IDEOLOGY AND VIOLENCE – 2.

Posted on April 12, 2015 by stutteringsteps

In Ideology and Violence – 1, evidence was presented of the scriptural justifications for violence against the ‘other’ in the cases of the ideologies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The ‘other’ meaning those of other religions, no religion and ‘heretics within. In addition to the extracts quoted, readers were referred to a number of further instances of this propensity for violence emanating within the ‘holy’ texts of the three Abrahamic religions. However, as was then noted, religion is not the only form of ideology that is permeated with violence in the name of some imagined ‘higher power’. This second part will consider the ideologies of Nationalism, Fascism and Bolshevism. This is because all three contain justifications for violence, including torture and killing of those designated as opponents or enemies of the ideological systems created by the respective elites and their intellectual apologists.

NATIONALISM.

The concept of a nation and a nation-state is a very recent creation judged on the scale of recorded history. It is only a few hundred years old and even less in its more developed 20th century form. The ideology of nationalism and its practical implementation as a state were both perfected by the bourgeois class and their supporters. They created relatively fixed, (although in some cases temporarily so), territorial boundaries with a centralised administration. Within these boundaries, they could safely base themselves, protect and expand the property they had acquired by the newly developed capitalist mode of production.

Because the capitalist mode of production is intrinsically oppressive and exploitative, protection was needed from both internal and external threats. The external threat was (and still is) from rival capitalist concerns located in other countries that also needed to secure and control markets for their trade in surplus production and for sources of raw material. The internal threat was from their recently dispossessed countrymen whose only form of economic survival was by this time by low-paid (and impermanent) employment offered by the capitalist classes in commerce, industry and agriculture.

It consequently served the interests of this class to have a set of ideas that not only recognised the sanctity of their capitalist form of economic and social production, but included the idea of defending the national bourgeoisie against threats from a variety of sources. Since they could not do this on their own it included ideas that all classes of the nation should join them in defence of their interests (patriotism) and in annexations to further them. One important and illustrative source of this ideological construction by and for the elite is contained in a codified form within the national anthems of most nations. Immediately below are just three extracts from National Anthems, the first from Britain, the second from France and the third from the USA. All three illustrate the main points being made.

1. Britain. “Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, long to reign over us,….Scatter her enemies and make them fall..Thy choicest gifts in store, on her be pleased to pour..May she defend our laws…”

2. France. “Form your battalions. Let’s march, let’s march, Let impure blood, Water our furrows…Sacred love of the fatherland, Lead, support our avenging arms….Under our flags, shall victory, Hurry to thy manly accents, That thy expiring enemies, See thy triumph and our glory.”

3. USA. ” And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more, Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution. Then conquer we must, when our cause is just.”

These three anthems contain all the core ideological elements of nationalism as interpreted by their own countries intellectuals: the scattering of enemies and blood-letting, the need for all citizens to unite and march to war, enduring the savage battles, killing the enemy, obtaining victory, and pocketing the gifts of conquest. The higher power is the ‘nation’ a complete abstraction. It is notable that the real reason for the fighting and killing within nationalist ideology – defending the privileges of the elite – is omitted. Instead, for the working classes consumption, a surrogate reason for being cannon fodder is inserted such as fighting for a ‘just’ cause or defend one’s home and loved ones. However, what follows should be common knowledge by now.

For centuries nationalist ideology, has been used by the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite, for their own ulterior purposes. They have promoted these ideologies to persuade ordinary working people to overcome their natural humane inclinations and kill, torture and destroy the working people of another country in astronomical numbers. Two world wars (1914 – 1918 and 1939 – 1945) literally killed millions, not to mention all the colonialist wars instigated by European and British capitalists, against rival capitalists and relatively defenceless native communities throughout the world. Even since the end of the Second World War it has been estimated that;

“Britain alone bears ‘direct responsibility’ for the deaths of 4 – 6 million people world-wide since 1945.” (D. Cromwell. ‘Why are we the good guys’ Chapter 3.)

If we add in those deaths as a result of North American and other European nations, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc., the genocidal cull of human beings must be astronomical. And yet as David Cromwell suggests the ideology of nationalism also presents its ruling elites as the ‘good guys’ and all this brutality, if not covered up, is either blamed on someone else or is attributed to ‘unfortunate mistakes’. The power of nationalist ideology to infect and numb any humane characteristics among masses of people, who can then – in one way or another – be involved in demonising, bombing, shooting and torturing other sections of the human family – as occurred in Bosnia etc., is clearly revealed.

FASCISM.

The first thing to understand about Fascism is that it is an extreme example of nationalism in an exaggerated and mutated form. It last fully matured during a period of intense economic and social crisis during the early 20th century. It’s extreme nature came from the fact that instead of the capitalist elite largely controlling the political elite and the working classes (the first via its economic wealth/power and the second via the state) a structural change occured. With Fascism, an armed political elite via the state, controlled both the working classes and the capitalist elite. Under Fascism the armed political elite used the working classes and the state to control the capitalists and they used the capitalists and the state to control the workers. In short it was a political form of totalitarian nationalism, and the ‘higher-power’ is the state.

In this way Fascism, in the mid-20th century created a forced ersatz unity out of the fundamental class conflicts under the capitalist mode of production. These class conflicts had become accentuated due to the depth and breadth of the economic, financial and social crisis of capitalism. In some cases of fascistic totalitarian development, (in Germany for example) substantial capitalist production was directed away from simply exchanging commodities, and was redirected by the political elite into war production. Thus society was increasingly put on a military or militarised footing and its human and material resources were then later used to violently expand the territorial and resource boundaries of the nation so governed.  Instead of predominantly exchanging commodities, the capitalist system was adjusted to predominantly exchange death.

There are many examples of fascist type ideology, some clearly expressed by one of its primary 20th century architects, Adolf Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf. What follows is a particularly informative one, which demonstrates the ideological concept of supposed eternal truths and reclaims an aggressive aspect of ancient elite ideology.

“Man must realise that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. He will then feel that there cannot be a separate law for mankind in a world in which planets and suns follow their orbits, where moons and planets trace their destined paths, where the strong are always the masters of the weak and where those subject to such laws must obey them or be destroyed.” (Hitler Mein Kampf. Chapter 10.)

Hitler’s understanding of the world during that period is revealed and reflected in this part of his polemical rant. We see here that a crude, simplified and ill-informed view of Darwin’s studies as establishing a law of eternal struggle and strife (survival of the fittest) is invoked. This assertion ignored the then known numerous examples of co-operation, beneficial association and symbiosis in the natural world. Hitler demonstrates an arrogant assumption of most elites of that period and later; that the stage of knowledge reached during their lifetime is the pinnacle and end-point of all knowledge. For example, the planetary orbits, popularly thought to be eternal at the time, were invoked to back up his social arguments. We know now, that these astronomical bodies and their motions are not perfect, eternal nor are they unchanging – as with everything else in the universe. Then in the final sentence, we read the resurrection of an ancient elite ideological construct; the weak must obey the strong or – be destroyed.

In such cases Fascism (or nationalism on steroids) became the direct expression of the urgent needs of the capitalist classes to obtain and guarantee, a compliant workforce and territorial expansion. However, in these cases, national leadership did not arise within and rest upon their own bourgeois ranks. As a consequence Fascism had the advantage of being an ideology and practice devoid of any debilitating internal competition and liberal capitalist sentiments – factors which previously inhibited or thwarted its class representatives from dictatorial rule.

Fascist ideology when its advocates finally gained power was then used to justify large-scale violence and killing in the name of order, national unity or some form of alleged superiority – ethnic or racial – as it did in 20th century Germany, Italy and Spain. Fascist logic then followed a trajectory of civil war, conquest and finally global war. This was a case of ideology and violence conspiring to murder by the tens of millions. The involvement of practically the whole of national populations in perpetrating, assisting in, or turning a blind eye to, the most brutal savagery imaginable, is testament to the power of turbo-nationalist ideology (fascism) once it has sufficiently infected a whole people.

BOLSHEVISM.

Like Fascism, Bolshevism managed to attract a large number of followers and supporters, by initially claiming to be interested in practically easing the burdens of those oppressed by the capitalist mode of production. It also falsely claimed to be an updating of the revolutionary-humanist perspective of Karl Marx and many other working class anti-capitalists. Although some of its members and practically all its leaders used some of the ideas of Marx, they did so in a distorted form. At the same time they completely ignored the form and purposes – self-activity and community control of the economic and social processes – of the proposed post-capitalist reconstruction.

There is no question that Bolshevism became a dominant form of ideology among some of the anti-capitalist left during the early period (1917 – 1920) of the Russian revolution in the 20th century. It was the perfected ideology of a patronising political elite who came to control state power on the waves of revolutionary activity in Russia. It was activity propelled by a profound economic, social, military and political crisis of the entire country. Bolshevism at that time was also almost identical with the ideas of its main spokesperson Lenin. Although it underwent significant oligarchic changes under Stalin in the 1930’s, it remained the primary ideological prop of the ruling Soviet elite, until well after his death. In addition to this longevity, well into the 20th century, Leninism and Bolshevism, were accepted by many anti-capitalists, who had broken with Stalin and re-branded themselves as Leninists or Trotskyists.

Bolshevism and its subsequent re-branding as Maxism/Leninism or Trotskyism was (and is) an ideology rationalizing the political rule of a left-wing, supposedly anti-capitalist elite over the rest of society. It was imagined that this form of rule was necessary in order to go beyond capitalism and reshape the mode of production in the interests of the working classes. It was this combination of intention (to go beyond capitalism – ie the aim) with the rigid view of the necessary agency to achieve this (ie the party – the means) that transformed an rudimentary humanistic aspiration into a totalitarian ideology and dogma. This was no accident, as Lenin made clear;

“The dictatorship of the proletariat does not fear any resort to compulsion and to the most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion by the state. The advanced class, the class most oppressed by capitalism, is entitled to use compulsion, because it is doing so in the interests of the working and exploited people.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 31. Page 497)

There are many such examples of Lenin’s insistence upon harsh measures (including physical violence) against those who opposed the direction he and the Bolsheviks had chosen. The one above is interesting because it closely links a higher-power justification for the violence it is using – or intends to use. It can hardly be surprising then that Lenin’s many followers (and loyal Party members) perpetrated varying levels of violence against others and rationalised it in the same way. So important became these two aspects (the aim and the agency) to the ideology of Bolshevism that both were jointly elevated to a ‘higher cause’ in pursuit of which it was justifiable to torture, maim and kill external and internal critics or opponents of this cause.

This brand of imaginary anti-capitalism considered that the end justified the means – any means! In the end the means chosen (as was actually predicted) distorted and defeated the aim. Essentially the same elitist Bolshevik ideology was adopted by Leon Trotsky and by his followers the Trotskyists. Whilst the many later Trotskyist groups, who adopted this Bolshevik ideology, may not have got round to torture and killing in the name of the ‘true’ vanguard, at least one (to my personal knowledge) resorted to beating and physically abusing opponents both internal and external. So Trotsky, depending on the circumstances, may well have approved of such activities, for in pursuit of his version of post-capitalism when in a position of considerable power in the Soviet Union, he argued;

“The labour state considers itself empowered to send every worker to the place where his work is necessary. And not one serious socialist will begin to deny to the labour state the right to lay its hand upon the worker who refuses to execute his labour duty.” (Trotsky. ‘Terrorism and Communism’. Page 153.)

Those masses of people, infected by the ideological virus of Bolshevism, and its intellectual off-spring Stalinism, became so removed from their basic humanity, so sick and depraved that they simply carried out orders to perpetrate violence against critics, or even anticipated such orders. They became enthusiastic freelance perpetrators of all kinds of violence on the basis of the ideology they had by this time absorbed. The modern followers of this ideological tradition may not display all the symptoms of this elitist ideology, but then they have not yet the numbers or opportunities which increasing power and influence might bring. For the moment, their violence is restricted to their polemical distortions and sectarian political activities.

CONCLUSION.

It is not too difficult to conclude from even this brief look at violence at the collective level, that it’s fulfilment necessitates an ideological dimension in order to convince large numbers of people to suppress or suspend their basic humanity and become perpetrators, enablers or applauding bystanders on mass. This is sufficiently true whether the ideology is religious, secular, political, national, tribal or territorial in form. Ideologies not only negate and eliminate the basic universality of the human species, but also invert sound reasoning. They require a fully integrated system of confirmation bias and borrowed thinking to perpetuate them.

Perhaps the habit of forming fixed ideologies stems from the monotheistic past where practically everything important that existed was perceived as being permanent and falling into two opposed categories. However it may have originated, the habit of operating with fixed categories and with dualistic frameworks wrapped up in an ideological package, has been persistent, despite the advances in science and technology. Whilst science and technological understanding, along with personal relationships, advance by contradictions, questioning, scepticism, approximations, failures, serendipity and limited successes – ideology would have us believe otherwise.

Ideologies are also perhaps popular because they save us the trouble of thinking too deeply for ourselves. We just hear or read some bits which seem plausible and then just adopt this ‘borrowed’ package of thinking in the belief those who produce and perfect it know better than us. And ‘belief’ is also a necessary ingredient in the concoction and acceptance of ideologies. Scepticism, criticism, including self-criticism are not only mostly absent within ideologies, but if they are articulated at all, the critics must be marginalised or silenced. This silencing is achieved by all means possible and it can be seen in the content of the seven ideologies considered in Part 1 and Part 2, that the means, include polemical distortion, exclusion, torture, incarceration and assassination.

Of the seven ideologies considered, there is one that currently has the most advantages in promoting violence. This ideology is Islam. The main advantage over the other ideologies is that for devout believers there is no real fear of dying. This ideology promotes the collective belief that those who die in perpetrating violence in the name of Islam, will be transported to a heaven, with everlasting life and be treated as hero’s. This totally unsubstantiated belief is doubly reinforced by the fact that it is a core belief of mainstream Muslims and so it is the ideology of Islam – as a whole – which assists in confirming this belief. A second advantage is that this ideology retains the ambition – even among many moderates – to legitimately rule the communities of the world in a theocratic form of governance.

There is one set of ideas about economic and social life not considered here and these are associated with Anarchism. There are three reasons for this. First of all Anarchism has not as yet had the same global impact of the other seven ideologies considered. Although from time to time, terminal violence has been perpetrated in its name, there is, as far as I am aware, no explicit suggestion or justification for violence against those who are opposed to its ideas. The second reason is that given my definition of ideology in Part 1, Anarchism is not a body of ideas directly reflecting the interests of an elite and justifying the rule of an elite. The third reason is that I currently lack sufficient historical material to fully consider it here.

Some final remarks! First: The vast extent of the natural world provides many examples of individual inter-species and intra-species aggression and even violence within the insect, bird, fish and animal kingdoms. The individuals of one species, among the carnivores, may prey upon other species for food, either collectively or in packs. However, there is only one species that now systematically engages in various forms of collective genocide against members of its own species, eliminating them by the million. That same species – by its most recent technological evolution – is also the only species to systematically destroy the ecology and environment upon which its survival depends. That species is humanity. Uniquely, it is also the only species to have created complex ideas, among which are ideas (ideologies) that encourage them to self-harm on a truly massive scale. Humanity: A species smart enough to get to the moon and back, but – so far – not smart enough to save itself and the planet.

Second: It is well not to imagine that ideologies disappear if they have been sufficiently discredited. If there is still a need for such an ideology among the elite, or those who aspire to elite status, then it will continue in some form or another. In some cases a change of name and the temporary suppression of some more objectionable aspects, can be arranged by those who require its reconstitution. Already ancient Judaic justified violence has become incorporated within 21st century Zionism: Early Christianity has been morphed into Christian Zionism, with renewed violent tendencies. Islamic fundamentalists have again picked up weapons and become the crucifying and be-heading ISIL; Nationalism, morphed into 20th century Fascism.  Within a few decades, Bolshevism mutated into both Stalinism, with its assassinations and Gulags and into Trotskyism with its rampant sectarianism. And in the 21st century Fascism has been re-branded as the ‘Third Position’ and other various radical alternatives to liberal democracy.

Beware of those who peddle ideologies – all ideologies.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2015)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Fundamentalism, Nationalism, Politics, Religion, Sectarianism, The State | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

IDEOLOGY AND VIOLENCE – 1.

Posted on March 30, 2015 by stutteringsteps

For an individual to resort to violence, (as with an individual act of terror) it is only necessary that some individual becomes so enraged and unhinged by circumstances or by some abnormality that he or she strikes out randomly – or at a chosen target. Any subjective justification or explanation for such actions usually relates to the specific circumstances surrounding the perpetrator or the abnormality afflicting that particular individual.  However, for collective forms of violence, (and acts of terror) something more is needed. There needs to be a shared ideology. In such latter cases, the explanation – and also most frequently the justification – lies within the ideology itself which is accepted by the individuals making up the collective.

At this point it will be useful to provide the reader with my own definition of the term – ideology! This is because the usual dictionary definitions are often limited to the barest abstract outlines. So mine is the following: Ideology; a system or body of ideas, opinions, beliefs and ideals adopted by an elite – religious, political, economic or military – to reflect their material and cultural interests. Where possible (and most frequently it is) this body of ideas is spread widely among the communities this elite influence and/or control. For this reason at least a core set of these, ideas, opinions and beliefs become widely considered as eternal truths among those who adhere to the ideology. In other words, ideology also breeds dogmatism.

It becomes clear from a more comprehensive definition that ideologies can become a form of collective illness which afflicts human groups. This intellectual sickness is most clearly shown in cases where ideologies are expressed in their most fundamental form and where the violence perpetrated in their name is taken to the extreme. Ideologies, like cancer can lie dormant for periods of time before destructively breaking out in orchestrated violence.

Until recently the most universally acknowledged examples of ideologically inspired collective violence in the west are those originating with the Nazi’s in Germany and the Stalinists within the Soviet Union. Both of which justified genocide and torture along with assassinations of friends and foes alike in pursuit of their ideologically inspired beliefs and goals. And both of these examples occurred in the 20th century.  They were not the only 20th century examples of ideologically inspired violence, torture and terror, but merely the ones most universally recognised as such.

The most current, almost universally recognised example of ideologically inspired violence and terror has occurred with the emergence of Islamic violence, particularly as witnessed by the actions of Al Quaida and ISIL. The link between these acts of violence and terror and the ideology that inspires them is made absolutely clear by the fundamentalists themselves in their numerous media statements. Although such justifications are denied as valid by moderate Muslims, and non-Muslim appeasers, the fundamentalists statements can be corroborated or negated by checking the sources they quote from their particular ideological source book – the Qu’ran. This is a task that will be done in a later section. Before that, however, this article will consider some historical examples of the link between ideology and violence along with those previously noted 20th century cases.

HISTORICAL EXAMPLES.

In the ancient pre-Christian Greek and Roman world, ideology and violence had a more secular connection. In pagan city-states of the Greek world the violence associated with slavery gave rise to a relatively basic form of ideology based upon the right of the strongest to dominate and control the weakest. This was further refined in many Greek city-states with development of ideological constructs applicable to the elite such as philanthropoi (ruling in a humane way) and the corresponding philadelphia (love of the despot) as considered appropriate for the slaves and semi-slaves. Such ideological constructs were intended to serve the interests of the slave-owning class and by promoting them to ease their constant fear of slave rebellions and uprisings. For example;

“…it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger.” (Archidamus to the Lacedaemonians in Thucydides ‘The history of the Peloponnesian War’. Chapter 2.)

This is no isolated example but the same sentiment is expressed as a “really plain fact” by Xenophon in book 3 of his Anabasis account of the expedition by Greek mercenaries in their attempt to conquer Persia. Further refinements and additions included the creation of mythologies of ‘noble birth’ and procreative descent from the ‘gods’ that were used to justify and back up elite rule by the sword. The metalergic ideology of Plato’s Republic, with his Gold, Silver and Brass explanations for the then existing class distinctions between rulers, auxiliaries and the workers, was another.

The above pagan examples aside it is only with the development of monotheistic religions that we encounter the most inhumane instances of violence justified by a complex ideology based upon a patriarchal religion. And apart from the brief flirtation with monotheism in Ancient Egypt during the 6th year of the Pharaoh Akhanaton, the first fully developed and textual justification for genocidal violence is contained within the original Jewish bible known as the Tanakh. This is virtually the same document as the Old Testament which it was called when it was later appended to the Christian New Testament.

JUDAISM. (The Tanakh/Old Testament)

From the very first book of the Tanakh/Old Testament (Genesis) the ideology of violence in God’s name leaps out from the pages. This is whether it is driving the people of Shinar off the land in chapter 11, dashing people to pieces in chapter 15 or killing those who sacrifice to an alternative God in chapter 22. But indicative of the ideologically inspired and justified violence of the Tanakh and also of contemporary relevance is the following:

“I will send My terror before thee, and will discomfit all the people to whom you shall come….By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and thou shall inherit the land. And I will set thy border from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philestines, and from the wilderness unto the river; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land unto your hands; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.” (Exodus chapter 23 v 27, 30, 31.)

Those familiar with the situation in Palestine since the Nakba in 1948 will immediately recognise that the ideology of Zionism incorporates within it at least a core of the violent ideology of Judaism, from which it stems. Those who are aware of the two 21st century blitzkrieg’s upon Gaza by the Jewish state of Israel, will have this perception confirmed. Little by little, the slow genocide by Zionism directed against the Palestinians since 1948 has by various violent means driven them out of the land they once lived upon and the modern Jews of Israel have indeed inherited this conquered land.

It may seem extraordinary that a three thousand-year old ideology created during a nomadic and pastoral period of tribal organisation can have any contemporary relevance, but of course it can. Since ideologies reflect material and cultural interests, if those interests remain essentially the same, the acquisition of land etc., then the ideology, no matter how ancient, can survive more or less intact. It needs only partial modification or compression to put an extra gloss upon it as occurred in the case of Zionism.

The hold of this Judaic/Zionist ideology upon the Jewish people perhaps also explains why so few of them protest against the vicious violence routinely perpetrated in their name, against the Palestinians of the west bank and Gaza. And also why they have consistently refused to agree to a two-state solution in the historic land of Palestine. Their ideology asserts a God-given right to the whole of the land and they don’t intend to stop driving Palestinians out by whatever means they have at their disposal. These means, most of which are violent, include shells, rockets and bombs with lethal mechanical, chemical and radioactive additives.

Of course the Zionists of the Jewish persuasion are not the only ones to use the Old Testament as their sacred justification for violence in God’s name. Christian Zionists as well as Christians in general subscribe to much of the ideology of the Old Testament as well as the New. Biblical ideology has been used by past Christian elites to justify Colonialism, slavery, annexation of land and all that goes with these brutal violations of indigenous peoples.

Parts of this ideology have also served the purpose of reconciling those communities governed by the Christian elites to the division of their societies into classes – the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate…..the Lord God made it so – as a section of a popular English school hymn asserted. Ideologies can be all-embracing, not only justifying physical violence but also rationalising the existence of inequalities, the former having first created the latter. In other words if it still serves at least partially the interests of the ruling elite in justifying the existing class divisions, then such ideology will be retained.

The full extent of the violence advocated within the Tanakh/Old Testament is rarely appreciated, even amongst many of the most devout believers of these two sources of patriarchal ideology. Nor is sufficiently acknowledged in public by the official representatives (Rabbis and Priests) of these closely allied patriarchal ideologies. For this reason I will present one further example and then a list of the chapters and verses for a small variety of others. First, the example:

“And they warred against the Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males…And Moses said to them, why have you let all the women live?….Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the female children who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers. 31 verses 7, 15, 17 and 18.)

Again we see that not only is extreme violence justified by the ideology of the Christian and Judaic Yehewah/Jehovah, (in the current manner of Islamic extremists) but more than this follows. Permission is granted by Moses, God’s supposedly earthly representative, to capture young female virgins. Is this patriarchal inclusion in the biblical text not suggestive of immanent or future sexual violence against defenceless young females? I suggest it is. For those still in doubt about the ideological justification of violence which I am suggesting permeates the Tanakh/Old Testament, look up a few of the following – chosen from many. Exodus 22 v 20; Exodus 33 v 27; Leviticus 21 v 9; Jeremiah 48 v 10; Deuteronomy 20 v 10 – 14.

CHRISTIANITY. (Old and New Testament.)

For those convinced of a complete change of attitude with the addition of ‘good news’ New Testament ideology to the Old, read 2 Corinthians 10 v 6 ; 2 Thessalonians 1 v 8 – 9; and Revelation 2 v 22 – 28 and 19 v 20 – 21. Recall too the brutal Crusades, the crushing of the Cathars, the Albigenses, the Lollards, the burning of women as witches and violence against religious heretics such as Copernicus and Giordorno Bruno. Also remember that the Old Testament is still an integral part of Christian ideology. However, it is worth quoting a comment from a historian of Christianity to remove any immediate doubts of prejudice concerning the sectarianism and violence of Christianity even during its earliest period.

“Each party discriminated on the other, but neither denies the barbarous scenes of massacre….The Donatists boasted of their martyrs, and the cruelties of the Catholic party sit on their own admission; they deny not, they proudly vindicate their barbarities – is the vengeance of God to be defrauded of its victims? – and they appeal to the Old Testament to justify, by the examples of Moses, of Phinehas, and of Elijah, the Christian duty of slaying by the thousands, the renegade, or the unbelievers.” (The history of Christianity. by HH Milman Volume 2 page 306.)

This pattern repeated itself during the middle ages with its numerous crusades against Muslims and women healers, the infamous Inquisition, the atrocities of Catholicism during the Protestant reformation, and of course the period of Colonialism in the more recent past. Yes of course most (but not all) Christian and Judaic elites in the 20th and 21st centuries have ceased to use biblical ideology to justify killing innocent men women and children. Perhaps for the majority it is no longer necessary, for they now have a more modern alternative ideology to justify killing – nationalism! National security is now routinely invoked by Christian and Jewish elites to justify the killing and maiming of those who in any way oppose their oppression – or just get in the way. The casualties include innocent community members, (men, women and children), who are conveniently mis-classified as collateral damage.

However, before we consider the connection between the ideology of nationalism and violence we need to examine this connection within the third of the Abrahamic religions – Islam. This is because unlike Judaism and Christianity, with Islam, the direct link between religious life and social life has not been entirely broken. The Protestant reformation broke the almost complete hegemony of Catholic influence over economic and social life within the communities throughout Europe and the west who adopted it. Much later, the development of Jewish Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 broke much (but again not all) of the direct link between religious life and social life of the majority of Jews.

ISLAM. (The Qur’an.)

However, the imposition of colonial and imperial rule by the advanced capitalist, mainly Protestant countries over Muslim countries, prevented an indigenous solution to the primacy of religion over social life. In such countries the vast majority of workers remained Muslim and many perceived their oppression and exploitation by western capitalism as a direct attack upon them as Muslims rather than as workers. The failure and subsequent lack of a successful, genuine international workers movement left many Muslim workers with an anti-imperialist agenda, but at the mercy of Islamic fundamentalist ideas and also grateful for Muslim-inspired welfare practices. The logic of such Muslim fundamentalism could not but lead to the resurrection of the concept of future Islamic governance in opposition to western puppet regimes.

Such ideas have been around in one form or another for decades, and the establishment in 1979 of an Islamic Shia-influenced theocratic state in Iran gave considerable impetuous to the attempt to achieve such an outcome. However, this was no humane aspiration and since the public outrages committed by Al Qaeda and the establishment of a Sunni directed ISIL, the full implications for secular based human rights have once again become widely known. The return of Islamic fundamentalism in these forms has therefore doubly highlighted the connection between religious ideology and violence within Islam. The origins of which, we shall see,  lie within the Qur’an.

The Qur’an is considered by believers to be the holy word of Allah dictated to Muhammad and later written down. It is this document to which all convinced and practising Muslims, moderate and extreme, are referred as a guide to what is right and wrong and proper living.  It should be at least one of the basis for judging any disputed points between moderate Muslims and extremists. Moderate Muslims have frequently claimed that atrocities such as those perpetrated by Al Queada and ISIL are not a legitimate expression of Islamic ideology whilst the extremists assert they are. Let us see from an example which deals with those who aparently from very early on in the development of Islam refused to accept its dictates.

“Whenever they are called back to idol-worship they plunge into it headlong. If these do not keep their distance from you,, if they neither offer you peace nor cease their hostilities against you, lay hold of them and kill them wherever you find them. Over such men We give you absolute authority.” (Qur’an. Surah 4  91.)

It is obvious that the reader/believer of the Qur’an is left free to decide what constitutes ‘hostilities’. If sufficiently satisfied that certain actions or ideas are ‘hostile’, then wherever they find them – killing is in order for the ‘ true’ believer – because it is written in the Qur’an, which is deemed to be God’s word. There are almost 200 references to punishments in the Qur’an – some of them by burning in fire – there are also 33 instances of instructions to believers to fight and at least 9 advocating killing non-Muslims and apostates. They are too numerous to list but there follows a few more sections for the sceptical to check for themselves. Qur’an: Surah 4 v 55 – 56; Surah 4 v 150; Surah 9 v 73; Surah 98 v 7.

Only those in a state of denial can refuse to see that religious ideology, at least in the three Abrahamic versions considered here, allows its followers – if they feel so inclined – to perpetrate violence against those who are opposed to the ideology of their founding documents. Indeed, examples also abound of this ideology of violence being carried out in practice. However, as noted earlier, religious ideology is not the only form of ideology which bears within it the authorisation of violence against those who disagree or challenge the ideology or its practical application. Part 2 of this article will be published in April and will consider the ideologies of, Nationalism, Fascism and Bolshevism.

Roy Ratcliffe (March 2015.)

Posted in Critique, Fundamentalism, Religion, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

NAZI’S: A DOUBLE WARNING FROM HISTORY.

Posted on February 22, 2015 by stutteringsteps

An interesting observation was made recently (February 2015) by Yanis Varoufakis, a senior member of the new government of Greece.  In wishing to fulfil the election promises of the Syriza Party to end austerity, Yanis was seeking to influence the elite in Europe into easing the Greek debt burden created by previous governments. In a television interview he pointed out that debt burdens and the humiliation felt by German citizens after the First World War contributed to the rise of Nazism in Germany. He did not hint at the radical measures a left government could take if talks failed, but rather raised the spectre of Fascism. No doubt with an eye to the rise in extreme right-wing parties in Europe, he had made an important point, but only a partially valid one.

In the 1020’s and 1930’s, the last period of severe crisis by capitalism did indeed lead to radicalisations and it did so along apparently opposite ends (left and right) of the European political spectrum. Not surprisingly, a similar phenomenon is reoccurring in the present profound systemic crisis. Syriza itself is part of the leftward trend and is faced with the right-wing Golden Dawn on the streets of Greece and in elections. This pattern of radicalisation is more or less repeated throughout the rest of Europe as both left-wing tendencies and right-wing tendencies are gaining strength and numbers, albeit differentially. It was of course, the extreme right which eventually gained the upper hand, in Germany, Italy, Spain and to some extent in Greece itself – but not without a struggle and not without a defeat for the working classes and the poor.

Germany in particular, probably represented the country where the most radical right-wing solution to the systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production took place. Nevertheless, it must be said that Italy under Mussolini and Spain under Franco, also enabled capitalism to weather this cyclical stagnation phase, turn its inactivity into all out productive/destructive warfare, and by this means eventually lead to a revival once again. The horrors and industrial levels of brutality attendant upon the Second World War are the main sources of the usual bourgeois derived ‘warnings from history’ concerning Nazi and Fascist brutality in general.  Yet in fact saturation area-bombing (incendiaries and high explosives) of civilians and concentration camps (ie Horror) existed on both sides of this capitalist-inspired divide. More draconian still there were; gas chambers and furnaces in Poland on the Axis side along with fire-bombing and nuclear incineration on Germany and Japan by the Allies side.

Predictably perhaps, the usual warnings about these totalitarian solutions to the crises of capital focus mainly upon the end game. As we know it was an end-game in which the state via its political elite on both sides, dictated economic, social and military affairs. A situation of so-called ‘war socialism’ or ‘war fascism’ depending upon the nuanced view taken of these totalitarian developments. Within a very short space of time; industry, management, labour-power deployment, wage levels, profits, production standards, welfare provision, profits, trade unions, were all put under state regulation on both sides of this totalitarian outcome. Furthermore in Germany they tried to solve the crisis by blitzkrieging their way to extra territory and resource acquisition, thereby provoking all-out war.

However, this end game of totalitarianism and total war came after a whole period of unrest and socio-political manoeuvring which led up to it.  It is this process  (only partially hinted at by Yanis Varoufakis) which needs to be considered if humanity is to avoid a repeat or partial repeat of the totalitarian tragedy resulting from the last crisis of the capitalist mode of production. And an important key to understanding how the right-wing in Germany (and to a lesser degree in Italy) came to dominate lies in examining the role of National Socialism (Nazism) and the negative role of the other sections of the ‘socialist’ left – which is the subject of the further paragraphs located under the same title in the black panel above.

R. Ratcliffe February 2015.

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, capitalism, Critique, Economics, Marx, Nationalism, Politics, Sectarianism | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME.

Posted on February 7, 2015 by stutteringsteps

Once recognition of the need to go beyond capital is accepted, it may seem sensible to have a programme of action which acts as a guide toward the fulfilment of such an ambitious project. Many areas of life, for example, are rendered more feasible by breaking down into separate stages the tasks necessary for any planned undertaking. Building a house, designing or re-designing a town centre, growing crops, etc., etc. A list of the applicable areas for such programmatic planning could be almost limitless and for this reason such ideas have entered the realm of common sense even among more simple areas of life – shopping lists for example.  This is probably why it is common among some on the revolutionary left to formulate a programme of action, not simply for limited campaigns, or the year ahead, but for all the supposed stages leading up to a revolutionary transformation of the mode of production.

One such bold programme – The Transitional Programme – has been handed down within the Trotskyist sector of anti-capitalism for decades. It was formulated by its authors, in the ‘belief’ that it could be implemented during the post-Second World War period. It was  clung onto in subsequent years in the hope it could still be made a relevant tool in the periods which were to follow. In both instances this did not happen.  I suggest the Transitional Programme was uncritically accepted by these Trotskyist groups, because it was predominantly a product of their intellectual founder, and perhaps also because common-sense suggested the need for one. But is everyday commonsense, along with a pre-determined programme, sufficient with regard to revolutionary transformations? Later I shall argue it is not. Meanwhile for those unfamiliar with it, a bit of the history of the Transitional Programme follows.

Its origins and purpose.

The Transitional Programme (adopted in 1938), was the result of collaboration between Leon Trotsky and some members of the Socialist Workers Party of North America. It was part of a document entitled ‘The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International’. This document was intended to provide guidelines for a small group of left-wing activists and intellectuals who had broken with the Stalin dominated Communist International along with the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and elsewhere. It was this small group which founded the Fourth International in the belief that by using their knowledge and these programmed guidelines they would become the international leadership of a future world-wide transition from a capitalist society to a post-capitalist one.

The intended purpose of the Transitional Programme was made clear within the  ‘Death Agony’ document itself.

“It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demand and the socialist program of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.” (Death Agony etc., page 114)

The patronising conceptual framework of the main originators of this document is clearly revealed in this passage. It is something Trotsky, among others, shared with the general Leninist concept of a Bolshevik type party vanguard.  Put simply it is a concept which essentially sees workers as little better than sheep in need of good and reliable shepherds. Note in this context, that the author assumes the ‘masses’ need ‘help’ in their daily struggles and the type of help they need has already been assumed and anticipated by the author. It is ‘find a bridge’ between their present circumstances and the ‘conquest of power’.  Part of this supposedly helpful bridge is provided by the authors,  in the form of a ‘system of transitional demands’.

Leaving aside the more obvious condescending assumptions within this view we can see that the question of the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the construction of an alternative is dependent upon a vanguard of leaders who have carefully thought about it beforehand and reduced its early stages to a system of transitional demands and programmes of development. In other words it is a systems approach to revolution.  That is to say in the same manner as adopted by the Bolsheviks in 1917 Russia, with its five-year plans etc. The decay and collapse of one socio-economic system and its replacement by another, is condensed by the middle-class intellect of Trotsky and his Bolshevised collaborators into a question of presenting a programmatic system for everyone – including themselves – to follow and implement.

These allegedly revolutionary or pre-revolutionary demands included the following; a ‘sliding scale of wages’; a ‘minimum wage’; a ‘sliding scale of working hours’; the ‘right to work’; ‘decent living standards’; ‘abolition of business secrets’; ‘expropriation (nationalisation) of key industries and banks’; ‘nationalisation of land’; ‘a system of state credit’; ‘a scheme of public works’; and ‘workers control of industry’.   The peculiar logic inherent in this ‘programme’ envisioned that in the day to day class struggle to achieve these demands workers would become revolutionary-minded, join revolutionary parties as foot soldiers and eventually seize control of state power. Led of course by the Fourth International members as the workers political, military and economic vanguard. Informing the production of the Transitional Programme was a type of logic inspired more by hope or fantasy than 20th century reality.

However, there was (and is) another pattern of logic flowing from such a programme of demands. Addressing demands to the representatives of capital in control of state power is to accept the status quo of an existing ‘authority’ who need to be persuaded (or forced) to grant those demands. Such demands do not point beyond the system of capital, but logically engender reformist perspectives. Such demands by and for working people, de-facto require an ‘authority’ over society which is capable of granting them. Who would this be? For example, the demand for a sliding scale of wages and a minimum wage also assumes the naturalness of the wages system which for reformists only lacks a bourgeois sense of fair play in the existing capitalist mode of production.  It amounts to a demand (addressed to whom?) to be exploited at a steady rate, rather than a variable one. Such demands are petite bourgeois policy demands, not ones transitional to a post-capitalist mode of production. In fact they are policies, if granted, are only ‘transitional’ to a more ‘liberal‘ form of capitalism.

And this is exactly what occurred after the 2nd World War, without any particular effort by the 4th International or the working class. The fact that the many of these programmatic policy ‘achievement’s’ could be introduced (and were) by the victorious capitalists – without challenging the basis of the capitalist mode of production – seemed to have escaped the reasoning of the originators of this transitional programme. In fact the easy granting of these ‘benefits’ for workers (and a few more in addition) did allow the transition to a new phase of stabilised welfare-state capitalism, which is now in a neo-liberal phase of crisis. This mid-20th century period provided the necessary foundation to further rapid capital accumulation, a strengthening of the capitalist state and an increased bourgeois ideological hold over working peoples understanding.

This ideological hold exists to such an extent that, despite the current systemic crisis of capital, 20th century welfare-state capitalism is seen by the majority of workers and left intellectuals, as something to aspire to and return to. Such programmatic demands upon the capitalist mode of production and their realisation, were in fact the means of saving capitalism from itself. This was achieved by harnessing working people’s energies and commitments to working hard and reforming aspects of it without superseding it. The same phenomena is repeating itself everywhere in the current ‘five-fold’ crisis of the 21st century. ‘People’s Parties’ and ‘Parties of the People’ with their own versions of transitional programmes are the current obsession by most of the left orientated intellectuals and workers who, motivated by a common-sense logic of progress, urge renewed ‘political engagement’ in the bourgeois Parliamentary charade.

I have argued elsewhere on this blog, that there is no progressive way back (or forward) to a new stage of welfare-state capitalism. At its most basic, the current level of automated production requires fewer workers and already under this system, these fewer workers are over-producing commodities, services and global pollution. Fewer employed workers also mean less tax revenue; less taxes pay for fewer ‘benefits’ for those in work and out of work. For decades all capitalist governments have been fiscally bankrupt if not yet legally so. The elite will continue to cast off certain categories of workers, particularly in this public sector.  Short of another mass elimination of human and non-human material, as occurred during the two capitalist inspired world wars of the 20th century, there is no way back and no way forward under the existing mode of production.  The bulk of humanity, may not have yet awakened to the fact that we are faced with the task of revolutionising the mode of production or risk further catastrophic social or ecological events, but these stark alternatives are precisely what face us.

Can revolutions proceed according to a programme?

Any serious study of revolutionary changes in political, social or military affairs, let alone with regard to changes of modes of production, reveals that these processes do not follow pre-planned logical steps or stages. Contradictions, advances, reversals and unintended consequences are just a few of the multifarious factors at work. So too are the ultimate results of dynamic conflicts between participants who are struggling for different outcomes. These are just a few of the many chaotic phenomena which attend such ‘revolutionary’ developments. No amount of planning can predict the course all such unfolding events or be a reliable guide during the events themselves. Indeed, those who operate according to a pre-conceived programme or plan can potentially (and actually) hinder the spontaneous and creative progress involved in any revolutionary transformation.

Of course, this is not to say, that after a revolution it is not possible to look back upon it and draw some generally useful conclusions concerning the stages and processes it went through. However, this intellectual pursuit involves abstracting from the complex details those features which correspond to the conceptual frameworks and preferences of those who study them and describe their findings.  Depending upon the quality of the insights and materials studied, this may or may not offer some important conclusions which may be useful for evaluating future stages of revolutionary transformations. However, such conceptual abstractions and suppositions are certainly not the basis for any detailed programme, transitional or not.  And, significantly in this regard, it is this type of conceptual activity which distinguishes between how workers and intellectuals ‘learn‘, ’know’ and ‘own’ the results

The intellectual, as with the philosopher, works primarily with ideas, his or her own and the ideas of others. The material he or she works upon is primarily drawn from other intellects; academic historians, economists, commentators etc. This material the intellectual works up and formulates a considered opinion on the subject at hand. Yet no matter how detailed and profound such efforts are, they cannot solve the practical problems facing humanity, let alone those emerging in the pressure cooker of revolutionary events. The revolutionary intellectual, as with other intellectuals is  always, to a greater or lesser degree, standing apart from the actual struggles of everyday life. This is the essence of Marx’s observation that ’hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world, the task is to change it‘. And the human agents for this creative change Marx identified were not the intellectuals – of whom he was an outstanding one himself – but the working classes.

This ‘self-activity’ of the working classes, with regard to both their reformist and revolutionary actions Marx not only championed, but repeatedly emphasised throughout his life.  Marx clearly realised that working people ‘learn‘, ‘know’ and ‘own’ the results of their efforts not by the means of intellectual study and conceptual refinement, but by their own practical and collective activity. Learning by experience, including the experience of failure is the practical way the working classes accumulate knowledge and just as importantly it is the way they ‘own’ or ‘disown’ their own results. Given the fact that there is no previously accepted ‘experience’ of a successful post-capitalist society, to base themselves upon, much of the future revolutionary activity of workers will be – by necessity – creative and ’developmental’.

As such the process will require approximations, spontaneous inclinations, changes of tack, creative thinking, re-appraisal, modification and above all persistence.  This is a pattern much like exists in every field of practical endeavour, where many small and medium experiments are necessary to establish the best approximations and where the failures are seen positively as eliminating ineffectual or impractical directions.  Perhaps it goes without saying, but I will say it nonetheless: The workers and others involved in this process will also need to avoid like the plague, the elevation of an intellectual vanguard, or any other vanguard, to positions of power over and above, their own communities. This much has been made clear by every  revolution hitherto undertaken. Once in power, no matter what good intentions may have been previously declared, elites cling onto power and privilege by every means possible.

And in a truly revolutionary transition leading to a change in the mode of production, workers and others would not make policy demands upon a central power standing over them. They would in fact implement these policies themselves directly in negotiation with other workers. They would not demand of ‘authority’ the opening of the books, but seize the books and open them themselves. They would not demand of a ‘higher power’ the expropriation of factories and industries under workers control, they would take over the factories and industries themselves. They would not demand the creation of public works, but begin implementing them. They would not demand decent living standards and housing but begin creating them for themselves. They would not demand the ‘nationalisation of land’ from some distant central body but immediately socialise and communalise it themselves. As long as workers and others are only demanding improvements, they are not engaged in revolutionary transformations, but in reform of existing systems.

So who needs a Transitional Programme?

It should be obvious, by now that those who are in most need of any programme claiming to be revolutionary, are those who wish to direct others on the course they have already decided upon. That is to say those who consider themselves the ‘vanguard’ of the future anti-capitalist revolution, are prone to concocting their own preferred systems approach to this prospect.  Yet while such systems approaches are useful for some tasks, it is the crassest form of idealism, when these approaches are applied to the death agonies of an existing system, and the creation of an alternative out of its disintegration. Yet this top-down systems approach was exactly the method used by Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks in Russia after the revolution of October 1917.

Lenin and Trotsky, as with most Bolshevik intellectuals, thought they already knew the ‘true’ pattern of history and what a future society should look like after the present one had served its purpose. Out of this intellectual arrogance they could not countenance, let alone allow, collectives of working people to creatively experiment and choose how to work and co-operate in any post-capitalist reconstruction. According to this Bolshevik derived logic, workers needed to be persuaded to follow the dictates of the planners – state bureaucrats and intellectuals. Or if persuasion failed workers would need to be forced to adhere to the plans and strategies devised by these self-appointed elites.  Predictably this was a strategy which failed completely to end the domination of capital and wage labour.

Famous (or infamous) in this systems approach were the top-down programmes and detailed plans of the Bolshevik dominated Soviet Ogburo and other allied state institutions, for electrification, industrialisation and collective agriculture. The inevitable savage oppressions, failures, mistakes, contradictions and blunders of this period – and many others – did not deter these would-be systems builders from imagining that entire societies can be revolutionised and reconstructed according to a sufficiently well thought out top down intellectually constructed programme. From the Bolshevik perspective, workers and others, during the decay and collapse of the capitalist mode of production, could not be trusted to find their own small and medium sized economic and social solutions (their own bridges) to the challenges they and a new post- capitalist mode of production found themselves confronted with.

Instead, according to this top-down transitional programme type mentality, workers and the rank and file Party Members needed the supposedly sound guidance from the petty-bourgeois intellectuals who had managed to gain executive control of the so-called revolutionary party.  In other words the 1938 Transitional Programme, discussed above, followed exactly the same line of middle-class intellectual reasoning as the Bolshevik elites had tried to make work in the Soviet Union before it finally collapsed.  The final result of these elite-led programmes was a totalitarian form of wage-slavery, which in many ways mirrored the slavery and semi-slavery which had taken place under the worst examples of Colonialism and Fascism.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2015)

Note
Before his assassination in 1940 the most influential figure in the founding of the Fourth International was Leon Trotsky. Trotsky had taken an active and leading part in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. From October 1917 until his expulsion from Russia by the Stalinists in 1929 he had been appointed by the Bolshevik Central Committee (and/or the Politbureau) to various high positions within the Soviet State.  After Lenin’s death in 1923 Trotsky had become the intellectual mouthpiece of an internal group designated as the  ‘Left Opposition’.

The function of the Left Opposition, (as with the ‘Joint Opposition‘) according to Trotsky, was to seek “..reform in the party, and through it the state.” (Challenge of the Left Opposition. Pathfinder page 100). However, in all such cases, faced with a ruthless and determined ruling elite (in this case headed by Stalin) unsolicited reform was a non-starter. In fact advocating reforms in opposition to a firmly entrenched and armed totalitarian elite was nothing more than the sowing of illusions and an invitation to be silenced or eliminated. Many supporters of the Left Opposition within Soviet Russia realised this and voluntarily (or forcibly) abandoned this project.

This collapse, along with imprisonments, disappearances and banishments of internal Soviet Left Opposition support, left those who remained actively opposed to Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy with an alternative option. This was to gather as much support as possible and to work to form an alternative organisation.  This was a difficult task and a protracted process but eventually led to the formation of the Fourth International and, as noted above, its most important founding documents – ‘The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International’ and the Transitional Programme.

RR

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

CONTRADICTIONS IN PARIS.

Posted on January 16, 2015 by stutteringsteps

The majority of those who assembled in Paris in millions on Saturday did so to protest against the two murderous atrocities committed there and to defend free speech. The symbolic phrases which dominated placards and posters was ‘Je Suis Charlie‘. Nevertheless there were others who attended to assert their religious or national identity, to call for social cohesion or national unity. In other words there was a high degree of unity along with a degree of diversity. It was clear that from the immediate aftermath of the assassinations at Charlie Hebdo and the creation of the Je Suis Charlie hashtag, that there would be a huge outpouring of opposition to this outrage.

It was at this stage that the French political elite decided to endorse the idea of a mass rally and to make their emphasis a call for national unity with the bourgeois state against terrorism. This decision was quickly followed by an invitation from the French elite to approximately 50 heads of states to attend the rally and to lead it.  It will not have escaped the political elite in Europe, as elsewhere, that for many years, there has been a growing rift between the ordinary citizens of the many states and the political elites in power. This includes a scant regard for those oppositions currently waiting for the next election.

Contradictions within the political elite.

Call me a cynic but I cannot exclude the possibility that most of these political ‘suits’ who lined up in Paris were far more motivated to attend by a desire to hold on political power, than the future of ‘free speech’. The sight of 40 plus politicians, many of them guilty of recently ordering indiscriminate bombings, targeted assassinations and torture, linking arms across a boulevard at the head of a march for ’free speech’ and against targeted assassinations was positively surreal.  Let us start with their individual and collective hypocrisy concerning ‘free speech’. Not one of them has supported the right to free speech with regard to ‘whistle-blowing’ activists, nor to allow an open publication of their secret deals and other such nefarious activities. Gagging orders, secret diplomacy, black operations are the bedrock of their political careers and elevated positions.

The European political elite also declared they were against terrorism and its targeted or indiscriminate assassinations, yet the state forces they command are guilty of far more of these kinds of acts, than those they rightly condemn. With no embarrassment, they even invited to the rally one head of state, who only recently oversaw both the targeted and indiscriminate murder of thousands of people in the second such Blitzkrieg of Gaza. This is not to mention those outrages committed by the armed forces of Israel within the occupied territories of Palestine. Most of them had recently ordered and/or supported the countless indiscriminate bombings of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya etc., as well as hundreds of targeted drone strikes on those around the world they wished to silence or destroy.

Not only that but a number of them had already financed, the training and arming of a number of the original Islamic groups, when their Jihad was aimed elsewhere.  The arms and weapons used by these new Islamic terrorists are not manufactured by primitive engineers and blacksmiths originating in the countries of the near east, but are the products of advanced weapons manufacturers – the majority of which – reside in the territories of those politicians linking each others arms in Paris. They displayed no embarrassment about their own citizens possibly being executed by the guns supplied by their own military or arms manufacturers.  Nor the fact that they may be wielding them according to tactics taught by their own countries military experts.

Another contradiction for the elite and their policies of exploitation and social control arose out of the fact that only three well-armed, bloodthirsty and determined people, could bring substantial parts of one of the largest cities in Europe to an absolute locked-down standstill. Literally tens of thousands of the states highly armed bodies of men and women were necessary to track down, isolate and surround two people in one location and one in another.  Despite the eventual success, it became clear to all those citizens in France (and elsewhere)  that the modern state could not adequately protect them from terrorism. And for two good reasons. First, while it was engaged in state terrorism abroad it was effectively creating it at home as well as abroad. This opinion was expressed by many interviewed and by police experts in this field. Second, the sheer logistics and expense of this kind of ‘protection’ was too great to be permanent.  Given the current scale of sovereign debt the current level state-funded anti-terrorism is likely to be reduced.

Finally, let us consider those elite utterances in France and elsewhere of support for the ideals of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. Not one of them subscribes to equality, except with regard to voting rights. All else, education, housing, wealth, opportunity, freedom of movement, women’s rights are subject to the most extreme forms of inequality in all the countries of those elites assembled in France. Liberty, is hard for working people to find in these same countries, except the liberty to be poor or unemployed. Liberty is also not allowed to those falsely accused by these countries and once incarcerated many of them are brutally tortured as at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.  And of course, Fraternity is practiced only among the elite themselves. The final contradiction I shall mention here is that these very political elites are instituting ’austerity’ for the bulk of their citizens and  obscene ’affluence’ for the rich. Does that represent any commitment to Equality, Liberty and Fraternity?

Contradictions among the ordinary citizens.

When the white-collar, blue-collar and lower middle-classes assembled in their hundreds of thousands in the cold streets and squares of Paris and elsewhere it was not to demonstrate their unity with the political elite. They were there to support the right of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ radicals to speak their humorous and sarcastic truth to power, whether that power was political, religious or sectarian. These citizens, black, brown, white, young old, gay or disabled, marched or stood shoulder to shoulder and displayed no hostility to each other. There was no racism, no religious bigotry, and no expressions of class or political superiority.  They were as one in solidarity against something they clearly held dear.

At bottom it was the right to openly express an opinion and the right to address that opinion to those holding any kind of power. The fact that many among them also mentioned the French revolutionary slogans of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity indicated that they had more than just a standing up against terrorist assassinations in mind. The core of what the majority were expressing was humane and humanist aspirations. Yet, as was the case with those who assembled by the million in Tahir Square in Egypt, unity against a common threat is far easier to achieve than unity for something to transcend a number of common threats.

Faced with the current five-fold crisis of the capitalist mode of production everyone present at that rally and demonstration knew, to a greater or lesser extent, the problems they currently face. For example, in the economic spheres of life, many face unemployment or low wages; within the financial sector, the rip-offs and collapses have eroded even small savings; the steady reduction of public spending has created many pockets of social deprivation and alienation; everyone is faced with the environmental problem of pollution and ecological damages caused by the current mode of production; most of those attending will be aware of the corruption,  fraud, cover-ups, institutional racism and sexism at the heart of the political, military, judicial and civil elites.  This five-fold crisis is the common threat facing not only the French working classes, but all those workers around the world!

Yet given the size and extent of the problems facing them the undoubted temptation of most people will be to struggle as isolated individuals, small groups or to put their trust in those politicians who emerge and offer to put in place, radical but partial or reactionary measures. The temptation to simplify things and isolate some aspect of the crisis for blame, will be hard to resist and this temptation will be massaged and manipulated by those politicians who are already perfecting the new version of the ‘blame game’.  Their task is to find a scapegoat  and put all, or at least a significant part of the blame for the crisis, upon them.  The right-wing, as they have done in the past, will seek that scapegoat from among the ordinary people.

Thus in Europe in the 1930’s the blame was put on Jews and Communists. In the 1970’s and 80’s Europe it was put on the Trade Unions. Now in the 21st century the target for blame is the immigrant – particularly the ordinary Muslim immigrant. This blame game is already having considerable success, in France as in all advanced capitalist countries in Europe and America.  This is another part of the contradictions among the working populations of Europe. Low-paid immigrants were encouraged and recruited by the economic and political elite to compete against indigenous working people and have been offered jobs and housing previously available to the indigenous working people.

In this way there has developed an economic and social reason to be against immigration, but instead of the blame being levelled at the economic and political elite for this state of affairs, the blame is being put on the immigrant. The Islamic terrorists among the Muslim religion are ably assisting this right-wing blame game by their obscene atrocities. Thus the contradictions lying under the January show of unity and solidarity among ordinary people in Paris and elsewhere are many. The challenge, during and after the Paris Rally is the same. Will French white-collar workers turn their backs on blue-collar struggles and vice versa?: will both allow the racists to set upon Muslims and Jews?: will young people let pensioners struggle alone?: will those well housed be indifferent to the homeless? These are the same contradictions that face all the world’s working people.

These cracks in the foundations of bourgeois society can only be papered over for a short period of time before they are either consciously addressed, remedied or deliberately opened up wider. As was the case in Egypt and elsewhere, a lasting unity of the mass of working people, old, young, male, female, able-bodied or disabled can only be achieved by being based upon a programme of ending these economic divisions and social differences.  This is the only way of avoiding the descent into a new form of ‘blaming the victim’ and possible totalitarian despotism. Yet to my knowledge, this type of message did not appear – even in an abbreviated form – on any placard held by any of those attending. Why was this? Whose job was it to at least attempt to introduce an alternative theme of practical unity to that of Nationalism promoted by the political elites in attendance?

Contradictions among the ‘left’.

I suggest the only ones sufficiently equipped to play the role of countering bourgeois ideology within such a rally would be any non-sectarian anti-capitalists and revolutionary- humanists who might exist within France.  The reformist left could not do so, because they think Capitalism can be reformed economically and socially and to do this you need to galvanise the ‘nation’ behind the effort.  They would therefore need the assistance of all classes in pursuit of their illusion of ‘fair’ wages and ‘comfortable’ social conditions within the very system that has destroyed these post-Second World War gains. For this reason, they would probably just blend in with the crowd and offer no alternative to the nationalist ideology pumped out by politicians and mainstream media.

In contrast the sectarian left would no doubt stay away from such a populist gathering as took place in Paris. They would probably see their attendance as an endorsement of the bourgeois nature of the rallies main theme ‘Je Suis Charlie’ instead of an opportunity to appropriately engage with as many energised demonstrators as possible. The opportunity to sensitively engage by leaflet or discussion in order to  point out the many contradictions mentioned in the sections above would doubtless be spurned.  I say this because the sectarian left, routinely stay away from demonstrations or actions called by other sectarian groups. It has happened many times before. There is a pattern among these groups which either boycott actions they do not control or whose leadership they fail to take over.

The rationalisations used by sectarians to avoid engaging with those workers who do not subscribe to an anti-capitalist or ‘politically correct’ perspective in such cases are often cleverly presented, but they amount to the same thing. A distancing of the sect from all those who disagree or do not conform to the sectarian view of practical struggle. The most important point for the sectarian is not what they have in common with working people but what particular point they have which is different. They implicitly or explicitly demand that workers agree with their full ‘programmes’ before they will join them in their mundane political struggles. As Marx noted with regard to one of the typical characteristics they display;

“By their very nature, the sects …are abstentionist, strangers to all genuine action, to politics, to strikes, to coalitions, in brief to any unified movement.” (Marx. ‘The First International and After’.  Penguin p 298.)  

Any vacuum in the realm of ideas left by the revolutionary- humanists and non-sectarian anti-capitalist left in mass movements which emerge will undoubtedly be filled with nationalist and reformist ones.

Roy Ratcliffe (January 2015.)

Posted in Critique, Fundamentalism, Marx, Nationalism, Politics, Reformism, Revolutionary-Humanism, Sectarianism, The State | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

JE SUIS CHARLIE

Posted on January 9, 2015 by stutteringsteps

The fact that expressing an opinion which offends somebody, can now get you killed makes us all potentially ‘je suis charlie’.  Unless of course, we bow the knee to those who are prepared to kill and maim in order to silence criticism or satire.  The realisation that having and expressing an adverse opinion about a religious belief system falls into this category is to be given a glimpse of the days when institutionalised religions ruled the world. In the past, all religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have resorted to intimidating and assassinating those who criticised the beliefs and practices of their respective creeds. Now, in the 21st century, some religious believers clearly wish to return us to that state of affairs.

It is a matter of historical record that it took protests, loss of life, large-scale desertions and economic and political revolutions in Europe and elsewhere to end this previous domination by those who thought they had a divine right to force their rule upon all within their reach. Whilst many moderate Muslims are in denial concerning the political content of Islam, it is a fact that an increasing number of the radical wing of Islam  wish to re-create a modern version of the totalitarian religio-political rule of the ancient Caliphate. The recent resurgence and spread of Islamic fundamentalist atrocities, in the wake of the territorial conquests of ISIL, is steadily becoming globalised.  India, Africa, Australia, Spain, Britain, and now France again have become the repeated scenes of detached and outreach efforts of retaliation and intimidation in the name of Islam.

The killing and injuring of practically the whole of the staff of Charlie Hebdo was not only meant to permanently remove the ‘offending’ magazine from the news stands of France and elsewhere. As with other such past atrocities its purpose was to create a climate of terrorised fear of speaking out against any part of Islam. This natural reaction needs to be resisted, because Islam, is a retrograde, dangerous ideology which authorises killing in the name of God and the subjection of women and children to domination by men. Also its core religious ideology perpetuates aggressive discrimination against homosexuality, lesbianism and it certainly does not respect atheists and secularists to any appreciable degree.

Furthermore in its most radical and fundamentalist form (as per the full reading of the Qur’an) it does not even respect or tolerate alternative opinions among Muslim communities. Historically and more recently, Sunni and Shia versions of Islam are notorious for exterminating each other on the basis of their alternative religious opinions. Bowing the knee and keeping quiet in order not to risk becoming a victim will only strengthen the determination of the fundamentalists to perpetrate more such sectarian outrages. Why would they stop doing it if it works? In this sense we all need to be ‘Charlie Hebdo’.  If this atrocity succeeds in shielding Islam from criticism of its manifold defects and failings, these aspects will also continue to be practiced to the detriment of all those subjected to it, particularly women and those who disagree.

The conflation of anti-Islam with racism.

Among some Muslim apologists and some on the political left there has again been an attempt to identify the criticism of religion with racism. Already in the wake of these Islamic-inspired murders, there has been an attempt to play the race card against the cartoonists and authors of the magazine.  In actual fact this magazine criticised and satirised right-wing racist organisations along with the religious beliefs of Christianity and Judaism. It should not be overlooked that Charlie Hebdo was a radical secular left publication which also satired the bourgeois political elite. The magazine may not have been a product of revolutionary anti-capitalists, but it would be rabidly sectarian not to express solidarity with it.

Of course racists and fascists will be  eager to jump upon this outrage in order to blame it not on the religious beliefs of the perpetrators, but on their colour or origin. However, this does not mean that the rest of us should defend the religion of Islam in order to actively oppose anti-Arab, or anti-black racism.  In this case as in other cases, we should not conflate but distinguish between the ideological opinions of people and their right not to be physically harmed or exploited.  We cannot rely on the bourgeois elites to make this distinction and publicise it because there are vested interests to blur the distinction.  And of course, these same elites will use this outrage to strengthen the forces of the state

Among the political elite, there is also an implicit desire to dodge the political and religious dimensions of the problem regarding the rise of Islamic fundamentalism today.  The political elite do not want to be too explicit in any criticisms they may have with regard to religion, because this may lose them ‘religious’ votes at election time. For this reason they choose to classify the various religious-inspired atrocities as ‘terrorism’. This conveniently avoids drawing the links and connections between the nature of the acts and the precise ideologies which inspire them. Similarly the political elite strenuously avoid making the links between the ’foreign policy’ decisions (for example in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine etc.) they make and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The conflation of anti-immigration with racism.

An allied conflation of two separate issues is also occurring in regard to immigration and racism. This too will play into present and future debates sparked by this atrocity. What will not be ‘officially’ factored in will be the primary motivation for post Second World War European integration and immigration. The primary motivation has been to ’free’ the movement of capital and labour. Capital has been freed to move between countries to take advantage of local conditions and capital is free to recruit labour from other countries. The advantageous results for capital are clear. It can go to places of cheap labour and other costs thus exploiting the local population.  It can also bring cheap labour into countries where labour is more expensive and undermine the wages and conditions of the indigenous working populations. So the disadvantages for working people is also clear.

Yet when indigenous working people start to campaign against this erosion of their hard-won economic and social rights by economic ‘immigration’ they are declared racist by the employing classes and their intellectual apologists. According to this bourgeois view, in order not to be declared racists, workers and others should accept a continual erosion of their economic and social well-being. The fact that working people by and large have in the past never really been fundamentally racist is ignored. Despite the fact that racism was deliberately promoted by the colonialist and imperialist bourgeois elite in order to justify invasion, appropriation and exploitation of foreign peoples, most working people have welcomed newcomers and even supported them. This fact is in danger of being ignored.

If we do not clearly distinguish between these discrete aspects of 21st century neo-liberal capitalism then this will leave working people at the mercy of racist ideologists and proto-fascists. If revolutionary anti-capitalists and revolutionary-humanists do not offer a clear explanation of the crisis of capitalism and alternative ways of struggling to surmount the current hardships, then workers will be attracted to alternatives which ‘seem’ to offer a common-sense (but racist) way forward. Fascism was used to divide working people in the last systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, in the 1920’s and 1930’s,  there is every danger that history can repeat itself if not exactly then at least enough to be dangerous.

Finally, if the revolutionary left do not publicly defend the already limited freedom of expression currently available to us, then it will soon become our turn to be intimidated and eventually silenced.  Je suis Charlie!

[See also ‘Elites in Denial’; ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Book Review – ‘The problem of Islam today’. on this blog]

Roy Ratcliffe. (January 2015.)

Posted in capitalism, Critique, Fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, Patriarchy, Politics, Religion, Sectarianism | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

20th CENTURY FEMINIST FRAMEWORKS!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by stutteringsteps

(A critique of some of its aspects.

In the 20th century, Feminism became a useful but problematic term with which to label all the various currents and strands of ideas originating from women who stood in opposition to the oppression of their gender.  General opposition to the oppression of women was the principle factor that in practice unified feminism and stood as the practical bedrock upon which its various strands were built.

In turn feminist theory sought to strengthen the practical unity, purpose and direction of broad layers of women in opposition to their allotted position in the bourgeois ‘order of things’. This is why together with its day-to-day organisational forms (consciousness raising groups, conferences, campaigns and other events) it was often described as (and saw itself as) a ‘movement’.

The reaction of a majority of men during this 20th century feminist movement was dismissive and generally ‘reactionary’.  Even much of the left, and this includes the so-called revolutionary left, patronisingly declined to engage with the struggle for women’s liberation. Most of the anti-capitalist left, for example, dogmatically suggested women would only cease to be oppressed – ‘after the revolution’!

This was despite the fact that the male-led  ‘revolutions’ in Russia, China and the Eastern bloc countries – after decades – had not seen the liberation of women. Nor had working class men been liberated from exploitative wage-labour for that matter.  Meanwhile women, from these Leninist, Trotskyist or Stalinist leadership perspectives, were generally advised to assist the men in more important task of overthrowing the capitalist mode of production. Only then would the men be able to become the ‘active’ patrons of efforts to achieving female equality. Patriarchy and left male patrifocality was not seen as any kind of a problem. But more of that later.

After achieving some recognition and gaining some statutory reforms and legal precedents, the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 20th century, gradually ebbed away until hardly a trace of the original ‘movement’ can be found in the 21st.  Yet, originating in the USA and spreading elsewhere, it was an important movement while it lasted. For this reason it deserves to be considered in some detail for there is still clearly a need to address the issue of male-female socio-economic status and their personal relationships.

In many ways the situation of the majority of women – working class women in particular – is now worse economically and socially, particularly if we consider the result of the current systemic crisis of capitalism and the pro-capitalist elite’s campaign of enforced austerity. Even more so if we acknowledge the threats which emanate from the rise of patriarchal movements such as religious fundamentalism and if we factor in the position of women outside of the economically ‘advanced’ counties of Europe and the West.

Returning to the subject of the 20th century Womens’ Liberation Movement, however, it is important to recognise the following. The ‘movement’ contained within its overall practical position of oppositon to female oppression, substantial difference of principle, purpose and approach.  Apart from published books and documents, these ideological differences were mostly hinted at but not dealt with in any great detail – at least in front of us men.

In order to understand 20th century feminism it was necessary to look beyond the general derogatory ‘male-stream’ stereotypes of feminists prevalent at the time (as men-hating failures or lesbian lothario’s) and to grasp the nature of these differences. And fortunately, for this task there were at the time many books and pamphlets available during the period of its flourishing. What appears – under the same title – in the pages section above was offered as a contribution to understanding 20th century feminism from my own first-hand observations and studies during that period. (Click here for the full article)

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2014)

Posted in Anti-Capitalism, co-operation, Critique, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Patriarchy, Reformism, Religion, Revolutionary-Humanism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

1939 – 1945! CAPITALISMS 2nd GLOBAL WAR!

Posted on November 4, 2014 by stutteringsteps

In a previous article, (1914 – 1918: Capitalisms First Global War,) documentary evidence was presented, to support an assertion that the mainstream media and historians in the west generally ignore. The contention in that article was that; the underlying economic basis of modern wars since the 17th century lies in the extraordinary expansionist propensity of the capitalist mode of production. In other words, at the core of the 20th century confrontation between the then ‘Great Powers’ was capitalist economic expansion. This article will provide documentary evidence that what was true in the case of the 1st World War, was also true for the Second.

It may be recalled from the evidence produced in the first article, that despite the rhetoric the motives of the German capitalists, pro-capitalist politicians and the military elite, before and during the 1st World War was to gain territory, material resources, markets and cheap labour. The same evidential source indicated that these elites were confident that they would win this war of annexation and aggressive exploitation. It was also their intention to enforce the defeated countries to pay for the enormous cost of this – by then – mechanised form of total war. As additional evidence of this intention, consider the following extract from a 1915 memorandum signed by almost 700, top German industrialists, bankers, business men, university professors, state officials, generals and admirals,  before their final defeat in 1918;

“We must ruthlessly impose a heavy war indemnity on France…And we should be in a position to impose an indemnity on England, no sum would be too great.” (quoted in Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 308.)

In the previously article it was established that the First World War was prompted by  the clash of rival capital circulation and accumulation among European concentrations of this form of wealth.  However, the defeat of Germany in this 1914-18, armed ‘collision’ had not solved the problem of Germany’s geographical boundaries being ‘too narrow’ and its colonies ‘too few’, to contain its animated and competitive capitalist form of economic production. Germany had in this First World War failed to acquire ‘new territories for settlement’ and had lost its pacific bases. Nor had this defeat eliminated the internal discontent of the German masses. Indeed, both problems had been exacerbated since on top of the internal costs to its economy, it was Germany which now had to pay indemnity to the allies.

Inflation – a pro-capitalist tool for survival.

The German capitalist elite solved this particular indemnity problem by allowing (and encouraging) inflation to rise dramatically. In mid-1918 the exchange rate was such that it took 4 German marks to purchase 1 US dollar. By September 1923 13 million Mark’s were needed to purchase 1 dollar and that was not the worst exchange rate. In other words the German capitalist elite were able to pay their debts (including indemnity payments) with an increasingly worthless currency. For the capitalist classes, this self-interested strategy had a fortunate set of side effects which helped their other problems. Inflation also undermined the wages of the workers and eroded the wealth of the middle-classes, both of whom then looked for scapegoats to blame. It couldn’t be made clearer than the following:

“In other words, the inflation was an easy means for the industrialists and junkers to enrich themselves at the expense of the workers and middle-classes, while directing the hatred of the dispossessed against foreign countries. It was an excellent mechanism to reduce the working masses to destitution, to subject them to shameless exploitation, and at the same time create an atmosphere of rabid nationalism.” (Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 308.)

The success of this nationalistic blame-game over the effects of the capitalist inspired war had dire consequences for the working-classes of both capitalist alliances. These consequences and events led, during the inter-war years, to the rise of the National Socialists Party (the Nazis) and later to the outbreak of the Second World War. Another consequence of the success of nationalistic ideology was that German based capital along with Anglo-Saxon based capital was still intact and was still capable of producing more commodities and services than could be profitably consumed by the home market. So in one sense despite the massive sacrifices of human life, nothing had changed, except the realisation that capital can even survive total war!.

Capital’s needs created another World War.

The First World War convincingly proved that capital and capitalists could survive total war and prosper whether they win or lose the ensuing rivalry battles. This was despite a level of warfare which devastated and even annihilated the lives, welfare and infrastructure of citizens under its control. The capitalist essence of the ‘system’ survived – albeit in a modified form. Shortly after the First World War, capitalists still needed to expand their production and market their products and this involved the increased consumption of raw materials and labour.

So in 1925, when Hitler wrote what follows in his rambling rant of a book ‘Mein Kamf’, we can understand that he was merely regurgitating – in his own particularly racially politicised form – the previously held view that Germany still desired an Empire as large, if not larger, that that operated by the British. Britain being one of the states whose activities  embraced ‘entire continents’.

“In an era when the earth is gradually being divided up among states, some of which embrace almost entire continents, we cannot speak of a world power in  connection with a formation whose political mother country is limited to the absurd area of five hundred thousand square kilometres.” (Hitler. ‘Mein Kamf’. Section 14 of Book 2.)

The only slight modification Hitler made at that particular moment in time, to this earlier genre of capitalist/nationalist thinking, was to down-play the desire to acquire exploitable ocean-based colonies. Hitler, his financial, industrial backers and advisers, realised that unlike the 19th century, in the 20th century, the conquest and control of distant colonies first required a continental empire of considerable size. Large-scale land-based material and taxation resources, along with a willing industrial and agricultural population, were necessary in order to achieve this sea-dependent expansionist ambition. So for this reason he and his acolytes set his and his countries citizens sights on expanding on land to the east and on achieving internal social ‘order‘.

How the German capitalists and pro-capitalists achieved sufficient internal stability to create the basis for renewed economic expansion and its eventual subordination to re-armament and warfare is a complex question. It is one which will be considered in a further article. For the present I shall focus on the economic factors that once again drove the unfolding logic of German capital and how this was understood by a considerable spectrum of the German elite. Among that post-war pro-capitalist elite were the same liberals and ‘socialists’ who had betrayed the resolutions of the Second International and voted for war credits. This is how one ‘socialist’ deputy had previously expressed the implicit economic needs of capital dressed up explicitly as the emotional needs for retaining territory gained in previous conquests.

“In the name of the Social Democratic representatives of the German territories…..I have to make the following statement……we raise our voice…to protest against the separation of our homeland from the Motherland……We shall also not abandon the hope as long as we live that sooner or later the territories detached from their homeland by the decree of a short-sighted and hate-imbued victor, will be returned to the Fatherland.” (Deputy Hoersing. June 1919. quoted in ‘Germany from Defeat to Conquest. WM Knight-Patterson. page 206.)

The lack of a critical recognition of just how these territories had militarily come under the control of Germany in the first place, clearly shows, among other things, that by this time the term ‘socialism’ had become a left-wing camouflage for a part of the bourgeois political spectrum – as it still is!  This new generation of ‘bourgeois socialists’, took for granted the capitalist mode of production and the best they could desire for workers was the following: Wages that did not pauperise workers; and conditions that kept them healthy. Both of which enabled the owners of capital to extract sufficient surplus-value to satisfy their private greed and the continued self-expansion of their capital investments, whilst staving off revolution.

War again – with a lot of help from capital’s friends.

This type of collusion with the capitalist and pro-capitalist elite and their needs also extended to the trade union movement. In November 1918 when mass demonstrations of workers were taking place in Germany a meeting took place between socialist trade unions and industrialists. At that meeting a document was signed by both sides agreeing to give each other mutual support in order to keep the factories operating normally. In other words, the ‘official’ labour movement was completely wedded to the continued existence of the capitalist mode of production. This cannot be too surprising! After all it was this ‘mode’ of economic activity which created their privileged ‘positions’ and their lucrative salaries.

This collaboration of the ‘socialist’ and social democratic left with capitalism in Germany continued throughout the inter-war period as did the machinations and intrigues of ‘big capital’. So a number of years later, after the use of emergency powers granted by Article 48 of the Republics Constitution,  when these intrigues had become involved with Hitler and the National Socialists (Nazi’s) other things  cannot be entirely surprising. For example, reading the following extract from a statement by one of the largest owners of industrial capital in Germany, should not be surprising coming as it did from the owner of large-scale capital – in this case steel and armaments production.

“On 20th of this month I expressed to Reich Chancellor Hitler the gratitude of approximately twenty-five industrialists present for having given us such a clear picture of the conception of his ideas.” (Alfred Krupp. Quoted in ‘The Arms of Krupp’. W. Manchester, pub. M. Joseph. page 407.

That clear picture later included the full collaboration of the state and private capital in the re-construction and re-armament of the German War machine. Designed and constructed as it was in order to fulfil the needs of the capitalist mode of production for territorial expansion and control of raw material resources and markets. This collaboration also included the complete subordination and ultra-exploitation of the entire working classes, white-collar and blue, industrial and agricultural, to these self-expansionist needs of capital.

As noted previously, how this subordination of ‘labour’ was achieved is the subject of a future article but the motives of both the political Fascists and the economic elites were in complete harmony over the war aims of the Third Reich.  Commencing with annexations and Blitzkrieg conquests German capital for a second time shaped up for a war for global domination and control of resources and markets against the still dominant Anglo-Saxon  economic empires of Britain and France.

And of course, both sides elites dragged the rest of humanity into its bestial competitive war for global economic and financial domination. A study of modern history demonstrates that in periods of systemic crisis, the capitalist and pro-capitalist elites have pursued this course of ‘total’ military action twice before on a global scale and unless stopped will probably try to do it again.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2014.)

Posted in capitalism, Economics, Nationalism, Reformism, The State | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

BOMBS AND BOMBAST!

Posted on September 27, 2014 by stutteringsteps

As was to be expected, the western political elite this month have demonstrated their complete inability to see the wood for the trees. This week the world was treated to the surreal spectacle of so-called world ‘leaders’ mounting the rostrum at the United Nations and delivering high-sounding phrases whilst denouncing the very thing they are themselves guilty of – organised terrorism! Co-authors of state-orchestrated terror, such as Obama, Sisi, Cameron, Rouhani and others, were able – without so much as a blush – to bombastically lecture everyone on the dangers of the spread of Islamic terrorism, and the need to defeat it by their own state-promoted terror of guns, torture and bombs.

In complete denial over the role of decades of high-tech state-funded terror in promoting – all over the world – anger, frustration and opposition, such leaders demonstrated they are the most substantial part of the problem and consequently will never be part of the solution. By simply labelling all young Islamic fundamentalists as “psychopathic, murderous, brutal people” as UK’s David Cameron and others have done, they conveniently and effectively avoid their own complicity in bringing about the present dystopian and bestial nature of the middle east and the rest of the globe.

Their own decades-long practice of rendition, torture, mass-decapitations and extra-judicial murders by incarceration, shrapnel and laser guided bombs, are conveniently overlooked as they focus entirely upon the savagery of a considerable number Islamic thugs and decide to repeat – ad nauseam – the same tactics as before.  Urged on by the financial, economic and military imperative of capitalism, ‘bombs and bombast’ just about sum up the nature and essence of the pro-capitalist political and military elite in every country of the world.

Starting from a self-interested assumption that the present mode of production is basically sound, these elites can only presume that any malfunction of, or serious opposition to their system is caused by demented individuals, who are bent upon mischief or evil. Yet freed from that self-conditioned supposition, it is obvious that the sources of religious fundamentalist resistance to the west, such as ISIS etc., etc., (and other forms of radicalisation), in the minds of many participants have economic, social and ideological roots.

The economic and social sources of conflict

The real material base for young people joining such violent patriarchal projects is more often than not, a mixture of two or more of the following characteristics: anti-Imperialist sentiments, a reaction to white racist prejudice, a sense of needing to oppose global injustice, these perhaps motivating relatively affluent jihadists. The same motives plus perhaps anger or frustration over unemployment, low pay and exploitation for those less affluent or destitute. In other words it is the same material base – springing from the totality of the capitalist mode of production – as previous forms of opposition to some or all of these symptoms.

It is only the choice of ideological expression in response to these characteristics stemming from economic, social and emotional factors, which is relatively new. Previous generations during systemic crises, have chosen, nationalist, fascist, communist or social-democratic ideologies to violently oppose the liberal-democratic hegemony of rampant, exploitative capitalism. The failure of these ideologies and their proponents to create a humane, sustainable well-being for the majority of people, has resulted in the vacuum being filled by the current obsession for a return to ancient religious forms of social interaction and control.

Yet these ancient religious forms are no less reactionary and regressive than the neo-liberal ideologies they make deals with or alternatively violently oppose. Look at the ideology of Judaism, which spawned, Zionism: reflect upon Christianity, which supported (and still supports) capitalism and colonialism;  think about Islam, which has yet again, generated Caliphate conquest by the instruments of death.  They are all patriarchal and sectarian. Protestant against Catholic; Sunni against Shia; Orthodox against Zionist; rich against poor!

These ideologies are all outmoded forms of understanding the world since they are based upon ancient gullible hearsay concerning an invisible male super-being whose ‘true’ (!) desires – only a male religious elite – can interpret. They are all detrimental to peace, understanding, equality and  progress.

The ideological sources of conflict.

It is at this point that we can also see the mirror image of another set of elites in denial. Just as the pro-capitalist elites deny that their capitalist mode of production is out of control and systematically ruining the lives of millions along with the ecology of the planet, so too are the religious elite in denial. According to the moderate Islamic elite, Isis, Boko Harem, the Taliban,  al Qaeda, etc are not following the dictates of Islam – but in fact they are. One only need to read the Quran, in any of its translations from Arabic to find ample passages which authorise and justify killing in the name of God. Killing in the name of God is part of the DNA Islam shares with the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity. Here are just a few examples;

“It is He who has sent forth His apostle with guidance and the true faith to make it triumphant over all religions, however much the idolaters may dislike it.” (Surah 9. 33. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth, and your persons.” (Surah 9. 41 N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.” (Surah 9. 73 N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Allah loves those who fight for His cause in ranks as firm as a mighty edifice.” (Surah 61. 2. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“When the sacred months are over slay the idolators wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them.” (Surah 9. 5. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Do you not see how those who dispute the revelations of Allah turn away from the right path? Those who have denied the Scriptures and the message with which We have sent Our apostles shall know the truth hereafter: when with chains and shackles round their necks they shall be dragged through boiling water and burnt in the fire of hell.” (Surah 40. 68.   N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

“Others you will find who seek security from you as well as from their own people. Whenever they are called back to idol-worship they plunge into headlong. If these do not keep their distance from you, if they neither offer you peace nor cease their hostilities against you, lay hold of them and kill them wherever you find them. Over such men We give you absolute authority.” (Surah 4. 91. N.J. Dawood  translation. Pub. Penguin Books)

So when ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalists read these verses – and others – it provides them with religious justification for their barbarism against anyone they decide falls into the categories the Qur’an outlines. And the fact is that moderate Muslims by their total support for this supposedly sacred book are underwriting the very justifications used by their barbaric co-religionists. If Muslims choose to regard the whole of the Qur’an as authentic and legitimate, then they should not be surprised if other Muslims choose to follow ideas and instructions from it that they personally find objectionable.

Bombing an idea out of existence – really?

The decision to try to bomb ISIS out of existence, whether in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere, can only be the product of a complete lack of understanding among the political and military elite. For a start, these fundamentalists are located among non-fundamentalists, who will suffer from the bombardment. Lives, buildings and infrastructure as well as economic activity will be devastated and destroyed by the most powerful bombs imaginable, delivered in the most cowardly and anonymous way – drones or high speed planes. Does anyone in the normal world think that communities treated this way will only blame ISIS and not the west? It is far more likely that targeted communities – who manage to survive – will begin to see the Islamic fundamentalists as the lesser of two evils. Perhaps only a few will become so angry they will actually join the ranks of militant fundamentalists, but their ranks will undoubtedly swell.

It is simply not possible to destroy an idea by destroying the people who believe in it. It can only be destroyed by proving itself inadequate or destructive. The ancient pagan imperialisms tried to destroy monotheism by crucifying, annihilating and otherwise killing and destroying those who adopted it. They failed. The monotheisms themselves, once they became dominant, tried to kill alternative monotheistic ideas by torturing, burning and wiping out those they saw as heretics. They also failed. Both Communist and Fascist elites tried to kill oppositional humanist ideas by torture, concentration camps, gulags, and assassination of those who thought differently.  To no avail!

Sectarianism, whether religious or political, always turns in on itself, before, during, or after it has turned upon others. This is because sectarianism is a manifestation of male arrogance and dogmatic certainty that thinks itself superior not only to women, but to all others who do not accept its dictates.  Those who personify sectarianism, will manifest some or all of the characteristics of sectarianism however these are mediated by the religious or political  constraints organisationally placed upon them. Sectarianism is an intellectual cancer eating away and destroying the intellectual creativity of humanity. As such it cannot be bombed out of existence. Indeed, in this case bombing will only create more fertile ground upon which it will flourish.

The religious sectarianism of ISIS and others, as with its intellectual brother – political sectarianism – needs to be struggled against on the terrain of ideas and values. It needs to be exposed for what it is, what it represents and what its logical outcomes have been, are being and will continue to be.  The various fundamentalist ideologies of fascism and communism were not destroyed by killing those who believed in them, they destroyed themselves by proving in practice that they represented nothing more than new forms of oppression.  The same was true of religious fundamentalisms in the past and it will be proved again in the present and future.

The past Caliphates, were established by sword-wielding, horse-mounted patriarchs bent on forcing their will on believers and non-believers alike. The self-serving and self-justifying myth of an Islamic Golden Age, once seriously examined, turns out to be no more than a tarnished system of oppression and exploitation. It was a system in which wealth – the Gold – derived from extracted produce and taxation was accumulated and transported back to the ruling Islamic elites for their personal disposal.  The present embryo Caliphate has already plotted its own – now mechanised path – along almost identical lines and the reality has been starkly revealed to the world. Taxation, conversion or death! Assassinations, decapitations and crucifixions of Muslims, Christians, Jews, non-believers, men, women and children.

Of course, international communities need to defend themselves against Islamic Fundamentalism, but not by ruthlessly attacking or bombing the communities in which these extremists reside. Not all participants, joining or caught up in this movement are evil psychopaths bent on an orgy of killing.  Some joined these resistance groups for the reasons noted above – resistance to the domination of neo-liberal economics and politics and their puppet regimes. They will learn, sooner rather than later, that the form of resistance they have chosen is counter-productive, inhumane and doomed to failure. They will be helped in realising this if more and more Muslims vocally reject and negate the above noted passages of the Qur’an.

The case for a collective revolutionary-humanist understanding within a clearly articulated anti-capitalist  perspective has never been more needed by humanity. It is to be hoped that one soon emerges.

Roy Ratcliffe. (September 2014.)

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ELEVEN THESES.

Posted on September 16, 2014 by stutteringsteps

1. Capitalism has long outlived any historical usefulness its many advocates may have claimed. As a system of economic and social organisation it creates the following existential contradictions: Obscene extremes of poverty and wealth; continual wars over resources and markets; environmental pollution, ecological destruction and the exhaustion of the essential natural resources necessary to sustain all forms of life. In addition, in the 21st century, capitalism is once again in a systemic economic, financial, political and moral crisis as well as sponsoring further military aggressions.

2. The capitalist mode of production is based upon depriving the world’s working classes of two essential means for promoting or sustaining security and welfare in their lives.  The first deprivation is the complete loss of control over the nature and duration of their labour. This is a form of deprivation that lasts throughout their own and their children’s entire working lives. The second denial is the continued dispossession of the huge volumes of surplus-labour and surplus-value which working people, rural, urban, white-collar and blue, create whilst at work in their multifarious occupations.

3. All previous attempts at reforming, re-shaping or transforming capitalism by revolutionary or reformist political means, have failed to radically change the oppressive relationship between capital and labour. Either privately controlled capital has subjugated working people to its exploitation or state-controlled capital has done so in its stead. Despite, their rhetoric, Social Democratic, Fascist and Communist political ideologies and their organisational systems have all been based upon and retained a political and social elite, continued with capital formation (state or private) and enforced the extraction of surplus-value.

4. In face of the current capitalist inspired global dystopia, the historic task for humanity is the re-establishment of egalitarian (and fully communal) economic and social forms of society. Only this transformation can ensure the welfare and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants – human and non-human. Only by everyone becoming a worker and collectively co-operating to utilise the value and surplus-value produced by collective labour, can humanity salvage what is best from its own past and present creativity. Such a post-capitalist transformation is also the only means to preserve what is left of the rapidly diminishing global ecology.

5. The nation-state everywhere – and at all times – has above all else been a vehicle for the maintenance and enrichment of the economic, financial, political and military elite. At the same time it is the armed instrument wielded by the elite for the suppression of the population – particularly during times of crisis. As such it aggressively stands in the way of grass-roots solutions to any crisis the elite create, whether economic, financial, political or military. Communities are forced, by the state, to implement what is in the state elite’s own interests and are prevented by it from implementing what is in  their own.

6. The economic modifications found necessary for the survival of the capitalist mode of production in the 20th century, have provided a glimpse into a future mode of production. The existence of large-scale, non-profit, public institutions such as health, education and social services along with small and large co-operatives have introduced actual and potential post-capitalist forms. Despite, being saddled with bourgeois and elitist practices, they have all proved viable and valuable for the working classes.  As proto-models for a post-capitalist future, they only need the removal of hierarchy,  patriarchy, rendered sustainable and subjected to communal regulation.

7. The words ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ have become detached from any revolutionary content and for all practical purposes are now obsolete. They have become increasingly devoid of any substantive or universally agreed meaning. Consequently, the working classes and poor in general no longer feel any real attachment to them. Clinging to such obsolete abstractions is more of an idealised  ‘fetish’ or an act of religious type ‘faith’, than a revolutionary indicator of intent or a pointer to the future. Yet the concepts originally attached to these terms – non-exploitative economic and social relationships – still has relevance and resonance, particularly among working people and the poor.

8. As a consequence of past mistakes, a renewed revolutionary-humanist paradigm of activism and theoretical understanding is both necessary and is now possible. Based upon the economic and organisational advances made by Karl Marx., Rosa Luxemburg and other pre-Bolshevik anti-capitalists, a way out of the recent and present sectarian vanguardist cul-de-sac is slowly but surely emerging. Building upon this original revolutionary-humanist tradition requires further collective effort, support and refinement along with its vigorous promotion by a new international movement – untainted by past deformities and shameful acts.

9. It was never sufficient – as some anti-capitalists once claimed – that the realisation of full equality for women within an anti-capitalist movement needs to be postponed until after some future revolution. From the outset any such revolutionary movement  should have equal rights for women and ethnic groups, not only promoted, but accepted in practice and embodied within its principles. Patriarchy and patrifocality along with elitism and hierarchy have no part in any movement dedicated to an egalitarian, classless economic and social transformation, particularly one which expects and wishes to go beyond capital.

10. Theoretical and practical diversity within any movement dedicated to going beyond capital is both inevitable and necessary. Sectarian divisions within anti-capitalism are more often than not a result of egotistical arrogance and dogmatic certainty which emanate from this type of religiously minded frame of reference.  It is a mind-set which despite its frequent use of revolutionary rhetoric – is essentially reactionary. Arrogance, dogma and divisions are a serious impediment, if not a absolute barrier to any future struggle against the capitalist mode of production. Diversity within the unity of this struggle is essential.

11. The guidelines and operating principles for a revolutionary-humanist practice within a new anti-capitalist movement should include at least the following. a) Opposition to capitalism in all its economic, social and political forms. b)  Opposition to sectarianism and dogmatism. c)  Opposition to polemical distortion in disagreements. d)  Opposition to disrespect, sarcasm and intimidation. e) For, sharing of information and understanding, including joint tactical discussions. f) A refusal to allow theoretical differences to impede or prevent joint action.

R. Ratcliffe (September 2014)

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