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

PAST and PRESENT LABOUR.

Posted on June 26, 2015 by stutteringsteps

This article is meant as a compliment to the one on Productive and Un-productive Labour and the motive for writing it is essentially the same. That is to say it’s purpose is to strip away all the complex superstructural jargon that accompanies the overwhelming majority of economic commentaries and reveal the underlying socio-eoconomic reality of modern capitalism.  Anyone trying to make sense of the many economic analyses put forward since the 2008 crisis, will invariably get lost in this jargon of so-called economic ‘authenticity’. It is a discourse which seems designed to mystify the reader rather than educate them. For example on the current Greek ‘Odious’ Debt crisis one contribution suggested that;

“..this article describes the crisis as a debt-deflation spiral: to the external debt deflation in the economy’s most important sector, merchant shipping, the internal devaluation policy adds an internal debt deflation and sets off a comprehensive and cumulatively intensifying process of macroeconomic debt deflation.” (The Greek Tragedy and it Solution’. Social Europe Occasional Paper. page 6.)

This example, obscure as it is, is by no means the worst, and unfortunately, this symptom is not restricted to just the professional economists, but to those who wish to popularise the subject. Frequently, as in the above-noted contribution, there is not even a glimpse of the real world of working people and production under the obscuring blanket of superficial super-structural economic terminology. Even on the radical left, where criticism of the capitalist mode of production is regularly encountered, the terms too often used analytically are those uncritically borrowed from a bourgeois economic perspective.

Such borrowing is necessary to some degree to engage with the many contradictions of bourgeois economic ideology on its own terms, but in view of the current existential socio-economic crisis, serious criticism needs also to dig below the surface of these self-serving bourgeois categories. Criticism, from the standpoint of the exploited classes, needs to reveal what remains hidden by the terms commonly used and what fundamentals have been ignored. One such term (and category) which is taken for granted is that designated by the word ‘capital’.

DECONSTRUCTING THE CONCEPT OF CAPITAL.

The term Capital is commonly used to designate all those elements, which under the capitalist mode of production are combined together in order to produce and circulate commodities and services. These discrete, but interdependent, elements are usually designated as money-capital, commodity-capital and fixed-capital. However, if we consider more than just the terms and the sub-categories of these terms, but consider how these elements are themselves created, we find they are all the products of past labour. The money-capital used to purchase and maintain the means of production; to purchase raw materials; and to pay for present labour to work on them, are all products of past labour. That is to say, someone, previously made, the means of production and transported them, someone made or extracted the raw materials and transported them.

Even the physical money, (fiat or metallic) or electronic fiscal entries used to initiate and sustain capitalist production have been created by someone before they were made available to the capitalist producer. In other words, this element also – in quantity as well as quality – is the product of past labour. More of that later. Furthermore, money in whatever form it takes for the vast majority of people, is basically a means of exchanging goods and services.  For most people, it is only a moderate store of value. In many cases it is an unreliable store of value because it can be officially or unofficially devalued. So the first fundamental fact is that money by itself cannot make anything, and in most forms it is not really useful for anything other than exchanging goods and services. Secondly, the regular production of goods and services and their circulation, therefore, is the underlying condition of economic activity and the basis for the historic development of money as a means of exchange.

The extent and frequency of the production of goods and services, and their circulation is also the real indicator of the general well-being of any society.  Mountains of cash, or huge vaults of gold, for example, would be relatively useless if there were no reliable supply of goods and services to be purchased and thus exchanged. So the production and consumption of goods and services is not only the underlying economic foundation of all previous human communities and societies, but it remains so under the capitalist mode of production. Digging below the above-noted economists hypebole and jargon, it is obvious that the production of goods and services is only realised by the application of human labour to the raw materials provided by nature.  This is even so when natural materials are extracted and further modified (by labour) to render them suitable for later production.

In addition, it is a fact that every act of present production presupposes an element of past production. For example, the previous making of a tool with which to produce something else; the previous collection and preparation of raw materials, for further construction; or the preparation of soil for the production of plants. In other words, whether we consider the simple production of previous modes of production or the highly complex forms of capitalist modernity, production is always the application of present labour to the results of past labour. The different modes of production historically developed, do not and cannot remove this fundamental basis of all economic activity. The different historical modes have merely changed the means of bringing these two fundamental elements together.

So stripped of the jargon of economists, the owners or controllers of capital under the capitalist mode of production are revealed as not creating wealth, they merely use their money-capital to bring present labour (now salary or wage-labour) into active relationship to the results of past labour (machinery, raw materials, etc) in order for workers to produce it. To put it another way, the capitalist class do not create wealth, they simply enable wealth to be created by the workers who collectively produce the raw materials, the machines, the tools, the buildings etc., and the final goods and services. Yet problematicaly, the capitalist classes only enable production when it is profitable. They also control the type of production and they disable human production when it’s suits them. This fact alone makes their monopoly of the means of production and exchange an existential problem for working people throughout the world.

Furthermore, when they do condescend to enable the application of the present labour of workers to the past labour of workers for new production, they extract a profit (as interest) for providing that service. That profit is the monetary equivalent of the surplus production (or surplus-value) produced by the workers during their working time. And of course it is the accumulation of successive instalments of profit which then becomes new capital. In fact all capital has arisen as the surplus results of the combination of past labour with present labour during the production process. Once this underlying fact is revealed and understood it becomes clear that the capitalist classes are not only parasitic upon the present labour of the working classes, but also parasitic upon the past labour of the working classes. Their existence as a class is based upon this historic exploitation of successive generations of the working classes. Now by controlling the financial institutions of capitalist society parts of this class can – and do – pressure politicians and others to create, unemployment, low-pay and welfare cuts.

DECONSTRUCTING THE CONCEPT OF FINANCE-CAPITAL.

The historic development of the capitalist mode of production has seen the dominant sectors within it change from merchant-capital, through industrial-capital to the present domination by finance-capital. Yet the source of the profits and accumulation of finance-capital is exactly the same as that of the other branches of capital – the exploitative processes of production. They merely lend their money-capital to the other branches of capital (merchant or industrial) and take a share (by charging interest) in the surplus-production (profits) realised in these two branches.

In fact the finance sector of capital owes its original existence to the surplus money-capital arising from the earlier stages of domination by merchant and industrial-capital domination. Large quantities of aggregated dormant capital finding no suitable or profitable industrial or commercial investment, led to the development of purely financial speculation, the growth of interest-bearing capital sources and the creation of fictitious capital – the three interconnected aspects of finance-capital.

The domination of this branch of capital is clearly revealed by the power its current representatives wield over governments and businesses who have borrowed from this sector. Even pro-capitalistic governments such as the Syriza government in Greece, are being threatened with dire circumstances if they do not follow the dictates of the representatives of global finance-capital. These dictates include introducing more socio-economic austerity for working people and further privatisations in order to eventually pay back the loans and the interest upon them. Yet as was explained earlier, these finance-capitalists have already been parasitic upon the working classes in the past and present and now aim to be doubly so.

Thus when the government bond-holding sector of finance-capital use the interest-bearing capital accumulated from the productive efforts of workers to lend to profligate governments, they can via the political class, progressively impoverish entire countries and their populations. This is what has happened to Greece and most other European countries. The citizens of Greece are currently among those in Europe suffering the most from the machinations of this sector of the finance-capital elite. However, other countries are not too far behind this unfortunate country as pliable Governments in Europe and elsewhere bow to their wishes and institute even more austerity and allow further privatisation of public services and assets.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

Thus the economic reality of the modern world is as follows; the accumulated results of the past labour of workers (appropriated and transformed into ‘capital’) is being used to impoverish and extract even more resources from the present labour of working people. In other words, the product of the workers own labour in the hands of capitalists confronts them as an alien and hostile exploiting power; first in the form of the industrial or commercial capitalist employer and; second;  in the form of the political representatives of the bond-holding finance-capitalist class.

This financial sector of the capitalist class are quite prepared to ruin not only working people but other capitalists in their ruthless greed as the recent banking and credit default swap scandals revealed. Any sensible government, even one dedicated to capitalism, would refuse to ruin or subordinate the whole capitalist system for the benefit of finance-capital. Like Iceland in the aftermath of the 2008 banking and credit default swaps crisis, such a government would default on some or even all of such politically engendered toxic loans, jail those who had signed up to them, remove the future possibility of this occurring again and heavily ‘regulate’ this sector.

Whilst any government seriously dedicated to working people and the planet would go even further. It would declare the whole capitalist system bankrupt, close it down, refuse to pay all the odious debts, transfer the assets and main means of production to the communities of workers and citizens, arm them for self-defence and start anew in a post-capitalist reconstruction. Such a government would recognise that the two essential prerequisites for wealth still exist. That is to say the products of past labour, the existence of workers eager to work, much of the raw materials necessary for production, and the extensive public assets and resources. In other words the historic task for humanity is to return control of past labour and present labour to those who do the labour, the working populations.

In any severe crisis, these two necessary resources only need putting together with almost any agreed means of exchange to allow the internal economy to start up. Future external trade can be achieved by commodity and service exchange with other economic communities, with any imbalance adjusted by agreed means. Sensibly this process would be a revolutionary reconstruction, dedicated to production for general need, not individual greed, and with a priority to non-polluting production methods and environmentally sensitive consumption.

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2015)

[See also the article ‘Productive and Unproductive Labour’ on this blog.]

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, dispossession, Economics, Finance, neo-liberalism | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Capitalism versus the climate! (Book Review.)

Posted on June 7, 2015 by stutteringsteps

Book Review.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism versus the climate!

By Naomi Klein.

This is quite a substantial book, well researched and comprehensive in scope. It provides an extensive review of the multifarious ecological and environmental problems created by the capitalist mode of production. It is well worth the read for this detailed review alone. So don’t get me wrong – as far as it goes – it is a fairly good read. However, it’s sub-title is somewhat misleading and it stops well short of going the whole distance required for this important subject. In fact the author lays the blame for what she correctly describes as an existential climate crisis for humanity, not upon the capitalist mode of production per se, but only upon the  neo-liberal stage capitalism reached during the late 20th century. A more accurate sub-title should perhaps read; ‘Neo-liberal capitalism versus the climate‘. Ms Klein in this book therefore seeks to promote a radical reformist perspective rather than a revolutionary one. So in fact the main title is also misleading for even her radical proposals would not ‘change everything’ – only some things.

It cannot be surprising that since 2008 many intellectuals and writers, who have achieved success and status, not to mention enjoyed considerable perks, under the capitalist mode of production, would want this system to continue, albeit in a modified or more regulated form. The reformist modifications suggested by each of the many authors belatedly finding fault with 21st century capitalism, depends primarily upon their particular concerns or the threats they perceive are directed at their interests. As intellectual agents of reformist change, some wish to regulate the banking system, some to rein in the military-industrial complex and yet others to curtail the polluters of the atmosphere and destroyers of the environment. Ms Klein, the author of this book, belongs to the latter group of would be reformers. During the research for the book she writes;

“I began to see all kinds of ways that climatic change could become a catalyzing force for positive change – how it could be the best argument progressives have ever had to demand the rebuilding and revival of local economies; to reclaim our democracies from corrosive corporate influence..” (Chapter 1.)

The key words to consider here are ‘positive change’, ‘progressives’ and ‘reclaim’, for the choice of these three expressions reveal the reformist political position she has adopted. Thus ‘positive change’ is progressive and doesn’t sound too threatening to the ‘establishment‘,  ‘progressives’ simply want positive change (and who wouldn’t?) and ‘reclaiming’ sounds sensible like re-cycling and of course safe. She makes this reformist position quite clear throughout the book. Her avowed purpose as a would be socio-political  ‘change-agent’ is to make a solid case for the establishment of a mass-movement capable of pressurising politicians to implement seriously radical reforms to the existing neo- liberal capitalist system.

Since the air we breath and the weather we experience effects everyone, rich and poor, old and young, male and female, she reasons that this presents a potential opportunity for an exceptional degree of oppositional unity for those opposed to climate change. The many interconnected climatic emergencies which people now face across the globe she hopes, could therefore be ‘a galvanizing force for humanity’. Thus she also writes;

“If enough of us stop looking away and decide that climate change is a crisis, worthy of Marshall Plan levels of response, then it will become one, and the political class will have to respond, both by making resources available and by bending the free market rules that have proven so pliable when elite interests are in peril.” (Chapter 1.)

Starting a sentence with an idealistic ‘if’ allows any number of imaginative speculations to follow including the one chosen by Ms Klein, but its use in this particular context has little or no practical value. The logic she uses to entice the reader into agreement with her reformist aspiration is also fatally flawed. Even if enough people do as she suggests, the political class do not need to ‘respond’ to a crisis or mass protests in the positive way she imagines. With the backing of the state’s armed forces and the support of the powerful and wealthy, the political class, can resist all but a successful revolutionary overthrow of their regime. They have done so in the distant past, the recent past (global Iraq war protests suppressed and campaigns ignored etc) and have given every indication they will do so in the future.

The severity of the developing climatic crisis – as she so eloquently describes it – is indeed existential, but it is only consistently existential for the poor and powerless. The rich and powerful can (and do) use their wealth and power to escape from or protect themselves from almost any level of threat including all the environmental and climatic effects so far encountered. The linking of environmental activism, with socio-economic justice activism, as she advocates to get others on board, if successful, is almost certain to galvanise the elite into an armed and ruthless protection of the existing (and their preferred) mode of production – capitalism! Failing to mention this probability in my opinion is a dereliction of an intellectual change-agent’s duty  to other activists. More of that later.

The author devotes considerable space (particularly in chapter 6) to describing how the major non-governmental environmental protection agencies over decades have developed cosy relations with major polluters in the mistaken belief that working with them would engender quicker solutions. She efficiently and coherently points out how  inadequate and ineffective this has been from what is actually required to prevent catastrophic climate change. She is similarly scathing in chapter 7 about the mega rich individuals such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, who claim to be socially and environmentally aware and positively active. In chapter 8 ‘geo-engineering’ correctly gets short shrift. In contrast she calls for ‘comprehensive policies and programmes’  to ‘make low-carbon choices easy’. She links this to the need for such policies to be ‘fair’ and adds;

“That means cheap public transport and clean light rail accessible to all; affordable, energy-efficient housing along those transit lines; cities planned for high-density living; bike lanes in which riders aren’t asked to risk their lives to get to work; land management that discourages sprawl and encourages local low-energy forms of agriculture; urban design that clusters essential services such as schools and health care along transit routes and in pedestrian-friendly areas;…” (Chapter 2)

It is here (as elsewhere) that typical middle class patronising of working people comes to the fore. How and where working people (urban and rural) are to live in the future has already been worked out for them in considerable detail. Any future decision-making entitlement working people may feel appropriate after the difficult struggle (admitted by the author) waged by them against polluting capital – has already been usurped – at least in theory! According to Ms Klein, such top down planning policies would;

“…also do a huge amount to reduce inequality, since it is low-income people, often people of colour, who benefit most from improvements in public housing and public transit. And if strong living-wage and local-hire provisions were included in transition plans, they could also benefit most from the jobs building and running these expanded services, whilst becoming g less dependent on jobs in dirty industries that have been disproportionately concentrated in low-income communities of colour.” (ibid)

But also clear from this proposal for what she considers a better, more just society, is that inequalities are to remain but ‘hopefully’ reduced. A separate (and lower) category of working citizen is to continue to exist as ‘people of colour’, but patronisingly helped in the future by state-organised improvements in energy, housing and transit. Wage-labour is to continue, presumably providing services for the better off and dirty jobs are to remain but rewarded by strong living-wage levels – whatever they are. In other words this proposal amounts to no more than a pious wish to return to a previous stage passed through by the capitalist mode of production. It was a stage complete with nationalisation of basic infrastructures such as transit, energy and some climate issues. Indeed, in this chapter, and like many other similar voices since 2008, (ie Spirit of 45) she even has a specific period in mind. She writes;

“The truth is that if we want to live within ecological limits, we would need to return to a lifestyle similar to the one we had in the 1970’s, before consumption levels went crazy in the 1980’s…..In the 1960’s and 1970’s, we enjoyed a healthy and moderate lifestyle, and we need to return to this to keep emissions under control.” (ibid)

I must at this point also flag up the frequent use of the royal ‘we’ addressed to the general reader. The use of this all-inclusive term by writers, social commentators and politicians is more often than not an attempt to gloss over the fact that we are not all in this together, nor are we all equally responsible for pollution and climate crisis. In something of a confessional tone, the author admits she was a prolific user of air miles, one of the most polluting forms of transport. Yet from the number of times in the book that she places herself in some far off research location, it would seem she has not broken this particularly eco-damaging habit.

However, in contrast to successful authors, academics, media stars, politicians, business executives and other privileged people, millions of poor people across the globe contribute very little to pollution or climate change. In addition millions of low-paid working people already, walk, cycle or take the bus, have precious few possessions and rarely, if ever get on a plane. As for the 1960’s and 1970’s chosen by the author, millions in the advanced capitalist countries, let alone those of the ravaged third world, did not have a healthy and moderate lifestyle during that period. Indeed, millions if not billions of men, women and children around the planet, in those decades, were struggling (and frequently failing) to get by on a daily basis.

This rose-tinted myth of an environmentally healthy, peaceful, egalitarian phase of post-2nd world war capitalism to my mind is a product of a narrow, white, middle-class consciousness which, to a greater or lesser extent, reflects and embodies their collective aspirations along with their current socio-economic interests. The ‘good old days’ were only really good for the capitalists, the middle-classes and a few fortunate workers and their offspring who managed to get lucky or get a degree. The strike record of that period, the frequent housing crises and the death rates for the poor paint a very different picture.

Returning to the constant use of ‘we’. Nor, under the capitalist mode of production, are we all equally powerfully placed to analyse what is going on in the world and initiate change. In telling us what we must do and how we must do it, she (and others like her) seek to recruit millions of white and blue-collar workers – needed as massive social-movement foot-soldiers – to her reformist project. Yet it is a project which is firmly wedded to the capitalist mode of production and retains and would maintain an elite class of educated individuals who like to do our thinking for us, staff the state etc., (as a new ‘establishment’) and lead us up the garden path – once again.

This glaring contradiction between who does what in this over-producing, over-consuming world is partially recognised by the author but she fails to follow the logic of her own discoveries and therefore avoids seriously confronting them. As she mentions in chapter 3 the problem of climate change is largely one created by the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite. These parts of society not only control and administer the capitalist mode of production – and own the main means of production – but force the type, tempo and duration of production upon the workers. In doing so they also consume the major portion of its one-sided production benefits. To further emphasise her point she quotes the following opinion;

“…the roughly 500 million of us on the planet are responsible for about half  of all global emissions. That would include the rich in every country of the world, notably in countries like China and India, as well as significant sections of the middle-classes in North America and Europe.” (in Chapter 3)

So if this estimate is only reasonably reliable, the cause of climate alteration, degradation and ecological devastation lies not with the working classes and the poor, but with the rich and relatively affluent such as those who jet around the world satisfying their personal and vocational desires and consuming far more than they need. It is these and the 85 people who she claims control as much wealth as half the population of the world who are causing the social, environmental and climate problems faced by humanity. Without these ever-grasping winners in the capitalist socio-production lottery of birth there would not be a climate problem of such growing magnitude – or maybe not one at all!

So it turns out it is not us that’s the fundamental problem – it’s them! It’s not we that need to change – but them and their mode of production.  And the more enlightened of them (including those who will read this book) know they could enjoy their current privileges better with clean air and less severe weather episodes. But they have a problem – and it is a serious one! They need our help to achieve their desired outcome. Hence the inclusive ‘we’ in all their multifarious outpourings! In chapter 11 she even hopes the global indigenous peoples rights campaigns will be a useful vanguard in the struggle against the ‘extraction’ industries pollution. How is that for chutzpah! Those peoples whose ancestors and environments have suffered most by colonialism and imperialism, need to be recruited to help rescue the environments of those who have gained most!

Such help is only needed because most of their elite advantaged associates, if not in a state of absolute denial, will carry on producing and consuming regardless knowing they can continue to enjoy their privileged status and avoid the worst effects of the existential crisis they are creating.

This much is true; a mass movement of immense proportions indeed would be needed to realise the radical reformist programme she and others are variously advocating. Anything less would fail. Making the ‘polluters pay’, as she suggests, means seriously taking on the ‘establishment’! However, the existing ‘establishments’ in all countries of the world are well entrenched, wealthy and powerful. They will not give up their privileged positions easily. Having obtained their wealth and power from the system as it has currently evolved globally they will defend it with all the ideological and material assets at their disposal. So if, as Naomi Klein claims, an enormous and powerful mass movement is necessary to prevent climate Armageddon and in some way can be created, a searching question needs to be asked. Why should it limit itself to fulfilling a middle-class reformist fantasy of going back to the future and stabilising an economic mode of production which is intrinsically and demonstrably unstable?

Why would such a movement – if it came into being – not make absolutely sure that the climate and socio-economic problems would be solved once and for all by changing the mode of production? True also, that solving the climate and global pollution problem, requires a global solution. Climate change, pollution and ecological destruction does not stop at national borders. But solving this and the glaring and obscene wealth distribution characteristics of the capitalist mode of production around the globe, requires more than further structural adjustments reversing the past and present ones. Humanity and the other natural inhabitants of the planet need more than a new version of the Marshall Plan she mentions, which actually jumped-started the shattered capitalist economies of the 2nd capitalist inspired war in the 1950’s – and led to the present western-inspired global economic and military mess. It is the mode of producing which needs changing.

But of course changes in the mode of production require much more than reforms, they require revolutions. The capitalist mode of production itself only came to dominate societies and ultimately the world, by its advocates overthrowing the representatives of the feudal mode of production. Revolutions are necessary because no amount of persuasion and advocacy is sufficient to convince an entrenched ruling elite that their system is now moribund and it is necessary to move aside and allow an alternative to evolve. In spite of overwhelming climate evidence – as eloquently marshalled by Ms Klein for example – enough of them will cling onto power and privileges to make forcing them aside a necessary stage in a process of economic and social reconstruction. Her one brief mention of Karl Marx, however, shows no understanding of his revolutionary-humanist analysis of the capitalist mode of production, its fundamental contradictions or the historic need for it’s revolutionary transformation.

Of course revolutions do not occur simply as a result of mass reform movements – as the historical evidence indicates. Reforms have to be granted or refused by those in power. The supporters of reforms that are refused have to decide what to do next – give up or take on the powers that have refused them. If the campaigners have not prepared mentally and practically for this possibility then the cause – no matter how important – is most likely lost. If the cause (climate change) is truly an existential crisis for humanity, as the author says – and I agree – then there are revolutionary implications, whether we like it or not!

Yet there can be no revolutionary changes in a mode of production until significant sections of the population become engaged in the process. And before the popular masses, move into direct action, there has to be a sufficiently wide-spread and immediate existential crisis for them. That is definitely not the case yet. But that is not all. There has also to be serious splits in the ruling elites and their supporters, in which the enlightened sections of these elites come to the realisation that reforms are inadequate to solve the many systemic problems stemming from the mode of production.

In other words, significant numbers of those within the elite and beneficiaries who have previously supported the system, need to have reached the recognition that it is not the individuals running the system which need to be changed, but the entire mode of production. When this fracture in the ruling strata occurs these individuals can begin to counter the dominant ideology of capitalism and urge the masses to support this revolutionary post-capitalist project and become a facilitative part of its process. Importantly, after the disastrous post-capitalist/state-capitalist attempts in Soviet  Russia, China and elsewhere, this role for intellectuals does and would include the task of warning against the establishment of, (and refusing to become part of) a new elite.

Clearly in 2015, this stage has not yet been reached, as the book being reviewed here (and a number of others) amply demonstrates. Instead Ms Klein along with many others, wishes to harness a mass movement to save capitalism from itself and rejuvenate it in a pre- neo-/liberal form. They wish to go back in order to go forward.  This is essentially the same position as Syriza in Greece but with the central motivational emphasis being on climate instead of Austerity. But societies only revert to earlier forms after massive catastrophes, not before them.  To make her position absolutely clear, in the concluding chapter she asserts the following;

“Meeting science-based targets will mean forcing some of the most profitable companies on the planet to forfeit trillions of dollars of future earnings by leaving the vast majority of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. It will also require coming up with trillions more to pay for zero-carbon, disaster-ready societal transformations. And let us take for granted that we want to do these radical things democratically and without a bloodbath, so violent, vanguardist revolutions don’t have much to offer in the way of road maps.” (Conclusion)

From these seven extracts the core of my criticism can be condensed in the following way. First: An inability or refusal to learn from the revolutionary-humanist ideas of Karl Marx concerning the insurmountable contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. Second: This inability or refusal is accompanied by a failure to learn from the past mistakes of the masses who trustingly followed previous middle-class anti-capitalist intellectuals in the mistaken belief that these knew better than themselves what should come next after an existential crisis caused by capitalism. Third: Despite providing examples, there is an insufficient analysis of the utter failures of centuries of reformist struggles which have tried in vain to make capitalism responsive to the needs of the majority of the populations suffering from its exploitative and oppressive form of production.

The capitalist mode of production is intrinsically incapable of being adapted for the benefit of all!

Roy Ratcliffe (June 2015.)

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