyn leading the Labour Party? Workplace injustice is part and parcel of every capitalist enterprise no matter how well it is run. This is because on top of the numerous technical abuses, the worker never receives the full value for the work they do. The profits of a private company are derived from the unpaid surplus-value created by the workforce during every normal working period. How unjust is that?

9. Equality for all – a society that accepts no barriers to everyone’s talents and contribution. An end to scape-goating of migrants.

The first of these aspirations cannot be met in  society based upon different and hierarchical classes. The class-based advantages (or disadvantages) of some sections of a divided society are by and large perpetuated among the offspring of those classes. For the working classes and the poor, there are often insuperable barriers to developing talents and even when developed in  lucky few there are still barriers to employing those talents. The second issue touched upon in this ninth point uses the populist bourgeois designation ‘migrants’. This is a politically convenient designation for along with the associated problem of immigration it places the blame on the victims.

The use of the term ‘migrant’ is already a form of scape-goating for it avoids a full description of their situation. In actual fact there is a full-scale crisis of millions upon millions of dispossessed people throughout the world. These refugees from war-torn, financially or ecologically damaged areas of the world have been dispossessed from their means of making a living and from keeping themselves safe – primarily by the economic, financial or military actions of western capitalist and imperialist governments. So in the medium to long term it is not simply a question of preventing the scape-goating of them but of creating places of safety and a means of earning a living. The present mode of production which causes these problems (and those who support it) cannot do that.

10. A life-long national education service for decent skills and opportunities throughout our lives: universal childcare, abolishing student fees and restoring grants, and funding adult skills training throughout our lives.

Since the inception of popular education in the 19th century it’s ‘national’ purpose and function (read the Parliamentary introduction to the 1844 Education Reform Act.) has been to train the masses in the skills needed by the capitalist mode of production, to school them to accept hierarchical authority and inculcate the ideological assumptions of bourgeois culture. The educational system has never been of or for the working classes and this proposal continues the bourgeois tradition of skills training for the needs of the capitalist mode of production. Yes it is a double irony that students now have to pay in order to become wage or salary slaves to a cancerous system of production, but making it ‘free’ does not alter this primary function.

CONCLUSION.

These ten points are so constructed as to seem obvious aspirations for anyone with a sense of fair play and a degree of antipathy to the injustices of the capitalist system. In this sense they are not the unique insights of Jeremy Corbyn but part of a bourgeois socialist trend. However their generality serves another obvious function and that is to avoid considering the capitalist system as a whole with its class differences, it’s power structures along with the revolutionary implications in order to achieve such positive aspirations. These generic points also serve the function of recruiting the naive activist into supporting the reformist, self-defeating project of trying to save capitalism from its current existential crisis.

It has long been known that some members of the classes which benefit from the capitalist mode of production do not like the fact that the system creates poverty and injustice among sections of the working classes. Accordingly, they genuinely want to alleviate some of the worst symptoms of capitalism, but without altering the causes. This gave rise to what Marx described as bourgeois socialism. He wrote:

“A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarian improvers of the conditions of the working class…the Socialistic bourgeoisie want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom…..It but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.”

Although much has changed since Marx wrote the above, capital still dominates the modern mode of production and along with it the class structures of privilege and domination which arise upon it. The individuals who now champion the modern Bourgeois Socialist perspective are drawn from the new professional middle classes.  Some of them have (by various means) moved up from the working classes and others have moved down from the ranks of the bourgeoisie proper. Whatever, their origin the individuals in this class generally enjoy certain privileges in terms of status and pay under the current phase of the capitalist mode of production. This means they are the modern counterparts of those who are desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the existence of bourgeois society.

The consistent pro-capitalist position of such individuals has been reinforced by the fact that previous attempts to go beyond capital, such as in the Soviet Union, China, the Eastern bloc and even Cuba have been failures  – and in most instances disastrously so. This together with the uncritical posturing of the contemporary sectarian anti-capitalist left has meant few from this new middle-class have bothered to research the causes of the anti-capitalist failures and revive the original revolutionary-humanist position of Marx and the First International.

Only when all possibilities to save capital from its self-destructive tendencies have failed will individuals from this class take up some responsibilities to ally with a struggling working class to go beyond capital and assist them in a revolutionary-humanist direction. It is for this reason that working people – now and in the future – will need to rely upon their own ranks and not be tempted to join the bourgeois socialists in their present and future attempts to save the capitalist mode of production in order to hang onto their privileges.

Roy Ratcliffe (August 2015)

Posted in Critique, dispossession, Ecological damage., Economics, Marx, neo-liberalism, Politics, Reformism, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SYRIZA IMPLODES.

Posted on July 19, 2015 by stutteringsteps

True colours.

It surely cannot come as a complete surprise, that the so-called radicals in the leadership roles of the new Greek political party Syriza, rolled over and accepted the almost fascist levels of economic and financial demands made by the European leaders, upon the Greek people. After all, the middle-class, fake-left in Greece, as personified by Tsipras and Varoufakis et al, were absolutely clear on their joint project. It was to maintain Greece as a subordinate sector of global capitalist system as coordinated by the European Union. At the very best they just wanted Greece to be a moderately viable sector of the European financial investment conglomerate. [See ‘Syriza’s Plan for Greece’ on this blog] What has happened is that the true-colours of this opaque milieu have simply come through.

From the outset, they were deficient in plans and lacked the guts to do what was necessary to achieve even this level of reformist outcome. For this reason, their conduct will only appear as a betrayal to those who had (or promoted) illusions in what this section of the political milieu were capable of and intended to implement. In contrast, those who originally voted Syriza into government, knew that something radical was necessary in order to save the further economic rape of Greece by the finance-capital vultures circling them. They hoped Syriza would be as radical as necessary. The vote in the recent referendum indicated that the appetite for wanting some radical resistance to further austerity in Greece had increased to two-thirds of the population.

With this increasing majority of the population behind them the Syriza team decided to throw themselves and the Greek citizens at the mercy of the globalised financial vultures eyeing up the assets of Greece. Except, as was predictable, there is no mercy and no possible compromises with the representatives of a capitalist mode of production – particularly when it is in crisis. The increases in VAT, the pensions cuts, the further privatisations, labour-market reforms and public service cuts agreed by the Syriza team will ensure that the ordinary working people, white-collar and blue, of Greece will suffer further. Perhaps the only truly amazing thing to witness at that fateful Brussels meeting was that the overwhelming Greek citizen ‘no’ vote was so quickly transformed by Syriza’s political elite into a ‘yes’ outcome. They accepted the terms of those who had lost the vote and rejected the views of those who had given them a mandate.  True colours!

Resignations and sackings quickly followed this coup de main and in fact the patched together compromises and alliances which make up the Syriza party is about to come apart as the party implodes. A bitter two-fold lesson is about to be learned by the citizens of Greece. The first lesson is that the right-wing representatives of the capitalist mode of production are merciless in the policies they promote to  protect the system which currently serves them well. The second lesson is that those who ‘appear’ radical are – more often than not – left-wing representatives of the capitalist mode of production. Two sides of the same bourgeois coin. These lessons need to be learned by all the working people of Europe and the rest of the world for the same fate awaits them as the five-fold crisis of the capitalist mode of production continues to mature.

The demise of the reformist ‘left’.

An important part of the current crisis is in the re-emerging role of the bourgeois state as the capitalist system progresses into the 21st century. The post-Second World War state was reconstructed by the then dominant political elite to create something of a compromise between the needs of working people and the needs of the capitalist classes. That compromise was progressively abandoned during the 1970’s,1980’s and continues as the state was (and is) used to discipline working people and further the needs of capital – particularly the finance-sector. The European Economic Community with its free movement of capital and labour, was the logical extension of that process and had built into it the subordination of the powers of nation-states to that of the EEC as a whole – via its institutions and its monetary union.

The nation-states in Europe are now the means by which global capital, finance and industrial elite and their representatives assembled in Europe enforce their global policies upon the people of these territorial entities. The reformist left in Europe have bought into this new transformation and accepted its supposedly civilising mission. That is one reason why the Syriza leadership could not countenance leaving the Euro. This example illustrates how all the left reformists, well meaning or not, now find themselves astride a fundamental contradiction. On the one-hand they wish via national elections to return their respective debt-riddled bourgeois states to a period of compromise between labour and capital, but are prevented by the accumulated power of capital in Europe which requires the very opposite. As one oligarch (Schäuble) commented at a meeting ‘elections make no difference’.

This means that the project of national-based ’left’ reformist politics is now moribund as they can no longer deliver anything which is not in the interests of global capitalism – as interpreted by its European representatives. Only seriously radical, if not revolutionary measures, (and radical will have to become revolutionary) if this crisis for capitalism is not to be increasingly visited upon the working populations of Europe.  The next in line for the same or similar treatment as Greece are the working populations of Spain,  Portugal and Italy. It cannot have been far from the minds of the European elites that if they gave a compromise to Greece, then the Spanish and Portuguese populations would have expected the same. Hence they had an additional reason for being tough on Greece.

It also cannot be surprising that this draconian result for Greece will throw confusion in the direction of the reformist left in Spain and Portugal as well as all the other countries of Europe, for all of them are in debt-crises of varying magnitudes. Even without the EEC, the indebtedness of all the bourgeois nation-states in Europe and elsewhere, would prevent a reformist solution to the crisis of the capitalist mode of production. Such is the hegemony of bourgeois idealism, that revolutionary perspectives will be slow to enter into the calculations of ordinary working people, yet these will be ultimately necessary for any lasting solutions to the economic, social and ecological problems facing humanity. At least we are in a period in which ‘left’ reformism is increasingly displayed as being on its last legs and useless.

Roy Ratcliffe. (July 2015.)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Economics, Finance, Left Unity, Nationalism, Politics, Reformism, The State | Tagged , , | 4 Comments